Single Spell Sorcerer-Chapter 101: Copy

Jax had seen it too last time with the book on beasts, but the Ink Hermit was not just good at thorough investigation and recording, but also an excellent artist.

In a way, the man was a master of everything ink-related.

The book he received had the herbs listed by their names, description, possible locations to find them, and what to watch out for. But that was only text. Each page had illustrations next to the text, sometimes multiple ones, to help convey what the text was saying.

The art also seemed to almost come to life, each drawing so very vivid. Jax felt as if he was in the forest, looking at the plants with his own eyes.

He read through the book, trying to remember each one. But only an hour in, Jax knew that this was impossible. This wasn’t like the book on beasts where there were only a few beasts for him to read about, each one unique enough to be remembered.

These were plants that were tiny and of the same color. Not to mention, he knew nothing about plants to begin with, so even the names wouldn’t help him there.

Reading once wasn’t going to do it. But then, he wasn’t going to get a chance to read it twice, was he?

When Zane passed by next time, Jax spoke up.

"Hey, can I ask you something?"

Zane stopped, a handful of books in his arms. "What do you want?" he asked.

"Is there any chance that I could take this book with me for a while? I don’t think I can learn it all here," he said.

Zane stared at him with a look of pure offense. His eyes made it clear that Jax was wrong to have even thought of the question.

"No book shall ever leave this house," he said. "Everything stays within this place. If you dare take it out, I will kill you."

Jax looked at the man, unable to understand why he was so aggressive about it. It was just an innocent question, after all.

"Then can I come back tomorrow to read this book again if I can’t remember everything today?" he asked.

"Today is the only day," the man said, giving no consideration at all.

Jax sighed. It was a mistake to ask the man to begin with. He shook his head and stared down at the table, continuing to read the book once again.

However, just as he was about to, he saw the empty notebooks on the table.

"Wait! I can’t take the book, but can I make a copy of it?" he asked. "I will take back the copy."

"4 stones for a notebook," the man said. "1 stone for the ink and pen."

"Sure," Jax said without hesitation.

The man provided him with some inkwell and pen, and handed him one of the empty textbooks next to him. Jax took a hold of them and flipped it to start copying.

Holding the pen, Jax knew right away that he couldn’t write properly. He didn’t even have any instinctive understanding of how one wrote. He simply knew it perhaps by watching others.

When he tried to write, it was practically unreadable. With how difficult it was to write, Jax knew as sure as he could that he could not copy the entire book in the time he was given at all.

"Gemma, what should I do? I can’t seem to be able to write," Jax said.

Gemma hovered around the page. "Just take it slow. Instead of trying to write, just copy what you see on the page."

Jax tried to take it slow, and while that helped the quality of his writing a lot, it was way too slow.

"I won’t even be able to copy half the book at this speed," Jax said. "I need to go faster, but while maintaining quality."

He looked at the text on the pages. "Maybe, I can skip a few things."

"Oh, yes. Just copy down the important bits."

Jax nodded. "That’s what I must do."

He began with the drawing of the plant, followed by its name, and any important information it had about how it could be picked or which part of the plant one had to avoid.

"Leave some gaps for now so you can fill in the gaps later if you have time. Just focus on the important bits."

Jax nodded, continuing.

While very amateur, he was able to understand what he was writing. And since only he needed to understand it anyway, this was good enough.

As time went on, Jax filled more pages with more herbs and more information. His drawings were crude, and text haphazard, but he was doing it.

He was successfully copying down all the information he needed.

It was afternoon when Jax finally finished copying down all the basic information. The book was nearly 200 pages thick, so it took him a lot of hours to complete it.

But of course, he could add more information still. All the gaps he had left could now be filled as much as he could.

Jax turned to the very first page and started adding the descriptions as well as the locations where the plants were generally found.

After another 3 hours, Jax finally added everything he thought he needed.

The book he copied still missed nearly half of the information that the original had, but being able to copy this much was already enough for Jax.

He had also been reading while he copied, so he was learning just as much as he would’ve had he just been reading it as well.

Having completed the book twice over, Jax frowned a little. He hadn’t yet found the information on the flower that the Wine Hermit wanted.

He was sure he hadn’t missed it since there were no other plants that could be found in a boss room.

So, Jax’s only choice was to track down Zane in the other room and ask him why there was information missing.

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