Chapter 1 Border Town

On the horizon of the border town, a few stars still twinkled faintly, like verses about to disappear from the night sky.

Until the dawn quietly arrived, and a faint blush spread across the sky, casting a hazy color over the Ranch family's mansion.

In this tranquil moment, Ranch's bedroom seemed particularly peaceful. Light filtered through the light window纱, as if strands of pure精灵 were dancing.

But Ranch was already awake.

He moved his body, pushed the quilt aside, hung his feet over the edge of the bed, and gently placed them on the carpet, feeling the soft touch underfoot.

"How could I dream that I was in the underworld, and Yama was on a long vacation, and I was signing the Book of Life and Death on his behalf..."

He rubbed his eyes, recalling the dream, and muttered to himself,

"That's right, I can return the borrowed codex."

After stretching vigorously, a feeling of relaxation spread throughout his body, and Ranch straightened his back and stood up from the bedside.

After washing up, he didn't go downstairs to eat breakfast right away.

Instead, he drew back the curtains beside his desk, basking in the morning sun, which was warm to just the right degree.

A gentle breeze caressed the leaves outside the window, and birds chirped in the treetops not far away.

Strings of crisp notes floated along the windowsill into Ranch's bedroom, permeating the entire pleasant morning light.

It had been two weeks since he borrowed the codex from the border library.

In these days, the books on his desk had piled up more and more.

In addition to the codex, he had also asked the housekeeper to buy him several basic books that were directly sold in the Card Maker Association in this town.

Learning and using magic in this world was obscure and difficult, like mathematics in the doctoral field; if you couldn't learn it, you just couldn't learn it.

Ranch was pretty sure that he didn't have the talent to become a "traditional mage who can make good use of magic on his own."

But the good thing about this world was that everyone could use magic through "magic cards."

However, there were load limits on magic cards that could be bound to the soul.

So they did not affect the particularity of combat occupations, but only made the strong stronger.

And ordinary people could also use various convenient small life magics through magic cards.

Because of this, magic artificers who could make magic cards were a very popular profession!

Compared with making other types of magic道具, card making not only required a thorough understanding of magic engineering principles, but also required extremely high creativity and mental power, and also needed to develop extremely high drawing skills.

Ranch was fortunate that the knowledge of related magic engineering, such as the production of magic道具 and the principles of magic machinery, was unexpectedly simple for him to read, and he could quickly understand it even if he read it quickly.

"Of course, it may also be that the compilers of the textbooks are of a higher level."

Ranch looked at the stack of reference books on his desk and sighed.

It was quite a coincidence that these textbooks were all written by the same author:

"Hutton Kingdom Magic Engineering Basics Seventh Edition - Written by Bolaao"

"Common Mistakes in First-Order Magic Card Production - Written by Bolaao"

"Ethical Code of Conduct for Card Makers - Written by Bolaao"

He heard from people in the Card Maker Association that Professor Bolaao was a mentor at the Magic Engineering Institute of Yikelite Academy.

It was a pity that Professor Bolaao did not take students.

Otherwise, Ranch would have wanted to work hard for a hundred days and apply for the Magic Engineering Institute.

However, compared with the complex and heavy studies of the Magic Engineering Institute, which also had special mentors, he preferred the free and relaxed course structure of the Sage Academy and the Knight Academy: few required courses, many elective courses, and he could graduate as long as he completed all the required courses and earned enough credits.

As for those Magic Engineering Institute courses that were suitable for him, he could add them to his course schedule as elective subjects at that time.

This was the conclusion Ranch had come to after carefully studying the information of Yikelite Academy.

"Okay, after studying the theory, it's time to experiment with the production of magic cards."

Ranch felt that the things called "mana" that he had consumed a few days ago for drawing Talia's portrait should have recovered almost now.

Today, he could go to the Card Maker Association to rent a card making workshop and try to practice.

And.

Since he was going to leave the town and go to the royal capital in two and a half months.

Talia's affairs had to be arranged as well.

Although she was a demon, she and he needed each other.

Perhaps, the two of them could become good trading partners in the future.

Ranch looked out the window.

Soon, his eyes found a gray figure outside his home's courtyard.

At the corner of the street where the sun had not yet reached, a girl stood dignifiedly like a vivid work of art, her figure like exquisite porcelain, delicate and soft.

In the breeze, the dark gray cloak covering Talia gently fluttered, adding a touch of mystery.

In this quiet moment, she seemed to blend into the surrounding environment as a painting, or it seemed that her existence was the only thing in this painting.

Ranch rested his chin on his hand, watching the demon princess who was perfectly disguised as a human from afar.

"It's a pity that she's too old, at least several hundred years old."

He sighed.

Although Talia was also a young demon in the demon clan.

But according to the human concept of age, it seemed right to call her an old woman.

Of course.

Ranch didn't know what the consequences would be if he really called Talia an old woman.

……

Far away.

As if sensing Ranch's gaze, Talia's eyes also glanced in the direction of the second floor of the mansion.

"Good morning."

After meeting her gaze, Ranch smiled and waved gently at the distant Talia.

Talia ignored him.

Her gray hair slid over her shoulders like silk and fell quietly on her cloak, her eyes gazing indifferently ahead.

She just wanted to confirm any movements that might pose a threat to the residents of this mansion.

Since it was Ranch himself, and not other people who would threaten Ranch, she had no intention of paying attention to him.

Just like she only cared about completing her work—protecting the employer.

And didn't care about the employer himself.

But……

She didn't know why, but she always felt that the young man's inner activities were unusually active just now.

And he seemed to be thinking about some damned things.

But Talia couldn't say where her intuition came from, or what the boy was thinking.

Obviously, no matter how you looked at it.

He was just greeting her in a friendly way.

Maybe it was just her imagination.

After all, since the demise of the demon clan's kingdom... she had begun to hate humans.

Even with humans like Ranch who were docile and harmless, she would occasionally have misconceptions about him, suspecting that he might be a guy with an extremely bad character perfectly disguised.

But her lie detection spell, and her own observations, proved that this human had absolutely excellent character.

"Sigh."

Talia sighed softly.

She originally thought that she had been wandering in the human kingdom for so many years and had a little understanding of this kind of creature called humans.

But now it seemed that if she wanted to endure humiliation and integrate perfectly into human society in order to seek an opportunity to restore her country.

She still needed to put in a lot of effort.