Stone Crab Bloodline

Alder saw Locke in his office. He froze for a moment, then broke into a sincere smile, feeling a little more grateful toward Locke. "Locke, you're here."

Seeing Locke standing at the door to his office and refusing to step inside, Alder smiled and said to the three students copying historical documents for him, "Keep copying."

"Come on, Locke. Let's go somewhere else."

"Somewhere safer."

After the two left, the three students in the office exchanged looks, Cohen Julian among them.

Pale-faced Cohen Julian raised his head and watched the backs of Locke and Professor Alder as they departed, his fists clenched tight.

Why was Professor Alder so restrained around Locke Augustine—he could even be said to be slightly currying favor with him? Locke Augustine was merely a fallen former noble without a country.

What exactly was the difference between him and that Locke?

Cohen Julian wanted to escape this office.

But when he recalled the letter from his father two nights ago, loudly berating him for refusing to contribute to the family, refusing to serve the Empire and the esteemed Emperor Frank, he could only lower his head and continue copying historical documents.

He had enjoyed far too much of the power and influence brought by the Julian Family. Every gift bestowed by fate had long been marked with its price in secret.

Now was the time for him to repay the family.

In a classroom at Aurelian Academy that had long been unused, Alder opened a chest. Half its space held an enormous dissected crab. Its shell was not a chitinous biological shell, but gray stone.

There were red patterns on the surface of the stone crab shell.

The crab's stone claws were exceptionally huge, marked with several wounds.

Locke asked, "Is this the magical creature from the world beyond the sea, the Stone Crab?"

Alder said excitedly, "Yes. The wilderness across the sea is far more dangerous than the wilderness of Corfu Island. There are many dangerous magical creatures there."

"The Stone Crab is one of them."

"It is also a relatively long-lived species. Stone Crabs can live nearly three hundred years. I noticed this creature long ago and believed that if I could uncover the secret to its longevity, I could greatly extend my own lifespan."

"Of course, I certainly couldn't conduct such complex research with my own abilities. But I was lucky. A Formal Wizard at Verdantia University was conducting this experiment, and I joined it as an assistant."

"The experiment never fully succeeded, until I came to Corfu Island."

"But the experiment did produce some byproducts. For example, the Stone Crab Bloodline Modification Potion can harden a modified Wizard Apprentice's skin and internal dermal organs into the skin of a Stone Crab."

Alder said wistfully, "If I hadn't been driven into a corner, I wouldn't have taken the risk of modifying myself with the Stone Crab Bloodline."

The remaining half of the chest contained nine stalks of three kinds of unknown flowers, three round ores, three bottles of alcohol, and three syringes of blood.

An ice-blue rune flashed across the inner surface of the wooden chest, then rapidly dimmed, as if it had lost its Mana.

Alder said regretfully, "This chest can only be opened once. Once opened, the magic within loses its effect."

"The materials stored inside can no longer be kept at low temperatures. If we don't refine them soon, these materials will become unusable. Locke, I'll still be the one refining them, but you'll be carrying it out."

"My Mana is too crude. I can't do delicate work at all now."

Locke said, "I can begin at any time."

He stroked the Deep Blue Orb Ring on his right hand. Its craftsmanship was quite ingenious: an ordinary sapphire and a Deep Blue Orb had been set together, so outsiders would see only the outer sapphire.

They would not see the Deep Blue Orb embedded beneath it.

Like a filter, the Deep Blue Orb could forcibly reduce the intensity of his Mental Power fluctuations by half. It had greatly benefited Locke when he constructed his first Spell Model.

At the same time, the illusory Horadric Cube before Locke's eyes was spinning at high speed, bursting with a spark of magic with every rotation.

The Magic Cube was synthesizing. The materials were three Level 4 Deep Blue Jade pieces, and the result would be a Level 5 item.

After Locke became a Third-Class Wizard Apprentice, the level of items the Horadric Cube could synthesize had automatically increased by one level.

However, the synthesis would still require twenty-four hours to complete.

Level 4 and Level 5 items seemed to be divided by a threshold. Synthesizing a Level 4 item took only three hours, while synthesizing a Level 5 item astonishingly required an entire day.

Adjusting his monocle, Alder said, "The first step is to separate the Stone Crab's special bloodline, then combine it with the Bloodline Separation Essence Injection Potion made by my mentor. That will allow us to precisely isolate the part of the Stone Crab Bloodline we need."

Locke looked at the three syringes in the chest. Presumably, those were the so-called Bloodline Separation Essence Injection Potions.

Alder took out a set of dissection knives from his pocket, then used a small blade to cut and dismantle the Stone Crab along its stone shell.

His movements were practiced, and he handled each tool with ease. As promised, he explained his actions while working, allowing Locke to understand the reasoning behind this material-processing procedure.

As agreed, Locke would help him refine the potion, while Alder would pay him with knowledge and the Spell Model for Skull Explosion.

Before long, the Stone Crab's carapace, tail limbs, mouthparts, walking legs, and clawed legs were separated one by one and sorted accordingly.

However, the main blood-storage areas within the Stone Crab's corpse—the gill chambers, joint cavities, and pericardial cavity—were left as intact as possible.

Alder said, "One of the greatest values of low-level magical creatures lies in their blood. So during dissection, the bones, flesh, and shell must all be separated, but one must avoid damaging the hearts and blood vessels that circulate blood within magical creatures, or, in creatures with open circulatory systems like Stone Crabs, the areas where blood is mainly stored."

"This prevents waste of materials and even avoids affecting their spiritual nature."

"Some experiments are like gambling. Sometimes, wizards cannot be certain which mistaken step caused a slight effect on a material's spiritual nature, leading to vastly different experimental results."

Professor Alder said calmly, "This is basic material-processing knowledge, Locke. Listen carefully."

"I'm teaching you all of this for free."