Chapter Sixty: Hofu Purple Leaf The cold winter wind blew ceaselessly, carrying a bone-piercing chill through the air.
In a small square, Leilin — bare from the waist up — was practicing Cross Sword techniques.
Several muscles on his chest had already taken shape. Though the lines weren't particularly pronounced, they flowed smoothly, giving him a lean, sharp impression.
Advance! Uppercut! Thrust! Every move was flawless, as precise as a textbook demonstration.
When Leilin finished his training,
Leilin wiped the sweat from his brow while pulling up his data panel.
"Leilin Farell — Second-rank Apprentice, Official Knight. Strength: 3.1 | Agility: 3.3 | Constitution: 3.2 | Spiritual Power: 4.7 | Mana: 4.0 | Status: Healthy."
"Chip, how was today's training session?"
"Analyzing! The host's Life Energy has reached its maximum threshold. No improvement detected in any attribute!" The Chip's voice came through, devoid of any emotion.
"So this day has finally come!" Leilin sighed with feeling. "These attribute gains are already decent enough. Pushing further would cost more than it's worth. I can stop the Knight training from now on. After all, from here on out, it would only be about maintaining my martial proficiency and keeping my reflexes sharp. With the Chip, I can hold myself at peak condition indefinitely!"
After the morning Knight training was done, Leilin rested briefly. Once he had fully adjusted his condition, he threw himself into a tense round of experiments.
In the laboratory, Leilin placed a purple leaf into a beaker, added a spoonful of dark green liquid, and lit the lamp beneath it.
The bright yellow flames licked ceaselessly at the bottom of the beaker as purple bubbles rose to the surface one after another.
"Chip! Record this — the 145th physical experiment. Substitute materials: Hofu Purple Leaf, Ninogen!"
"Recorded!" The Chip's voice responded, meticulously logging the medicinal properties and behavioral changes occurring throughout the experiment.
Over this period, Leilin had already conducted hundreds of experiments, and the simulations run through the Chip numbered in the tens of thousands.
"This is it! I have a very strong feeling — this time, it's going to work!"
Leilin stared at the green and purple gases continuously vaporizing before him, murmuring softly.
Attempting to use common materials as substitutes for the core ingredients of
Moreover, although the majority of the materials needed for the experiments could be purchased with gold coins, there were still certain auxiliary materials that only Wizards could obtain.
Those had all been purchased by Leilin at the Wizard's market, and they were now nearly used up.
If not for the Chip, which allowed him to run enormous numbers of simulated experiments, the materials Leilin currently had on hand would have been far from sufficient.
The materials for just a few preliminary experiments alone would have been enough to bankrupt him.
Splash!
The purple leaves in the beaker had completely dissolved, and the green liquid suddenly turned somewhat translucent.
"Now!" Leilin's eyes widened. He picked up a glass rod and inserted it into the beaker, beginning to stir in the reverse direction. A thread of Spiritual Power cautiously traveled along the glass rod and into the beaker.
As the seconds ticked by, Leilin's expression grew increasingly grave, and beads of even began to form on his forehead.
Ding! A crisp sound rang out from within the beaker. At the center of the pale green liquid, a multitude of black dots suddenly appeared, spreading outward in all directions like tiny insects.
Leilin's expression remained unchanged. His hand moved with ghost-like speed, tossing in a red pearl from a petri dish sitting nearby.
Crack! As the pearl plunged in, the black spots in the beaker rapidly faded away. The pale green liquid quickly lightened until it turned completely transparent.
"Ding!
The Chip's notification chime sounded exceedingly pleasant to Leilin's ears at that moment.
"Between the Chip's simulations and projections, tens of thousands of experiments in total, and it finally worked!" A smile tugged at the corner of Leilin's lips as he clenched his fist in triumph.
At the same time, Leilin couldn't help but marvel inwardly at just how difficult it was for an Apothecary to improve a recipe.
He already had the original recipe to work from, plus the Chip to run simulations and calculations for him, saving a great deal of time and materials — and yet it had still taken this long to refine a single improved recipe. If it had been his senior apprentice
After all, throwing precious materials into the water over and over again to gamble on a hope of less than one in ten thousand was simply not something a rational Wizard would do.
And throughout the experimental process, the agony of failure would torment the Apothecary day and night like raging flames. Those who could ultimately succeed in improving a recipe were either born with extraordinary luck or were Apothecary Grandmasters with vast experience and consummate skill!
However, once a recipe improvement did succeed, it often meant enormous rewards — especially for a potion that could enhance Spiritual Power.
"Chip! If I start brewing the Azure Potion using substitute materials, how much of the original effect can I retain?"
"Calculating! Insufficient database information. Constructing a conjecture model for experimentation... Ding! The new potion is estimated to achieve 35.4% of the original's effectiveness!"
"A bit on the low side! But there's no helping it — most of the substitute materials I'm using are the most ordinary kind, available even to commoners. If quality falls short, quantity can make up for it!"
Leilin Farell analyzed the pros and cons of the new Azure Potion. "This single recipe alone is worth at least one hundred thousand Magic Stones! Unfortunately, it was specifically tailored by the Chip based on my body's data. For anyone else, how much of the effect would remain is truly hard to estimate. Moreover, the brewing steps have become incredibly complicated — there are a few stages that would be impossible to pass without the Chip! For any other Apothecary, they'd fail every single time they tried!"
In truth, Leilin knew full well that even after becoming an official Wizard, if anyone found out about it, he wouldn't be able to keep this secret recipe. After all, a new Spiritual Power potion formula whose ingredients could be gathered in bulk was enough to shift the balance of lower-tier forces among the various academies and organizations — no faction would let it go.
Having made up his mind to bury the recipe deep in his heart and use the potion only for himself, Leilin tidied up the traces of his experimentation before stepping out of the lab.
"Young Master!" Anna, who had been dozing in a chair nearby, hurried to her feet.
"Steward Walker came by two hours ago looking for you — it seemed to be about the apothecary shop!"
"Is that so? Tell him to come to my study after dinner!" Leilin removed the stain-resistant robe he had prepared specifically for the experiment and changed into a more relaxed, comfortable outfit.
"Besides Walker, has anything else come up recently?"
Leilin casually settled onto a sofa. On the table sat purple grape-like fruits and a variety of red berries, both among his favorites.
"Knight Fuleisa paid a visit. He said the bounty quest you posted last time has made progress!"
Though Leilin hadn't placed much weight on the tasks assigned by the Academy, he still needed to maintain appearances. He had posted a bounty for the mercenaries and adventurers of Polar Night City to gather intelligence on the Dark Night Forest, with a reward of up to one thousand gold coins. Now it seemed that had borne fruit.
After dinner, Leilin received old Walker and Fuleisa in his study.
Fuleisa wore leather armor, still as powerfully built as ever, while old Walker looked even more aged, his body now stooped with age.
Old Walker bowed to Leilin. "Respected Young Master, our apothecary shop's earnings for this month are..."
"Never mind the details!" Leilin leaned back behind his desk, waving a hand to cut old Walker off. "Pass down orders — I want you to buy up every last bit of Hofu Purple Leaf, Ninogen, Tri-flower Serpent Fruit..."
"Then how much would you like us to purchase, Young Master?"
"All of it."
"All of it?" Old Walker looked up, staring at Leilin in shock.
"That's right! Every last bit of the three types of herbs I mentioned — you're to buy them all and stockpile them at the manor!" Leilin's face was utterly expressionless.
"But... I have to remind you, Young Master, that given the apothecary's recent poor performance, along with the herbs you periodically have us collect, our current books are in a rather precarious state..." If it weren't for the manor constantly covering expenses with gold coins, the business would have gone under long ago — that was what Old Walker thought to himself, but he didn't dare say it aloud.
"I know. But remember this — if there aren't enough gold coins, apply directly to Anna. Purchasing is not to stop. This is an order!" Leilin interlaced his fingers. Though he was only around fifteen, he somehow radiated an imposing air.
"Y-yes! Understood!" A layer of cold sweat broke out on Walker's forehead, and he bowed deeply before hurrying out.
Unlike Anna and the other three, he didn't know Leilin's true identity, so he naturally had doubts about the young master's methods.
But for Leilin, the whole point of building up forces was to better serve himself — to handle errands, gather materials. Even taking a slight loss on gold coins was nothing.
Everything, without exception, existed to serve his advancement on the path of a Wizard. Anything beyond that was an obstacle!
"Although I've set foot on the Wizard's path, it's all just so I can obtain true freedom and live an unrestrained life. Unfortunately, with my current strength, I'm still far from enough!"
Leilin sighed inwardly. Though he now seemingly held a high-status identity in Polar Night City, complete with a manor and servants, to a Wizard these were nothing but illusory soap bubbles — a gentle poke and they'd burst completely!
The residual shockwave from a battle between any two official Wizards would be enough to plunge the current Leilin into a death trap!
When life and death couldn't even be truly guaranteed, what use was temporary comfort?
"Setting aside far-off things — if Black Bone Forest Academy is thoroughly defeated, Gothic Sage's Cottage might very well put every last instructor and student on the wanted list. I'll have no choice but to abandon everything and flee!"
"In this chaotic age, only power truly belonging to oneself can guarantee freedom!!!"