Chapitre 1: Wizard's Apprentice!
Under the dim, flickering light of the cramped laboratory, the air was thick with the mingled scents of blood and medicinal herbs. A man in a black robe, his face hidden behind a mask, stood with his back to Leonard, his voice cold and detached.
"Take care of the magic herbs in the pharmacy later," the man commanded. "And clean up the laboratory. Dispose of the waste."
"Understood, teacher," Leonard replied calmly, standing a few paces behind. His hands clasped in front of him, he waited, expressionless.
The laboratory was a makeshift space in the basement, sparsely furnished but meticulously organized. Long tables lined the walls, covered with glass jars and bottles filled with strange substances. At the center of the room stood a large table, where the man, his movements precise and practiced, loomed over an unconscious teenager strapped to an operating surface.
The man, a self-proclaimed wizard named Alfonso, held a syringe filled with an ominous liquid. Without hesitation, he plunged it into the boy's vein. Almost immediately, the boy's body convulsed violently. His chest heaved, foam bubbled at his lips, and his arm began to mutate grotesquely. Muscles swelled, veins darkened, and a layer of dark green scales spread across the skin.
Leonard watched, unflinching. He had grown numb to these horrors. Fear and revulsion had long since given way to cold resignation. He knew better than to react. Alfonso, a man of extraordinary but cruel power, had made it clear that survival depended on absolute obedience.
Three months ago, Leonard had been a fugitive, fleeing with a group of refugees, when Alfonso captured him. Like many others, Leonard was destined to be an "experimental material." But his fate shifted when Alfonso discovered Leonard possessed the rare potential to become a wizard. That potential had saved his life, though "life" had become a hollow term in this twisted existence.
The boy's arm continued to swell until it reached a grotesque size. Leonard, familiar with the pattern, closed his eyes and counted silently.
Bang.
The arm exploded. A sickening burst of flesh and bone sent blood splattering across the table. The blast tore apart the boy's right chest, leaving his organs exposed. The agonizing pain jolted him awake, and his scream echoed through the room.
Alfonso hissed a curse in his native tongue, his frustration evident. Without sparing the boy another glance, he stormed out of the room. Leonard stepped forward, picking up a broom from the corner. He began the grim task of sweeping the scattered remains.
"Devil," the boy rasped, his voice ragged and filled with hatred. "You devil."
Leonard paused. His face betrayed no emotion as he retrieved a dagger from his pocket. Without a word, he ended the boy's suffering, his movements quick and precise. He had no room for guilt or pity; only the efficiency of someone who had done this far too many times before.
Afterward, Leonard slipped the lifeless body into a black sack, tying it tightly. He fetched a mop and a large glass jar filled with an inky black liquid. Pouring the liquid over the bloodstains, he watched as it dissolved the evidence, leaving the floor spotless once again.
The room was silent, save for the faint sound of his mop sliding across the floor. Leonard worked methodically, his mind as blank as the cleaned floor beneath him. He wasn't living, he was surviving, and in this place, that was the only thing that mattered.
Leonard meticulously returned the bottles and jars to their designated spots on the table. Each container held something peculiar: a half-submerged tail suspended in liquid, walnut-sized eyeballs, a thick, dark green sludge, and a pristine white fluid. He organized them with precision, sorting by material properties, bottle size, and shape, creating an arrangement that was both efficient and oddly beautiful.
This attention to detail was exactly why Alfonso trusted Leonard with the task of maintaining the laboratory. The space, under Leonard's care, was more than just tidy, it was visually striking, and everything was perfectly positioned for easy use. Alfonso often remarked that Leonard's organizational skills were eerily fitting for a wizard in the making.
As Leonard stepped back to admire his work, a faint shimmer caught his eye. In the corner of his vision, a transparent screen materialized, visible only to him. Lines of text appeared in crisp, black characters, formatted neatly in a style he had come to recognize:
---
Task Completed: Clean the Laboratory (I)
Objective: Clean the laboratory and maintain its order.
Completion Level: Pass
Reward: 5 General Experience Points
---
This strange task panel had appeared in Leonard's mind after he first meditated using the method taught by Alfonso. Only he could see it, and so far, it had presented him with a series of mundane "daily tasks": cleaning the lab, tending to magical plants, gathering materials. Each task was rated with levels of completion; Unqualified, Qualified, and Good, but Leonard had yet to achieve a rank higher than "Good."
For now, the rewards were limited to general experience points, which could be used to progress his abilities. A quick glance at his current stats revealed:
---
Leonard
Level: 2 (1/100)
Physical Fitness: 1.32
Mental Strength: 1.9
Mastery:
Earth Ring Meditation: 6%
Universal Experience Points: 75
---
The Earth Ring Meditation Method was the foundational technique Alfonso had taught him. Its principle was deceptively simple yet maddeningly difficult: mentally construct a chain of one hundred interconnected Earth Rings. Each successfully completed ring increased mastery by 1% and boosted Leonard's mental strength by 0.1. A fully realized chain would bring a 10-point increase in mental strength, a significant step toward mastering wizardry.
Alfonso had promised that once Leonard mastered this meditation, he would be able to cast his first one-ring spell: Earth Ring Chain. The spell, like the meditation, was rooted in intricate patterns of connection and power.
Alfonso, however, had been clear about the rules. Beyond meditation, every piece of wizardly knowledge came at a cost. "Wizards operate on the principle of equal exchange," Alfonso had said. "The meditation method is my one gift to you as my student. Anything else, you must earn through labor."
Satisfied with his progress and the task completed, Leonard left the laboratory. He stepped into the narrow, dimly lit corridor outside and made his way to the next room, where he rinsed the mop and hung it on the rough, stone wall of the bathroom. Each motion was mechanical, but his mind was elsewhere, turning over the steps required to forge the next link in his mental chain.
Each day brought him closer to unlocking the true power of a wizard or so he hoped.
The corridor stretched deeper into the dimly lit passage, its walls lined with candles spaced every few meters. The flames flickered weakly, casting long, uneven shadows that barely illuminated the surroundings. In the faint light, the outlines of heavy iron doors became visible, each marking the cells where Alfonso's "materials" were confined.
Six rooms held the captives: ten humans and one creature. These were Leonard's responsibility. His teacher, Alfonso, had no patience for such mundane tasks, delegating them to his apprentice without a second thought.
After three months under Alfonso's tutelage, Leonard had come to understand his master's routines. Alfonso spent most of his time locked away in his private quarters, likely meditating. The rest of his day was divided between brewing potions, conducting injection experiments, and venturing out to capture new "materials."
Leonard carried a black sack as he walked deeper into the corridor. The air grew colder, and the heavy silence was punctuated by intermittent coughs from one of the rooms. The iron-barred doors lining the walls had been modified with additional reinforcements, ensuring no one escaped.
As his footsteps echoed down the hall, the captives stirred. From the darkness of their cells, voices rang out, pleading, bargaining, or threatening.
"Please, let me go! My family is rich! They'll pay you anything you want!"
"My father is a knight! He'll hunt you down and kill every last one of you devils!"
"You're such a handsome boy. I'll do whatever you want, just don't leave me here!"
The voices came from men, women, and even the elderly. Their words clawed at Leonard, but his expression remained blank. He had heard it all before. None of it mattered.
He couldn't help them. Even if he freed them, the house was rigged with Alfonso's magic traps at every exit. Any attempt to escape would result in certain death and such an act of defiance would cost Leonard his own life as well.
Despite the tenuous trust Alfonso had in him, Leonard knew his teacher always held the upper hand. Alfonso had disclosed the existence of the traps but deliberately left out any instructions on how to disable them. Leonard understood the message: disobedience was not an option.
At the end of the corridor, he reached the final room. Unlike the others, it was eerily silent. Through the small, barred window in the door, only pitch-black darkness was visible. Yet something about the room emanated a primal sense of danger.
Leonard paused, his instincts screaming a warning. Slowly, he took a key from the ring at his waist, unlocked the door, and without stepping inside, he flung the black sack into the room. The door was locked again in an instant.
Inside, there was a sudden clash of chains, followed by a chilling hiss. Then came the unmistakable sounds of savage tearing and chewing. Leonard didn't linger.
"Hey, boy." A hoarse voice called out from a nearby cell. Leonard turned to see a strong man, his face gaunt and pale, gripping the iron bars. He coughed weakly before speaking again.
"Can you… take a message for me?"
Leonard hesitated. "I may not be able to deliver it," he replied flatly.
The man smiled faintly, his voice calm despite the hopelessness of his situation. "Doesn't matter. At least it's something. Better than nothing, right?" He coughed again, quieter this time, then continued. "My wife… her name is Beauvais. Thin, red-haired, only about as tall as your shoulder. She was with the refugee group heading south, toward Bangor Harbor."
The man's voice cracked as he spoke, but his gaze remained steady. "If you ever find her… tell her I love her. My name's Lauren. Tell her I've always loved her."
From his tattered shoe, he pulled out four dark silver coins and pushed them through the bars. "This is all I have. I hope you don't mind."
Leonard stood silent for a moment, then nodded. He accepted the coins and turned to leave. He didn't look back, but as he walked away, he heard the faint murmur of the man's prayers, spoken softly in the darkness.
Leonard's footsteps echoed down the corridor, his expression unchanged. Yet deep inside, the weight of those words lingered, heavier than the sack he had carried.
État de l’alimentation hebdomadaire
-- Classement
Power Stone 
-- Power
stone