The Wizard World operates with a strict hierarchy, and the Shadow Tower follows suit.
According to the Tower's classification, newly joined apprentices are collectively referred to as ordinary apprentices. They can only reside in the Outer Ring of the Shadow Land, where they must find their own ways to handle everything from basic food and lodging to cultivation resources. Even the knowledge acquisition channels only include occasional public lectures every few months. Other than an additional layer of protection, there's little difference between them and wild apprentices wandering outside.
Above ordinary apprentices are the Inner Ring apprentices. Once obtaining this status, they can move to reside within the Inner Ring area surrounding the Tower. Food and lodging are free, and they receive a certain amount of Magic Stone subsidies. More importantly, public lectures are much more frequent, and they can freely access the Tower's library.
Except for a handful of lucky individuals, the vast majority of apprentices joining the Tower transition step-by-step from ordinary apprentices to Inner Ring apprentices.
"That's great!"
"What's great about it? Are you ready for this?"
"No, I'm not prepared at all…"
For a moment, everyone was filled with mixed feelings.
Joy came from the fact that becoming an Inner Ring apprentice was the dream of every ordinary apprentice; everyone longed for this day.
Worry, however, stemmed from how unexpectedly sudden the assessment had arrived, catching everyone off guard.
The assessment date for becoming an Inner Ring apprentice was not fixed. Sometimes it would take two to three years, other times five to six years, depending on the current population of ordinary apprentices within the Tower.
The last Inner Ring assessment was held less than two years ago. Judging by past patterns, the next one was anticipated to be at least one to two years away. Yet now, the date announced by Horn Wizard was far earlier than expected.
Most of them had only just passed the apprentice assessment. They hadn't even begun formal meditation and were utterly unprepared.
After announcing the news, Horn Wizard flew away with his apprentices, and the rest dispersed one by one.
"Silly boy!"
Before Lynch could leave, Carl and Subaru came over to him.
Subaru, the chubby one, patted Lynch on the shoulder and said with a look of disbelief, "You really shocked us—first place!"
Carl was equally astonished, saying, "I never imagined you'd pull off a dragon. Can I touch it?"
As he spoke, Carl reached out, trying to stroke the modified Fire Dragon Lizard perched on Lynch's shoulder. But the little creature was clearly wary of strangers, continuously pulling its head back, baring its teeth, and letting out low growls, its eyes fixed fiercely on Carl's approaching hand.
Lynch stroked its spine and said, "Relax, Parker. These are my friends."
Parker was the name Lynch had given to the modified Fire Dragon Lizard, derived from a phonetic translation of the Rune Language, meaning "Fire Dragon."
Under Lynch's soothing touch, Parker quickly calmed down, allowing Carl to finally feel its scales.
Scratching his head, Lynch spoke candidly, "I've been preparing for this assessment for a long time. These past few days, I've been burying myself in hard work."
Looking at Lynch's naive and clueless demeanor, Subaru was utterly speechless. Proud of their intelligence, they couldn't comprehend how someone like him had easily surpassed them, achieving a feat they could never hope to match.
After holding back for a long while, Subaru finally blurted out, "Anyway, you have to treat us to dinner!"
...
Having promised the two of them an evening gathering, Lynch returned to his residence.
He first studied the Space Pocket—a fascinating item. Despite being just palm-sized, the bag had an enormous capacity. Now, many materials and books could be packed inside and carried around conveniently, making future trips much easier.
After familiarizing himself with the Space Pocket's usage, Lynch retrieved a Sheepskin Scroll from inside.
The thick sheepskin still showed remnants of blood vessels and nerves. Twisting, tadpole-shaped symbols spread haphazardly across the surface. Though these runes were stationary, they appeared to be subtly crawling, and staring at them for too long induced strange sensations, as if one's spirit were being consumed.
This was the Rune Language, the specialized medium Wizards used to communicate with the world.
The content written in this Rune Language wasn't ordinary—it was the cornerstone of all Wizards:
The Meditation Chapter.
"Finally… I've got it."
Holding the Meditation Chapter in his hands, Lynch couldn't help but smile.
After all, mastering the Meditation Chapter signified the ability to absorb natural elements through meditation, accumulating spiritual power. With the aid of the knowledge-based model, this spiritual power could be organized and transformed according to one's intentions, ultimately manifesting into anything in the world—
Magic!
Being transported to this strange and alien world, Lynch's life trajectory had been completely disrupted. While everything felt chaotic, magic alone captivated his curiosity.
For an ordinary person, the allure of Extraordinary Power was difficult to resist.
"Szzz…"
Lynch lit the White Candle on the table and, under its warm glow, began diligently reading.
[Detected knowledge medium: Meditation Chapter. Auto-loading initiated.]
[Meditation Chapter lv0: 0/1000.]
The system's prompt rang in his ear as a new row of data appeared on the screen before him.
"Wow, lv0 already needs 1000 skill points? That's quite the difficulty."
After thoroughly reading and memorizing the key points of the Meditation Chapter, Lynch officially began his meditation.
He emptied his thoughts and calmed his emotions, allowing his mental will to enter an infinite, pitch-black expanse—this was the Spiritual Sea unique to Wizards.
Through guiding his spiritual power and connecting it with his five senses—vision, hearing, smell, touch, and taste—he repeatedly interacted and refined them. Eventually, he carved out a Sixth Sense within his conscious mind, forming this unique mental space.
The accumulation of spiritual power and construction of Magic Models occurs here, forming the core of being a Wizard.
The Spiritual Guidance Technique taught all of these methods—from refining the five senses to ultimately developing the Sixth Sense and establishing the Spiritual Sea. It took Lynch a year and a half to complete this process, finally achieving it six months ago.
As far as he knew, his speed wasn't considered slow. Many apprentices hadn't even developed their Spiritual Sea yet, and most of them had failed the assessment.
Calming his emotions, Lynch extended his force field as described in the Meditation Chapter to sense his surroundings.
Soon, colorful light points began to appear around him—these were the fundamental building blocks of this world: Elemental Energy.
Upon sensing the elements, Lynch followed the next step in the Meditation Chapter, manipulating his mind to transform his spiritual power into a tentacle. This tentacle reached for the surrounding elements and dragged them toward the deep center of his Spiritual Sea.
There lay a unique and distinct field, where some scattered light points were slowly rotating clockwise.
The Spirit Vortex.
This was the core of the Wizard's Spiritual Field. The light points inside the vortex were the tangible manifestations of spiritual power, the very source of Wizard Power.
Releasing the element light points from the spiritual tentacle, they were drawn into the vortex by its gravitational pull, joining the rotation. With this, Lynch successfully completed one meditation cycle.
Essentially, meditation was the repeated execution of this process—absorbing elements to nurture the Spiritual Field.
Soon, Lynch finished a round of meditation and opened his eyes.
At the same time, the system's prompt sounded beside his ears:
[Meditation Chapter skill level +1.]
[Meditation Chapter lv0: 1/1000.]