Harvest

Fran returned to her dormitory with a heart full of excitement. Looking at the room, which was nearly filled with scrap metal and cluttered with several boxes, she felt for the first time that she needed to find a new place to live.

Originally, she had been so focused on grinding her skill proficiency that every time the thought of moving crossed her mind, she would suppress it, telling herself to just endure it a little longer.

But now, looking at the room where there was barely any space to set foot, Fran felt she could no longer tolerate it.

Here, not only were there weapons she had ruined while grinding her runecrafting, but also boxes filled with materials for brewing Energy Potion, along with a lot of trash that should have been thrown away long ago.

Now that she had killed Richter and acquired a set of skills that weren't half bad even among high-level apprentices, it was time to improve her quality of life.

However, that was a task for tomorrow morning; if you threw out trash in the middle of the night, people would think you were crazy, so she decided to clean up this mess tomorrow.

She walked to the table, sat down, and took out her spoils from the night: a notebook with an extraordinary cover, a box, and several pieces of magical equipment.

In fact, her interface had also provided a notification; the moment she killed Richter, a prompt had popped up in her mind.

[You have fulfilled the future you foresaw, Star Gazing Art proficiency +200]

[Star Gazing Art proficiency progress is full, level increased.]

First of all, the phrase "fulfilled the future you foresaw" was a bit intriguing—did that mean it was possible not to fulfill it?

Regardless, being able to foresee her own future had been a great help, even if the increase in Star Gazing Art proficiency didn't result in any knowledge flooding into her mind.

Now, she felt a vague intuition that if she were to look at the stars right now, she would likely be able to see scenes of the future as well.

Moreover, when she was killing Richter earlier, she didn't know why, but she had acted exactly according to the images she had seen, and she had even unleashed power that clearly exceeded her own level.

This led her to a hypothesis: could it be that she received some kind of assistance when she acted in accordance with the images of the future?

This thought seemed to be verified as she examined the magical equipment.

These pieces of magical equipment were all in good condition, with only slight wear on the corners.

Their function was the one mages loved most: automatically deploying a shield when facing an attack.

While these pieces of equipment were slightly worn and theoretically could have malfunctioned, it would be quite abnormal for all three to fail at the same time.

She tested them now and found that they could still be triggered.

This sparked a new hypothesis in Fran's mind: could it be that in the vision she saw, no magical equipment was triggered, and therefore, when that moment arrived, it truly didn't trigger?

There were many other possibilities to discuss, but Fran intuitively felt that this was exactly how it worked.

Pulling back her thoughts, she looked at these pieces of magical equipment and wondered how to handle them.

Wearing them herself was out of the question; not only had these pieces "malfunctioned" before, but their sizes didn't fit her frame at all.

Take this ring, for example: Richter had worn it on his index finger, but her small hand couldn't even fit it onto her thumb.

Sell them outside? Who knew if someone would remember these as Richter's former belongings and, seeing that he had gone missing, trace the investigation back through these items.

Besides, she had actually made a fortune selling Energy Potion, so she didn't really care for this kind of magical equipment. It would be better to craft some herself after grinding her proficiency; she might even be able to outclass these by a wide margin.

"I'll just leave them for now and deal with them later."

Then, she turned her attention to the beautifully bound notebook and flipped through it.

[July 23, 3768 of the Holy Calendar: Observing the Mentor's Transmutation Techniques

Content: Today, the mentor is going to give us newcomers who have just joined the school a demonstration of transmutation. I am very excited to have such an opportunity.

The teacher chose a giant bird; according to the other apprentices, this bird is called a Sounding Bird.

It is a magical beast that relies on sound to attack. Originally, there were no magical beasts around the City of Apprentices, but this bird's habitat was destroyed, and it migrated here, arriving near the City of Apprentices.

There used to be magical beasts around the City of Apprentices, but as the city gradually expanded and the number of apprentices grew, the mercenaries who flocked here killed off a large circle of the surrounding beasts.

This is a very rare magical beast in the City of Apprentices.

According to the mentor at the beginning, magical beasts here are too scarce, which is not conducive to learning the art of transmutation. If there is an opportunity, one must go to another place to study it.

I have heard that the most famous technique of the Transmutation School is to remove the organs of magical beasts and transplant them into the human body, achieving the effect of casting spell-like abilities without needing to learn spells.

But the City of Apprentices is truly too far from the habitats of magical beasts; in the three years since I joined the Transmutation School, I have only seen this kind of organ-harvesting surgery once.

But what can you do? The substances used to keep magical beast corpses active are very precious and cannot be used on the transport of basic magical beast carcasses.

Furthermore, the active fluid only delays the decline of the corpse's vitality; it cannot keep it at the initial stage.

Back to the point: the mentor placed the Sounding Bird's carcass into a basin filled with a colorless liquid. After placing it in, I saw the bird's throat glowing.

"This is the main magical organ of this bird; the vast majority of a magical beast's value lies in this."

That is what the mentor said. Next, he demonstrated exactly how to harvest the organ and what to use to preserve it after removal. As for how to transplant it into the human body, the mentor said this:

"That is new knowledge, and you will need to pay for it."

(Image)(Image)(Image)(Image)]

Below that were the steps Richter had drawn for removing the magical beast's organs; he had carefully observed the mentor's technique and recorded it in detail.

There were also many small notes indicating explanations and commentary.

Fran read it with great interest. It even contained some insights on creating transmutants and the surgical steps for configuring mental strength enhancement, though Richter had given up on the mental strength enhancement surgery after several failed experiments.

After finishing it, Fran could only close the notebook, seeing that a new skill, [Transmutation], had appeared on her interface.

This thing couldn't be practiced like brewing potions or runecrafting; it was sensitive knowledge of the Transmutation School. If she collected too many corpses on the market, people would start paying attention to her. This skill could not be used without ensuring her secrets were kept safe.

Then Fran looked at the final item, the one she felt was the most valuable.

Because a sentence was written on the front of the box.

[Apprentice Assessment Ranking Reward]

Filled with immense anticipation for what might be inside, Fran slowly opened the box.

Inside lay a piece of paper and a stone emitting a blue glow, which looked rather beautiful in the night.

Fran looked at the paper, which only contained the identification of what this stone was.

[Guide of the Spirit Realm].