Ancient Wizards: A Little Progress Every Day

Dago sped along the vast snow-covered forest, the wind whipping up the hem of his robes and the long hair that fell loose at his temples.

As he approached the outer edge of the Third Ring Wizards' battle group, he stopped, and cracks began to appear in his eyes, which had been frozen in thick ice.

He waited quietly for a while, and after a moment, Avery's figure came into view.

As they approached quickly, Dago went to meet him, but the latter simply said to him, "Let's go."

Dago nodded, and then quickly left, guided by Avery's mental energy.

Icethorn Manor.

In a quiet room filled with various runes and magic circles, Avery stood in front of Dago, with a ball of deep red blood with a slight blue tinge floating above his outstretched right palm.

There seemed to be faint snake shadows floating inside the blood clot, and the faint hissing of snakes echoed in the room.

"An unexpected situation arose. The three-ringed ice serpent was already severely injured and weak before we arrived, so the quality of its essence blood was much worse than expected."

Avery, with a slight frown, recounted the details of the hunt to Dargo.

According to Avery, when they were hunting the three-ringed ice serpent, two smaller two-ringed serpents also sprang out, and both of them had awakened a trace of the ancient winter dragon's bloodline to varying degrees.

I thought it would take more effort, but the process went surprisingly smoothly.

The three giant ice serpents were all depleted of their energy and blood, their strength less than a third of what it should be, as if they had just experienced a major battle.

The four third-ring wizards easily resolved the battle; one of the three large ice serpents died, and two were captured alive.

The major wizarding families of Ice Fortress were quite pleased, as their gains were greater than they had anticipated. They were probably currently figuring out how to replenish the depleted blood essence of the two captured giant ice serpents, and were also arguing about how to distribute it.

However, this result was not good for Avery.

He extracted the essence blood from the three large ice serpents, but the one with the strongest bloodline aura was still quite different from what he had expected.

Dago nodded, looking at the blood clot in Avery's hand. However, this outcome wasn't entirely bad. Dago wasn't planning to reveal the secret of the Blood Tree of the Imprisoned God to Avery.

"Could the abnormality of the giant ice serpent be related to the group of black-robed wizards who suddenly intruded?"

Dago thought of the group of black-robed wizards he had unexpectedly encountered.

"I don't think so."

Avery shook his head and said calmly, "Those insects from the Dark Crystal Plateau were watching us the whole time we were hunting the Great Ice Serpent. I guess they didn't expect us to be there."

"Dark Crystal Plateau!"

When Dago heard Avery mention that word, his heart skipped a beat, and he nodded without saying anything more.

"Alright, get ready for the bloodline modification."

Avery stopped talking to Dago and told him to get ready.

At this moment, there are two rune arrays arranged on the floor of the room, one large and one small, nested inside each other.

Dago walked to the center of the magic circle and sat down. He took off his magic robe, revealing his smooth and perfect upper body. Everything was already prepared, and only the last bit of preparation work remained.

Avery divided the three-ringed ice serpent blood in his hand into several portions, made a series of complex blends for each portion, and then stepped into the magic circle. Using the blended ice serpent blood as material, he began to paint on Dago's body as if he were painting.

The process didn't take long; Avery spent half an hour covering Dago's body with all sorts of swirling, twisted runes.

Including his neck and cheeks, all the lines pointed directly to the center of his brow.

When the last stroke was completed, Avery withdrew from the magic circle. With his right hand, he drew a mysterious magical symbol in the air in front of him. A faint spiritual power surged from his fingertips, and together with the invisible symbol, it transformed into a beam of light that shot into the magic circle on the ground.

Guided by spiritual power, the outer rune array began to activate, emitting streaks of light, like a complex and precise machine starting to operate.

Dago, who was in the center of the magic circle, suddenly felt an invisible pressure quietly forming.

This pressure did not act on his body, but rather fell upon his mental energy in a rather peculiar way.

It was similar to the pressure he felt when he first faced Avery, the Third Ring Wizard, with his mental power fully unleashed, but of course much gentler.

As the magic array operated, the pressure gradually increased. Dago closed his eyes and began to enter a meditative state.

Within the mental space, Dago "saw" his solid-liquid coexisting soul body trembling slightly under the pressure released by the magic array, with those vortex-shaped runes appearing fragmentedly on his soul body.

Dago felt a slight tremor in his soul.

He took a deep breath and clearly sensed something rapidly entering his body and then surging towards his mental space.

From an outsider's perspective, Dago, who was sitting cross-legged on the floor of the room, had two rune arrays around his body activated.

Countless runic lights pierced into his body, and the numerous runic patterns on his body surface began to melt rapidly like damp oil paint, then slowly seeped into his flesh.

The special medicinal liquid mixed with the essence blood of the Three-Ring Ice Serpent re-condensed in Dago's heart. What Dago had to do now was to use his mental power to condense the [cold element] of the medicinal liquid and then take the opportunity to embed it into the outer wall of his heart.

These physical seals [Cold Element], forged from the essence and blood of magical beasts, are consumed each time they are activated. Once all the magical beast blood within them is consumed, the seal will disappear.

After Avery's previous series of adjustments and treatments, the Great Ice Serpent's essence blood will automatically consume most of its impurities once the magic sign is fully formed, having minimal impact on mental and soul power.

If a regular wizard were to perform "bloodline modification," this step would be omitted, and the problem of spiritual and soul contamination would be much more severe.

This is also a technical method that the Huntington family does not disclose to the public.

Despite the throbbing pain in his soul, Dago quickly used the demonic beast blood that had seeped into his body to condense the physical body seal [Cold Element] and imprinted it into his heart.

He then quickly drank the solidification potion he had prepared beforehand, and an incredibly complex pattern was imprinted on his heart, with a crystal of essence blood the size of a little finger inserted into the center of the seal on his heart.

"call--"

As the essence blood crystal fully formed, the air around Dago also sank, and a powerful pressure emanated from his body, stirring up violent air currents in the silent room.

Avery, standing at the edge of the magic circle, slightly raised his hand, and all the air currents immediately disappeared, and the room returned to calm. Only Dago, sitting in the center of the room, seemed to be "shining" and had become the largest "light source" in the room.

At the same time, new changes were taking place in Dago's mental space. In a daze, Dago seemed to see a faint, huge, dark blue snake shadow, but it disappeared in a flash.

Immediately afterwards, a large number of inspirations and insights about ice magic arose in his mind, and his understanding of ice magic seemed to rise to another level in an instant!

"Buzz—"

Silent energy fluctuations emanated from Dago's body, and countless auras of despair and icy coldness emerged, forming two different extraordinary powers that intertwined and seemed to be merging into one.

"Dago!"

Standing to the side, Avery witnessed this scene and felt the invincible aura of fusion. For the first time, a look of shock appeared on his weathered face.

"He's truly a top-tier genius."

He called out softly, his face beaming with indescribable joy and happiness.

The strange phenomenon of intertwined and merged realms only lasted for a few breaths before abruptly ceasing.

Immediately afterwards, Dago, who was sitting cross-legged inside the two rune arrays with his upper body bare, suddenly opened his eyes. The not-so-bright room was instantly filled with a brilliant azure light, which slowly faded away after a long time.

Dago slowly stood up from the center of the magic circle, his long, jet-black hair draped over his shoulders dancing without wind.

He was enveloped in a strange radiance, with a vast and invisible force field swirling around him. He was like a top-grade gem that had been meticulously polished with silk, radiating unparalleled brilliance.

Dago exhaled a breath of stale air, took out the blue robe from his storage ring, and draped it over his shoulders.

At this moment, Dago felt that the whole world in front of him had become much clearer, and the ice element energy particles active around his body had never been so close to him.

At this moment, Dago had already tried his best to suppress his mental power, but the mental power fluctuations that naturally emanated from his body still caused the surrounding air and light to collapse and distort in waves, which was something that ordinary second-ring wizards could not achieve.

"The power of those ice spells from before would probably be completely transformed if they were activated now."

Dago was even a little impatient, wanting to quickly summon an ice spell to test it out and compare the difference before the bloodline modification.

"Dago".

A soft call pulled Dago back to reality from his self-reflection.

"Grandpa Avery".

He responded respectfully.

At this moment, Avery was looking him up and down with the same gaze he would give a rare treasure, a smile playing on his lips and his eyes sparkling with admiration. The closeness and concern he felt seemed several times stronger than before Dago's breakthrough.