Chapter 19
Undercurrents (Kneeling for Monthly Tickets!)
Creak!
Bang ~
The sharp sound of the door swinging open and shut was accompanied by heavy footsteps echoing through the room. Orlando, his expression filled with panic, stumbled into the laboratory.
After locking the door behind him, his trembling fingers groped deep into the shelves. Before long, he retrieved a Crystal Ball hidden away.
After a string of obscure and profound chanting, the transparent sphere suddenly surged with thick Black Mist. Phantom skulls silently screamed within the fog, eventually coalescing into a vague human face.
"Orlando! Didn’t I tell you not to contact me unless it was an emergency?"
The lips on the face moved, producing a strange and low male voice, like rusted chains scraping across stone.
He was clearly displeased that Orlando had suddenly activated the "Image-Projection Prism" in broad daylight.
Orlando trembled all over, repeatedly apologizing to the shadow in the prism.
"S-Sorry, my lord... I-I didn’t want to disturb you either, but I’ve run into an urgent problem. That apprentice witch who crashed into my setup last time didn’t die. She’s still alive... I just ran into her in the corridor. She was looking at me. She must’ve figured something out!"
"My lord, you must help me. If the other witches find out, I’ll be skinned alive and have my soul tormented for eternity..."
The human face in the Crystal Ball suddenly surged violently with Black Mist, startling Orlando into a sobbing choke. His knees gave out, and he collapsed to the floor.
The shadow snorted coldly through its nose, looking down with contempt at the cowering figure curled up like a shrimp.
With such weak-mindedness, even a thousand years wouldn’t be enough for this witch apprentice to become a full-fledged witch.
But precisely because of people like him, the plan could be executed in the Tower of the Four Sages without raising suspicion. So for now, nothing could be allowed to go wrong.
And indeed, Orlando could not afford to slip up.
The Tower of the Four Sages had an anatomical laboratory. That old relic Fernando, while far from being as skilled in soul manipulation as necromantic witches, could easily extract useful information from an apprentice’s corpse.
"Are you sure it was her?"
"I’m sure. Silver hair, blue eyes the apprentice witch. I couldn’t possibly be mistaken."
"Hmph, just a mere apprentice witch. If she didn’t die the first time, then kill her again."
"But she’s already been transferred to the West Tower. Not only are there mechanical iron crows standing guard, but also Wizard Fernando’s flesh-crafted creations. If I dare make a move, even if I succeed in killing her, I’ll be investigated by the iron crows."
"The Tower’s iron crows and flesh-stitched monsters are indeed troublesome, but who said you had to do it yourself?"
The Black Mist in the prism churned, and a few minutes later, a palm-sized pitch-black bat flew in through the dormitory's hanging window.
After circling twice in the air, it turned into a puff of gray mist and gradually dissipated.
At the same time, a fingertip-sized round sphere was dropped.
Orlando hurried to catch it and opened his palm for a look.
It turned out to be a semi-transparent amber orb, within which a seemingly insignificant wisp of Black Mist was sealed.
"Didn’t you say she’s in the West Tower?" The shadow in the prism spoke again. "Find an opportunity to go to the morgue and stuff this amber into a corpse. I suppose I don’t need to explain what happens after that."
Orlando clutched the amber like a precious treasure, a glint of murderous intent flashing in his eyes.
"Thank you, my lord, thank you! I’ll take care of the rest myself."
"Hmm... how’s the progress with the anomaly setups?"
"Floors one to five are nearly complete, but there are quite a few senior apprentices on the upper levels. I’ll need more time. Before... it begins... I’ll definitely..."
The voice in the room gradually fell into a murmur until everything went silent.
…
Morgue No. 66.
As expected, the "melodious" rumble of the corpse chute sounded again, much to Lu Xi’s anticipation.
The sound that made all other apprentices avoid the place was, to Lu Xi’s ears, akin to celestial music.
Lifting the black cloth from the iron tray, a fish-like creature with two short, infant-like legs came into view.
Its scales were covered in all manner of bizarre parasitic organisms, so tough that even the largest surgical knife couldn’t leave a mark.
Its stomach bulged with unknown chunks of meat and bones.
Left with no choice, Lu Xi fetched the saw from her toolbox and, after quite a bit of effort, finally managed to extract the enchanted legs, spinal cord, and fish eyes.
Unfortunately, the quality of these four enchanted organ specimens was poor. Each only emitted a faint blue glow about the size of a fingernail, barely one-fifth the value of the "Cradle of Enchanted Human Offspring."
As a result, Lu Xi decided not to keep them and planned to exchange all of them for magic sand instead.
However, when discarding the corpse of the strange fish, a sudden idea struck her, and she chose to preserve all the incredibly tough fish scales.
These scales were harder than steel, and most importantly, they weighed less than a tenth of metal. One could say they were as light as a feather yet stronger than refined steel.
If turned into armor, they could definitely offer the defense of plate armor with only the weight of leather.
By the time she finished handling the fish corpse, it was just past 3 p.m. Lu Xi didn’t intend to linger in the morgue any longer and instead planned to sell the remaining bottle of "Devouring Contamination Potion."
The Tower of the Four Sages didn’t have an official marketplace. There were only two ways to buy or sell witchcraft-related items.
The first was to visit the Exchange Office on the third floor of the tower and purchase the necessary items or potions from the tower’s warehouse.
This method was relatively safe, and the items came with a quality guarantee. However, the prices were high, and selling prices were low. Unless the item was an important experimental supply, few people bought from there.
The second was the plaza in the tower’s rear garden.
There, apprentices had formed their own informal marketplace. All deals relied on verbal negotiation, and the goods were wildly diverse.
As the seller, Lu Xi naturally chose the trading market where prices were higher.
After secretly returning the second "Banshee Wing" to her dormitory, Lu Xi wrapped her entire face tightly with a black headscarf. She then donned the standard gray apprentice witch robe issued by the tower and pulled up the hood, leaving only a pair of bright blue eyes visible.
Though this outfit was somewhat stifling, Lu Xi didn’t want to attract unnecessary trouble just for selling a potion.
She opened her door, confirmed no one was around, and the small figure cloaked in gray quickly melted into the shadows of the corridor.
Rear Garden Plaza.
This was the most witch apprentices Lu Xi had seen gathered in her two years.
In the not-so-large plaza, a waterproof tarp was laid out every three to five meters. Apprentices in gray or black robes walked among the "street stalls," occasionally stopping to converse with stall owners.
Lu Xi roughly counted and found at least several dozen black-robed witch apprentices in the plaza. Apprentices like her, still in training, numbered only a few.
She found a quieter corner and took out the resistance potion from her robe, placing it on the ground. Sitting there all alone, it looked somewhat comical.
But she didn’t mind. Instead, she pulled out the Anatomical Notes and started reading on her own.
In any witch faction, resistance potions during the apprentice phase were always highly sought-after. There was never a shortage of buyers.
Sure enough.
In less than five minutes, someone noticed the slender apprentice witch and the dark brown potion in front of her.
"This is... a resistance potion?"
A black-robed apprentice approached the stall and asked with mild curiosity.
From the six silver stripes on his sleeve, it was clear he was a Level 6 apprentice.
According to differences in mental strength, official apprentices were divided into three tiers, each further split into nine specific levels.
Levels 1–3 were junior apprentices, 4–6 were intermediate, 7–8 advanced, and Level 9 was known as the peak apprentice.
Lu Xi put down The Anatomical Notes, bowed slightly, and introduced:
"You’re correct, senior. This is a bottle of 'Devouring Contamination Potion,' effective for mental strength thresholds below 40."