Ancient Wizards: A Little Progress Every Day

Dago walked to several shelves and wardrobes first. The shelves were empty with a thin layer of dust, and the wardrobes were also empty.

He tapped lightly on the cabinet door with his finger, then walked to the desk and picked up the scattered pieces of paper and notes to examine them.

It was completely blank, with no writing left behind; it must have been erased by magic.

It's clear that the owner of this room left quite calmly, having packed everything up and leaving nothing for anyone who came after.

Dago spread his mental energy and, combined with his keen perception, carefully examined the entire room.

Finally, they found only a small cloth bag, about the size of a palm, in a tiny hidden compartment at the foot of the bed. Inside were some herbal powder and a flat metal box. Over time, the herbal powder had long since turned to dust.

The metal box contained an unidentified black ointment that still had a slightly pungent and spicy smell.

Presumably something the room's owner had forgotten, Dago quietly put the two items away, knowing that once the exploration was over and they were outside, someone would come to appraise their value.

Having explored the entire room, Dagger prepared to leave, but after searching around, he couldn't find any door.

Just as I was wondering what was going on, I caught a glimpse of the silver dressing mirror on the wall and realized what was happening.

"I almost forgot, this is the Forest of Mirrors."

Dago walked to the dressing mirror and easily found a row of rune marks on the edge of the frame.

After memorizing them one by one, I slowly poured my mental energy into them. Five or six runes were activated but there was no reaction. It wasn't until I tried the last rune that the mirror in front of me started to ripple like water.

Dago took a light step and appeared in a narrow corridor.

The walls on both sides of the corridor were also bare, with traces of things having been hung there. Dago kept his mental energy spread out, while pressing his fingers on the wall and gently stroking it as he walked.

After walking about ten steps, he finally found a straight, shallow indentation on a wall. After a little exploration, he successfully opened a "portal" leading to the inner room through the indentation.

Fully alert and vigilant, I stepped inside. Before me lay another room, not much different from the one before.

A moment later, Dagger emerged from the room and continued his exploration.

He continued his previous approach, exploring five or six rooms in a row, but found nothing.

Dago wasn't exactly disappointed; no risk meant no reward, and many things in this world are equal.

After searching the seventh room, he planned to leave using the mirror passage that was bound to exist in the room.

Unexpectedly, when he stepped out of the room this time, he was no longer presented with a long, monotonous white corridor, but instead found himself at the entrance of a small garden with a fountain.

A low fence encloses a pretty little milky-white house, behind which is a gravel path lined with shady greenery, leading to the unknown, where the entrance from which they came can no longer be seen.

Dago was not surprised but delighted. This was a different kind of appearance. He stood outside the fence and looked around the garden. At first glance, the garden was quite similar to the mysterious garden he had entered many times before.

There were also rattan tables and chairs in the garden, two unidentified fruit trees, and a swing hanging from them.

However, there was nothing on the table and chairs, and everything in the garden looked much more realistic. It must have been because no one had taken care of it for a long time. Weeds were growing everywhere, and the space for the flowers that were originally planted had been completely taken over by the weeds.

Dago stepped lightly into the garden, already prepared to deal with any attack from something like a transparent, twisted humanoid.

But even after he had walked around the entire small garden, nothing happened, and he didn't stumble upon any hidden teleportation arrays.

"Not every wizard in the Mirror Forest has the same perverse sense of humor as the owner of the Mysterious Garden!"

As Dago pondered this, he turned toward the house.

He walked smoothly around the fountain to the front of the milky white house, and politely knocked twice before entering.

However, naturally, no one answered.

I pushed open the door and went inside. It was still a very ordinary scene: a living room, a dining room, and a kitchen. There were several plates filled with food next to the oven by the window.

Dago walked up to the plate, where the food had long since crumbled into dust, and there were some silver cutlery pieces that hadn't yet been portioned out. His eyes lit up slightly.

He turned around to view the entire house from his perspective.

He quickly sketched a picture in his mind—the homeowner was entertaining guests and had even baked food for them.

But before they could enjoy their meal, something happened. The people sitting on the sofa and chairs hurriedly got up and dispersed. The owner of this house did not seem as composed as the owners of the other rooms he had encountered before; he seemed rather rushed.

Haste means that something might be overlooked, which gives Dago the opportunity to make a gain.

He acted quickly, first carefully examining every corner of the first floor.

This floor was likely a purely residential area, with no trace of any magical items or materials.

Of course, Dago's main target was the second floor.

As I walked upstairs step by step along the nearly rotten wooden floor, my feet made a "creaking" sound.

The air on the second floor was somewhat murky, and there was a faint, pungent, putrid smell.

Dago quickened his pace, and when he finally stepped onto the second-floor floor, he was greeted by a chaotic laboratory, with crystal vessels and glass jars scattered everywhere, and transparent shards remaining on the floor.

On a broken stone slab directly opposite him, some runes were slowly pulsating. He quickly walked over and saw that the runes, which were so dim that they were almost exhausted of energy, were forming some twisted and scattered characters on the only remaining corner of the broken stone slab.

"Failure... Forbidden experiment, terminated, North!"

Dago struggled to decipher the writing on the stone slab, recording every single character that appeared, but he couldn't piece together any valuable information for the time being.

The spot where he was standing was littered with fragments of stone slabs. These were probably just ordinary magical tools used for casual recording, and since they had no value to be taken away, they were deliberately destroyed.

However, because the destruction was not thorough enough, some of the content that was once recorded on this stone slab resurfaced under the influence of the disordered rune array.

Dago collected all the remaining stone slabs and then began sweeping the items on the surrounding experimental table.

Unexpectedly, he actually found some valuable materials—a box of refined energy crystals.

They can also be called energy beads, there are about twenty of them, of various sizes and attributes, and they are colorful, like a box of beautiful glass balls.

Essentially, it involves extracting a single type of energy and using special techniques to condense it into a crystal bead.

Refining a high-purity energy crystal requires a large number of high-grade magic stones, and success is not guaranteed.

This is an extremely luxurious alchemy method, and alchemy experiments that use such expensive materials are usually quite advanced.

Therefore, it can be inferred that the owner of this small house must be of a high level of strength. At least, in alchemy experiments that a second-circle wizard is qualified to attempt, there is no need to use materials like energy orbs.

The most valuable items in this box of energy stones are the three space-type energy orbs.

Space-type energy orbs can be used to construct artificial secret realms, such as the miniature secret realm in Bernal.

To date, the entire southern region lacks the technology to refine spatial energy and create spatial energy beads.

The three spatial energy beads in Dago's hands are quite valuable.

"Even though we've been away from the Mirror Forest for so long, the energy in these beads hasn't diminished much; they're still abundant and pure. The alchemist's skill is exceptional; they're a master alchemist."

Dago silently sighed a few times before putting away his reward.