20demayo Chapter 18 Rewards for Completing the Mission
Chapter 18 Rewards for Completing the Mission
The public carriage was traveling through the city of Modo. Suen sat by the window, his body swaying slightly with the bumps of the carriage.
Outside the window was a row of low-rise shopfronts, and several apprentices were gesturing around the window of a building materials store.
Suddenly, Su En sat up straight.
He felt a dangerous sensation, as if someone was aiming at the back of his neck, and the hairs on his body stood on end.
Su En glanced around and saw that everything was normal.
Activating my spiritual vision, I found no unusual elemental fluctuations in the surroundings.
It felt like that moment had passed, and nothing had happened.
The other apprentices in the carriage were all dozing off with their heads down, and no one noticed his strange behavior.
Suen slowed her breathing, comforting herself that it might be a lingering effect from staring directly at the starry sky that night.
As the carriage rolled up the hill, sunlight streamed through the windows. He squinted and leaned back in his seat.
Unbeknownst to him, Celsus in the laboratory slightly raised his eyelids.
"The level of spiritual activity is higher than expected."
……
Modo City Trade District, Polaris Magic Shop.
The shopkeeper skillfully counted the materials: "A total of five sets of materials for night vision potions, costing twenty magic stone coins."
Suen took out twenty dark coins from the explorer's leather pouch at his waist and placed them on the counter.
The material cost is 20 magic coins, and it costs 5 magic coins to borrow the laboratory for one hour.
But a perfect quality night vision potion only sells for five units, and he estimated in his mind that the success rate had to be at least 50% to ensure he didn't lose money.
Fifty percent is still just a theoretical value.
The coins left in the purse had dwindled by half. He had borrowed fifty magic stone coins from Morris, and had already spent most of them in just one trip. Su En immediately felt a pang of regret.
When he went to Morris to borrow money yesterday, he wasn't really sure he could succeed.
Surprisingly, Maurice agreed almost without hesitation.
Not only that, but they also gave him a model of the zero-ring sorcery "Evil Spirit Flame Arrow," saying that the loan would be interest-free, but Suen was required to learn the sorcery.
Suen felt that something was not quite right.
A model of a zero-ring sorcery spell would cost at least a hundred magic stones, and it's just being given away for free?
But Morris didn't give him a chance to refuse and slammed the door shut.
He seemed very eager to learn this witchcraft.
Unable to figure it out, Su En simply stopped dwelling on it.
The important thing right now is to produce the first batch of finished products.
After checking and confirming that all the materials were complete, he put them into his explorer's bag and left the store.
The sunlight on the street was a bit dazzling, and Su En squinted as she was about to walk towards the bus stop when she suddenly caught a gray shadow out of the corner of her eye.
A grey-feathered owl was perched on the sign of the Polaris Store, tilting its head to look at him.
A copper ring, engraved with the emblem of the Crown of Oak, was tied to its paw.
The spotted owl lowered its head, preened its feathers, then flapped its wings and landed in front of him, cooing:
"New Apprentice Sun, the wizard Celsus invites you to meet him in Laboratory 06."
Upon hearing this, Su En froze in place.
.....
As Suen followed Spotted Owl through the gate, an invisible detector swept over him, lingering for less than a second.
The identification badge on my waist felt slightly warm, indicating that the test was passed.
To be honest, he had been in the Oak Crown for more than three months and had never stepped inside the wizard's tower.
Both the dormitories hanging outside the tree trunks and the recycling rooms on the two underground floors are auxiliary buildings of the Wizard Tower.
This mysterious and powerful building never opened its doors to him.
As you pass through the porch, two arcane golems slowly walk past you.
These two golems are three meters tall, with their bodies carved from a single piece of dark gray granite. Flowing runes are embedded in their joints, and each step they take on the ground brings up a low hum.
Further away, a translucent wind elemental was using air currents to stir up debris from the ground, two short, stout earth elementals were carrying wooden crates and disappeared at the end of the side corridor, while a flame-shaped fire elemental hovered next to the wall lamps, lighting up the crystals on the wall one by one.
But the most eye-catching feature is a pool made of black stone in the center of the hall, where a dense, almost liquid, magical energy surges.
Above the pool, an oak sapling floats and rotates slowly, enveloped in colorful light and shadow. The sapling's roots droop into the pool, drawing in the swirling magic.
The moment Su En stepped into this place, he felt every pore on his body open up, his meditation technique unconsciously started running automatically, and his mental energy became more active.
But before they could fully appreciate it, the owl that was leading the way had already rushed into the teleportation portal and disappeared into the silvery-white light.
Su En took a deep breath and stepped inside.
My body was lifted up by an irresistible force, and everything in my field of vision stretched and twisted, turning into flowing, dazzling light and shadow.
After about two breaths, the ground suddenly sank, and Su En staggered half a step before regaining his balance.
The sun crystal overhead emitted a cold, white light, and the air was filled with a faint scent of magic potions and the cool fragrance of wood.
A figure dressed in a dark gray wizard's robe stood in front of the lab table, slowly stirring the liquid in a beaker with a glass rod.
He was rather thin, with his black hair casually tied back and his sleeves rolled up to his forearms.
However, the next second, a sense of oppression descended without warning.
Suen felt as if she had been dragged into an endless deep sea.
The surrounding air became heavy and viscous, and each breath felt like struggling in deep water, followed by a sense of weightlessness.
It felt as if I was suspended in mid-air, with boundless darkness pressing in from all directions.
Suen tried to activate his mental energy core, but found a huge beast in front of him, its outline hidden in the surging dark purple waves.
Just by gazing at this blurry outline, Suen's mental energy began to dissipate uncontrollably at a rapid pace.
"A high level of spiritual activity makes it easier to perceive the true nature of the world, but this is more harmful than beneficial to you at this stage."
A voice came from the sea, and the darkness before Suen's eyes began to crumble.
Celsus turned around and gently shook the stirring rod in his hand. A wisp of azure light flew out from the tip of the rod and disappeared into Suen's brow like a shooting star.
In the blink of an eye, the darkness receded like a tide, and the phantom of the giant beast vanished.
Suen's vision cleared, and his mind returned to calm, as if the terrifying sense of oppression he had just experienced was merely an illusion.
"This effect of suppressing spiritual activity will only last for three months. You'd better learn the techniques for binding your spirit as soon as possible."
Suen's breathing was still a little unsteady, but he tried his best to keep his voice steady: "Thank you, Lord Celsus."
Only then did he get a clear look at the person in front of him.
With a thin face and slightly sunken eyes, he looked like an ordinary passerby.
But the scrutiny in those eyes seemed to see right through people, making them instinctively want to look away.
"Alright, enough of the small talk." Celsus placed the stirring rod back on the copper stand. "Let's talk about how you discovered the problem with the Roots of Azeroth."
Su En nodded, organized his thoughts, and recounted the research process in its entirety.
Throughout the process, Celsus did not interrupt, only occasionally nodding in satisfaction.
After Suen finished speaking, Celsus gently raised his hand and smiled, "Wait a moment, this is too serious. Let's find somewhere else to talk."
He snapped his fingers, and Su En felt dizzy as the gray stone bricks beneath his feet receded like the tide, replaced by dark wooden floors.
The surroundings have also subtly changed, with several rows of built-in bookshelves against the wall piled high with various books, making it look like the study of the wizard Celsus.
Two cups of black tea were already on the table, steam rising from the rims and releasing a rich aroma.
If the experience just now gave Su En his first taste of the terror of a formal wizard, then this moment showed him what the wonder of witchcraft truly is.
"Is this scene-changing technique based on spatial folding?" Su En glanced at it thoughtfully.
"This is a spatial transformation inside the Wizard's Tower. It's actually an improvement on the Magic Duncan's Mansion spell, which increases space utilization."
Celsus noticed Sun's curiosity and, while explaining, raised his hand and waved it, causing a pale golden sphere of light to unfold on the table.
A potion recipe that was completely unfamiliar to Suen slowly appeared on the screen, filled with a large amount of unfamiliar Hermesian language.
Afterwards, Suen seemed to return to the lecture hall, and Celsus, like a teacher, carefully explained the key points of the Concerto of Life.
This was a precious professional lesson, and Su En was completely immersed in it, greedily absorbing the knowledge, afraid of missing even a single word.
Until Celsus's words came to an abrupt end, Suen remained calm, his eyes revealing a lingering sense of satisfaction, yet unable to conceal the unfinished excitement in his heart.
As Suen stepped out of the Oak Crown and came into contact with the faint magical energy in the air again, his tense mind finally relaxed, and he slowly exhaled.
He looked down at the two rewards in his hands.
One was Celsus's potion-making notes from his apprenticeship, and the other was a scarecrow the size of a palm.
"This trip has been very fruitful!"
Su En felt refreshed and walked briskly towards the dormitory.