Wizard: Starts with Advanced Meditation

"Oh! By the way! Give me all your potions from the past few months. Bohr sold them all to me before he left."

As soon as he finished speaking, the gloom on Hedge's face suddenly vanished, and his hands trembled slightly as he unconsciously rubbed them together to suppress the turmoil in his heart.

Because he not only traded slaves, but also used them extensively in his ordinary battles and adventures.

In order to prepare for the Five Crown Trials, he specially trained a slave army, which even included a second-class apprentice. Now that the trials are less than a year away, he has to think about how to strengthen this territory.

Clearly, these potions can enhance combat capabilities and increase their survival rate.

Hughes readily accepted and handed over the briefcase. Hedge hadn't lied to him, because from the very beginning, he had used the concealed detection lie he bought from Max.

Seeing that he couldn't contact Bohr for the time being, Hughes went to another potion shop with a better price-performance ratio. The owner of this shop was an old forest elf.

The Tree of Life endowed him with the theoretical knowledge of cultivating demonic plants, and the materials sold in his shop are absolutely among the best in the market area.

After gathering all the materials, Hughes immediately returned to his dormitory to prepare for the work of refining the blood-replenishing potion, hoping to refresh his mind, which had been busy researching his self-created witchcraft.

However, the recipe he was going to refine was not the one given to him by Serafina, but an improved version that he had painstakingly researched himself.

……

Inside the restaurant, several apprentices sat around an oak table laden with a sumptuous feast. Crispy, glistening steaks and rich broth still steamed from their freshly cooked form.

"Hey...did you hear? Logan is dead." A shrill voice broke the silence at the dinner table.

"Ugh...who? That idiot who, relying on his father being the city lord, targets every apprentice he doesn't like?"

Upon hearing this, the short, stout apprentice who was wolfing down his food suddenly stopped in his tracks, the meat chop in his hand wobbled, and the juices spilled through his fingers, splashing onto the robes of the apprentice beside him.

"Hey! Badr!!"

The unfortunate apprentice activated the cleaning runes on his robes, and after cleaning away the meat juices, he lowered his voice and said:

"He even stole a mission from the Black Lizard Society last week, how could he suddenly die?" The tone was tinged with schadenfreude.

"I heard from the apprentice who discovered the body that there was half an arrow with cursed runes beside it, which looked like an 'Arrow of Vengeful Spirits'—a vicious thing that can directly devour souls!"

The apprentice, whose voice was high-pitched, had been waiting for this question. He immediately moved to the center of the wooden table and explained it to everyone.

"..."

Since a large number of third-class apprentices returned and began preparing for the Five Crown Trials, conflicts of all sizes have frequently occurred throughout the academy, providing the apprentices with plenty of topics to talk about during meals.

While the apprentices at that table were discussing Logan's death, Hughes, who was not far away, had silently finished his meal and then walked towards the Seraphia Garden.

After several days of experimentation, Hughes has successfully refined a blood-replenishing potion based on his own formula. This proves that Hughes' improved formula is correct, bringing him one step closer to becoming a true potion master.

Just as Hughes was simulating the refining process in his mind, a series of soft screams interrupted him.

"Monster!"

Hughes looked in the direction of the sound and saw a slightly hunched figure slowly walking under the sycamore tree at the end of the road—it was Ryan.

He had completely transformed, and his appearance was even more bizarre than when Hughes last saw him.

The boy who always wore a pristine white apprentice robe and had an incredibly kind smile.

How could he wrap himself in a thick black robe, with several obvious bulges on his back that twisted wildly like tentacles?

He did not cover his face with a hood, and sticky juice occasionally seeped from his dark purple cheeks.

The eyes that were previously filled with purple dots have now lost their pupils, leaving only a dense array of dots silently wriggling in the eye sockets.

Around him, passing apprentices turned to look, and several new apprentices walking together turned pale; the screams from earlier had come from them.

Ryan looked over, his dotted eye sockets fixed on them, making them feel a chill down their spines and slow their breathing.

When they saw Ryan looking over, they scrambled into the alleyway next to them, even knocking over a wooden sign on the roadside, their eyes filled with terror.

The other apprentices didn't react much. Having been in the academy for so many years, they had seen plenty of biologically modified apprentices. However, Ryan's appearance had indeed been changed quite thoroughly, which made them take a few more glances.

Seeing the group leave, Ryan didn't pursue the matter further. He turned around and continued walking slowly, oblivious to the fearful or disdainful looks from others.

At this moment, he was already a third-class apprentice, and all he could think about was the path to becoming a full-fledged wizard and the upcoming Five Crown Trials.

Hughes brushed past him, sensing the intense aura of curse emanating from him. He frowned slightly, then quickly walked on.

Behind him, Ryan murmured:

"Logan is too weak, we can't waste this opportunity..."

As he spoke, the purple dots in his eye sockets surged like waves, revealing a purple rune encased within them.

Soon, Hughes arrived outside Serafina's botanical garden. The vine wall had sprouted flower buds again. With the help of the flowers, Hughes entered the botanical garden and arrived at Serafina's ancient treehouse.

……

"Hmm... I didn't expect that your own recipe would have such similar effects to the one I taught you back then."

Inside the room, Hughes had already prepared the blood-replenishing potion according to his own formula, while Serafina picked up Hughes's formula and began to comment on it.

She praised Hughes' design highly and even began to speculate on his design thinking:

"The core material is moonlight moss that is absorbing moonlight? Hmm... This does enhance the healing effect, and it doesn't necessarily have to be at night; moonstone can be used as a substitute."

"..."

"Swish—"

After examining the parchment from the front, Serafina turned it over to the back and continued to look at it:

"You removed the dilution of the mountain spirit blood? But added a juvenile blood lizard? Hmm, this saves time and doesn't affect the efficacy; this change is very practical."

"However, the mixed juice of Crimson Blood Vine and Red Velvet Grass has been left to stand for too long. You can let them stand separately and then pour them into the crucible before adding Mountain Essence Blood."

"..."

Hughes wrote down Serafina's words one by one, preparing to improve them later, until the last sentence came, which made his eyes suddenly light up.

"Your recipe is excellent. We can apply to have it recorded in the Alchemist Guild, and it will also give you extra points."