From Hogwarts to Strixhaven.

Chapter 390 The Red Robe Mage's Basement
The battle in the abandoned village ended quickly, but the adventurers had just begun a new challenge - cleaning up the battlefield filled with corpses and blood.

After all, the adventurers planned to use this place as their base temporarily, so sleeping next to a corpse was obviously inappropriate.

Fortunately, Ivy doesn't have to do any of this himself.

After the battle, the adventurers found an abandoned pharmacist's cottage in the village. In addition to some dried herbs and various bottles and jars, there was also a well-preserved basement with complete tools.

"A perfect operating table! Right?" Xie Nian looked at Ivy. She was pointing at the medicine preparation table in the middle of the basement. It was a flat stone table that was just big enough for a person's body for some reason.

Although it was still a little narrow for the tall Wolf Man Overlord, it finally gave Ivy a place to show his skills.

Ivy took the brass scale off the pharmacy table and looked at the large distiller and dispenser in the corner. "This basement is unusual. Country pharmacists don't need such large instruments, unless there was a large gathering area nearby. We should disperse and look around. Maybe we can find some surprises."

The people who entered the basement with Ivy were Gale, Xie Nian, and the tightly tied up Gnoll Warlord. The others were doing manual labor in the abandoned village and checking other abandoned buildings.

"But judging from the pharmacist's treatment records, he is indeed just an ordinary guy." Gale raised the log in his hand, "Most of his customers are ordinary people in the village, including coopers, blacksmiths, preschool children and blacksmiths' apprentices. Here is also a bottle of healing potion... I just got a little scratched..."

"Don't do anything stupid! Gale!" The evil thought stopped the gullible wizard, who had already uncorked the bottle and was about to pour the bright red potion into his mouth. "We still don't know what kind of guy the owner of this basement is, and we don't know how long this potion has been here... If you get poisoned, don't blame me for not warning you!"

"Which pharmacist would want to poison innocent villagers..." Gale hesitated, then put the cork back in the bottle. However, he did not put the bottle of potion back in its original place, but put it in his pocket.

"Hey! I saw a control lever behind the box! I wonder what it is for." Xie Nian was indeed talented in rummaging through boxes and cabinets. In less than a minute, she had found what the owner of the house had tried hard to hide.

As the control lever was pulled down, a bookshelf in the corner slowly slid to the side, revealing the hidden space behind it.

Inside the secret door is a tunnel dug along the stone wall, and there is a built stone wall on the right. In addition to the normal underground space that Ivy and the other two saw, this tunnel must lead to another secret room.

"There really is a hidden space!" A smile appeared on Xie Nian's lips. She was already imagining the scene of finding the treasure.

"There are so many coffins here..." Gale's brows have never relaxed since entering this tunnel.

"I can confirm that these coffins are filled with skeletons that are ready to jump up and attack people at any time." Ivy had seen the faint aura of necromancy in the coffins through his constant arcane vision, so he reminded them, "But they are not a big challenge for us. I told you that I have studied a lot of necromancy, right?"

"So, you can counterattack the skeleton in the coffin as soon as it jumps up, right?" Gail asked.

"Then let's get rid of them! If they are activated for no reason in the middle of the night, I can't bear Ivy's important surgical research being interrupted." Xie Nian had already placed his hand on the coffin, waiting for Ivy's order to open it.

"There's no need to be so nervous," Ivy soothed him, "I can take care of them with a snap of my fingers. The stupidest thing in the world is for the living to be plotted against by the dead."

As a master of black magic who specialized in necromancy, Ivy easily smoothed out the magic web here and dispelled the necromancy in the coffin.

"You can open them now." Ivy gave Xie Nian an affirmative smile.

"Really?" Xie Nian was a little skeptical, "I didn't feel anything... or have you been lying to me from the beginning?"

"Ah, here are some magic scrolls..." Gail, who was squatting next to another coffin, was already checking his gains. "You are right, Ivy, the owner of the basement must not be an ordinary pharmacist... This is a spell scroll for summoning a Quassem... I can copy it into my own spellbook... and give orders on behalf of its original owner."

"Kwasemuo?" Xie Nian also opened the coffin lid, but unfortunately, apart from the corpse, there were only a few dirty-looking gold coins inside.

"A small devil that is good at hiding itself. There are many of them in Hell. I heard that some magicians will receive a Kwasser as a messenger and helper as a gift from the master. Because they are also devils, these Kwasser are also very good at deceiving people." Gale explained, "The Kwasser in the scroll may be the pet of the owner of the basement. Do you need me to summon it?"

"You can copy it into your spellbook first. Anyway, you already have a magma bat as a pet, so one more Quasser won't be too much." Ivy picked up a red-covered diary hidden in the coffin and turned to show it to the two. "Look what I found? A diary. I knew the owner of the basement must not be a decent person, right?"

"What's written inside?" Xie Nian kicked the coffin beside her. She no longer planned to open the box.

"The owner of the basement is a red-robed wizard from Cyre, hiding in the village to practice spells that can resurrect people." Ivy took a quick look and almost understood the story in the diary. "For the resurrection target, it uses 'she'. Maybe it's another clichéd story of falling for love... It also mentioned that he was avoiding Zukiel's pursuit... Who is Zukiel? Is he famous?"

"You know the Red Wizards, but you don't know Zukiel?" Gale asked curiously, and then he explained Ivy's question, "Zukil is the highest title of the Red Wizards and the actual controller of Cyre. There are eight of them in total, each representing a separate school of magic, and together they promote the Zukiel Council to decide all affairs of Cyre."

It was not surprising that Ivy did not know Zukiel, because he only knew about the red-robed wizards and the country of Cyre from other novels. Besides that, he also knew that the red-robed wizards of Cyre were good at necromancy and liked to have bald heads and tattoos.

"Very good. Since this red wizard is escaping from the pursuit of the Regent Council, it means that he must have stolen very important treasures from the treasury. Let me see... here, he mentioned the 'book'! Very good, we should be able to find a necromancy book from Cyre." Ivy nodded with satisfaction and stuffed the red wizard's dark diary into his pocket. "Let's move on."

"There is no way..." Xie Nian looked at the mirror in front of him, which was as tall as a person. "But there is a mirror here. Could it be that the Red Robe Mage's laboratory is hidden in the mirror?"

"You might as well say it's behind the mirror." Gail cleared his throat in front of the mirror, despite his evil thoughts. Soon a dark blue face emerged from the darkness of the mirror.

Gail, who was about to say something to the magic mirror, suddenly stopped and turned around: "Tell me the name of the red robe wizard, Ivy."

"Ilin Toss." Fortunately, the red-robed wizard had the habit of writing his name in his diary. "Yes, Ilin Toss." Gale nodded to the magic mirror.

"That is my master's name, and I can see that you are not Ilin Thoth, not my master!" the magic mirror replied.

"Well...we are his allies, very firm allies."

"Only the master's true allies may pass! What do you think of Zukiel Sazastan?" asked the magic mirror.

"Sazastan? The lich?" Ivy repeated. It was a familiar name that came from a pretty good DND popcorn movie. Although Sazastan only appeared for one minute, it still left some impression on Ivy.

"Sazastan is an evil great lich. He will never die too many times."

Since Ilin Toss ran away from Sel, he must not have a good impression of Sazastan, not to mention that he is a Zukiel.

"Very good. The next question is to test whether you are knowledgeable. What diseases can the Impatiens ointment be used to treat?" the magic mirror asked again.

This ointment had appeared in Ilin Toth's physician's journal, and Gail had not only seen it, but had also written it down: "It can be used to treat puncture wounds."

"Then the last question, what do you want to see through me?" the magic mirror asked finally.

"Considering that Ilin Toth is studying necromancy... the answer should be knowledge, or power." Gale immediately guessed the answer to the last question.

"You are indeed the master's most loyal ally..." The magic mirror made way, and behind it was another laboratory.

There are many specimens on display in this laboratory, and the skeleton of some giant creature is hanging from the ceiling. Of course, the most eye-catching thing is the operating table in the center of the room.

There lay a skeleton, alongside a collection of rusty tools, including a bone saw, chisel, hammer and scalpel, as well as a magnifying glass.

"So... this is where Ilin Toss studies the resurrection spell?" Gale looked around and asked.

"From the results, all his attempts have failed." Ivy picked up the research records on the operating table.

It recorded all the necromancy spells that Ilin Toth had tried, from the third-ring Speak with the Dead to the ninth-ring Complete Resurrection. The spells he could successfully cast were ineffective against the corpse that had been rotten for too long. The more advanced spells, such as the seventh-ring Resurrection and the eighth-ring Clone, would turn the corpse of a loved one into a ghoul. As for the ninth-ring Complete Resurrection, he believed that there would be relevant content in the Cyran necromancy books, but he had not yet made up his mind to try it.

"A mediocre spellcaster." Ivy laughed. He had indeed never seen a corpse being turned into a ghoul using resurrection magic.

"Maybe it's just because he got the wrong magical knowledge." Gale showed Ivy the Red Core Miscellany in his hand. "Who would write alchemy, resurrection spells, and how to make war machines in the same book?"

"So, this red-robed wizard hasn't read the necromancy book he stole?" As Xie Nian entered the laboratory, he went straight to the cave bear specimen in the corner and made several faces at it before joining the conversation.

"At least not when he wrote down these lines." Ivy looked at other parts of the laboratory and saw the well-preserved necromancy book behind an iron gate. "Ah, he also set a trap to protect the book."

"I'll open the lock!" Xie Nian volunteered, and then in just a blink of an eye he solved the traps on the ground and the locked iron door, which was even faster than magic.

Ivy took the "Tome of Necromancer" from the stone platform and countered the fire missiles fired by the gargoyle statues on both sides.

It seems that when the Cyrans made this spellbook, they embedded the skull of a great wizard into the cover, with two amethysts forming his eyes that were still open in death, and his wide-open mouth that was empty.

"Is there no key in that tome?" Gale asked, picking up another book that was placed among the jars and bottles. "There's also a journal here that mentions that the Red Wizard's apprentice stole the key gem and disappeared near the well. If you want to check the necromancy book, perhaps you should look for it near the village well."

"The Red Mage also recorded in his logbook many people who passed by this village. He was very afraid of being hunted by the Cyrans. But in the end, he did not defeat the Cyrans who came to him. Instead, he encountered three soldiers in black armor, who injured him. The apprentice ran away after that..." Gale read the records in the log word by word, "The black-armored soldiers later took away all the villagers and attacked him again... Two days later, the record was interrupted. Perhaps the Red Mage was killed by those black-armored soldiers."

"Black-armored soldiers?" Xie Nian seemed to remember something. "In the Druid Cave in the Verdant Forest, I saw several very large murals, one of which was about black-armored soldiers... The Druids seemed to have fought with those black-armored soldiers... a hundred years ago."

a hundred years ago.

This is a very interesting time point, and Ivy still has some memories of this part. It should be the key period when Kathric Thorm transformed from a Selune believer to a Shar believer, and he also fought with the Harper. Now it seems that Kathric Thorm's opponents at that time also included the druids in the Green Forest.

"No matter what the truth was, at least we found a better operating room." Ivy cast a spell to move the skeleton on the table to the side, and asked the gnoll who had been following them to lie down on it. "If you want to explore it, please tell others that my operation has officially begun. Of course, if you want to watch, I welcome you to do that, as long as you don't make any noise. Also, please help prevent others from disturbing me."

Gale looked at the gnoll chained to the operating table by Ivy, hesitated for a moment before pulling up the evil thought beside him: "We'd better go outside and wait for news... It's not suitable for both of us to stay here... I don't like necromancy, and you are not suitable to stay with corpses."

"You're right... Actually, I've been having the urge to try what human flesh tastes like lately..."

(End of this chapter)