Chapter 14: Took care of it in advance


    The next day, Han Shuo was rudely awakened by a heavy trash bag being dumped on him.


    He had been sweetly dreaming when he felt a heavy mountain toppling down on him. He alertly scrambled up from the bed, and rubbed his eyes to see that there was an extra heavy bag of trash on the bed. He immediately understood that someone must’ve thrown their trash in through the warehouse window.


    He nagged and cursed randomly, kicking the bag of trash off the bed. The bagnded with a thump and rolled towards the door. Han Shuo was about to go back to sleep, when he realized that the time must’ve beente if someone had thrown a bag of trash in.


    The sun had indeed risen high into the sky when Han Shuo pushed open the windows to take in the view. He sighed in turn, thinking that he had overexerted himself with trainingst night. He had definitely overslept today, and was about to hurry out the door, when he suddenly recalledst night’s dream. He seemed to remember that the little skeleton had gotten revenge on Fitch for him. Han Shuo’s heart leapt in fright when he remembered thatst time he had a simr dream, the events had actually happened. His gaze quickly searched towards the wooden bucket.


    He was greeted with the sight of the skeleton resting two bony, ck hands on the sides of the bucket, and its left leg bone crossed on top of its right leg bone, swingingzily to and fro, as if it was enjoying a sauna. It looked veryfortable and looked every bit a dapper rogue.


    Han Shuo breathed a sigh of relief upon seeing it still in the wooden bucket and mused silently for a moment. He got up and shoved the bucket underneath the bed, and only left the warehouse to tackle his day’s duties after he’d grabbed a trash bag to plug the space underneath the bed.


    “Hi Bryan, what took you so long today?” Jack was dusting off the statues as he greeted Han Shuo from afar with a smile.


    Han Shuo nced around him and knew that he waste because no students were passing by on this path. sses must already be in session.


    “Oh, my mind’s groggy after Fitch’s two taps yesterday. That’s why I overslept.”


    “Heh heh!” Jack suddenly gave a light, gloatingugh and put his head confidentially next to Han Shuo’s. He said lowly, “Bryan, you don’t need to be mad. I heard the students talking on the way to ss today. That the ck, seven-winged skeleton, that appearedst time, beat Fitch upst night. His face is bruised and puffy!”


    Han Shuo, “....”


    So the dream really had taken ce, with a few marked differences from what he’d imagined. This time, the little skeleton was noticeably much faster and had already finished executing itsmands. No wonder the little skeleton had been lying in the bucket in a different position from the night when he checked the bucket this morning.


    “Eh, Bryan. Why aren’t you saying anything? Are you too happy? Haha, that must be the case. That ck skeleton is really something. When Fitch had been beaten awake, he only saw the pping of the seven wings. The skeleton leapt straight down from the window and escaped that way. Oh! Fitch lives on the fourth floor. It’s amazing that the skeleton didn’tnd in pieces of broken bones!”


    Han Shuo gave two dry coughs and was feeling quite gratified. He glossed over the topic and said, “Well done! I wonder who summoned that little skeleton and got revenge for me. I’ve been so luckytely!”


    No more unlucky things happened to Han Shuo in the next few days, and no one came looking for him to practice magic. In these days, Han Shuo took advantage of the rare quiet to stand outside the necromancy ssrooms early in the morning, and eavesdrop on Gene’s lectures with a broom in hand.


    Maybe it was due to his beating at the hands of the skeleton, but Fitch didn’t show up to ss in those few days. Han Shuo eavesdropped on Gene’s exnations of magical knowledge everyday, and was enlightened on many theories that he simply did not understand prior.


    At night, Han Shuo practiced the “Mystical cial Spellfire”, and bit by bit, circted the magical yuan towards his right palm and fingertips ording to the spellfire’s prescribed method. It burned with pain each time, but over the course of these few days, Han Shuo had almost circted the magical yuan to his wrist.


    He continued to study “The Foundations of Necromancy”, and would mentally note the portions he didn’t understand to see if Gene, by chance, mentioned any of those topics when Han Shuo was eavesdropping on his sses.


    Now that Han Shuo’s rations had increased and his body was receiving more nutrition, not to mention him training his magical yuan, Han Shuo’s originally delicate body unconsciously underwent some fundamental changes. He started to form muscles, and even seemed to grow a bit taller, while his temperament changed as well.


    The necromancy students all relegated Han Shuo’s changes as the aftermath of him going crazy. Han Shuo basked in the ease of no one paying him much attention, and continued to work and covertly practice magic. He was happy to witness the changes in his body.


    “Oh endless darkness, turn into destructive bone arrows, and destroy ording to my will, bone arrows!” A length of cuttingly sharp bone arrow materialized out of thin air when the incantation waspleted, and flew towards a straw figure in front of Han Shuo with a flick of his finger. However, it suddenly shuddered halfway through.


    Pa!


    The bone arrow suddenly exploded halfway to its target, and from the look of its direction, it had veered greatly off course. It wasn’t aimed towards the straw stuffed figure at all.


    Han Shuo gave a low sigh as he shook his head, thinking that understanding theory was one matter, actually using it was another. Han Shuo had been practicing this lowest level bone arrow magic near the cemetery these days, and he’d never been able to sessfully cast it. Either he wasn’t able to summon the arrow, or its direction was greatly off course and would explode mid-flight.


    Han Shuo understood that repeated practice was necessary in order to sessfully cast necromancy magic. Only through constant practice would he be able to fully grasp the particrs of a spell, and be able to sessfully cast it without any errors or ws.


    These days, Han Shuo would always train his magical yuan for a while whenever night fell, then sneak over to the cemetery, where he had once been dumped as a corpse, to practice necromancy in the dead of night. The little skeleton would stand there unmoving once it had hauled over two bags of trash and thrown them away.


    Just as Han Shuo was reflecting on the incantation and hand seals he had used just now, and was trying to figure out where he had gone wrong with employing his mental strength, he suddenly heard rushed footsteps in the distance. He started and quickly hid in the randomly scattered rock outcroppings next to the cemetery.


    The cemetery was expansive andpletely quiet at night. Few visited apart from Han Shuo stopping by to throw away discarded magical ingredients. He furtively practiced magic here because he didn’t want to be discovered, and naturally hid out of sight when he heard footsteps sound.


    After a while, a tall, solidly built, blue-haired, middle aged man, with his clothes dyed crimson from blood and bloody froth at his mouth, came into Han Shuo’s line of sight. He wielded a broadsword and staggered forward with an anxious look. He stumbled directionless, and kept checking behind his back.


    His body shuddered when he reached the area where Han Shuo had been practicing before, and his footsteps swayed as he fell to the ground. He fished out a grey handbag from an inner chest pocket, randomly pawed at the earth twice and stuck the bag into the dirt. He got up and continued running after he had smoothed over the earth.


    “Dn, where can you run to now!” A benevolent voice carried from afar as a ck light shed and materialized into a thin, frail, old man behind the middle aged man. He wore apassionate smile on his face and his master’s robes were rimmed with gold. He carried an obviously precious staff that was embedded with a ruby, sapphire, and topaz.


    A ball of dark green light swiftly flew in from afar after the frail, old kindly mage had appeared. When it reached the clearing, the dark green light abruptly disappeared and a strongly built, muscr looking swordsman equipped with a longsword appeared.


    “Master Duke, how should we handle Dn?” The swordsman stood politely next to the mage and asked humbly after he had arrived.


    Thepassionate old mage, Duke, wrinkled his sparse eyebrows and looked at the figure copsed on the ground with blooding out of his mouth. “Poor Dn... he’s probably at the end of his tether. He should not suffer this kind of pain. Erick, send him on his way!”


    “The master is too kind!” Swordsman Erick praised with an odd expression on his face, and suddenly shed like lightning towards the still running Dn. Han Shuo caught a fleeting nce of a ball of dark green light as blood sttered from Dn’s back, and he finally fell to the ground, unmoving.


    Erick sheathed his longsword and immediately bent down to search Dn’s body. His facial expression became uglier and uglier, he finally stood up and said resignedly, “Master Duke, it isn’t on him!”


    “How is that possible!” Duke was shocked and his expression shifted. He summoned Dn’s corpse with a wave of his staff, chanted a wind magic incantation, and several sharp des of wind appeared to shred the corpse’s clothing to pieces.


    Han Shou clearly saw it all while hiding behind the outcrop of rock. The dark green light blossoming from Erick’s longsword indicated that he was a senior knight.


    That such a senior knight was so respectful to that Duke meant that the identity, or ability of this person, was even higher. It was the first time that Han Shuo had seen a murdermitted, and his heart pounded as it raced with panic.


    “It really isn’t on him!” Duke muttered to himself and tossed Dn’s naked body to the ground like trash with another wave of his staff.


    Duke shook his staff again, and a strong pulse of mental strength gushed towards Han Shuo. Han Shuo’s body flew up against his will andnded in front of Duke.


    “Eh? How did you know I was there?” Not only was Han Shuo panicking internally, but his mouth was panicking as well. He iled around with his limbs in mid air and yelled with disbelief.


    “Heh, what a cute, innocent little fellow! Judging from your clothes, you’re from the Babylon Academy of Magic and Force?” Duke gazed kindly upon Han Shuo and dumped him on the ground after delivering these lines.


    “Yeah, I’m an errand boy from the Babylon Academy. I was here to throw away magical trash. I didn’t see anything just now. Eh, it’s gettingte. You guys keep chatting, I’m going back now.”


    Han Shuo stood up from the ground and responded with a face full of naivete. He took two measured steps towards the academy’s grounds, then increased his speed and ran away with all his might. These two weird guys might do something detrimental to me, best get away as soon as possible.


    “Heh, this fellow is a bit shrewd. Erick, why don’t you send him on his way!” Duke spoke benevolently andughed lightly behind Han Shuo’s back.


    Han Shuo felt a strong current of air rapidly approach as soon as Duke had finished speaking.