Wizard: Starts with Advanced Meditation

Seeing no response, Elena said, "There are no ambushes nearby, just kill them."

Without further ado, Jovin and Heleto each cast a spell, instantly killing the Frostskin Dwarf.

There wasn't much of value on the frost-skinned dwarf. Hughes took some of his blood, while Jovin and Heleto each took the frost-skinned dwarf's left ear, which would be rewarded with merit later.

The current rules at Everfrost Spire stipulate that a second-class wizard apprentice Frosty Dwarf is awarded 1 battle merit, a third-class apprentice 2 points, and a Dragonborn Dwarf as much as 5 points, which greatly boosts the morale of the apprentices.

The group patrolled until nightfall without encountering any corrupted tree spirits, and their day's mission ended peacefully.

……

night

Everyone returned to their respective rooms, and Hughes went upstairs to tinker with his alchemy tools. He had collected a large amount of Frostskin Dwarf blood, which he had just taken out of his storage bag, and the entire alchemy room was filled with a stench.

Hughes quickly put on his bird-beak mask, thankful that the alchemy room was well-insulated; otherwise, the two ladies upstairs probably wouldn't have let him off the hook.

Hughes wanted to use the blood of the frost-skinned dwarves to create a powerful stamina-relieving agent for them. Before he knew it, dawn had broken, but Hughes's mental state was still alright.

Stepping out of the room, Hughes went downstairs and saw Heleto, who had just come out of the rune room. He looked terrible. Hughes noticed that the gold runes on his black robe were gone, which meant the experiment had failed.

The five continued their patrol. The forest felt somewhat oppressive today. For some reason, Hughes felt that Elena had glanced at him when he left home in the morning.

"Could it be that she smelled it?" Hughes guessed.

Unbeknownst to them, the group arrived at the place where they had fought the two frost-skinned dwarves earlier.

"How come it's so clean?" Heleto suddenly said.

Upon closer inspection, everyone noticed that Hughes and his companions hadn't cleaned up the bodies yesterday, yet the spot where the two frost-skinned dwarves had been was now empty. The nearby trees were also strangely twisted, and even the bark had developed spiderweb-like purple veins.

"She was probably dragged away by the corrupted tree spirit," Jowen guessed.

Hughes stepped forward and examined the area, then exclaimed in surprise, "No, there are footprints here. They left on their own!"

The crowd gathered around, while Elena went to examine the twisted trees around her alone.

Where the frost-skinned dwarf's corpse had been, only two humanoid imprints remained, and next to them were a series of footprints, which were indeed the frost-skinned dwarf's footprints.

Jovin said, "These footprints are uneven, like the gait of a low-level undead. Could it be necromancy?"

Hughes picked up a bit of soil from the edge of the footprint with his fingertips, brought it to his nose and sniffed it, his brow furrowing slightly: "No, it doesn't have the putrid smell that's unique to the undead."

Hearing what Hughes said, Heleto frowned. Then, he took out a short staff with a silver gem at the top, stepped forward, and gently tapped the shallower footprint with the staff.

A glint of silver light flashed from the silver gemstone inlaid on the staff, and subtle ripples appeared in the air around the footprints.

"There are the scents of frost-skinned dwarves and corrupted dryads, and the scents of those two frost-skinned dwarves have indeed come alive."

After speaking, Heleto raised his short staff and waved it in the air, causing the silver gems inlaid in the staff to shine even brighter than before.

"Huh? The aura of those two frost-skinned dwarves disappeared, and then—it turned into the aura of two corrupted dryads?!" Heleto exclaimed, his eyes wide with disbelief.

"It's assimilation—the corrupted tree spirit has mutated," Elena said, walking over with a grave expression.

"Assimilation! — Isn't that an ability only a corrupted treant of the formal wizard level possesses?" Heleto suddenly turned his head, his short staff spinning halfway in his palm.

Elena strode toward a twisted, dead tree not far away. Its bark was covered with dark purple veins, like the pulsating blood vessels of some living creature.

She took out an ice-blue dagger and gently scraped off a small piece of bark. The scrap fell to the ground and made a "sizzling" sound, melting into a small black mark. The same purple veins appeared in the wood inside the trunk.

"Look at these veins," she said, pointing to the raised knots on the wood.

"The sap of a normal corrupted tree spirit is indeed purplish-black, but it contains venom."

"And these..." She used her dagger to pry open a knot, from which a translucent viscous fluid flowed out. Where the fluid dripped, the withered branches on the ground visibly developed the same purple veins.

The withered branch began to twist and turn, even bending downwards at both ends in an attempt to "stand up".

"Whoosh—"

Elena stretched out her slender fingers and aimed them at the withered branch that kept crawling towards her.

"boom--"

The assimilated withered branches were covered in frost and turned into powder in the next second.

"They are trying to rewrite the bodies of other plants, turning everything into extensions of themselves, while the corrupted tree spirits of the formal wizard level use the assimilated bodies on their own bodies to assimilate."

"However, it seems that for now we can only change inanimate objects; life force will hinder the assimilation of the corrupted tree spirit." Vilia walked by, a flash of green in her eyes, indicating that she had exchanged ideas again.

"These trees need to be burned. These trees that were almost assimilated have started assimilating the surrounding trees," Vilia continued.

"Velia, use the recording crystal to record this place and report it to the base later. We must leave immediately—the Corrupted Treant has probably been watching us for a while!" Elena said.

Upon hearing this, Vilia immediately took out a recording crystal from her storage bag to record the specific situation. Afterward, everyone hurriedly left this place of trouble.

Deep within the Whispering Forest, the scene was completely different from the outside world. The viscous sap oozing from the ancient, dark purple trees and the stench of decay permeated the forest. Even the once lush green grass had withered and turned gray.

The corrupted tree spirits hanging on the trunks of the giant trees looked like tumors growing directly from the trunks, their humanoid bodies made of dark brown branches were crooked and twisted.

In some places, the wood on them had rotted into a paste, revealing honeycomb-like holes inside, and grayish-black debris would fall off with a gust of wind.

Their heads are thicker knots of tree trunks, and their faces are just a few branches intertwined, barely forming a "mouth".

Deep purple vines clung to them like festering blood vessels, one end of each vine deeply embedded in the tree spirit's decaying body, while the other end drooped down, swaying slightly in mid-air.

The vines exuded a lot of translucent mucus, which dripped onto the branches of the ancient tree and then onto the hair of some creatures.

These creatures were none other than the five Frostskin Dwarves who had long since died!