Dark Wizard: Rise! My undead army!

The next morning, Lynn had a simple breakfast at the dormitory's communal dining area—two slices of dark bread with nut butter and a cup of hot milk.

He lingered until the sun was high in the sky (judging by the changing light in the Evernight Graveyard), figuring that his mentor's anger should have subsided a bit, before reluctantly returning to the lab.

Sure enough, Gregor was already busy in the laboratory.

He lay sprawled before the massive bone plate, his once pale face now flushed, and his bird's nest-like hair even more disheveled.

He was muttering to himself as he looked at a complex energy circuit model, occasionally making changes with a bone pen and then crossing it out in frustration, with more discarded bone fragments covered in calculations scattered around him.

He merely snorted at Lynn's arrival, not even bothering to lift his eyelids.

"Good morning, mentor!"

Lynn leaned closer, a smile plastered on his face, and tried to take the empty bone meal ink can from Gregor's hand.

"Shall I refill it for you?"

"Get out of the way, you're in my way." Gregor waved his hand, as if shooing away a fly.

"Mentor, look here, do you need me to help you organize the data?" Lynn pointed to a pile of messy calculation bone fragments.

"Don't pretend to be so helpful, kid!"

Gregor finally looked up and glared at him, his eyes still holding yesterday's anger and a deeper sense of lingering fear.

"I'm annoyed just looking at you! You almost killed me yesterday!"

Seeing that ordinary flattery was ineffective, Lynn took a deep breath and unleashed his ultimate move.

His gaze swept quickly over the complex node that Gregor was working on, which happened to be a key contradiction that had been analyzed during this period.

"Mentor." Lynn's voice became serious as he pointed to the intersection of energy loops on the bone plate model.

"Look here, isn't there a pre-existing logical conflict in the energy input phases of the fifth deflection layer and the seventh stabilization layer of the 'Reverse Soul Prism'?"

"According to your previous third edition of the basis formula derivation, there should be an implicit negative feedback loop here, but it seems that you have simplified it to a direct connection in your current model... Is this the reason why the simulation always crashes?"

The words Gregor was about to utter got stuck in his throat.

He turned his head sharply, his cloudy eyes fixed on the spot Lynn was pointing to, then looked at the equation he had just altered, and unconsciously gestured a few times in the air with his fingers.

"Implicit negative feedback...simplification?"

He muttered to himself, his eyes suddenly flashing with light.

"Yes! There should be a buffer between the fifth and seventh layers... I forced a direct connection in pursuit of deflection efficiency, which actually caused energy backflow!"

"Kid! Quick! Find me the bone fragments showing the derivation of the third edition of the base formula! And the energy loss assumptions about prism structures from the seventh edition!"

Lynn deftly handed the bone plate to Gregor, secretly chuckling to himself.

We've got this old bastard completely under our thumb!

For the next few hours, the only sounds in the lab were the intense discussions between the master and apprentice, the scratching of the bone pencil, and the occasional slap of Gregor's leg in sudden realization, and excited shouts of admiration.

When the key issue that had troubled Gregor for days was finally sorted out and a new optimized structure was deduced, the old man breathed a long sigh of relief, a rare look of satisfaction on his face.

He slumped into his chair, glancing sideways at Lynn: "You're not entirely useless, kid. It wasn't a complete waste to pick you up."

Lynn chuckled, knowing that Gregor's anger had subsided considerably.

He cleared his throat and began to report on his "gains" from this trip.

"Mentor, besides completing the mission, I also had some other encounters on this trip..."

He omitted the perilous process and mainly described the subjugation of Megatron and the entire skeletal earth dragon race.

Gregor listened, initially nodding noncommittally, until Lynn mentioned the Bone Earth Dragon, at which point he slightly raised his eyelids.

"...So, by sheer luck, the student managed to communicate briefly with the king of the skeletal earth dragon clan and subdue him."

Lynn spoke casually, then with a thought, he communicated with the Ring of the Dead.

Dark golden light emerged from the open space behind the laboratory.

The massive and imposing body of the skeletal Tyrannosaurus Rex "Megatron" slowly materialized.

Although Lynn had tried to make it conceal its aura as much as possible, the dark golden soul fire still caused some ripples in the negative energy within the laboratory.

Gregor stood up from his chair and slowly walked around Megatron, his withered fingers even tapping its dark gold leg bones, producing a dull metallic echo.

"Hmm... an ancient subspecies of the Golden Dragonborn, with well-tempered bones and a strong soul fire. The beginnings of a kingly aura, he has the makings of a leader."

He commented, but his tone was surprisingly calm, showing no surprise whatsoever.

Lynn, however, looked on with anticipation.

"Mentor, what do you think of its potential?"

Gregor chuckled.

"It's so-so. This kind of big thing is good for charging into battle, but it's not sophisticated enough and has limited research value."

"Over the years, I've dismantled several bone dragons, corpse dragons, and ghost dragons. This subspecies, which hasn't even fully awakened its dragon breath, is just intimidating to look at."

He walked back to his seat and sat down again, looking rather uninterested.

"It would be interesting if you discovered a completely new, never-before-seen undead species, or some individual that had undergone an incredible benign mutation."

Lynn was taken aback; she hadn't expected her mentor to have such high standards.

Could it be that he can't see Megatron's potential as a formal wizard? Or is this potential really nothing in his eyes?

Lynn stopped hesitating, put away Megatron, and then posed the real problem:

"Master, you are wise. Actually... the student has had quite deep communication with that group of earth dragons."

"Besides this 'King,' there are also several hundred skeletal earth dragons under its command, who have all been captivated by the student's charm and are shamelessly trying to follow him."

Gregor was about to carve the bone plate when he heard this and stopped, looking up at Lynn:

"Several hundred? You destroyed their entire lair and then cast a charm spell on them all?"

"Personal charm, purely personal charm," Lynn mumbled.

"The students felt that it was unsafe to leave such a force in the wild, and it was also a waste."

"Mentor, you are very knowledgeable. Do you know any methods that would make it easy to collect or raise them? Ideally, methods that would not affect their normal growth."

Gregor put down his bone cup and scoffed, "Hundreds of skeletal earth dragons? You want to keep them as your private army? Kid, you've got quite the ambition."