Wizard: I Have a Nightmare World

Lynn looked at Harvey's deeply hunched back and remained silent for a moment.

Fifty thousand gold coins.

As far as he knew, this was an amount that even a pharmacy manager couldn't raise in ten years, and Harvey's ability to come up with it showed that this father was willing to give everything for his daughter.

"Harvey, get up first."

Lynn reached out and put his hand on Harvey's shoulder, helping him back into the chair.

"I'll accept this commission."

Harvey suddenly raised his head, his eyes reddening. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but Lynn stopped him by raising her hand.

"But I have two conditions."

As Lynn spoke, he held up two fingers.

"First, you must deliver the formula and all the ingredients for the [Mental Balance Potion] to me by noon tomorrow."

"Secondly, no one should know about this, not even after your daughter recovers, and don't tell her who did it."

As he spoke, he glanced at the amber on the windowsill, then his gaze swept over the Shadow Fang ring on his finger.

Harvey paused for a moment, then nodded vigorously.

"I understand! I swear on my soul that I will never reveal anything about you!"

Lynn nodded in satisfaction upon seeing Harvey's expression, then added, "Also, I'll take half of the 50,000 gold coin reward."

"My other half...we'll talk about that when I come back alive from the Astral Plane."

Harvey's eyes were completely red.

He wanted to say something, but found that he could only open his mouth but couldn't utter a single word. In the end, he could only nod vigorously, stand up and bow to Lynn again, then turn around and leave quickly.

Watching Harvey's bloated body disappear into the night, Lynn closed the door and shook his head.

"Twenty-five thousand gold coins for a perfect quality potion? That's a losing proposition."

Amber flew over from the windowsill and landed on Lynn's shoulder, tilting her little head.

"Since it's a losing proposition anyway, why did you take it on?"

"The Astral Plane is about to be triggered, and there's already not enough time."

Lynn was silent for a few seconds, then let out a soft breath.

Harvey helped me.

Amber didn't ask any further questions, but simply nuzzled Lynn's cheek with her little head: "Then Amber will help you."

The materials arrived as scheduled the following morning.

The complete set of materials for three [Mental Balance Potions] plus a yellowed formula scroll.

Harvey, sporting two dark circles under his eyes, personally delivered the item. After handing it to Lynn, he left in a hurry without lingering for a second.

He was afraid that if he stayed any longer, he would be unable to resist urging others to leave.

After receiving the materials, Lynn did not rush to start working.

He first spent half an hour carefully studying the recipe from beginning to end three times. Then he closed his eyes and mentally rehearsed the entire preparation process from the first step to the last drop of liquid five times before slowly opening his eyes.

For the next three days, Lynn devoted all his energy to the quest for the [Mental Balance Potion].

During the day, he repeatedly studied the formula and deduced the process at the worktable in the cultivation room.

At midnight, he entered the nightmare world on time, manifesting materials for endless trial and error.

On the first day, he failed forty-seven times in the nightmare world.

Either the material pretreatment order was wrong, or the timing of the mental guidance was a beat too late. On two occasions, the beaker was even blown up, and the drug residue was scattered all over the ground.

But each failure deepened his understanding of the formula.

On the second day, the number of failures dropped to twelve, and the success rate began to steadily improve.

By the early morning of the third day, he was able to consistently produce high-quality works in the Nightmare World, and the success rate of perfect quality works had increased to 30%.

On the final attempt at midnight on the third day, Lynn steadily dropped the last drop of neutralizing solution into the beaker.

The pale blue liquid swirls slowly in the beaker, and a soft, stable silvery-white halo appears on its surface.

The mark of perfect quality has appeared!

Lynn let out a long breath, poured the vial of medicine into a crystal bottle, sealed it, examined it for three seconds, and then smiled with satisfaction.

"It's finally done!"

When I exited the nightmare world, the sky outside the window was still not fully bright.

Lynn got out of bed and, without wasting any time, took out the materials from her spatial ring and began to prepare the ingredients.

Having honed his skills through countless trials in the Nightmare World, his hands were remarkably steady.

In less than fifteen minutes, a vial of [Mental Balance Potion] shimmering with a silvery-white halo was created in his hand.

As the morning sunlight streamed into the incubation room, Lynn handed the vial of medicine to Harvey, who was waiting outside after receiving the message.

Harvey's hands trembled so much when he took the medicine that he could barely hold the bottle.

He opened his mouth several times, but in the end only managed to utter one sentence:

"Brother, I... I've got it."

Then he turned and walked away quickly, seemingly to give the medicine to his daughter.

In the days that followed, undercurrents surged within White Raven Tower Academy.

As the official news of the Astral Recruitment spread among the apprentices, the atmosphere of the entire academy began to subtly change.

The opening hours of the sorcery training grounds were extended indefinitely, the fourth and fifth floors of the library were brightly lit, and even the usually deserted potion materials hall had long queues.

But what followed was a series of accidents.

When Lynn was testing the [Wind Blade Technique - Combo Slash] in the training ground, he heard a muffled thud coming from next door.

A third-class apprentice who attempted to forcibly construct a model of a first-circle fireball spell was immediately struck by a backlash of mental energy. He bled from his mouth and nose and was carried away by the enforcement team, already unconscious.

It is said that his consciousness space has suffered irreversible damage, and even if he wakes up, he will probably be unable to walk the path of a wizard again.

The situation at the pharmacy was equally dire.

When Lynn went to get the supplementary materials, he saw two apprentices squatting at the door, their faces covered in soot, with several shattered flask fragments lying beside them.

They made a mistake while trying to concoct a poisonous potion, and the entire bottle exploded, burning half of the workbench with corrosive liquid.

If Harvey hadn't activated the emergency ventilation array in time, the consequences would have been unimaginable.

"They're all just looking for quick success and instant benefits."

Harvey leaned against the counter, watching the two apprentices leave and sighed.

"As soon as the conscription order was issued, everyone panicked and wanted to improve their strength as much as possible before going to the Star Realm."

He turned his head, glanced at Lynn, and added another sentence.

"But only those who can remain calm and composed can live a long life."

Lynn didn't reply, but silently put the materials into her spatial ring and turned back to the cultivation room.

He knew that Harvey was right.

But he also knew that he didn't have much time left.

During the day, Lynn continued to refine the model of [Bloodthorn Embrace].

This zero-ring sorcery, which comes at the cost of life force, is far more complex than any of his previous tricks.

The twelve main loops and thirty-nine secondary loops are like an intricate spider web, with the method of calling the dark red crystal at the core node being the key.

If the sensing is misaligned, the entire model will collapse instantly.

Even in the nightmare world, he spent two whole nights drawing before he could etch the complete model's operating path into his instincts.

In the evening, Lynn would take off his inner lining and repeatedly activate the three layers of defensive runes, familiarizing himself with the mental sensation of activating each layer to ensure that he would not activate the wrong layer during battle.

At midnight, in the nightmare world, he continued his potion practice on the gray, fog-shrouded bone land, constructed a high-pressure state model of [Bloodthorn Embrace], and tested the interference effect of shielding abilities in the combat environment.

On the morning of the fifth day, Lynn's mental barrier finally broke down silently after several days of intense training.

The invisible shackles in the space of consciousness suddenly collapsed.

The liquid spiritual energy surged and spun violently deep within the consciousness space, then rapidly cooled and solidified in an irreversible manner, transforming into a layer of crystallized spiritual energy.

The entire space of consciousness seemed to be relit.

At that moment, he clearly felt that his range of perception had more than doubled. The beetles crawling on the leaves outside the window, the whispers coming from the apothecary in the distance, and every faint energy fluctuation in the air were clearly presented to his senses.

He took out the crystal ball and placed his palm on it.

The moment the spiritual energy was injected, the crystal ball burst forth with dazzling light, and the scale climbed steadily until it settled on a single number.

Spirit Scale: 6.2!

Third-class apprenticeship, completed!

After breaking through to the third-level apprentice level, Lynn felt even more confident.

After his mental energy solidified, his control over the magic model reached a new level of precision.

Previously, when releasing [Wind Blade Technique - Consecutive Slashes], the trajectories of the three wind blades would show slight deviations. Now, the three wind blades are almost perfectly coordinated, with an astonishingly high degree of overlap in their trajectories.

The few zero-ring magic tricks he constructed at the beginning also gained faster release speed and lower consumption under the influence of solidified mental power.

But he didn't have time to savor the joy of his breakthrough.

Because of the astral summons, I have arrived.

At dawn, as the first rays of sunlight pierced through the mist of White Raven Tower Academy, the Bloodvine Wizard's servants knocked precisely on the door of the incubation room.

"Mr. Lynn, the teleportation array is ready."

"The master requests your presence."

Lynn looked around the incubation room where he had been living for several months.

In the herb garden, silver leaves gleamed softly in the morning light, and the spot on the windowsill where the lily of the valley once stood was now empty.

There are still traces left on the worktable from when he used to mix medicines.

He slowly withdrew his gaze, beckoned to Amber, and then Amber landed in his palm, which he gently placed into the inner pocket of his hand.

Amber popped her little head out of the pocket and gently patted his chest with her tiny hand, her voice as soft as a breeze.

"Let's go, Lynn."

"Amber is here to keep you company."

Lynn took a deep breath, pushed open the door, and went out.