Wizards: Starting with Synthetic Gems

Chapter 15 Stone Crab Bloodline

Older saw Locke in his office. He paused for a moment, then smiled sincerely, and expressed his gratitude to Locke. "Locke, you're here."

When Old saw Locke standing at the door of his office, he refused to go in. He smiled and then said to the three students inside who were copying historical documents for him, "You continue copying."

"Come on, Locke, let's go somewhere else."

"A safer place."

After the two left, the three students in the office looked at each other, including Cohen Julian.

Pale-faced Cohen Julian looked up at Locke and Professor Old's departing figures, clenching his fists.

Why was Professor Old so restrained, even slightly ingratiating, towards Locke Augustine, who was merely a fallen former nobleman without a country?

What exactly is the difference between him and that guy Locke?
Cohen Julian wanted to escape the office.

But then he remembered the letter his father had written the night before, in which he had angrily denounced him for refusing to contribute to the family and for refusing to be loyal to the empire and the esteemed Frankish Emperor. So he could only lower his head and continue copying historical documents.

He had enjoyed far too much of the power that the Julian family had bestowed upon him; every gift from fate had a price already marked in secret.

Now is the time for him to give back to his family.

In a classroom at the Aurelian Academy that had been unused for a long time, Alder opened a box. Half of the box contained an unusually large crab that had already been dissected. The crab's shell was not a chitinous one, but rather gray stone.

The stone crab's shell has some red patterns on its surface.

The crab's claws were unusually large and had some scars on them.

Locke asked, "Is this the magical creature from the world of the sea, the stone crab?"

Ald said excitedly, "Yes. The wilderness across the sea is much more dangerous than the wilderness on Corfu. There are many dangerous magical creatures there."

“Stone crabs are one of them.”

"It is one of the longer-lived species. Stone crabs have a lifespan of nearly three hundred years. I have been paying attention to this creature for a long time. I believe that if I can figure out the secret of the stone crab's longevity, I can greatly extend my lifespan."

"Of course, I certainly couldn't do such complex research on my own, but I was lucky. A certified wizard at the University of Verdandia was conducting the experiment, and I entered the experiment as an assistant."

"The experiment was not completely successful until I came to Corfu."

"But the experiment still produced some byproducts, such as the stone crab bloodline modification potion, which can harden the skin and internal skin organs of the modified wizard apprentices into the skin of a stone crab."

Ald reminisced, "If I hadn't been driven to desperation, I wouldn't have risked undergoing the Stone Crab bloodline modification on myself."

The remaining half of the box contained nine stems of three different types of unidentified flowers, three round mineral stones, three bottles of alcohol, and three syringes of fresh blood.

On the inner surface of the wooden box, there was a fleeting icy blue rune, which then quickly faded, as if it had lost its magic power.

Ald lamented, "This box can only be opened once. After that, the magic inside will lose its effect. The materials stored inside can no longer be preserved at low temperatures. If they are not refined as soon as possible, they will be unusable. Locke, I will actually do the refining, but you will be the one to carry it out."

"My magic is too crude; I can't do delicate work at all right now."

Locke said, "I can start anytime."

He stroked the deep blue bead ring on his right hand. The ring's craftsmanship was very interesting; an ordinary sapphire and a deep blue bead were set together, so that outsiders would only see the outermost sapphire.

Instead, one would not see the deep blue gem embedded below.

The deep blue orb acts like a filter, forcibly reducing the amplitude of one's mental energy fluctuations to half of their original value. Locke gained immense benefit from this when constructing his first spell model.

At the same time, the illusory Horadric Cube in front of Locke was spinning rapidly, and with each rotation, it burst forth with a magical spark.

The Rubik's Cube is being synthesized. The synthesis materials are three level 4 deep blue gems, and the synthesized item is a level 5 item.

After Locke became a third-class wizard apprentice, the level of items that the Horadric Cube could synthesize also automatically increased by 1 level.

However, it will take another 24 hours to complete the synthesis.

Level 4 and level 5 items seem to be a threshold; it only takes 3 hours to synthesize a level 4 item, but it takes a whole day to synthesize a level 5 item.

Ald adjusted his monocle and said, "The first step is to separate the stone crab's special bloodline, and then combine it with the bloodline separation essence injection prepared by my mentor. This way, we can accurately separate the part of the stone crab's bloodline that we need."

Locke looked at the three syringes in the box, and figured that the so-called bloodline separation essence injection drug must be these three things.

Old took a set of scalpels out of his pocket and then used the small knife to cut and disassemble the stone crab's shell.

He was skilled and adept at using different tools. As promised, he explained the process while performing the operation so that Locke could understand the thought process behind the material handling steps.

As agreed, Locke would help him concoct potions, and in return, he would offer knowledge and a model of a skull explosion spell.

Soon, the stone crab's carapace, tail, breath, walking legs, and claws were separated and processed according to their respective categories.

However, the gill cavity, joint cavity, and pericardial cavity, which are the main blood storage areas in the stone crab carcass, were all kept out of damage as much as possible.

Ald said, "A great part of the value of low-level magical creatures lies in their blood, so the dissection should involve cutting open the bones, flesh, and shell, but trying to avoid damaging the heart, blood vessels, or the main blood storage sites in an open-circulation system like that of a stone crab."

"To avoid wasting materials, or even affecting the spiritual essence of the materials."

“Some experiments are like gambling. Wizards sometimes can’t be sure which step was done wrong and caused a slight spiritual influence on the materials, which could lead to huge differences in the experimental results.”

Professor Old said calmly, "This is the foundation of the Materials Processing course, Locke, you can listen carefully."

"I'll teach you all of this for free."

(End of this chapter)