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Ruiduo stood in a secluded laboratory, her feet resting on... a devil. The little elf was humming a song, stirring the crucible in front of her, which was filled with a bubbling, dark brown liquid. Ciprins was certain that he saw several evil spirits struggling to climb out of the pot, but because the liquid was too viscous, they could only peek out with howling faces. Ruiduo stretched out her delicate little hands and slapped them back, just like playing a whack-a-mole game.

... Hmm... those were inferior evil spirits selected from the undead of those Machine Zealots. We could play with them, but the problem is...

What is Ruiduo going to do with this pot of sticky, gooey liquid mixed with evil spirits?

Ciprins was so captivated that he actually read on intently.

With a perfectly executed wave of her little hand, Ruiduo summoned two skeletons— Ciprins couldn't help but feel a surge of pride. He hadn't arranged many magic lessons for Ruiduo because the little elf had been out of touch with society for too long; what she desperately needed was to catch up on common sense. So Ruiduo had simply watched him and Mel summon skeletons and learned it on her own. This talent convinced the two dark mages to keep her in the tower; they certainly didn't intend to return her to the elves.

The problem was, the skeleton she summoned... well, it had a bow around its neck, wore a maid's dress and an apron, clearly meticulously dressed up by the summoner. But what made Ciprins both laugh and cry was— Ruiduo, both of your skeletons are male...

It seems like it's time for Ruiduo to start learning basic physiology.

The skeletons were summoned and diligently carried out their summoner's commands. They went out the door and soon returned, clattering as they carried something.

... They carried over the sorceress Kelisiting, who was tattered, though clean, with wrinkled skin and messy hair.

Upon seeing this Ciprins was horrified—who taught the elves to torment people?

He suddenly appeared beside Ruiduo, picked up the little elf, and she exclaimed in surprise. When she realized that the person holding her was Ciprins, she immediately jumped into his arms happily, pulled his hair, and grinned sweetly. However, she keenly noticed that the mage holding her was very angry.

So she quieted down and looked at Ciprins with some nervousness.

"What are you doing?" Ciprins demanded sternly. "Where did you learn that?"

He was indeed a dark mage, and his apprentice was also a dark mage. Dark mages pursue knowledge and power, which is certainly acceptable, but Ciprins never appreciated, and even hated, a certain behavior—the behavior of taking pleasure in cruelty and punishment after gaining power.

On this point, Ciprins was as stubborn as a mage statue left over from a legendary era, unwavering and absolutely unyielding. He would even criticize Jasmine when he discovered Moli playing games and abusing low-level characters, which Moli complained about countless times as "making a mountain out of a molehill."

Perhaps so, because Ciprins could not forget the dark mage who laughed while stepping on the corpses of children back then. Even though that dark mage was now wearing a dirty apron and was responsible for cleaning the toilets in the mage tower and applying animal fertilizer to the flower fields outside the tower, Ciprins still could not control his anger when he recalled that past.

That's why he's so angry now.

Even though he now possesses the power, and he can break the black mage's spine countless times, dismantle his leg bones, and beat him into pieces with thorns, it will all be in vain, because the lost lives can never be recovered, and those skeletons buried deep in the bunker will never become living, talking, and mischievous children again.

Amidst the teacher's anger, Ruiduo drooped her ears in grievance, her little lips trembling slightly. Before she could do anything, Ciprins softened again. He quickly stroked the elf's hair and said to her, "If you just give me an explanation, I won't be angry with you anymore."

He realized that Ruiduo had been abused by the Machine Zealots; when she was rescued, she couldn't speak and was chained. The imprisoned dwarves didn't understand magic and couldn't say what experiments the Machine Zealots' sorcerers had done to her. But back in the tower, the four archmages had examined the elf's body together and discovered that the little elf was much older than she appeared; she might even be older than Ciprins, yet she remained in the form of a child. Yamier, the teacher who knew elves best, therefore deduced that the Machine Zealots might have drained the little elf's life force, preventing her from growing up anytime soon.

Therefore, if Ruiduo only wants revenge against this fanatical warlock leader, then Ciprins might not stop her too much...

But Ruiduo said, "She's sick and needs to be cured."

Um?

Ciprins looked at the crucible suspiciously; the contents inside had now turned into a viscous blob that looked like slime. He had indeed seen the squeezed slime in the waste bin...

"What's wrong with her?" "She has a cold?"

"Um..." The little elf struggled to organize her thoughts, and after a long while, she mumbled, "Drink the medicine, make her better, so she won't hurt anyone, won't... won't go out and kidnap children."

Ciprins looked at Ruiduo, sighed, and gently hugged the little elf's soft little body.

This... this silly elf, what medicine can cure this kind of illness? Besides, Ruiduo probably can't distinguish between "being sick" and "being ill".

Ciprins felt remorseful for his earlier outburst of anger, so he continued to hold the little fairy, performing several flashy but impractical illusions to amuse her. He coaxed Ruiduo for quite some time until the little fairy regained her happy and relaxed smile, then praised her a few times and let her continue making her medicine...

But he was still a little curious. Where did Ruiduo learn this... well, this prescription that... could make her mistakenly believe it could cure "greed-driven madness"? He walked to the table and saw a notebook on it—

That notebook I got from the library, written in ancient Elvish?

Ciprins looked at it in surprise, and then realized a startling fact: the person who wrote this book was probably... his senior sister!

He recognized the handwriting on the page that Ruiduo had turned to—a second person's annotation, written casually in the teacher's tone—it was Teacher Hailianna's handwriting.

There's probably only one mage in the world who can write universal human script that's even harder to decipher than the ancient script of the woodland elves—Professor Hailianna.

He glanced down and tentatively identified the ancient dark mage as his senior sister (historically, Professor Hailianna did indeed have a female woodland elf student who was one of the most famous elven dark mages in history). While writing these two pages, he was researching whether potions could be used to appease the thoughts of some extremists, such as the famous villains in history, the most tragic villains on social media today, and the faction to which the second teacher of Ciprins belonged— the Annihilation Cult. They held the extreme view that everything that existed was unreasonable and should be destroyed.

This ancient senior sister suggested that it might be possible to save him with a magic potion, and then she listed quite a few... well, magic potion recipes.

However, many of these recipes contain ancient magical plants that have become extinct, and some have different names in ancient times than in modern times. Therefore, Ciprins cannot be sure whether his senior sister's research is meaningful. But he is certain that it would be a miracle if the pot of stuff that Ruiduo made didn't kill anyone.

He watched with amusement as Professor Hailianna scribbled beside him. "Silly elf, 'mentally ill' and 'mentally ill' sound the same, but mean different things. There's a kind of 'mentally ill' for which there's no cure other than a can of poison."

Yes, the teacher is indeed a teacher; Ciprins completely agrees with this view.

He tapped the demon feigning death on the ground with his toe and commanded, "Protect Ruiduo well, not a single hair on her head is allowed to fall! And, just don't let the sorceress die."

The devil shuddered and fawned, repeatedly agreeing.

Ciprins was quite pleased. His pet elf was kind-hearted; even though the fanatic warlock had done so many bad things to her, she still hoped he would change for the better, and she was so diligent and eager to learn. Therefore, he decided to fully support Ruiduo's research. As for the treatment outcome... well... which mage doesn't encounter unexpected events during their studies?