Apple Garden

This time, to avoid having to guard against strangers once they reached the wilds, Roy, Renion, and the others decided to stick together.

Four people happened to be enough to register as a team. Once they waited for the Advanced Apprentice assigned by the wizard tower to join them, it would make a standard mission lineup.

What pleased them was that she was no ordinary Advanced Apprentice.

She was powerful enough to deter petty troublemakers.

What worried them, however, was whether the wizard tower would assign Sophia some simple task and have her take a bunch of rookies on an outing.

No matter how they looked at it, this was a difficult mission.

Early in the morning, they arrived at the entrance of the wizard tower ahead of time. Quite a few apprentices had already set out one after another, and the Vast Majority wore miserable expressions, as though they were heading off to their deaths.

After reading the mission description, Roy and the others wore much the same expressions.

Only then did they learn that the wizard tower had assigned them to a Level 0 Resource Node nicknamed the "Apple Garden."

Sure enough, it had been marked as a difficult-level mission.

Just then, a familiar apprentice who often attended classes with them approached with someone in tow.

"That's... Trides?"

He was a newly promoted Intermediate Apprentice from the same cohort as them.

They had often run into each other during foundational classes before, and over time, they had become somewhat familiar.

Trides strutted before several teams ahead of them. "Let me introduce you. This is Senior Student Potterning."

Hearing the name of this Old Apprentice, which had long been notorious, Roy, Renion, and the others could not help showing surprised expressions.

The apprentice who had been approached also looked startled and hurriedly saluted. "Greetings, Senior Student Potterning."

Potterning had a conspicuous scar on his face, stretching from his forehead to his cheek. His head was bald as well, covered in pits of varying sizes.

Such physical traits were not uncommon among apprentices. In a sense, they could even be considered marks of "experience."

After all, they were caused by certain battles or dangerous experiments.

Potterning gave the apprentice before him a once-over. "I heard from Trides that your potions sell well. Shouldn't you offer some tribute to your senior?"

The apprentice's body trembled. "Senior Student..."

Potterning sneered. "You don't even understand the Rules, yet you want to do business in the tower?

From now on, hand over seventy percent of all profits. Understand?

I'll have Trides keep an eye on you, so don't think you can avoid it!"

The apprentice froze in place, not knowing what to say for a moment.

Wasn't this outright robbery?

Roy sneered.

He knew that Potterning himself also knew that demanding seventy percent of the profits was nonsense.

He was clearly opening his Lion's Mouth, waving the stick around first, then deciding how far to push things based on each person's resistance. Whatever extra he could squeeze out would be extra.

That Trides was scum too. If he had not leaked information as a fellow student of the same rank, how could Potterning possibly know so much about everyone's circumstances?

People like him, who helped a tyrant commit evil, were even more hateful than the bully himself!

However, at that very moment.

Potterning's expression suddenly changed drastically. Then, like a mouse spotting a cat, he quickly turned and left, seeming almost to Flee in Panic.

It was not only Roy. The several apprentices Beside Him who had temporarily escaped misfortune also showed surprised expressions.

But they soon came to a Sudden Realization.

Because Sophia had arrived.

She had another person with her, the braided girl Sailen whom they had seen before.

"Who is part of the Apple Garden investigation team?"

Sophia had Noticed neither what had happened Just Now nor, perhaps, considered it worth her attention.

She merely stepped into the crowd and asked casually.

"Senior Student Sophia, it's us..."

Renion stepped forward, trying to ingratiate himself.

Sophia cut him off. "Let's go."

Renion looked embarrassed and did not dare say anything more.

Sophia stroked her ring and summoned two balls of light from what appeared to be a Storage Artifact.

Immediately After, their forms expanded, Transformed Into two Great Wolf puppets over three meters long, and Appeared before everyone.

They were Flesh Puppets refined from the corpses of magical creatures. They carried a sinister aura of death, yet their forms were lifelike enough that one might truly mistake them for living creatures without looking closely.

"Get on."

Sophia had several people climb onto the back of one Great Wolf, while she and Sailen rode the other.

Then, without hesitation, they set off.

Along the way, the Great Wolves ran wildly, jostling everyone badly.

The journey was far from comfortable, but it was convenient and fast. In a little over two hours, they reached the mission site marked by the wizard tower, where the "Apple Garden" was located.

Sophia had everyone dismount, then led them inside herself.

Before them lay a wilderness garden within a valley.

The walls built in years past still stood tall, but they had long been covered in vines and moss.

Lush vegetation filled the garden. Winding paths led deeper inside, lined on both sides with fruit trees that looked remarkably like apple trees.

"So this is the so-called Apple Garden..."

"It doesn't Look Like anything special."

Everyone surveyed their surroundings, each wearing a different expression.

The seven wizard towers of the Seven Towers Alliance were all gathered on this continent Named Mysterious Island. It was a place where magic was abundant in the Wizarding World and all sorts of materials were concentrated and produced.

After the Archmages ventured into the sea of stars and conquered other worlds, they brought back many Good Things from outside to Feed Back the World Will. Thus, they could continuously cultivate lower-ranking wizards as reserve forces.

The "Apple Garden" was one such artificially established Resource Node.

There were usually guards here, but now, they were likely In Grave Danger.

"Hehehehe..."

As they pondered, inexplicable laughter drifted through the wind.

"The trees... the trees are laughing!"

"No, it's the fruit on the trees!"

Everyone stared over in surprise.

Sophia was rather disdainful of the Intermediate Apprentices making such a Fuss. "They're only Serpent Fruit. What is there to Make a Fuss about?"

Serpent Fruit were magical fruits capable of stirring the desires deep within human hearts. They possessed hallucinogenic effects.

Some alchemists extracted their juice and brewed it into a potion Named "Sweet Dreams"...

Although it was not very useful, it remained quite popular.

Among low-grade materials, it was a fruit-type magical herb with relatively high economic value.

Recalling the knowledge in his mind, Roy gradually Turned His Gaze To the depths of the orchard, where a miasma-like fog hung thickly.

"The radiation contamination from Witchcraft Energy is actually far more severe than expected.

It seems the previous accident has already begun affecting the earth veins."

The sky above the vast orchard was dim. Though it should have been midday, it felt as if night were about to fall.

Yet the orchard below seemed to possess its own spiritual glow, remaining as bright as day.

"Wait, something isn't quite right."

Sophia stopped and gazed into the distance, as though she wanted to see through the fog.

Roy's heart tightened at her words.

He heard a hint of wariness in Sophia's tone.

"There may be something hiding inside..."

Sophia's voice became ethereal.

The surrounding fog silently spread.

Before they realized it, it had gradually swallowed everyone's figures.