Intermediate Wizard Apprentice

After leaving the apothecary, Dole did not hurry away. He had been wandering around the mountains these past few days, and his clothes had been torn again. He needed to buy a few sets to keep as spares.

After learning that there were many wild wizards in Duomeng City, Dole gained a new understanding of the Ability Society's control. They acknowledged wild wizards, but not dark wizards. Once discovered, dark wizards would inevitably face the harshest punishment. That was Dole's current understanding of the Ability Society.

Of course, whether they bothered to interfere was one matter. Showing up in front of them to court death was another. He still needed to stay as far away from them as possible.

He spent the night in the slums, then headed for the city gates early the next morning and made his way out of the city.

Just then, he saw a small group approaching through the distant crowd. They were drenched in sweat as they pushed a large cart piled high with stones toward the city.

Behind the cart, Fele sat at the front with an excited look on his face, barking orders at the disciples beside him.

Dole narrowed his eyes at the sight. Then he turned around and headed out of the city without looking back.

He soon vanished into the mountains.

This transaction had earned him about fifteen gold coins. But after exchanging them for other medicinal herbs and auxiliary ingredients he needed, he had spent fourteen gold coins. Clothes, seasonings, alcohol, and other supplies cost another fifty silver coins, leaving him with a pitiful fifty silver coins again. Fifteen gold coins sounded like a lot, but for a wizard, it was still far too little.

After trekking over mountains and ridges, they finally returned to the cave where they lived in the afternoon and continued their grand undertaking of refining medicines.

Although the Hallucinogenic Potion had already succeeded and he had some in stock, he needed to prepare several more portions as backups. Next came ordinary poisons, medicines to smear over the body and conceal one's aura, and herbs for mental power—refining a true basic Mental Power Potion. That was the top priority.

Recently, reading Naluye's biography had given him much inspiration. He was no longer like an ordinary youth, burning with hot blood. He needed a thorough plan before he could act in silence.

Ten days passed in the blink of an eye.

Dole held a test tube in each hand. The one in his left hand was black, while the one in his right was green. He gently shook them, and after about a minute, poured the liquids from both tubes into a glass vessel at the same time. The two liquids mixed and quickly formed a dark green solution.

The liquid showed no reaction—no smoke, no foam—as though the two had simply melted into each other.

At the sight, Dole let out a breath of relief. It had worked.

The black liquid was a poison that would place an enormous burden on the heart until it burst. The green liquid was the Hallucinogenic Potion, capable of producing hallucinations. He had mixed the two together so that when he poisoned someone, it would create the illusion that the victim had taken a hallucinogenic drug and scared himself to death.

Next came experiments to verify his hypothesis, then adjustments to the dosage.

The mountains were full of all kinds of creatures. He needed to capture some for experiments, to determine the necessary dosage, verify whether his proportions were correct, and see whether they produced the desired effects. All of that required living test subjects.

It would be a long process.

Dole gained another new lesson: A Hunter's Self-Cultivation. The book appeared at his door the next day, along with a bow and materials for making traps.

When he saw those things, his wish to ask Lord Bal to help capture some small animals was immediately swallowed back down.

Dole had grown up in the slums. Before the age of ten, he had almost never left the city. After turning ten, he had needed to work and earn money for himself. Yet he had never imagined that one day, he would need to hunt for a living—though during this time, he had indeed relied on a few little tricks to obtain quite a bit of food.

Wizards did not actually need to hunt. They only needed to refine something their prey wanted to eat and use it to lure them over. So Dole merely glanced at the book, flipped through a few pages, then set it aside and began refining something new.

A potion that could attract small wild beasts—beast bait.

Thus, he had no choice but to return to the city once more to buy things unavailable in the mountains. The round trip took another two days of fussing about.

Time slowly drifted into summer.

It was not hot in the mountains. The mountaintop was instead quite cool. Dole sat bare-chested in the cave without a drop of sweat running down his body.

He picked up a small green bottle and drank the liquid inside in one gulp, then closed his eyes and entered his sea of consciousness.

Within his sea of consciousness, twenty-six copper coins were lined up in a neat row, a rather spectacular sight.

Just then, a cool external force flowed into his sea of consciousness. Dole hurriedly mobilized his mental power, drawing that force into his mind and forming the twenty-seventh copper coin.

This was a standard portion of a first-level Mental Power Potion. Unlike simply eating herbs before, the medicinal liquid was much more effective—more than five times stronger. At first, one bottle could increase his mental power by two copper coins. Later on, though, one bottle could only add half a coin. By now, after drinking one bottle, he could only faintly sense that cool aura flowing in.

Dole did not take the Hallucinogenic Potion. That thing was too dangerous. It would not be too late to drink it when he broke through.

Soon, the medicine's effect ended. The twenty-seventh copper coin had grown only a little, enough that its outline was nearly visible.

Just then, he sensed something strange in his mental power. A wondrous rhythm flashed through his heart.

At the same time, the twenty-seventh coin began growing at a visible speed. Then came the twenty-eighth, the twenty-ninth, and in one breath, the thirtieth copper coin.

Dole was startled.

The breakthrough had come for no reason at all. He had already prepared the Hallucinogenic Potion, ready to drink it at any time, but he had not expected to enter the intermediate wizard apprentice stage naturally without taking it.

Dole was silent for a moment, then opened his eyes.

Bal's dog head appeared before him, looking somewhat puzzled and yet somewhat relieved.

"You broke through." His tone was certain.

Dole nodded. "Yes. I'm now an intermediate wizard apprentice."

Bal grunted. "That's enough. At your current pace, you'll reach advanced wizard apprentice by the end of the year. If you're lucky, you can become a first-level wizard before you turn fifteen."

Dole's mouth twitched. "That slow?"

Bal sat down and snorted. "Your talent is good. This is already very good. You should know that some people can never become first-level wizards in their entire lives. Besides, I said you could reach the first level only if you're lucky. If you're unlucky, you'll remain an advanced apprentice for your whole life."

Dole frowned. "It's that difficult?"

The expression on Bal's dog face was exceptionally rich. It seemed disdainful, yet nostalgic, perhaps even scornful. "Becoming first-level is the first leap of life. Only then do you truly begin to touch this vast world, only then are you qualified to enter higher stages. Below the first level, though, everyone is the same—ants, cannon fodder. If you cannot become first-level, life is short. A few decades pass in a flash. Only by becoming first-level do you have a chance at immortality."

Dole was dumbstruck. Naluye's biography had not mentioned any of this.

"Intermediate wizard apprentice is not particularly useful either. Apart from being sharper than a beginner, more sensitive to the outside world, and having some help with potion adjustment and alchemy, your combat power barely improves. But things will be different once you reach advanced level. An advanced wizard apprentice's mental power can extend onto objects they touch. With certain tools, they can achieve effects resembling magic. You humans call that zero-level magic, but in truth, it is still a far cry from real magic."