"Hurry up!" Leilin strode into the villa.
"Chip! Scan the main structure of the villa!"
"Task established, scanning…"
Previously, the villa's surface had been covered by a layer of defensive magical array, preventing the Chip from scanning its internal structure. Now, of course, things were completely different.
Soon, a pale blue map appeared before Leilin's eyes.
"Good! The villa has two floors! The top floor contains the bedroom and washroom! The first floor is the living room, and the laboratory is located underground! The entrance is behind the closet!"
Under the Chip's scan, everything inside the villa was laid bare before Leilin.
"Bedroom first!" Leilin dashed quickly upstairs.
Grasping the brass handle, Leilin flung open the bedroom door. A layer of dust immediately billowed toward him, and a black membrane of light automatically formed over his skin, sweeping the dust aside.
Leilin surveyed the room. "Everything has been tidied up remarkably well!"
The bedroom was small—just a bed, a table with a chair, and a wardrobe.
Leilin opened the wardrobe. "All the clothes are gone. It seems the owner deliberately abandoned this place!"
Although he had already suspected as much, Leilin still felt a twinge of disappointment.
He then carefully inspected the bedroom but found nothing of value. The desk drawer was empty too. Only in a corner of the room did he discover a few sheets of blank parchment.
"Probably leftover pages from notes or a diary! A shame they're blank."
Leilin sighed with some regret, then his eyes lit up. "A diary! There it is!"
The yellowed parchment was extremely aged, looking as though it might crack into pieces at any moment, but in Leilin's eyes, these sheets were absolute treasures.
"Chip! Scan the indentations on the parchment!"
Leilin issued the command, and his vision was immediately flooded with a blue glow. On the parchment, faint, intermittent traces of red text gradually emerged.
"This is what that
Leilin felt a surge of gratitude. Wizards only used magic to examine objects, so they had no defenses whatsoever against the trace analysis techniques from his previous life. He had finally uncovered a few clues.
The information on the parchment was jumbled, with many overlapping letters that even the Chip couldn't fully decipher.
Piecing together the scattered fragments, Leilin obtained a small amount of information. It appeared to be a diary: September 1, clear skies. Polar Night City is a peaceful place. I hope I can conduct my experiments here in quiet…
December 5, overcast. Damn it! The experiment failed again, as expected! The difficulty of synthesizing bloodlines far exceeds my expectations…
The remaining entries were too blurred to read clearly, with the dates illegible…
…After reading Vorno's letter and conducting several more experiments, I have to admit he was right. My initial approach was fundamentally wrong. This is truly disheartening news…
…The test subjects have completely failed. Even if the remaining few eggs hatch, they'll be useless. My plan has utterly collapsed. Heavens…
…This place is no longer useful. Perhaps I should visit the Dylan Gardens. Vorno says his experiments have achieved a breakthrough, which is truly wonderful news for us…
The diary entries ended there—all documenting a Wizard's repeated experiments and failures, culminating in the decision to completely abandon this laboratory.
Apart from a person named Vorno and a place called the Dylan Gardens, Leilin found nothing of use.
But there were far too many people named Vorno, and as for the Dylan Gardens, Leilin had never heard of such a place.
"Wait! Hold on!"
Suddenly, Leilin's eyes lit up. In a corner of the parchment, he spotted another name.
The faint crimson letters were extremely dim—Leilin had nearly overlooked them before.
"Nuoke… Nuoke Gulatu Fasier!"
"Nuoke Gulatu Fasier!" Leilin's eyes went wide. "The Crimson Grand Wizard!!!"
"Could the owner of this laboratory actually be the Crimson Grand Wizard!!!"
Nuoke Gulatu Fasier was a legend of the South Coast's Wizard world! According to legend, he was not only a scholar of extraordinary knowledge but had also achieved dazzling accomplishments on the path of Wizardry, rallying the full strength of the South Coast's Wizards to repel countless attacks from subterranean and oceanic enemies.
Such a Grand Wizard was an exemplary figure for every Wizard on the South Coast!
Previously, at the market, the merchant who had sold him the fragment of the Luoyan Scripture had tried to disguise the original page as notes belonging to the Crimson Grand Wizard, only to be seen through by Leilin.
"A figure of such stature—his legacy would undoubtedly be immensely valuable. It's a pity the two upper floors were cleaned out far too thoroughly, with absolutely nothing left behind!"
A look of regret surfaced on Leilin's face, but he still committed every detail of the parchment's contents to memory.
"Hopefully, the laboratory itself will yield something!"
Leilin cast one last disappointed glance at the bedroom, then blew a soft breath. The parchment crumbled to fragments under the air current.
He descended to the first floor and stood beside the closet. The originally black closet, which should have been flush against the wall, now had a gap. Leilin could even glimpse the passage behind it.
This, too, was likely the handiwork of that Manxter serpent from before.
Leilin moved the empty cabinet aside, fully revealing the dark passage behind it.
With a snap of his fingers, Leilin conjured a bright orb of light that illuminated the surroundings, dispelling the darkness and revealing a staircase leading downward.
A flicker of fervent anticipation flashed through Leilin's eyes as he descended without hesitation.
Clang! Clang!
His leather boots scraped against the floor, producing a dull, resonant sound.
Compared to the villa above, the underground space was far more vast—nearly the area of three or four villas combined.
Crisscrossing walls lined the perimeter, dividing the underground laboratory into several major sections.
Leilin walked along the corridor, occasionally spotting letters marking each zone overhead. They were written in a very ancient script, but clearly related to the Ancient Byron Language. Leilin walked and observed as he went.
Materials zone, Garden zone, Hatching zone, Potion zone, Greenhouse… one special area after another appeared before Leilin's eyes.
When he spotted the Hatching zone, his eyes lit up, and he stepped inside.
The light orb continued to float around Leilin, illuminating the scene within the Hatching zone.
The first thing Leilin saw was numerous circular glass domes on the ground. Some had cracked open, revealing necrotic biological eggs inside.
After the Chip confirmed that there were no signs of life anywhere in the Hatching zone, Leilin put on gloves and picked up an egg whose surface had turned to a gray, stone-like appearance.
"Scanning… Mutated Manxter serpent egg—similarity 73.2%; Forest Colossal Python—similarity 34.5%; Giant Tree Lizard egg—similarity 13.8%…"
The Chip's results continued to stream in.
"So! These must be the siblings of that half-grown Manxter serpent from before!" Leilin looked at the many dead eggs inside the glass domes and let out a sigh.
If all of them had still been alive, Leilin probably wouldn't have been able to escape even if he ran.
After a brief search, Leilin discovered a peculiar hatching pool. The spherical glass dome on its surface had a circular hole cracked open, and inside lay several fragments of eggshell.
"The Manxter serpent from before must have come from this hatching pool…"
Leilin glanced around, then reluctantly searched further, but ultimately found nothing more. He could only take one fossilized dead egg and a few shell fragments with him.
Materials zone, Garden zone, Potion zone, Greenhouse…
Leilin went through them all one by one. The former Crimson Grand Wizard had clearly invested tremendous effort into this laboratory—every zone was impeccably arranged.
But when the Grand Wizard had left, he had taken every last material with him. Leilin's hope of finding anything left behind was completely dashed.
He couldn't even find anything like the blank parchment sheets from the bedroom.
"The last zone! The Dissection Room!"
Leilin could hardly conceal the disappointment on his face as he opened the iron door marked for the Dissection zone.
Clang!!!
The iron door swung open with a resounding crash. An intensely thick aura of Negative Energy surged forth, and Leilin could faintly hear the wailing of countless tormented spirits.
"Wizards, on the path of pursuing truth, never shy away from blood on their hands!" Leilin murmured the old maxim of the Crimson Grand Wizard.
He surveyed his surroundings. Dark, dried bloodstains still marked the white laboratory tables. Leilin picked up a small amount of powder.
"Chip! Analyze!"
"No living cells detected. Due to intense radiation exposure, gene segments show deletions and mutations—origin cannot be determined."
The Chip's feedback came through.
"Damn it!" Leilin kicked the lab table in frustration.
For Wizards who enjoyed adventuring, there was nothing more disappointing than expending countless time and effort to enter a ruin, only to come away with nothing.
Although obtaining an alchemist's notes was already more than worth the trip for Leilin, compared to what he expected from the Crimson Grand Wizard's legacy, this haul fell far short.
That was the Crimson Grand Wizard!!! At minimum, a formal Fourth-rank Wizard or above!!!
To find absolutely nothing in his laboratory was maddening for Leilin.
"Oh well! At least I have that poor fool's notes from before, so I didn't come away empty-handed. Besides, this laboratory was probably used by Lord Crimson when he was only a first- or second-rank Wizard—otherwise, there's no way I'd have been able to get in…"
Leilin suddenly felt a measure of relief.
If he had encountered the Crimson Grand Wizard's laboratory from the peak of his power, even a casually placed curse would be something the current Leilin had no way to withstand.
BANG!!!
Leilin's kick against the lab table seemed to trigger some kind of chain reaction. Bursts of faint wind swept across the floor, spiraling upward and stirring the dust into the air.
"Hm?" Leilin's expression tightened, and his right hand instinctively reached into the pouch at his waist.
The whirlwind grew larger and larger, until it finally coalesced into a translucent humanoid figure.
"How many years has it been… How many years have passed! I finally smell the scent of a living person!" The translucent figure seemed to sigh, revealing a blurred, elderly face.