Chapter Summaries

Locke planned to refine and protect his Memory Ointment while weighing the risks of publicly patenting his discoveries. After examining the Crystal Palmfire Lotus’s cultivation formula, he decided to grow it at scale, enter a competition, and begin establishing his own Potion Laboratory.

• Locke decided to reproduce the Memory Ointment and add ineffective ingredients to make its formula harder to reverse-engineer.
• Locke rejected applying for patents for now because disclosing formulas would invite pirated copies and reduce his profits.
• Locke examined the Crystal Palmfire Lotus and learned the precise resonance frequencies and cultivation steps needed to produce it.
• Locke concluded that the Synthesis Cube could reveal cultivation results and formulas before he learned the underlying methods and improved his skills with Memory Ointment.
• Locke decided to cultivate Crystal Palmfire Lotuses across ten mu of land, write a general outline, enter a competition, and try to establish his own Potion Laboratory.

Locke visited Senior Advisor Francis to obtain the Advanced Meditation Method and signed the White Wizard Association’s Non-Proliferation Agreement before receiving it through a magical transmission. After Locke left, Francis examined his file and worried that the Academy had made a serious mistake by assigning such a gifted student to a teacher not bound by contract.

• Locke met Senior Advisor Francis, who asked about his life at Lilith’s Cottage and reassured him that the Academy could be a home and refuge.
• Francis explained that Locke had to sign a Non-Proliferation Agreement before receiving the Advanced Meditation Method through the First-Ring Enchantment spell [Bloodline Inheritance].
• Locke signed the agreement and pressed his palm to the crystal ball, receiving the Advanced Meditation Method directly into his mind.
• Locke left Francis’s office feeling watched, and Francis’s smile disappeared as he read Locke’s file.
• Francis judged Locke’s aptitude to be close to that of a Child of the Element and worried that assigning him to a teacher without an Academy contract could weaken his loyalty to Lilith’s Cottage.

Francis rejected Locke’s request for a medium-sized botanical garden to protect his plans for the academy’s animal-taming curriculum, while Locke began practicing the Natural Plane Advanced Meditation Method. After discovering its benefits and costly resource requirements, Locke concluded he needed to earn more money.

• Francis decided not to grant Locke a botanical garden because he wanted the quota for a Formal Wizard’s son and prioritized the animal-taming curriculum.
• Locke left Francis’s office uneasy about the dangerous wizard, then returned to his residence and entered his meditation room.
• Locke practiced the Natural Plane Advanced Meditation Method, drawing energy from a distant plane and breaking through his magic-power bottleneck.
• Locke learned that reaching Formal Wizard required the method’s fourth level and that meditation consumed stamina.
• Locke calculated the high costs of Stamina Potions, Four Seasons Fruit-Kernel Incense, and his other research, and resolved that he needed to make money.

Locke used the Advanced Meditation Method to rapidly increase his mana and went to Chimera Market to sell his magical plants. Yuli Burns proposed that Lilith's Cottage Academy might purchase his Crystal Palmfire Lotus in bulk, with academy buyers due at Golden Secret that afternoon.

• Locke measured his spirit power at 224 after gaining three points of mana from three hours of advanced meditation and resolved to make the most of the beginner's bonus period.
• Locke brought two carts of magical plants to Chimera Market and met Yuli Burns at the Golden Secret shop.
• Locke gave Yuli Burns Witch Sophia's certification for the Crystal Palmfire Lotus and explained that the Mana Synchronization Cultivation Method had inspired its development.
• Yuli Burns praised the Crystal Palmfire Lotus as a useful war material and offered to recommend it to Lilith's Cottage Academy's bulk procurement department.
• Yuli Burns told Locke that academy buyers would visit Golden Secret that afternoon to consider bulk purchases.

Locke met Yuli Burns at Golden Secret, where she discussed the academy’s collective procurement and invited him to lunch. After they left, the shop’s apprentices learned Locke had advanced from Second-Class to First-Class Wizard Apprentice within a year, leaving Isaacs stunned by the gap between their progress.

• Yuli told Locke she would notify him if his creation passed the academy’s collective procurement, then invited him to discuss it over lunch at the Witch’s Kitchen.
• Yuli described how employees who damaged a Black Mandrake could be forced into harsh debts and work at Lady Irina’s businesses to repay them.
• After Yuli left with Locke, Golden Secret’s employees discussed the young visitor, and Isaacs wondered whether Locke belonged to his cohort.
• An older employee identified the visitor as Locke Augustine, a genius breeder who had become a First-Class Wizard Apprentice within a year.
• Isaacs called Locke’s rapid advancement unfair, while the older employee reminded him that progress differed among people and that working at Golden Secret was already an achievement.

Locke learned what the Academy required for bulk procurement and applied to establish a Personal Potion Laboratory. He showed Sophia his Memory Ointment, hoping to demonstrate a potion that could support his application.

• At Witch's Kitchen, Yuli Burns explained that enchanted food could cause dependence and told Locke that Birch Purification Potion could counter the effects.
• Yuli warned Locke that the Academy's bulk procurement review required proof of White Wizard Association ethical approval, especially for products using slave-derived ingredients.
• Locke went to Sophia's office to ask her to submit his Personal Potion Laboratory application and explained that he was tutoring Wizard Urien Ritchie's grandson.
• Sophia outlined the laboratory's staffing, equipment, and financial requirements, and explained why the Academy strictly reviewed potion production and sales.
• Locke placed a jar of Memory Ointment before Sophia and explained how he had developed it while making Mind-Calming Ointment.

Locke discussed his Memory Ointment with Sophia, who explained how to shorten its required safety trials and warned him against reckless experimentation. She also asked him to help at the Healing Hand Clinic while she prepared for the Starfield Sea teaching-position assessment.

• Sophia recognized that wire fern spores could enhance memory when combined with Mind-Calming Ointment and praised Locke's potion-making intuition.
• Sophia explained that the ointment needed animal, ordinary-person, and Wizard Apprentice trials, then advised Locke to run them concurrently and prepare three reports.
• Locke considered using Pierre, whose Low Magic Resistance Constitution could make the ointment's safety results especially convincing.
• Sophia gave Locke information about the Healing Hand Clinic and asked him to help with its patients because her academy duties were overwhelming her.
• Locke agreed to help Sophia so she could focus on the Starfield Sea teaching-position assessment.

Locke followed Sophia to the Healing Hand Clinic, where he studied the curses afflicting wizard apprentices and learned about the clinic’s role in the war between Lilith's Cottage and the Blood Curse Court. As they climbed toward the more dangerous floors, Locke resisted the curse-tainted Mana and listened to Sophia explain how Curse Magic worked.

• Locke and Sophia entered the Healing Hand Clinic, where he recognized the Thousand Blades Curse and the Paralysis Curse afflicting patients.
• Sophia explained that Lilith's Cottage Potion Masters treated curses cast by the Blood Curse Court, and that the conflict between their factions had become a Wizard War.
• Locke observed that the first floor held cursed patients and mortal slaves, then followed Sophia up the spiral staircase.
• Locke sensed malignant Mana spreading from above and drank Bear-Spirit Bile Antidote to resist it.
• Sophia explained that Curse Magic gained power from its victims' pain and that Potion Masters could break its malignant cycle.

Locke accompanied Sophia through the Healing Hand infirmary, where a student suffering from a deadly Blood Curse revealed the threat posed by a new spell developed by Hassan Quinn. Sophia identified the curse and explained its origins to Edwin, who asked how it spread.

• Sophia led Locke to the second floor, where severely cursed Wizard Apprentices filled the ward.
• Edwin temporarily suppressed a Botany student’s Blood Curse and ordered the assistants to arrange Academy-funded treatment because an outbreak could kill everyone connected to the victim by blood.
• Sophia identified the spell as the Mother-Child Giant Corpse Blood Curse and introduced Locke to Edwin as her student and a newly certified Potions assistant.
• Sophia explained that Hassan Quinn, a leading Wizard Seed of the Blood Curse Court, had developed the new curse with help from his mentors.
• Edwin asked Sophia how the Mother-Child Giant Blood Curse was transmitted.

Wizard Sophia brought Locke to help assess a Blood Curse that threatened everyone who had spoken to its victim, while she and Wizard Edwin discussed how to keep him alive and manage the academy’s response. After the victim signed a loan contract for treatment, Locke was sent to assist with the curse as Wizard Sophia and Wizard Edwin turned to two even more difficult curses cast by Formal Wizards.

• Wizard Sophia gave Locke and Wizard Edwin documents describing the Mother-Child Giant Corpse Blood Curse, which could spread to anyone who had spoken with its victim within a month.
• Wizard Sophia explained that the weakened curse spread more easily, and Wizard Edwin proposed keeping the victim alive long enough for its affected range to shrink.
• The assistants realized they were within the curse’s range and could die if the victim died before the curse was undone.
• Locke examined the documents and concluded that ordinary antidotes could not resolve the curse, though he accepted that his lack of experience left him unable to solve it.
• The assistants helped the victim sign a loan contract, and Wizard Edwin ordered him moved to a private room on the third floor.
• Wizard Sophia sent Locke to work with the assistants while she and Wizard Edwin went to address two harder Blood Curses cast by Formal Wizards of the Blood Curse Court.

Locke observed treatment at the Healing Hand Clinic and learned how Assistant Potion Makers handled curses. When his Omen Mandrake Vines warned him of lethal hostility, he realized the Holly High Tower apprentice might be involved in a Consciousness-Dividing Curse.

• Locke arrived at the Healing Hand Clinic’s second-floor office and studied its records on curses while waiting for work.
• Aixi and Anglu diagnosed a Holly High Tower apprentice with a likely Consciousness-Splitting Curse and began treating him with potions.
• Locke noticed the apprentice’s strange, puppet-like compliance and felt that something was wrong.
• Locke’s Omen Mandrake Vines turned red, warning him that someone nearby harbored intense hostility and killing intent toward him.
• Locke looked back at the Holly High Tower apprentice and recalled the characteristics of the Blood Curse Court’s Consciousness-Dividing Curse.

Locke stopped Aixi and Anglu from giving a Holly High Tower apprentice a potion that would have dangerously fused his consciousness. The apprentice revealed himself as the Black Wizard who had controlled the Corpse Explosion Technique, and Aixi attacked him.

• Locke realized the patient’s symptoms did not match a Consciousness-Dividing Curse and shouted for Aixi and Anglu to stop administering the Twinflower Soul-Congealing Potion.
• When Aixi and Anglu continued, Locke bound them with Magic Vines and seized the potion before the patient could take it.
• The Holly High Tower apprentice sat up and tried to grab the potion, revealing that he could move and was not suffering from the curse Aixi and Anglu had diagnosed.
• Anglu and Aixi recognized their mistake, thanked Locke, and turned their attention to the apprentice.
• The apprentice identified Locke as someone who had interrupted his experiment and admitted he had controlled the Corpse Explosion Technique.
• Aixi attacked the apprentice with Shattered Light Floating Seeds.

Hassan Quinn, controlling a half-vampire, attacked the Potion Makers in Holly High Tower and trapped them in darkness with the Light-Fearer's Litany. He singled out Locke, who dodged his assault and prepared to fight back with a level-seven synthetic magical plant.

• Hassan Quinn transformed the Wizard Apprentice into a half-vampire and used its speed and enhanced physique to evade attacks and wound Anglu.
• The half-vampire defeated the Assistant Potion Makers’ attempts to stop him, while Locke realized he needed to restrict its mobility.
• Hassan activated a ritual pattern traced across the office, blinding Locke and the other six First-Class Wizard Apprentices for thirty seconds.
• Hassan targeted Locke, but Locke sensed the half-vampire’s attacks through Clivia and dodged them despite a cut on his neck.
• Locke took out a King Rotten Soil Konjac and prepared to attack, while Hassan was angered by Locke’s eagerness to fight.

Locke and the other apprentices stopped Hassan Quinn’s attack and freed the apprentice he had turned into a puppet, though Hassan escaped after unleashing a curse. Locke, Anglu, and Aixi became friends, and the arrival of the Formal Wizards left them facing a likely reprimand.

• Hassan’s cursed puppet wounded Locke, but Locke’s King Rotten Soil Konjac spores disrupted its senses and left both sides temporarily unable to press their attack.
• The apprentices regained their sight, restrained Hassan’s puppet, and used Anglu’s Dryad Dispelling Potion to interrupt the Vampire Transformation Curse.
• Hassan Quinn’s shadow gathered the dispersed curse energy and exploded to cast a collective curse, so Locke and the others drank Bear Spirit Bile to protect themselves.
• Locke, Anglu, and Aixi exchanged names and thanked one another for fighting together, while Anglu urged Locke to seek treatment for his curses.
• Aixi warned that the Formal Wizards had arrived and that the group might be scolded for the damage to the office.

After the clinic attack, Wizard Edwin and Witch Sophia assessed the apprentices’ response and Sophia gave Locke a new potion to heal him. She then entrusted Locke with treating cursed patients using her Lesser Emerald Potion formula, leaving him poised to earn money toward opening a Potion Laboratory and selling Memory Ointment.

• Wizard Edwin praised Locke’s combat talent but warned the apprentices to improve their vigilance against attacks from the Blood Curse Court.
• Witch Sophia gave Locke a Lesser Emerald Potion to dispel his curses and heal his wounds, then took him aside to check whether he could handle the front line.
• Witch Sophia praised Locke’s improved Magic Plants and revealed that she planned to transfer some cursed patients to him for treatment.
• Witch Sophia gave Locke the Lesser Emerald Potion formula, offered to split treatment fees with him, and agreed to reimburse special-effect potions when needed.
• Locke accepted the arrangement and planned to use the treatment fees and his Crystal Palmfire Lotus order to fund a Potion Laboratory and sell Memory Ointment.

Locke spent his savings to maximize his meditation gains during the Newbie Benefit Period, then began recruiting staff and experimental subjects for his Personal Potion Laboratory. He hired Pierre as a paid experimental subject and prepared to interview several Second-Class Wizard Apprentices.

• Locke calculated that his full-resource meditation would exhaust his savings in about thirteen days, but decided not to miss the Newbie Benefit Period or take a high-interest loan.
• After one night of meditation with all his resources, Locke's Mental Power rose from 227 to 235.
• Locke began recruiting for his Personal Potion Laboratory, which required a Second-Class Wizard Apprentice in addition to the apprentices and assistant he had already gathered.
• Pierre arrived after receiving Locke's letter and asked whether serving as an experimental subject was safe.
• Locke explained the experiments and offered Pierre 100 Magic Stones per month, and Pierre signed the contract.
• Several Second-Class Wizard Apprentices gathered outside Locke's residence to interview for positions in his laboratory.

Locke interviewed Second-Class Wizard Apprentices for an assistant position and questioned Tali Calvin about her experience in Anglong's Potion Laboratory. Her account of an experimental accident and her dismissal led Locke to suspect that Anglong had escaped consequences despite repeated violations.

• Locke reviewed applicants' résumés and found that most lacked useful Potion experience.
• Applicants outside discussed the dangers of working as beast-keeper assistants at the Blood Roar Colosseum.
• Locke interviewed Tali Calvin, who admitted she had been a laborer rather than a true assistant in Anglong's Potion Laboratory.
• Tali Calvin said she had been dismissed after violating rules during an experimental accident and pleaded for another chance to work with Potions.
• Locke questioned why Anglong had recruited so many outsiders and realized that Anglong had avoided consequences for repeatedly violating experimental rules and harming Wizard Seedlings.

Locke hired Teri Calvin as his Potion Laboratory assistant after deciding her past scandal might not jeopardize his review, then began practicing potion-making. A representative from Golden Secret invited him to meet Yuli Burns and Zack to discuss a centralized purchasing contract for his Crystal Palmfire Lotus.

• Locke considered Teri Calvin’s qualifications and offered her a reduced salary of sixty Magic Stones a month, pending confirmation that her past would not affect his laboratory review.
• Teri Calvin accepted Locke’s offer and told the other Second-Class Wizard Apprentices that the position had been filled.
• Locke practiced refining Lesser Emerald Potion with basic equipment and inexpensive substitute materials.
• A laborer from Golden Secret invited Locke to lunch with Yuli Burns and Zack, who wanted to discuss the Academy’s centralized purchasing contract for Crystal Palmfire Lotus.

Locke met Academy purchasing representative Zack at the Witch's Kitchen, where Zack offered news about Yuli Burns's Aging Curse and described the Academy's campaign against the Blood Curse Court. Zack proposed a major contract for Crystal Palmfire Lotus, leaving Locke to weigh the demanding delivery terms against the resources he needed.

• Seasoner Julianne served Locke, Yuli, and Zack the Witch's Kitchen's Three-Color Salt Grain Steak and explained its enchanted flavors.
• Zack told Yuli Burns that Verdantia University would soon send Potion students and Formal Wizards to the Academy for an exchange program, possibly giving her a chance to find a cure for her Aging Curse.
• Zack explained that wizard organizations held exchange conferences and revealed how the Academy had used Emerald Potion and Weather Wizards to contaminate the Blood Curse Court's water and farmland.
• Zack said the Blood Curse Court was likely to retaliate and praised the quality and power of Locke's Crystal Palmfire Lotus.
• Zack offered Locke a contract worth at least twenty thousand Magic Stones for four thousand Crystal Palmfire Lotus plants within three months, and Locke considered whether his one-hundred-mu Plantation could meet the requirement.

Locke secured a magical-plant procurement contract with Lilith's Cottage Academy and used much of the advance to stock up on supplies for cultivating Crystal Palmfire Lotus. After his shopping spree, he weighed his remaining funds against upcoming expenses, including slaves, competition preparations, potion research, and ancient bloodline research.

• Locke agreed to sign Zack's procurement contract only after the academy paid him twenty thousand Magic Stones, and he spent the evening meditating with potions and incense.
• Zack brought the Magic Stones and contract the next morning, and Locke signed a bulk procurement agreement with Lilith's Cottage Academy.
• Locke spent 7,200 Magic Stones and his savings on supplies for the rest of his beginner benefit period, then bought advanced breeding supplies and farming tools at Golden Secret.
• Yuli offered Locke one ton of Radiant Sulfur Crystals at a discount, and Locke rented a small Weather Control Instrument for his plantation.
• Locke counted the 7,700 Magic Stones he had left and considered future costs for slaves, the breeder competition, a Potion Laboratory, potion study, enchanted armor, and ancient bloodline research.