The Witcher: Wolf School's Hunting Notes

"Phew~"

The witcher suddenly opened his eyes and bolted upright in bed. Pain lagged behind his actions by only a moment, but it came as expected.

His sharp inhale turned into a pained hiss as the white bandages wrapped around him were stained with fresh blood.

"Allen, are you feeling uncomfortable?"

Urgent footsteps approached, accompanied by a worried voice.

A young priestess hurried over, steadying him as she checked his wounds. Only after a thorough inspection did she let out a relieved sigh.

"What happened, Allen? Did you have a nightmare?"

She carefully adjusted the pillows behind him—plump cushions that smelled faintly of sun-dried straw—ensuring he could lean back without straining his injuries.

A nightmare...

Allen froze for a moment, instinctively leaning back with her guidance.

Flashes of blood-red flames danced within eye sockets seemingly carved from bronze. The ancient majesty of those figures was as cold and oppressive as the unyielding ice of Kaedwen's Blue Mountains.

So terrifying, and yet so real...

Just one glance had been enough to eject him from that dark space...

Was that truly a nightmare?

"Per… perhaps it was," Allen muttered, though his voice faltered halfway.

At that moment, he noticed a flickering line of text in the corner of his vision:

[Ding! Fragment of the Gate of Ard Gaeth absorbed successfully!]

[Ding! Your skill Portal has leveled up to LV4 (6000/10,000).]

[Ding! You have gained a new special ability: Spiral.]

Spiral?

"Massive blood loss can weaken the body and sometimes induce nightmares," the priestess explained as she adjusted the pillows behind him. Then, with a gentle smile, she added, "But your condition has improved significantly since this morning. In just a few days, your wounds should heal, and the nightmares will go away."

"Thank you," Allen replied, taking the bread she handed him and biting into it.

"Hmm?"

The bread was a cream-filled roll. It wasn't unfamiliar to him—though not something he had often—but the taste caught him by surprise.

As he chewed, his mouth filled with a savory and slightly sweet flavor that was different from the typical richness of cream.

Looking down, he noticed the bread had a filling—a purplish-red paste with a mix of fruity and herbal aromas.

"Don't like it?" the priestess asked hesitantly.

"No, it's good," Allen said, shaking his head. "Just... unique. I haven't had bread like this before."

The priestess let out a relieved sigh, patting her chest. "That's good. The filling is apple jam mixed with some blood-replenishing herbs."

Hungry, Allen quickly finished the roll and accepted another.

"Does the temple kitchen usually make these?" he asked, curious. "I don't think I've ever seen them before."

The priestess blushed slightly, two red spots blooming on her cheeks. "It's from a recipe I came across before. I asked the temple cook for help this morning and made them myself."

Allen paused, holding the roll in mid-air. For the first time, he noticed faint stains on her plain gray priestess robes.

"Uh… thank you," he said awkwardly, realizing the effort she must have gone through.

Chewing the bread again, he detected familiar flavors: yarrow, honeysuckle, belisa berries…

From the taste alone, he could identify at least four or five herbs. Normally, these ingredients were bitter or astringent, but here they melded harmoniously, leaving only a subtle medicinal aroma.

"This must've been hard to make," Allen said, testing the waters.

If it were easy, the temple kitchen would've made them regularly. After all, these herbs weren't expensive, especially compared to cream or apple jam.

With so many patients and expectant mothers around the temple, such nutritious bread would've been a staple.

"It wasn't hard," she said with a shy smile, brushing off the effort. "Once you get the proportions right and grind the herbs finely, it's easy. The bread and jam were already prepared by the kitchen."

"By the way," she added quickly, trying to change the subject, "what kind of nightmare did you have?"

Allen instinctively furrowed his brow.

A horde of skeletal knights...

Seeing his reaction, the priestess quickly backtracked. "Sorry, you don't have to talk about it if it's uncomfortable."

"It's not that," Allen said, shaking his head. "It was just something unremarkable—a dark space, completely empty..."

He hesitated but decided against mentioning the Wild Hunt. Instead, he described the endless spiraling stairway from the first part of his "dream."

She was just a novice priestess. Knowing too much wouldn't benefit her.

"Oh, so you're afraid of the dark," she teased, letting out a light laugh.

"I'm not afraid of the dark," Allen retorted, a little too quickly.

"Don't worry," she said with a playful grin. "I won't tell anyone."

Her expression suddenly grew serious, her gaze filled with a quiet determination.

The sunlight streaming through the window illuminated her pale neck, casting a soft glow. The corners of her lips curved into a radiant smile.

Allen found himself momentarily at a loss for words.

When he finally came back to his senses, the priestess had already packed up the basket and adjusted his pillows.

"Rest a bit more," she said gently as she helped him lie back down. "Sleep is essential for recovery."

Before he could respond, she chanted a soft incantation. A faint white light emanated from her fingertips as she pressed them lightly to his forehead.

"Relax," she whispered soothingly, "this is a calming spell. It's often used to help soldiers fresh off the battlefield so they can heal better."

"Though some call it a 'Sweet dreams' spell. Hopefully, it'll let you rest more peacefully."

Allen didn't resist. He allowed her glowing hand to touch his brow, and soon, he drifted back into sleep.

When he woke again, the sunlight had grown warmer, filling the room with a reddish hue. Dust motes danced lazily in the air, catching the light.

The scent of eucalyptus had faded, leaving only the gentle warmth of the sunlit room.

Allen lay there for a while, staring blankly at the wooden protective charms hanging from the ceiling before remembering what he needed to do.

-------------------------------------

[Name: Portal]

[Type: Spatial Skill]

[Level: LV4]

[Active Effects:]

1. Portal: Expends stamina to open a portal to a pre-recorded location within 180 kilometers (+60=20×2+40×1). The portal can allow up to 8 people to pass through (+4=2×2).

2. Save Coordinate Points: You can store up to 8 locations (+4=2×2).

3. Wooden Door: At LV4, you can create a portal with minimal spatial fluctuation, appearing like an ordinary wooden door.]

The portal leveled up directly by two levels, saving… uh… about three experience orbs…

Not bad at all.

More importantly, the additional eight teleport points and the 180 kilometers of unit range now made it possible for him to teleport all the way from Ellander to Ban Ard.

Of course, while the portal itself had no limitations, there was the limitation of mana. The portal didn't specify exactly how much mana was consumed per teleport, but based on Allen's calculations during usage, it was roughly one mana point per kilometer.

Without potions to replenish mana, his current 790 mana points allowed him to teleport solo four times in succession.

Afterward, he would need to wait for his mana to recover before teleporting again.

This was why most sorcerers preferred to place their teleportation coordinates near cities for easy access to rest.

Previously, Allen had deliberately avoided doing so to conceal the fact that a witcher could learn master-level spatial magic.

Portals created substantial spatial fluctuations, producing not only noise but also a "ripple" of stray magic particles. Near cities, such phenomena would easily draw the attention of passersby.

However, placing coordinates in some remote, random location wasn't ideal either. Even now, stepping out of a portal only to be ambushed by necrophages was a real possibility.

But now…

With a thought, Allen activated the portal.

Thunk!

The sound was akin to the gentle closing of a wooden door.

An orange-red portal appeared in the middle of the room, hovering silently.

The surrounding candelabras and ornaments swayed slightly without a sound, and when Allen switched to his wolf medallion's magical sight, the elemental particles in the air only fluctuated intensely within one meter of the portal. Beyond two meters, the disturbances were negligible.

"Impressive," Allen murmured.

With the level 4 "Reduced Spatial Disturbance" effect, he could now place teleportation points near cities or, in certain cases, even within cities themselves.

All he needed was to purchase some properties and carefully select the coordinates.

In fact, this was safer than placing coordinates in the middle of nowhere. Cities often had empty, unused houses where no one would intrude, but villages, with their limited number of homes, made such placements conspicuous.

"Once I recover, I'll find a map and start planning," Allen thought.

With the matter of the portal settled, Allen took a deep breath.

The Spiral… Could it be what he thought it was?

[Name: Spiral]

[Type: Special Skill]

[Completion: 1/5]

[Passive Effect: Dream Echo – In dreams, you have a chance to commune with the Spiral.]

[Active Effect: Eye of Insight – Spend 50 experience orbs to create a shadowy eye within the Spiral. While the shadow-eye exists, you can observe the Spiral. (The shadow-eye can be detected and destroyed.)]

A passive effect… communing with the Spiral…

"Hiss…"

The witcher instinctively took a deep breath, rereading the passive effect several times.

"So that pitch-black space 'is' the Spiral. And those Wild Hunt riders—they must be real!"

Allen's excitement surged, his heartbeat quickening.

This was the Spiral!

A passageway through space, connecting realms, and perhaps even enabling manipulation of time itself—a gateway to both the past and future.

Of course, the notion of "time" came with contradictions.

After all, if time could truly be controlled, why was the Gate of Ard Gaeth destroyed and shattered?

But the concept of traversing time and space through Elder Blood was undeniably canon.

Ciri once fled—escaping the Aen Elle city of Tir ná Lia by traveling back to the past—to roughly the timeline Allen was in now, around the 1180s or earlier.

When Allen had first arrived in Ellander, during a carriage ride with Ianna and the old duke, they'd even mentioned it…

Five years ago, an unusually deadly plague, the Red Death, had erupted in Vizima, the capital of Temeria.

This horrifying disease, which cloaked the entire royal city in mourning, was rumored to have been spread by a flea from another world, one that had jumped onto Ciri's clothing.

While the prophecy tied to Elder Blood had vanished in this reality, the possibility of the Red Death originating from Ciri couldn't be entirely dismissed.

After all, such a devastating disease emerging fully formed without any prior evolution or mutation seemed suspicious.

Thus, the idea of the Spiral being a conduit for traversing time—or even time itself—was not implausible.

And now…

Though he could only glance at it or enter through dreams, this was just the beginning. With the completion rate at one-fifth, what would happen at two-fifths, three-fifths, or full completion?

Would he eventually master space and time himself?

The thought made Allen's face flush with excitement.

Only when his heightened heart rate aggravated his wounds, causing them to throb painfully, did he take a deep breath and force himself to calm down.

"So Vesemir's findings were correct. The Wild Hunt 'does' traverse into the witcher's world through the Spiral. But…"

Allen frowned slightly, recalling the dream from barely half an hour ago.

"But the Spiral is shrouded in darkness. How do they navigate it to reach this world?"

Truth be told, the concept of the Spiral had always been vague.

How could a spiral corridor connect realms and allow skeletal riders of the Wild Hunt to cross space and time?

Was it that every realm had a door along the corridor?

The imagery seemed too abstract. Even Allen, who had been to the Spiral, couldn't quite picture it.

What's more, the Spiral was pitch black—where would these "doors" even be?

Gazing at the translucent panel before him, the witcher felt a burning itch of curiosity.

He was tempted to recklessly spend 50 experience orbs to place a "shadow-eye" in the Spiral and figure out how the Wild Hunt traversed through space.

But there was a significant problem…

Even after the large sum of orbs he'd earned from Ban Ard and the Wild Hunt, he only had 45 experience orbs and a small orb in total.

And even if he managed to gather 50 orbs, he couldn't justify spending them on the shadow-eye…

"Beast Roar, signs, swordsmanship…"

Every skill demanded a substantial amount of experience orbs. Even signs, which he had neglected for some time, had proven their worth in critical moments. If his Aard sign had been at a higher level, he wouldn't have suffered such severe injuries.

Compared to these priorities, the shadow-eye—something that would only satisfy his curiosity—wasn't as important.

After all, the Wild Hunt's current target was Ban Ard, not him.

"Still too poor!" Allen gritted his teeth, his expression dark.

If he had a thousand experience orbs, he wouldn't hesitate to indulge his curiosity and explore this unique skill that couldn't even be upgraded with special skill points.

"Once I recover, I'll hunt down those necrophages that dared attack Ellander during my absence and grind them for experience!"

For now…

He could only rely on luck to dream and commune with the Spiral.

With a sigh, Allen shifted his focus to the inventory.

[Inventory: Eternal Ones' Memory Crystals (3) 2, Sorcerer's Memory (10) 3, Aen Elle's Treasure Chest 18, Sorcerer's Treasure Chest 18, Experience Orbs 45…]

.....

📢20 advanced chapters on p@treaon📢

For advance chapters: [email protected]/Uchiha_Itachi007 (replace @ with a)

380. Source LV1.

381. Allen, What Are You So Anxious About?

382. The Blue Death.

383. The Guiding Stone of Ard Gaeth's Gate.

384. Hen Gedymdeith is Dead.