The Book Month (August), in the legends of Starlight Continent, was considered the month of knowledge and wisdom.
As time entered the Book Month, Sunan also began to get busy, focused on enriching himself.
First was learning new magic.
He currently had only two Tier One Magic spells, respectively "Charm Humans" and "Shield Skill."
The specific effect of the former could be guessed just from the name.
The latter could conjure an invisible shield the size of a tower shield out of thin air, hovering and rotating 360 degrees with no blind spots, automatically blocking attacks coming from all directions.
Considering Shield Skill was actually a force field effect, it could even block attacks from virtual bodies (such as mental impacts and soul damage).
For his own safety, Sunan naturally chose to learn "Shield Skill" first.
{"Reading 'Shield Skill Magic Model,' progress of learning 'Shield Skill' +0.02%."}
The difficulty of Tier One Magic spells was much higher than Tier Zero Magic.
Sunan estimated that even with the aid of Active Potion, it would take about forty days to master Shield Skill.
The time needed to master Charm Humans shouldn't be much less than that.
The second task was creating rune gemstones.
Considering it was his first attempt, Sunan chose the relatively stable earth energy particles.
The gemstone selected was black opal, which matched the force field protection attribute.
"It's a pity the Starlight sapphire is too expensive, costing over a thousand gold coins each, otherwise using Starlight sapphire would yield better results,"
Sunan thought somewhat regretfully.
Using Starlight sapphire as a medium, the power of the final product could increase by at least double.
But that would be throwing money away. For now, he didn't have that financial capability, so he had to settle for black opal.
Black opal was a green opal with black spots and golden particles, which had a strange beauty.
As Sunan injected the condensed earth-colored energy rune into the gemstone, it instantly emitted a hazy glow.
The light lasted only four or five seconds and then quickly dissipated.
The black opal seemed unchanged, but a closer look would reveal a layer of mysterious and strange patterns on its surface.
{"Successfully created a rune gemstone, 'Magic Item Creation' learning progress +0.5%."}
"Huh?"
Sunan was slightly taken aback, somewhat surprised.
How did it trigger the "Magic Item Creation" skill?
But after a moment of reflection, he quickly understood.
Energy runes were essentially a branch of enchantment, so creating items using energy runes and gemstones was reasonably considered a magical item, triggering the "Magic Item Creation" skill was not surprising.
"I thought I needed to find relevant books to trigger this skill. Didn't expect to unlock it by sheer coincidence,"
Sunan looked at the rune gemstone in his hand.
The small gemstone, the size of a soybean, was filled with a substantial amount of earth energy particles.
Once the energy inside was activated, it could instantly create a layer of earth element protection for oneself.
Compared to spells that required casting time, these instantly-activating rune gemstones were undoubtedly more practical in battle.
The only downside was the cost.
Considering he already had a defensive spell like Shield Skill, Sunan only made two earth rune gemstones and stopped, then began to create attack-type rune gemstones.
After all, the attack spells he mastered were all Tier Zero Magic, which were starting to lag in power, so rune gemstones were perfect to make up for the lack of attack methods.
Lightning, flame, frost, shadow.
Except for the flame rune, which used red zircon with the highest fire affinity, the remaining three attack-type energy runes used rubies suitable for molding magic.
Sunan made three of each type of rune gemstone as a backup.
In addition, he made two plant-type rune gemstones for recovering wounds when injured.
Counting those that were damaged due to errors midway, Sunan ultimately consumed a total of eighteen gemstones, valued at over three hundred gold coins.
"Rune gemstones are indeed a money pit,"
Sunan sighed to himself.
If it weren't for the entire Black Stone City supporting him, he wouldn't be able to manage, let alone collect Wizard's Scripture.
The time spent creating rune gemstones flew by and when he came back to his senses, Sunan realized it was already late at night outside.
Seeing this, he manipulated the energy particles to clean his body, then returned to the Meditation Room, intending to replace sleep with meditation and restore the spiritual power expended in creating rune gemstones.
After the promotion, Sunan still maintained his extreme meditation time of four hours a day.
However, as his spiritual power increased, its growth continued to slow down.
Now, he could only increase his spiritual power by an average of 0.01 to 0.02 points per day through meditation.
This was with the aid of Active Potion.
"To become a Level 3 Wizard Apprentice, one must successfully construct a Nine-Star Ring and have spiritual power exceeding 30 points."
"At this rate, it could take at least a decade, maybe even longer, to advance."
Promoting from a Level 2 Wizard Apprentice to Level 3 over a decade was already considered outstanding on the current Starlight Continent.
Yet Sunan was not satisfied.
He was already thinking about synthesizing higher-grade potions to assist with meditation.
But that would mean spending more gold coins each month.
Even with a personal gold mine, he couldn't afford such expenses.
"Unless the Flashing Territory is reclaimed, increasing territory revenues,"
Sunan squinted his eyes, briefly entertaining the thought before dismissing it.
Moments later, he shook his head, collecting his thoughts and focusing on meditation.
The next day.
Sunan arrived at the room where the Giant Lizard was imprisoned.
Locked in a narrow, cramped cage, subjected to blood and energy extraction daily, the Giant Lizard had endured unbearable suffering for over a month.
Glancing at Sunan who entered, it merely lifted its eyelid, lying motionless on the ground, a picture of utter dejection.
Sunan opened the metal cage, used Mage's Hand to lift the Giant Lizard, and then moved to the spacious laboratory, placing it on the experiment table.
The experiment table, custom-made to match the Giant Lizard's massive size, stretched over ten meters in length.
Though he intended to transform the Giant Lizard into a Magical Pet, Sunan did not act immediately.
Any creature, when transformed into a Magical Pet, would awaken at least one spell-like ability.
What type of spell-like ability would awaken depended mainly on the creature's abilities.
For instance, feline creatures typically awaken illusion skills or shadow stealth when transformed into Magical Pets.
Serpentine creatures, upon transformation, usually awaken poison-related spell-like abilities.
As for this heteromorph with Dragon Lizard bloodline, Sunan guessed that its awakened ability would most likely pertain to physical enhancement.
For Wizard Apprentices, such spell-like abilities were undoubtedly the least favored.
For physical enhancement, Wizard Apprentices had many methods and saw no reason to waste this precious awakening opportunity.
Therefore, before proceeding with the magical pet transformation, Sunan planned to modify the Giant Lizard's body to have it gain another ability, hoping that during the transformation process, it might awaken an ability beyond physical enhancement.
The direction of the body modification came from the recently acquired book, "Green Chameleon Capability Extraction and Transformation," which could be quite useful...
"Even though you're not chameleon species, like chameleons, you belong to the order Squamata, so you should have similar compatibility with the camouflaging ability,"
Sunan gestured, summoning a cage from the table behind him, which floated into his hand.
Inside the cage was a Green Chameleon.
This creature, while not considered a Magic Creature, was quite rare.
Only through the contact of Mu Zhuo from the Fire Fox Chamber of Commerce was he able to find a sufficient number for experimentation.
Swipe!
Sunan gestured again, and a sharp scalpel fell into his hand.
At this point, the Giant Lizard finally sensed the impending danger, struggling madly, but its weak body could not escape the restraint of the Mage's Hand.
Seeing this, it whimpered plaintively, its vertical pupils revealing a human-like plea.
"Don't worry, nothing will happen to you. Once the experiment is finished, you'll become stronger,"
Sunan cast a Sleep Spell, and the Giant Lizard's eyelids fluttered a few times before quickly falling into slumber, ceasing any further struggle.
Soon, the sound of a sharp blade slicing through flesh echoed within the laboratory.