Wizard: Starting from Escape from the Thorn Garden

The cold swamp mud seemed to still cling to my trouser legs, and every breath carried the unique fishy sweetness and deathly stillness of the rotting bone swamp.

Chen Lin lay on the cold stone slab of the moss-covered corridor cave. A dull pain came from the blood-devouring vine patterns on his right arm. It felt as if a straw had been inserted into his heart, and someone was slowly sucking at the other end, devouring his strength.

The silvery glow of the moonlight moss gently fell, but it could not dispel the gloom in his heart.

After completing the mission, Chen Lin immediately received praise and encouragement from Vivian. When the weakened Chen Lin accidentally fell, he touched the dean's crystal ball. Then, a large amount of information and illusions entered his mind, which made things worse and caused him to faint.

As Ella's cold mechanical arms carried him back to this "home" filled with the sweet, pungent, and putrid smell, the image he glimpsed in the crystal ball kept replaying in his mind: the tender shoots of the Tree of Souls piercing the eyes of the unconscious apprentice, greedily sucking the essence of life; the almost fanatical anticipation on Vivian's face as she injected his blood into the seed.

"The Ivy Project... Container..." Chen Lin chewed on these two words, a chill seeping from between his teeth.

He was not a cultivated apprentice, but a prematurely ripened fruit, waiting to be sacrificed to the greedy demonic vine and the seed of the Tree of Souls.

He struggled to get up and walked to the windowsill.

Following the Seed of Origin's optimization plan, he carefully mixed the bat droppings he brought back with the rotten mud and poured it onto the moonspot moss.

A faint silver glow appeared, its gentle halo briefly soothing the tense nerves, but like a stone thrown into a deep pool, it failed to create any larger ripples.

He tried to have the Seed of Origin investigate the source of his heart problem, and finally pinpointed an item—a black iron ring.

He carefully removed the heavy black iron ring—this sorcerer's artifact that had once protected him from the miasma of decaying bones was actually a noose around his neck.

Placing the ring on the cracked stone workbench, Chen Lin closed his eyes and focused all his energy on activating the Seed of Origin deep within his consciousness.

The dark gold patterns, like living snakes, spread from his fingertips and silently seeped into the cold metal ring.

[Analysis Target: Secondary Spatial Barrier Ring (Enchantment: Flesh Sacrifice Circle)]

[Magic Array Structure: Nested Double Rings. Outer Ring: Simulates miasma resistance. Inner Ring: High-level life-absorbing channel.]

[Core energy source: Target organism's essence blood (requires continuous supply).]

[Countermeasure (Temporary): Cover the core nodes of the inner ring rune with a high-concentration Moonlight Moss Purification Solution (host blood enhanced version) (requires mental manipulation, error rate 37%).]

Is Vivian no longer willing to hide her malice?

Chen Lin could only use the excuse of feeling unwell to summon Ella, who also needed to replenish her life essence to suppress the iron-corroding fungus.

...............

"I feel very weak. Will this Qi and Blood Elixir work, Assistant Ella?" Chen Lin asked hoarsely as he opened his eyes. As he spoke, he handed Ella a scroll with the words "Qi and Blood Elixir" written on it. However, a line of small print was printed on the blank space of the scroll.

"Covering the core rune nodes, can that shield her from perception and extraction?"

Ella was disassembling the mechanical joint of her left arm, revealing the wildly writhing silver mycelium inside.

She dripped a small bottle of dark green, viscous liquid—a mixture of snake vine venom and his own blood—that Chen Lin had just prepared onto the mycelium.

The mycelium emitted a faint hissing sound, temporarily slowing its corrosion of the metal, but Ella's body trembled violently, and the light from her mechanical prosthetic eye dimmed noticeably.

"Of course it works. But it only treats the symptoms, not the root cause. Hmph." Ella's voice had a metallic quality, still cold.

At the same time, Ella's mechanical hand printed a line of light-screen text on the scroll, which only lasted for a short 5 seconds: "She is sacrificing herself more and more frequently. This is very abnormal."

"Perhaps the journey to the Corpse-Corroding Realm damaged its foundation. I can't buy or make a cure. Would adding these ingredients improve the effect?" Chen Lin said, his sharp eyes capturing the key words in Ella's writing.

Writing in charcoal on the leather scroll, "It's not just the frequency that's abnormal, she's in a hurry. So hurried that she doesn't care whether the container can withstand it, so hurried that even the most basic disguise is starting to crumble."

...........

A few days later, when Chen Lin was urgently summoned to the Dean's Laboratory at the top of the Thorn Garden, the scene before him completely confirmed his guess.

The ancient demonic vine Chaos, which once stood outside the enormous French windows like the foundation of a castle, now revealed a chilling decay. Its once lush and verdant leaves, seemingly capable of swallowing the heavens and earth, were now withered and curled in large swaths, as if scorched by invisible flames.

The vines themselves had lost their vibrant vitality, appearing somewhat listless and dull.

A faint, rotten smell, like the deep decay of decaying wood, filled the air, completely out of place with the rich fragrance of the top-grade magical plants in the laboratory.

Vivian stood with her back to him in front of the largest crystal ball, her posture still upright and elegant, her dark green robe radiating the glow of life.

But Chen Lin's Seed of Origin was frantically warning her, while also keenly noticing a detail: at the edge of her robe, there was a faint, barely concealed energy scorch mark; the magic swirling around her fingertips was no longer the peaceful plant-based life energy, but instead exuded an extremely weak yet unusually violent, almost collapsing sense of struggle—that did not belong to her!

"Apprentice Chen Lin," Vivian's voice was still gentle and pleasant, but it carried an undeniable sense of urgency. She slowly turned around, and the hidden anxiety and greed in the depths of her emerald eyes almost overflowed. "The Evergreen Project is the key to the academy's fight against the undead calamity."

We need more 'keys' and stronger 'containers'. You did a... very well on the mission in the Corpse Swamp.

She pointed to the center of the laboratory.

There, in a huge cultivation tank made of intertwined living thorns, soaked in a pale purple solution, was the apprentice whose eyeballs had been pierced by the seed of the Tree of Souls in the illusion a few days ago!

His body was covered in fine, vine-like tubes, his life force as faint as a candle flickering in the wind. What made Chen Lin's pupils shrink sharply was that next to the culture tank, there were three empty tanks! Like three coffins waiting to be filled.

"Your next task is to venture deep into the Wailing Rift and collect 'Soul Sand.' This is a key ingredient for crafting Soul Tree Seed Stabilizer."

Vivian walked up to Chen Lin and handed him a black iron ring that was heavier than the last one, with more complex and strange runes on its surface, as well as a dimensional bag that emitted spatial fluctuations.

"Time... is of the essence. Once you've recovered, you must act. You must bring this back within half a month. If you complete this mission, your privileges will be upgraded again, and I will provide you with all the resources to advance to a fourth-level wizard apprentice. I look forward to your performance, little one."

[The Seed of Origin urgently alerts: Soul Sand (a specialty of Wailing Rift)! Contains powerful soul fragments and intense resentment!]

Analysis: The Soul Tree Seed is a necessary catalyst for forced activation and host fusion!

Warning: The host's current life force cannot withstand seed fusion! The Soul Sand will detonate the host's soul!

The chilling news struck Chen Lin like a hammer blow!

In an instant, all the clues, like tangled gears, snapped together under the powerful analytical force of the Seed of Origin!

Vivian's foundation has been damaged! The withering of the Chaos Vine is irrefutable proof!

Vivian's source of power is collapsing!

This explains her anxiety, frequent sacrifices, and scorch marks on the hem of her robe—signs of uncontrolled energy dissipation.

Her strength was waning, and time was not on her side.

The threat of invasion from the undead plane, and even localized conflicts, did exist, exacerbating her sense of crisis and prompting her to take risks and eagerly acquire the Tree of Souls, a strategic weapon.

Although he successfully fused with the Bloodthirsty Vine, his growth rate could not keep up with Vivian's own rate of collapse and the pressure of war!

Soul Sand was the catalyst she chose—forcibly catalyzing the fusion of the Soul Tree seed with him, even if the process would completely drain him and tear his soul apart, like an apprentice in a cultivation tank!

Those three empty slots are for other consumables that might fail!

In the world of dark wizards, it's a dog-eat-dog world. If Vivian's weakness is exposed, her enemies, who covet her status and resources, will inevitably scramble to protect her!

She must complete the fusion with the Soul Tree seed and gain overwhelming power before she falls or is replaced! A stabilizer? That's poison that will hasten his death!

"She's not grooming me..." Chen Lin felt a chill run through him, fear replaced by a stronger sense of resolve. "She's setting the fuse for a powder keg that's about to explode! And I'm the firecracker destined to be shattered to pieces!"

Taking the ring and dimensional bag that felt as heavy as a thousand pounds, Chen Lin lowered his head, his voice carrying just the right amount of weariness and anticipation: "Yes, Dean. I will certainly live up to your expectations."