Ancient Wizards: A Little Progress Every Day

The stalls were mostly filled with materials related to monsters: animal hides, animal bones, organs preserved in jars, bone and flesh carvings, magical tools... and even living creatures.

Alchemy arrays were carved on the ground to suppress the leakage of energy, and dried, unidentified bodily fluids remained in the gaps.

Most of the wizard apprentices coming and going looked hurried, wrapped tightly in their robes, afraid of revealing even the slightest elemental fluctuation of themselves.

Dago stood in front of a secluded stall, the pale blue light of the "Eye of Truth" shimmering on his forehead beneath his hood.

His gaze pierced through appearances to see the essence, and he was not attracted by those flashy but impractical low-level magical artifacts.

Dago was asking about a living creature kept in a transparent tank.

It looks like a miniature piranha, but it has a pair of tiny, white, and tender feet like a baby's, which kick around in the water, looking both lively and eerie.

The liquid in the tank is not water, but a light green alchemical nutrient solution that maintains biological activity.

The stall owner was a pale-skinned middle-aged wizard, a first-ringed wizard, with a black mole the size of a mung bean on his lip. He had a cold and sinister demeanor and was obsessed with the study of flesh alchemy. Wizards who dealt with corpses all year round were mostly like this.

Even with his hands hidden in his sleeves, you could still faintly smell the indelible odor of corpse oil.

That's a characteristic of being corroded into the bone marrow by necromantic elements from long-term dissection and suturing of corpses.

"You have excellent taste. This 'Ghost Fish' is the product of my twenty years of research."

When the middle-aged wizard saw Dago asking a question, he immediately forced a smile, and a shrewd glint flashed in his cloudy eyes. It was the cunning that a low-level wizard had to learn in order to obtain resources. He then began to talk to Dago at length.

Although Dago had tried his best to keep a low profile, he even tried to suppress the fluctuations of mental energy that belonged to a second-circle wizard.

But the chin of the young, handsome face revealed under the wide hood, and the unique temperament that naturally emanates, can be clearly perceived when you get a little closer.

That is the composure of the strong after being baptized by the elements and sublimated by the soul.

A wizard with even a little discernment could easily tell that he came from a powerful organization, and that he was definitely not a member of an ordinary powerful organization. Only a top-tier individual of the same level could possess such a composed and confident demeanor in every gesture.

The battle for the Isidore Wizarding Spot is about to begin, and geniuses from all the major and minor wizarding factions in the South are making their moves.

They had seen quite a few people like Dago over the past year.

These geniuses, like sharks smelling blood, have gathered here for the ticket to the higher temple of truth.

With the permission of the middle-aged wizard stall owner, Dago probed his spiritual energy slightly into the transparent jar.

The strange creature, called the "Ghost Fish," immediately opened its mouth and let out a piercing scream.

This sound does not propagate through air vibrations, but rather acts directly on a certain frequency oscillation at the level of the soul.

The runes on the cylinder surface lit up instantly, attempting to neutralize the impact, but residual ripples still spilled out.

The invisible sound waves released with the scream pushed all the water in the transparent tank outwards, clinging tightly to the tank walls. Dago felt a slight mental shock and couldn't help but be surprised.

His mental barrier was like a solid city wall, yet he still felt a tingling sensation like being bitten by mosquitoes.

This howling fish suddenly reminded him of a necromancer spell—[Howl of the Dead].

Both methods are similar, using screams to generate shockwaves that affect mental strength.

However, the "Howl of the Dead" relies on the accumulation of negative energy particles, while these creatures purely rely on their physical functions to trigger a soul resonance.

Is this the allure of "flesh and blood alchemy"? Leveraging the power of rules through material transformation.

However, the Ghost Fish's ability is much stronger than the zero-level spell [Howl of the Dead], and it even had a certain impact on his mental strength.

Although the effect is slight, what if thousands of these fish screamed at the same time?

That was a terrifying resonance powerful enough to shake the mental space of a Grand Wizard of the Third Ring.

Although it was only a slight dizziness, it should be noted that Dago's mental power, after being purified twice, was more than ten times stronger than that of an ordinary late-stage second-ring wizard.

What surprised Dago even more was that the Ghostfish's shockwave attack seemed to be targeted; apart from him, the stall owner and several nearby wizards were completely unaffected.

Could such a wondrous creature really have been researched and created by a mere wandering wizard at the first level of cultivation?

A cold glint of doubt flashed in Dago's eyes, the instinctive reaction of a wizard when faced with irrationality.

Dago looked up at the middle-aged wizard stall owner and asked, "How do you plan to sell these howling fish?"

The middle-aged wizard perked up and quickly named several items. Dargo shook his head and replied, "I only have magic stones."

Most of those materials were ingredients for auxiliary potions used to advance to the second ring wizard level, so it was clear that this stall owner had been stuck at the peak of the first ring for a long time.

The middle-aged wizard was somewhat disappointed, but quickly replied, "Five thousand! Five thousand high-grade magic stones, and this fish is yours."

"impossible."

Dago said calmly, "Unless it's along with the cultivation technology of this howling fish, the shockwave attack of this fish is indeed quite effective, but if I'm not mistaken, this thing probably won't live long."

This is a rational judgment based on the principle of "equivalent exchange".

The greater the explosive power, the more intense the consumption of energy.

As he spoke, Dago glanced at the howling fish in the tank, which had already quieted down and looked only slightly listless.

However, he was extremely sensitive to fluctuations in life, and could sense that after a ghostly cry, the life energy contained in the fish with the feet of an infant in the tank had been significantly depleted.

The once bright red gills had now turned a dull, dark red, a sign of depleted vitality.

This is a fish that screams with its life on the line.

Every attack is a countdown to one's own demise.

The middle-aged wizard's expression changed slightly, then he smiled bitterly and said, "I can't hide it from you, sir. Two thousand, two thousand high-grade magic stones, and you can take the fish."

"But the cultivation technology is probably not feasible. It's not that I don't want to trade it, it's just that the technology is not yet perfect."

He's lying, or rather, he's covering up some variable that he himself can't control.

"Three thousand."

Dargo, his expression calm, interrupted the middle-aged wizard, "Tell me where you found this fish."

What he valued was never the fish itself, but the "source" behind it.

It is impossible for a first-ring wizard to create such a unique aquatic monster out of thin air.

"Don't worry, I won't tell a third person. If you don't believe me, we can sign a contract."

The middle-aged wizard's expression shifted. After a moment, he grabbed a piece of old animal hide from the corner of the stall, wrote something on it, and then handed it to Dargo.

In this cruel wizarding world, the absence of magic stones means stagnation, it means death.

Dago readily paid three thousand high-grade magic stones, used his spatial ring to put away the tank containing the howling fish from his stall, and prepared to leave.

He glanced at the stall, casually picked up a small box containing a black unicorn beetle, and asked the stall owner, "What's this?"

"I don't know."

The middle-aged wizard shook his head. "I found it in an abandoned ancient secret realm. After studying it for a year, I only found that its secretions can be used as a preparation for some low-level potions. Perhaps it's just some kind of common ancient insect with a relatively long lifespan."

The middle-aged wizard seemed somewhat disheartened.

"Take it if you like."

This was just a favor, done to get to know this young powerhouse with unlimited potential.

"Thanks."

Dago put away the box containing the unicorn beetle and said casually, "I've always been quite interested in these little trinkets, and this is indeed a collection I've never owned."

The middle-aged wizard smiled but didn't say anything.

In the wizarding community, collecting rare insects is not even considered an eccentricity.