Durin's Diary

Hemo, who was full, cooed and flew up to the perch, deciding to rest in the living room for a while before returning to Durin's room—her bedroom.

Meanwhile, Durin and Anta enjoyed breakfast. Today's meal, prepared by Xialu, featured the best duck breast, hot chocolate, and fried potato strips.

Potatoes are the most abundant tuberous food in the Eastern Elven Territory. In years of disaster, they are strategic resources that ensure no one starves. In years of plenty, these tuberous foods are also cooked with meat and preserved with large amounts of salt to make easily storable canned goods for emergencies.

These are also free supplies prepared by the rear for the front-line defense forces of the Dark Zone.

Of course, due to the recent years of abundant harvests, there were so many potatoes that the indentured workers of the Eastern Elven Territory held a certain reverence for potato meals, but that's another story.

However, the potato chunks that made it onto Durin's table were certainly fried carefully in oil, seasoned with fine salt, and served with delicious sweet tomato sauce, making Anta admit that these soft strips had a uniquely fresh taste.

It couldn't be helped, Durin had also grown tired of eating boiled potatoes with Saro meat every day, and it was by chance he remembered the fast-food recipes that gave potatoes a new destiny.

It's just that Hemo didn't like them, and the girl would straighten her cooing sounds when she saw Durin holding them.

Silly girl, I won't feed you potatoes.

After breakfast, Durin and Anta put on their coats. Durin stroked Xialu, who had come to see them off, "I'm going to the Mage Tower with your sister Anta. If someone comes looking for me, tell them we'll be back after lunch."

.........

There are various ways for a magician to be promoted. Durin had heard the most about Dragonblood magicians—this all started with the dragonkind from the Western Lands, these large and quite intelligent lizards excel at transformation magic. They couldn't keep to themselves, and since the Ancient Era, records show they repeatedly produced half-bloods with various races, like the most numerous among the Grassland Elves being the Dragonblood magicians with silver dragon heritage.

Take, for example, the silver dragon-favored House of Ailish. Over the course of five centuries, four silver dragons had blended their blood into the family.

It couldn't be helped, the good-aligned silver dragons were too fond of the equally aligned Grassland Elves, almost like how people love to pet cats. In the long life of a silver dragon, having "something" happen with a Grassland Elf and ultimately producing offspring was nothing out of the ordinary.

There's a lewd saying that goes, "Transformation magic reigns supreme; with localized transformation, one spell outranks them all."

However, considering Durin was half-human, it wouldn't be surprising if there was something else in his paternal lineage.

For the ever-curious Grassland Elves, this was too intriguing to pass up, so after Anta and Durin finished eating, they walked to the town's Mage Tower in small, brisk steps.

Today was the third day of the Harvest Festival, and more villagers from the surrounding area found time to come to town to participate. Durin's maternal grandfather would also give all his subjects a small gift on the fifth day—an assortment of seeds and flour for farmers, and fabric and food for the town's people. The noble lords wouldn't need anything, so they would receive personal encouragement from the Duke.

In any case, everyone would be satisfied.

The guards at the Mage Tower naturally recognized Durin, and even more so Miss Anta, the tower's new dignitary. So, after going through the confirmation procedure, they both entered the tower, greeted several fellow disciples on the first floor who had dark circles under their eyes from reading all night, and then went straight to the third floor.

His tutor was watching his young apprentice use the summoning circle for the first time. Upon seeing Durin and Anta arrive, he gestured for them to sit down and wait.

Wait for what? Obviously, the potion wasn't ready yet, so the curious Durin and Anta stood by, watching the young fellow busy drawing the summoning circle.

"At a seventy-one-degree angle, the third layer of the circle isn't concentric. Summoning with a potential three percent mana loss may very well mean failure for a beginner," Durin was the first to spot the issue.

"The outermost circle at the one hundred and ninety-nine degree position is not too bad, but the spell sequence there, with twenty-seven letters, has nine errors. I don't even know what kind of thing will be summoned," Anta covered her face, seemingly too apprehensive to watch.

The tutor heard the curious duo's chatter, put down his book, confirmed the issue with a stern face, and then called the young apprentice over to deliver a harsh critique.

Then, the mentor turned to Durin and Anta, "The Promotion Potion that Durin needs isn't ready yet. Since you two are free right now, why don't you teach this child."

The apprentice, named Tuoen Salenika, was a human orphan. He had been born to his parents while they fled to the Eastern Elven Territory and had died during a noble's pursuit, leaving him to be brought to Lublin by a fellow fugitive slave at the risk of their own life.

So, he now had a foster father and was taken in as an apprentice by a mentor at a very young age due to his excellent talent—for in the Mage Tower, talent was what mattered most, as without talent, no amount of effort could turn one into a magician.

Tuoen was still young, and Durin had always taken good care of him, even though he was now taller than both Durin and Anta.

Durin had even taught the kid how to draw concentric circles in one stroke, but since he was quite young, it was understandable, and more forgivably, that he made errors.

Durin and Anta patiently instructed him, correcting his mistakes, before stepping out of the array prior to Tuoen's preparation for the summoning.

The mentor put down his teacup, "Durin, Anta, what do you think Tuoen will summon?"

"A rabbit or a hedgehog. He's just an apprentice; I don't think he can summon something big," Durin said frankly.

"At most a sub-adult wolf, and that's if the wolf doesn't resist," Anta suggested optimistically.

Then she and Durin saw the array flash, and a rabbit appeared within it, still chewing on grass. However, it stopped munching now, for the end was near—Tuoen had grabbed the rabbit by its ears, grinning with delight.

Durin stretched out his hand, and Anta grinned, giving Durin a high-five.

A pharmacist walked into the Summoning Area at that moment. He had a brief chat with the mentor and then left. Durin looked at the mentor and caught the mentor looking at him.

"The potion is ready, lad. Let's go."

Durin and Anta followed their mentor to the higher levels of the Mage Tower.

.........

Zanta Aram walked up the steps, his two bright students chatting behind him.

The child Durin had a particularly outstanding talent. Everyone thought he was a dragon blood magician, since after a legendary Silver Dragon and the ancestor of the House of Ailish had joined together, they produced a very talented boy. After that, the bloodline of the Silver Dragon continued to join into the House of Ailish, which was why this family had always been prolific in producing magicians.

However, Durin was not a bloodline magician. This was something Zanta and the old Yishu both understood, and even the Prime Creator knew about the child Durin—because Durin was an evil sorcerer. While in his mother's womb, an evil Outer God had noticed him, intending to use him as a beacon for its invasion of this world. It was the Prime Creator who stripped away that evil gaze, allowing the child to live until now as an ordinary child.

Only the old Yishu, Zanta, Kasel, and the Original Creator knew about this incident.

Even Durin's parents thought it was merely a divine blessing.

"Life comes into this world and should not be branded before it is even born," was a comment from the Prime Creator.

True Gods are so merciful.

Zanta sighed internally, opening the door to the Pharmacy Area. Once again, he hoped that Durin, who walked behind him, could look forward to a better future.

The Prime Creator has given you a second chance. Maybe you won't be a Silver Dragon magician, but at least you have the chance to grow up healthy and live a good life... Don't waste it.