A carriage was racing down the broad highway, and in the driver's seat sat two burly men clad in iron armor and carrying long swords — they didn't look like the sort anyone would want to cross, and the farmers along the road scrambled out of the way.
Inside the carriage, the smell of wood and paint mingled together, not exactly pleasant.
Leilin's nose twitched. He caught a whiff of perfume and glanced at Anna, whose cheeks had turned a faint pink. With a grin, he waved his hand. "Come here!"
When Anna came over, Leilin had her lie halfway down, then leaned his head against her chest.
His hand drifted casually onto her thigh. The thin black fabric scarcely concealed Anna's beauty; his palms felt as though they were resting on a piece of warm, supple jade.
Feeling the softness at his back and hearing Anna's breathing grow heavier, Leilin let out a contented sigh, closed his eyes, and made no further moves.
Truth be told, the constant anxiety of the past few weeks — having to watch his back at every transaction — had consumed most of his mental energy. Now that he no longer needed to worry about such things, and with two Knights ready to step in if trouble arose, Leilin could finally steal some rest.
The two Knights, naturally, had to sleep outside, leaving the carriage to their master and the maidservant. Leilin was no gentleman, and Anna was a beauty who had specifically trained herself in certain arts. Spending all day idling in the carriage, he had long since taken her, leaving a dark reddish stain on the carriage floor.
As a maidservant Leilin had purchased, how could Anna dare refuse her master? She served him devotedly throughout the journey, trying out all manner of positions for his pleasure, and he found it thoroughly satisfying.
"Good thing I'm a Wizard — I can use potions and Meditation to enhance my physique. Otherwise, with the original Leilin's miserable body, I'd probably have aged well beyond my years by now..."
Leilin silently commanded, "Chip, pull up my data!"
"Leilin Farell, Second-rank Apprentice, official Knight. Strength: 2.7, Agility: 2.8, Constitution: 3.0, Spiritual Power: 4.6, Mana: 4.0. Status: Healthy."
"Four or five months have passed. I've been meditating every single day, and it's only gone up by 0.2..." Leilin's expression darkened. "I need to reach a settlement as quickly as possible and start brewing the ancient potion. Otherwise, I have no idea when I'll meet the promotion requirements!"
Advancing to Third-rank Apprentice was a threshold every Wizard Apprentice had to cross. Even someone like Jiamen, with his fifth-grade aptitude, typically needed years of grinding to make it.
Among the promotion conditions the Chip had simulated, mastering spells and crafting Potions of Activity were minor matters. The real barrier was the Spiritual Power threshold of 7, which had stumped countless talented apprentices. When it came to raising Spiritual Power, even full Wizards had no surefire methods — one could only grind away through the Meditation Method, or rely on external aids like potions. Unfortunately, those were far beyond what any apprentice could afford.
Leilin, too, was stuck at that Spiritual Power threshold.
"Chip! How is the analysis of the two potions coming along? And the Luoyan Scripture — what's the decryption progress?"
*Ding!* "Azure Potion analysis: 100%. Maria's Tears analysis: 78%. Luoyan Scripture decryption: 63.7%." The Chip's mechanical notification tone sounded.
"The Azure Potion was analyzed long ago, but all the primary ingredients are extinct, so I still need to keep experimenting to find substitutes. As for Maria's Tears, it's been stuck at 78% for three months now — and it's still the same. Did I miss some critical steps?"
Leilin frowned. The Chip's computational power was formidable, yet the analysis of this ancient potion recipe — Maria's Tears — remained stubbornly frozen at 78%, which surprised him.
"The formula Guofate gave me should be correct. The reason the Chip has been unable to finish analyzing it is probably because it involves some kind of difficulty — parameters that aren't even in the Chip's database... Maria's Tears! *Tears!*" Leilin mused.
"Could it be... that this ancient potion recipe has something to do with the soul?"
After all, just hearing the potion's name was enough to conjure unsettling associations.
As for the decryption of the Luoyan Scripture, that was progressing quite well. Though its creator had employed extremely elaborate ciphers to encrypt the text, the one thing the Chip never feared was a complex computational task.
Through his decryption of the previously decoded text, Leilin Farell had already gained a rough understanding of the contents of this document.
"What a shame — the thing itself is excellent! But I won't be able to access it until I've become a Third-rank Apprentice!"
Leilin shook his head and drove the stray thoughts from his mind.
Suddenly, the moving carriage came to a halt.
Leilin furrowed his brow. "What happened?"
"Please rest easy, young master. It's just a band of road-blocking bandits! Fuleisa has already gone to deal with them!" Gelin's voice came through the wooden panels.
Clang!!! Bang!!!
Sure enough, after only a brief moment — it seemed negotiations had broken down — the sounds of various weapons clashing, along with human curses and screams, rang out continuously. Following Fuleisa's quiet "It's handled," the carriage resumed its journey.
Leilin was quite satisfied with this arrangement.
The reason he had purchased two Knights and a maid was precisely to entrust all the trivial matters of daily life to them, freeing up more of his time to study the magic arts and conduct experimental deductions.
These roadside troubles were minor things. Deep in his heart, Leilin already had a vague plan that required a great deal of manpower to carry out — and these three formed his core team.
"Young… young master!" Anna's breathless voice came from behind him.
Only then did Leilin feel his hand slip — it turned out that while he had been lost in thought, his palm had unknowingly wandered to a rather sensitive part of Anna's body.