Wizards: Starting with Fairy Crests

026: Mental Recovery Potion

The room was completely silent. The heavy velvet curtains shut out the hustle and bustle of the night in Armor Rock City. Only a candle on the desk emitted a steady, milky-white glow, illuminating a small area.

Lin Qi sat cross-legged on the thick carpet in the center of the room, his eyes closed, his breathing long and slow, already in a state of deep meditation.

Within the spiritual world, perception is amplified, and elements, like trickling streams, continuously flow in, transform, and settle under the abnormally active guidance brought about by the pollution of the evil eye.

After an unknown amount of time, he slowly exhaled a breath of stale air and opened his eyes.

His dark eyes lacked the clarity and satisfaction of meditation; instead, they habitually looked at the system panel, visible only to himself, with a hint of barely perceptible anticipation.

My eyes went straight to the message history bar.

[Meditation complete, experience points +11]

There was only one lonely message.

Lin Qi frowned.

too low!

The absurdly low number was like a bucket of ice water, extinguishing the slight sense of relief he had just felt after successfully arriving in the human world and settling down temporarily.

Keep in mind that after advancing to the intermediate apprentice level and acquiring the Evil Eye Contamination status, each meditation session yields at least 35 experience points!

But now?

11 points.

It's less than a third of what it used to be! It's even less efficient than his normal meditation when he was still a junior apprentice and without the evil eye's contamination!

That's just how the human world is.

The areas inhabited by humans are also called magic-free zones by wizards. As the name suggests, such places have extremely low elemental content. Without elements, it's like a skilled cook trying to cook without rice; no matter how talented you are, you can't use your skills.

This is why wizards live in the elemental realms for extended periods and rarely remain in the human world.

We need to think of a way...

The Nightmare Beast's feeding cycle lasts for about three years. In other words, it cannot return to the Gray Mist Jungle during these three years. If it maintains this level of meditation efficiency, it will be impossible to cultivate.

"What should we do?"

Lin Qi began to ponder.

The simplest way is undoubtedly to find a new source of elemental resources to cultivate in, but most of the elemental resource areas in this world belong to certain powers, and cultivating in someone else's territory comes at a high price.

Magic stones, forced labor, and even body organs, etc.

Resource-rich areas that welcome anyone to cultivate without requiring payment are usually riddled with pitfalls; the Gray Mist Forest is a prime example. Any wizard can cultivate there, but whether they can leave is not entirely up to them...

Wandering wizards have virtually no human rights in this world, so the vast majority of wizards will try to find a place to belong.

"Let's go to the market first."

After thinking for a moment, Lynch decided to try his luck at the Wizard's Market: meditation candles, meditation water, elemental incense...

In the Wizarding World, there are many materials that can create elemental environments. As long as there are sufficient resources, it is possible to cultivate even in a land without magic.

Having spent so many years navigating the wizarding world, he could find all the major resource locations and market areas with his eyes closed.

There is a large wizard town on the south coast, not too far from where he is.

Shaking his head, Lin Qi put these matters aside for the time being and picked up his backpack.

Because we were in a hurry, we only glanced at the spatial pockets of those wandering apprentices who had suddenly appeared, and didn't have time to take a detailed look at what was inside.

He first poured all the magic stones from his three pockets onto the soft carpet. There were fifty-six stones, more than he had estimated.

Then, he pulled out a thin, cool-to-the-touch black bone fragment from a hidden compartment in a pocket.

With a slight probe of mental energy, dense, ever-shifting dark rune lines appeared on the surface of the bone fragment, forming the outline of a spell model that, while simple in structure, was complete and feasible—Shadow Arrow.

This is a typical low-level apprentice-level dark element attack spell. It fires a dark elemental arrow forward, dealing 7 degrees of energy damage and having a corrosive effect.

"We're really lucky!" Lin Qi exclaimed.

On the one hand, it's amazing that a complete spell model could be found on a penniless wandering apprentice; that's truly remarkable.

On one hand, he was indeed amazed by his good luck. It was fortunate that the bald apprentice hadn't finished condensing and releasing the spell. Otherwise, the level 7 damage with its corrosive effect would have been quite painful, even with the protection of the giant lizard scales.

"System, learn!"

Using the system to quickly increase his spell reserve, Lin Qi then picked up the short staff he had obtained from the bald man and the longbow left behind by the tall, thin archer.

The staff was made of rough wood, but the dim crystal embedded at its tip did indeed contain a faint elemental guiding structure, which could slightly reduce the cost of casting spells and stabilize low-level spells.

The longbow's bow is made of a kind of highly elastic enchanted wood, and the bowstring is mixed with fine metal wires, which has a certain conductivity of energy, allowing the arrows to be shot to carry a little elemental power.

Lin Qi weighed the two magical weapons in his hand. Although they were poorly made, they were indeed legitimate enchanted items. If he put them together at the apprentice market, they should be able to sell for a hundred or so magic stones without much trouble.

Finally, and most surprisingly to Lynch, were the large number of "miscellaneous items" mixed in those pockets.

Several bundles of dried silverleaf grass, exuding a slightly bitter fragrance; a few pieces of inferior moonstone fragments, dark in color but with a subtle, flowing sheen; a small bottle of viscous blue frog secretion, seemingly shimmering with stars; and a few colorful mushroom spores sealed in wax, constantly changing color…

These items are unremarkable on their own; they are low-level magical materials that can be collected on the outskirts of the Gray Mist Forest. They are usually only used by apprentices to practice their processing skills or to concoct the simplest potions.

But Lynch's eyes lit up, because these seemingly miscellaneous materials were an important component of a potion—

Mental recovery potion!

These were the three potion recipes that Wizard Hossman had given him during his test, tucked inside the "Grey Tower Potions Compendium," and were among the few recipes Lynch had mastered.

Although such low-level recovery potions are nothing special in the wizarding world and are consumed quickly, they are precisely the hard currency that most low and mid-level apprentices urgently need after daily training and battles! Demand is stable and circulation is wide.

"It's like what I was missing has come to me..." Lin Qi's lips twitched slightly.

Since we're going to the wizard's market to find a solution, magic stones are definitely essential. The arrival of these materials is like sending charcoal in snowy weather. We'll use them to make a potion and then exchange it for magic stones at the market.

In the Wizarding World, most problems can be solved with magic stones.