Abe the Wizard

The “lag” he had experienced for twenty-three years was now completely gone. He easily passed through his bottleneck, and suddenly, a new energy, a new essence started forming inside his body.

“Menard …”

Wizard Frank, while sitting opposite of Wizard Menard, wanted to ask him if he was doing okay. Yet, as he knew how long his good friend had been stuck. He decided that it was better not to disturb him.

It was good that he had the mana gathering circle ready a long time ago. He didn’t think that it was going to be used, but there it was. Wizard Menard was using it all by himself.

“How? What? An egg…. It cost 50 points…..what….” Wizard Frank muttered. He couldn’t believe what he was looking at.

More than twenty wizards, whether they were upstairs, downstairs, anywhere, all noticed the fact that someone was being promoted. They became very serious. Soon, they all looked towards the room that Wizard Menard was in.

Out of respect, none of them spoke when they watched. They just stood quietly, as they tried to feel the air around them. They weren’t sure what happened, but they wanted to get some inspiration from this very special experience.

Although Manager Mahler had only seen a wizard being promoted once before, he wasn’t completely clueless. When he realized what was happening, he called the other four shopkeepers and ran outside the Forgotten Land.

After half an hour, the energy they felt suddenly disappeared. They heard a bunch of cries and laughing voices coming out from the private room.

“Menard! He’s really a level 10 wizard now!” a loud, very emotional voice shouted across the room. Whoever the owner of this voice was, he was saying what everyone else was thinking. “As hard as it is to believe, it’s true. An egg really just ranked up a wizard!” one of the wizards exclaimed. He then looked at the steamed egg in his hand. Next thing that happened, he started burying his head into it. He didn’t even bother to chew. He just swallowed the whole thing down his throat.

The other wizards did the same. They all picked up the steamed eggs and started eating them. It didn’t even taste that good, but they all tried to savor every ounce of it.

At the same time, Abel was practicing his “charge” technique with the undead raven. However, Bartoli ran in and interrupted him from doing his training. “Master, Master! Our steamed eggs really ranked up two wizards! Was it really because of the steamed eggs?”.

Abel smiled mysteriously, “I am not sure about the second one, but I was there to see the first case take place. If I were to make an educated guess, I think the wizard just pressured himself too much after eating the rabbit essence. You know, lack of stress is quite important to move yourself to the next level.”

“The eggs though, Master! Can they really help you rank up?” Bartoli persisted.

“Wha… no! Of course not! When a wizard is going to rank up to another level, they usually need a special “boost” for them to do the job. You know, like something that gives them the final push that they need.”

Abel shook his head, “We were just lucky to have not one, but two of these customers were sitting in our establishment. It wasn’t the eggs that ranked up the wizards. It just happened so that they were already on the verge of reaching the next stage.”

It just showed how different Abel’s thought process was compared to the people of this world. After all, Abel came from the world of technology and science. He knew not to draw conclusions from just what he saw, but also from evidence.

He never saw the second wizard that ranked up in his restaurant, so he decided not to jump the gun and make random guesses of how that happened. Instead, he tried to make “reasonable assumptions” about what happened to the first wizard, who he happened to be in the same space with.

For wizards to be promoted to the next level, necessary “triggers” would vary. For some, it was the sight of a particular type of flower. For others, it was looking at a tree. Of course, it could be the “rabbit’s essence” that Abel was selling. Well, it was definitely a more noticeable “stimulus” than random things in the wild, but that didn’t mean it was any more effective than any of the things that were mentioned.

Therefore the necessary “triggers” were not about what the wizards saw, but what they meant to the wizards. Both of the wizards were just short of the perception of ranking up, and the ‘rabbit essence’ fulfilled just that.

Then Abel said, “Tell everyone in the restaurant. Don’t mention anything about the wizards ranking up and act like nothing happened !”

“Yes, master!” Bartoli already knew that as long as the shop did not admit anything about wizards ranking up, rumors would spread in the city, and more and more customers would continue to come.

Then, Bartoli reported excitedly, “Master, we’ve earned 3200 points in just 6 days!”

Abel could not help but be dumbfounded when he heard the amount. He knew that they had zero customers in the first four days. In other words, the restaurant earned more than 3000 points in just two days. They were earning points faster than if he forged the magical staff of high ranked wizards.

There weren’t many who could afford using so many points to forge a wizard staff, but the Forgotten Land was different. It has unlimited potential for new customers.

“Great, it looks like it won’t take much longer, and we’ll have the points to buy whatever we want.” There was a glimmer of excitement in Abel’s eyes when he imagined all the magic towers and strategic supplies that he could exchange with points.

“Master, I’ll be spending more time on managing the shop these days!” The original plan for Forgotten Land was completely different now. In the past, they just wanted to earn some extra points, but now, it became their main source of gaining points.

Abel said to Bartoli with excitement, ” If the restaurant continues to succeed at this rate, we can even buy you a magic tower!”

The most lively place in Liante City used to be the Auction House or Trading Markets, but now all the knights, wizards, and warriors were gathering in front of one small restaurant from day to night. The Majority of the customers were wizards–whether they were the wizard who were “lagging” in their current ranking or wizard who came by the rumors-one thing which was very clear in their minds. Two wizards ranked up after eating the dishes of this restaurant. It may be a coincidence for one wizard, but definitely not two.

Dishes in the Forgotten Land had almost replaced the items that were claimed to be helpful in ranking up in the point exchange list of Wizards Guild. By the way, these items in the Auction House just “claimed” to be helpful, and not many examples of real cases had happened in the past.

Frankly speaking, these kinds of items were very expensive and are very limited. Once it appeared, every wizard would do anything to get them.

On the eighth day, the number of customers coming to the restaurant had a noticeable drop. It was probably due to the fact that there weren’t any wizards ranking up in the restaurant for the past two days. Frankly speaking, this does not match the rumors of one would be ranked up if one had eaten the dishes in Forgotten Land. Thus, some of the wizards had started to think that it was just hype for the restaurant. On the afternoon of the eighth day, Wizard Diode walked into Forgotten Land. He had just spent all his points on a “mana gather potion,” which claimed to have a certain chance of increasing the probability of ranking up. Unfortunately, he failed after taking the potion.

Wizard Diode was a level 8 wizard who has been stuck at his current level for almost three years. He spent all his hard work and points on this “mana gather potion.” and had tried to rank up in the past ten days. However, ten days had passed, the “mana gather potion” had lost its effect, and he didn’t even get a single hint for ranking up. At the time when he was most upset, what made him even more upset was that he had been replaced by other wizards in his previous positions and became jobless. Wizard Diode felt like he lost everything in his life. When he was drinking in the pub, he heard someone beside him talking about how amazing the dishes in the Forgotten Land were. It gave him a glimpse of hope in his despair.

He came to the Forgotten Land when there were just a few customers. Wizards could recover their senses very quickly, and when there weren’t any wizards ranked up in the restaurant, the hype for the restaurant was reduced. Honestly speaking, if the food didn’t have the strong addictive taste to the customers, perhaps the number of customers would have been significantly reduced.

Also, it was because of this addictive nature that many of the wizards who had eaten the dishes here were checking whether they were poisoned. While waiting to wait and see if other wizards will have the same problem.

So there weren’t many guests this afternoon, Wizard Diode ordered a steamed water egg with his remaining 50 points.

When he ate the steamed eggs, he felt that the 50 points were worth a great deal for the cuisine, but nowhere near the promotion he had requested.

His emotions of disappointment, being deceived, together with the anger of having spent a lot of points on the “mana gathering potion” were swirling together before eating the steamed egg