"Chip! Pull up my current data!" Leilin silently commanded in his mind.
"Ding! Leilin Farell, Third-rank Apprentice, Official Knight. Strength: 3.1. Agility: 3.3. Constitution: 3.5. Spiritual Power: 10.1. Mana: 10 (Mana is synchronously determined by Spiritual Power). Condition: Healthy."
The Chip projected the data before Leilin's eyes — invisible to anyone but himself.
Leilin narrowed his eyes, but his mind had already plunged into intense thought.
"Hmm! Constitution increased by 0.3 — probably a side effect of the Activating Potion. And Spiritual Power not only reached 10.1, but I can also feel that my Spiritual Power has gained an additional sense of vitality compared to before. My sensitivity to the energy particles in the air has improved considerably, and casting various Zero-level Spells has become much easier!"
"The realm of a Third-rank Apprentice truly is incomparable to a Second-rank. But the process of promotion was far too dangerous!"
Leilin wore an expression of lingering fear. Whether it was his consciousness falling into the dark space, or the Activating Potion's subsequent backlash — neither was something he had anticipated.
For Leilin, the information and data he had collected were still far too scarce. Though the Chip's computational power was extraordinarily formidable, given the lack of foundational knowledge, the fact that it had managed to deduce the correct promotion method was already quite remarkable.
As for the other problems that arose during the promotion, given the differences in each person's constitution and other factors, combined with the shortage of reference data, even the Chip hadn't been able to predict them.
"After all, the library that Black Bones Forest opens to apprentices has many restrictions, and some advanced materials aren't available to apprentices at all!"
"Moreover, even if the Chip's computational capacity rivals dozens of optical computers, the
"This promotion was really a close call. Luck played a huge part in it!"
Leilin's expression turned grave. "I can't do this again! This was only the promotion to Third-rank Apprentice. If something like this happens when I promote to an Official Wizard in the future, I won't be so lucky!"
The difficulty of promoting to Official Wizard far exceeded that of advancing to Third-rank Apprentice. One could say that even combining every hardship Leilin had faced from being an ordinary person to becoming a Third-rank Apprentice might still not match the difficulty of becoming an Official Wizard.
And if errors or oversights were to occur at that stage, no number of lives would be enough for Leilin to survive.
"After I get back, I absolutely must find out every detail about promoting to Official Wizard. I can't just blindly charge ahead like this again!"
Leilin set himself a task for the future.
"Next, I need to wait for my body to fully adapt to the surge in Spiritual Power. Then I'll master the Zero-level Spells that only Third-rank Apprentices can learn. After that, I can go explore that laboratory!"
Leilin opened his eyes, sent
......
In the blink of an eye, more than half a month had passed.
At night, brilliant moonlight cascaded across the ground, and a luminous full moon hung high in the sky.
Near the Withered Forest, beside the same black monolith as before, Leilin murmured incantations and repeated the process he had already carried out.
Gazing at the same pitch-black opening as last time, Leilin allowed himself a faint smile and stepped inside.
Through his previous exploration and observation, he had already roughly figured out the operational patterns of the wizardry formation, and had recorded all the dangers within, devising countermeasures for each.
Having already advanced to Third-rank Apprentice, he was even more confident in his ability to bypass the defensive mechanisms left behind by that unknown Wizard.
The black passage was quite short, its surface extraordinarily smooth, reflecting Leilin's robed figure and casting several inverted shadows against the walls behind him.
Beyond the passage lay the villa Leilin had seen before — Devil Vines and Bone-devouring Flowers blanketed its surface, and grey stone tiles paved the floor, dusty and drab, hiding Chewing Stone Slabs among them.
The villa's main door had a round hole punched through it, and beside it lay a skeletal corpse. A black, lustrous notebook lay quietly to one side — this was the notebook that had set Leilin's heart racing, the one containing records of Gnomish Alchemy.
To Leilin's eyes, the villa's surface brimmed with dangerous wizardry luminescence, and beneath that brilliant glow, who knew how many traps lay concealed.
Hee hee!! Haha!!
The instant Leilin's right foot touched the stone tiles, a burst of children's laughter erupted. The grey tiles on the ground twisted and writhed, splitting open into a massive mouth bristling with fangs that lunged viciously at Leilin!
"First line of defense! Chewing Stone Slabs!" Leilin smiled calmly and tossed a dark, lumpy mass straight into the gaping maw.
Crack!! The great mouth gulped down the black clump in one bite.
Pffft!!! The grey maw chewed a few times, then spat out every last bit of black residue. A red tongue kept lolling out, drooling yellowish-green saliva.
The sight looked remarkably like a normal person retching after eating something foul.
"Vomit Powder made from Stink Blossoms, Dung Beetles, and Rotten Root Grass! As expected — the perfect counter against Chewing Stone Slabs!" Leilin watched as the grey slab retched and heaved for another stretch, then sprouted two tiny legs and scurried off into the distance, and couldn't help but laugh.
"For that unknown formal Wizard, this should have been nothing more than a temporary laboratory. The wizardry formation was focused primarily on concealment — as for defensive power, there should only be three layers! Moreover, combining Chewing Stone Slabs with Devil Vines is a Mecker school defensive technique!"
Leilin walked up to the main door and picked up the black notebook directly.
The black notebook was remarkably heavy, feeling like a brick in his hand. It had clearly been crafted from some special material.
Leilin tucked the notebook into his coat and walked up to the main door.
Circles of dark green vines immediately surged forward, wrapping the entire entrance. Numerous red petals bloomed across the surface of the vines, and when they came together, they actually formed the face of a woman.
"Invader! This is no place for you!" The lips formed by the petals opened and closed as the woman spoke.
"The Wizard here is dead. I've come to claim his legacy! As for you, I'll preserve your existence and provide you with the nutrients needed for your evolution. How about it?"
Leilin produced a red fruit from his pack. "For you, this entire laboratory isn't worth a fraction of the material I hold in my hand!"
"With this, you could even leave this place and return to the free wilderness…" Leilin spoke softly, his voice carrying a thread of enchantment.
"Freedom!" Longing and hesitation flickered across the woman's face.
"I cannot betray the oath I swore! Outsider! Leave this place!" After a long struggle, the woman finally refused Leilin. The green vines squirmed ceaselessly, poised to strike at any moment.
"Sigh…" Leilin put the fruit away and sighed. "I had hoped it wouldn't come to blows!"
"Stubborn invader!
The Bone-Eating Flower roared, this time shifting to a male face. Numerous dark green vines closed in from every direction.
Boom!! A dark shape lunged forward. Leilin dodged aside as the thick vine smashed into the floor, sending stone fragments flying and exposing a massive crater.
"There's no need to be so rash — what if you destroy the laboratory?"
A ring of green light shot above the vines, expanding into a halo that enveloped both vines and flower. The speed of the vine attacks dropped dramatically.
Leilin raised an eyebrow and pulled a packet of black powder from his bag, scattering it across the surrounding ground.
At the same time, while spreading the powder, he rapidly chanted an incantation under his breath.
"Outsider!" "Die!!" The face formed by the petals roared furiously, shifting and changing — sometimes producing a male voice, then transforming back into a woman's face.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The dark green vines lashed about wildly, battering the ground around the mansion into a pitted, cratered mess.
Leilin relied entirely on his Knight-level physical agility to dodge, his mouth never ceasing its incantation for even a moment.
Finally, after Leilin had completed one full circuit around the villa, the area was thoroughly sprinkled with the black powder he had thrown earlier.
At that moment, the chant on Leilin's lips abruptly stopped. He pointed at the face made of petals and commanded, "Go! Death Cloud!"
Boom!!!
The black powder rapidly melted, transforming into wisps of gas that converged into a massive dark cloud, completely engulfing the entire villa.
Hiss! Hiss! Constant sounds issued from within, reminding Leilin of the scene he had witnessed earlier where flesh-eating flowers dissolved their prey.
The black cloud was incredibly dense, making it impossible to see the situation inside.
Only the occasional sound of the bone-eating flowers could still be heard, growing weaker and weaker until it finally ceased entirely, leaving only the teeth-aching sound of corrosion.
After five minutes, the dark smoke gradually dissipated, revealing the original villa.
However, the villa's surface was now riddled with holes from the corrosion, looking as though it could collapse at any moment.
The devil vines and bone-eating flowers that had previously clung to the villa walls had completely vanished, with only some remnants left scattered on the ground.
"What a domineering spell! Death Cloud! A Zero-level Spell that only Third-rank Apprentices can learn, consuming five points of Spiritual Power and five points of mana in one go, but it's worth every bit!"
Leilin nodded in satisfaction.
A single Death Cloud not only eradicated all the devil vines and bone-eating flowers but also corroded more than half of the villa's defensive Wizard Array. The remnants no longer posed any significant threat to Leilin.
Moreover, Death Cloud was one of the few Dark Element spells with relatively minimal destructive force to the environment. It could dismantle the villa's surface defenses while preserving most of the building's overall structure—a spell Leilin had carefully selected for this particular exploration.
"However... the villa body itself has suffered corrosion damage and won't hold up for much longer!"
Leilin stepped forward and lightly rapped on the wooden door. Boom!!! The door instantly shattered into countless fragments that fell to the ground.