Chapter 63: Chapter 63

Nine months later, in a small wooden house next to Witch Sophia's cluster of wooden buildings, which was Locke's small botanical garden.

Lilith's Cottage had allowed Locke to establish a small botanical garden, and this small botanical garden was located in a wooden house similar to Witch Sophia's botanical garden.

A total of five acres of land, plus public areas, approximately six acres in size.

The academy's wooden houses were essentially alchemical products. Building a plantation here could effectively prevent experimental disasters. Once problems arose, as long as people ran out and closed the door, everything would be fine.

Inside the plantation.

Locke watched six minotaurs watering sixty pots of Super Mandrake Vines. The five acres of basic magical farmland were filled with earth element particle and water element particle energy, and every Super Mandrake Vine was lush and green.

During this time, the botanical garden had been completed and could steadily earn Locke over a thousand magic stones each month.

Relying on these magic stones, Locke could peacefully use the mixture of Dragon Blood Leaf Powder and badansi wood shavings for all-day meditation, maintaining a high-efficiency mental strength improvement rate.

Between the five acres of farmland, there were also patches of weeds.

Due to the nutrient soil, nutrient solution, and growth accelerant gel, these weeds were always full of vitality and needed regular cleaning approximately once a month.

The mystery of life lay in this: to survive, these weeds would actually entangle their roots with the roots of the Super Mandrake Vines, seeking every nutrient-rich soil area to survive with difficulty.

Locke ordered a minotaur to bring such a weed to him and carefully observed its roots. "Just a wild magical plant, bull grass, merely a weed."

"But because I didn't clean the hidden wild grass seeds in the soil thoroughly in the early stages, it has become quite a workload in my plantation. Every month, a batch of bull grass grows in my plantation."

However, this couldn't be considered a mistake, after all, this was his first time establishing a botanical garden. Moreover, unless he completely burned the soil once, he couldn't eliminate the wild grass seeds hidden within.

Bull grass was the result of failed experiments by breeders in the southeastern quadrant in the past. Such examples could be found many times in the wild.

But bull grass was definitely among the troublesome ones.

This wild, degenerated semi-magical plant was not much different from ordinary plants, except for its astonishing reproductive ability, which was noteworthy. It was one of the problems that novice breeders in the southeastern quadrant had to face.

Locke thought, "I should go to the potion shop sometime to buy some simple potions specifically for removing these weeds."

Locke carefully observed the stems and roots of this bull grass and discovered that to compete for nutrients, the roots had undergone many changes. Moreover, each month, the new batch of bull grass had some new changes.

During these eight months, in the battle of wits with these weeds, Locke had gained deeper understanding of botany.

It just so happened that he had learned some new spell models during these eight months.

First was the final spell of the Vine Hand series, Thorn Whip, which was the spell Captain Bruno had used against the Blood Curse Court wizard apprentice.

Second was the first cantrip model of Vine Surge, the 0.5-circle Multiple Manipulation, which allowed Locke to simultaneously control three Level 6 Invisible Mandrake Vines.

This greatly increased Locke's combat power.

The remaining spell was a 0.5-circle botanical cantrip model Wild Grass Entanglement that Locke had purchased at Chimera Market.

He had spent seventy magic stones to buy this. When he purchased it, he happened to be troubled by bull grass weeds, so he bought it casually to study.

Locke extended his palm, softly chanted an incantation, and sprinkled some nutrient solution into the air.

The bull grass in the hands of the minotaur kneeling before him rapidly grew wildly. The grass seeds hidden within also quickly sprouted and took root. In moments, numerous bull grass plants completely bound this minotaur slave.

Under Locke's command, this minotaur tried to break free from these weeds using his knight-level physique.

But the growth rate of these weeds was too fast. Even if he broke several, more bull grass would quickly grow.

The minotaur seemed to have some breathing difficulties and made heavy breathing sounds. Locke snapped his fingers, and the bull grass weeds entangling this minotaur slave all withered instantly.

Seeing this scene, Locke pondered thoughtfully. "The Wild Grass Entanglement spell can originally use any wild grass in the natural environment, magically strengthen it into more resilient wild grass to entangle enemies' legs and feet, but usually there are only a few strands with very low binding effects."

"In combat, it's generally only used as support because its advantage is that it can be cast almost instantly, so quite a few wizard apprentices still learn it."

"But what if I use bull grass to cast this spell? The spell's characteristics would change. Bull grass itself is fragile, but its reproduction speed is really too fast. With just a little nutrition, it can grow wildly continuously. It can completely rely on quantity to trap opponents completely, even kill them as a result."

"This would qualitatively change the spell."

Locke thought, "Of course, it doesn't work now. The effect is still rather ordinary."

"This would require several years of research to succeed, but... I have the Horadric Synthesis Cube. Just now I only used ordinary bull grass to cast. If I synthesize bull grass to Level 6 for enhancement, then it would be different."

Locke placed three bull grass weeds into the synthesis cube. At the same time, he ordered the minotaurs to harvest the bull grass weeds in his plantation with intact roots and stems.

Perhaps these bull grass weeds would no longer be weeds in the future and could be sold at Lijin Secret Language as magical plants!

Locke said, "It's been nine months. My releasing another synthetic plant product would be normal. This can maintain my genius persona in the breeding field."

"Moreover, the specialized supporting magical plant for Wild Grass Entanglement, Super Bull Grass, this line of thinking also seems very reasonable." The latest_epɪ_sodes are on_the novel⟡fire.net

Locke began thinking. Actually, this time, the synthesis cube only accelerated the time for him to produce results.

He hadn't expected that he could discover the idea for improving a commonly used cantrip model in the process of fighting weeds in his plantation.

Essentially, if given five or six years, he was confident he could complete this idea by hand.

But if he really spent so much time on this matter, he wouldn't be able to do anything else.

So he still needed to use the synthesis cube to accelerate the completion of this process.

During this period, Locke's mental strength had reached 195, which was already very close to the standard for first-class wizard apprentices.

This was thanks to the large amount of magic stones provided by his plantation. Each month he basically spent 350 magic stones luxuriously purchasing badansi wood shavings and Dragon Blood Leaf Powder, while also spending over 200 magic stones monthly to buy potions that increased meditation efficiency and mental strength improvement speed, such as White Birch Tree Potion.

With the support of these resources, Locke's learning speed could almost compare to wizard prospects with Level 7 aptitude.

During these eight months, Locke had even saved 3,600 magic stones. It could only be said that this plantation growing Super Mandrake Vines was indeed profitable for second-class wizard apprentices.

Locke opened the Crimson Echo potion that Witch Sophia had prepared for him and drank the red misty medicinal water in one gulp.

His current mental strength was already very close to a first-class wizard apprentice, making this the perfect time to drink this bottle of crimson potion.

The moment he drank it, Locke discovered that his vision became completely crimson, as if he were wearing colored sunglasses while looking at things.

Locke licked his tongue. His taste and smell would gradually change and develop vampire syndrome side effects within a month. At the same time, he would digest this bottle of potion within the next few days.

Although the difficulty of improving from 195 to 200 was far greater than improving 30 points of mental strength at the 100 stage.

But with the powerful medicinal effect of Crimson Echo, he would almost certainly be able to take this final step in the near future and become a first-class wizard apprentice.

Using Deep Purple Jade could completely eliminate the side effects of the Crimson Echo potion contaminating his mental strength.

He didn't need to worry that doing this would increase the difficulty when he advanced from first-class wizard apprentice to formal wizard.

Locke gave a few instructions to his minotaur slaves and decided to go out for a walk. "The academy position given to me as a second-class wizard apprentice is Magical Plant Investigator. This job is very leisurely, though there is indeed a task recently."

"I need to go to a mortal city in the rear territories of Lilith's Academy within seven days."

"It's said that some kind of plague has appeared in that city. The academy highly suspects it's a plague caused by magical plants in nature and wants us breeder assistants to investigate."

"During the medication period, I basically can't meditate or serve as Teacher Sophia's potion science assistant and breeder assistant because my mental strength fluctuations are very intense and I can't do overly precise work."

"I'll ask my teacher for leave. Going out for a walk would be good." Locke said, "I can use this time to digest the Crimson Echo potion."

Locke thought for a moment and began preparing for his first "long trip" in this wizard world.

At the same time, besides preparing to inform Witch Sophia, he would keep a low profile and try not to tell others about his whereabouts.

This was also Witch Sophia's requirement for him.

Blood Curse Court's infiltration operations against Lilith's Cottage had never stopped. Keeping a low profile was also to better protect himself.