Wizard: Starts with Advanced Meditation

"Da da..."

Hughes walked slowly through the passage, his crisp footsteps echoing in the empty corridor, but the light was dim, making it difficult for him to see the ground.

Moreover, the closer one gets to Vaka's laboratory, the stronger the stench of seawater becomes in the air, mixed with a strange smell of blood.

Suddenly, the sensation he felt while walking changed abruptly.

"Gurgle, gurgle—"

Then, he turned his gaze to the ground.

On the crystal floor in front of them, there were several puddles of viscous blue liquid. The liquid slowly flowed down the ground and soon covered the entire surface.

On the slime, a series of messy footprints could be clearly imprinted, leading all the way to the door of the laboratory ahead; they were clearly Vaka's footprints.

Seeing this, Hughes suddenly stopped, then activated his levitation technique to lift himself off the ground, flying along the ceiling towards the laboratory.

"call out--"

—Gurgle gurgle…

The laboratory door was ajar, and sticky gurgling sounds could be heard from inside, sounding like the blue slime from before was still wriggling.

"Waka, I am Hughes Craig."

"..."

The next second, Wakka's response came from behind the door:

"Come in, Hughes."

It seemed as if the other person had something sticky stuck in their throat, making their voices muffled and unsettling.

"Crunch—Squeak—"

Upon hearing this, Hughes reached out and gently pushed forward. The hinges turned with a creaking sound, and the already slightly ajar door slowly opened.

What came into view was a large pool of blue slime, which spread along the ground all the way into the depths of the room.

He looked up and immediately saw Vaka standing at the end of the slime trail.

At this moment, the other party was trembling uncontrollably, and thick blue mucus kept oozing out from between the fish scales on its body.

They slid down their scales, gradually forming small puddles at their feet.

Moreover, the vacana's originally slippery blue fish skin has now become wrinkled, like a layer of tree bark about to peel off.

His two large, fat fish heads looked as if they might fall off his face at any moment, and his eye sockets were deeply sunken inward, giving him a somewhat inexplicable sense of terror.

"Shu...Shus."

Waka turned his head, the fish skin on his cheeks drooping and swaying with the turn of his head.

"You... Guh... You've come."

Hughes nodded, then found a barely clean patch of ground and slowly landed there.

He vaguely guessed what was going on, after all, Wakka had told him that the other party was not originally a half-fishman.

At this moment, the other party's physical state seemed to be repelling them, as if their identity as a half-fish person was rejecting them.

"Gurgle... Ha, don't worry about it, it's just my old problem acting up again."

As he spoke, Vaka pointed to the alchemy platform not far from him.

"Could you please... help me prepare some deep-sea fish sauce?"

Hughes nodded, then quickly stepped forward and began to prepare the potion for the other party.

He knew about this potion because it was one of the potion recipes given to him by the Coral Oath after he joined the organization.

"These issues are happening more and more frequently..."

"Waka exclaimed."

"Hughes... do you have any clue about that mermaid soup?"

Upon hearing this, Hughes nodded and said:

"I came here to tell you this."

As he spoke, he handed the other person the potion he had prepared.

"A race with a 60% similarity to the blood symbolized by merfolk is almost non-existent in the Oren plane, so the possibility of the merfolk ingredients in the recipe being replaced is very low."

At this moment, Vaka had already drunk the deep-sea fish sauce in his hand.

In an instant, the rate at which mucus oozed from its body slowed considerably, and its previously wrinkled skin relaxed slightly.

Hughes glanced at it, then continued:

"So, if I transplant a merman into my bloodline and then extract materials from him, I don't know if that would meet your requirements."

He then explained the specific steps and the differences between half-mermaids and merfolk as ingredients for potions to the other party.

"..."

After hearing Hughes's story, Vaka fell silent.

A few minutes later, he stretched out his finger and pointed shakily to a bookshelf behind him.

During this period, Vaka was unable to access the knowledge runes in his consciousness world, so he specially made several bookshelves and recorded the precious knowledge in books.

"Could you please... bring me the book on the far right of the second row?"

Hughes nodded upon hearing this, then drew out a wisp of spiritual energy from his consciousness world, pulled the book out of thin air, and handed it to Vaka.

It was a book with a strong sea creature style. Not only was there a huge seashell embedded in the cover, but the pages inside were also made of some kind of deep-sea plant.

He glanced at it and noticed that several large characters were clearly outlined on the pale surface of the seashell:

Mermaids and the Laws of the Sea

—The Laws of the Sea?

Hughes felt a slight jolt in his heart.

He vaguely remembered that the laws of the sea seemed to have been created by the merfolk after they became wizards, which was why they were at the head of the sea races.

—It seems that Wakka's purpose in commissioning me to improve the Mermaid's Secret Soup... is related to the laws of the sea.

He thought to himself.

"Hughes, it's possible...it really is possible..."

After a long while, Vaka closed the book.

"As long as they aren't pure-blooded merfolk, your method will work perfectly."

With this major discovery, his physical condition seemed to improve considerably, and his speech became clearer.

"Hughes, I'll try to get the blood that symbolizes the merman sorcerer. But I estimate I can only get enough for two fusions. You must succeed within two attempts."

Hughes nodded without saying anything more.

Having spent so long at the Koya Spire, he has handled a series of extremely difficult biological modification experiments, and has now developed an exceptionally skilled biological modification technique.

At the very least, he was quite confident that he could transform the bloodline of a human wizard into that of a merman.

And who knows, we might even be able to save a portion of the mermaid's symbolic blood...

"..."

After discussing the mermaid materials with Vaka, Hughes left.

Now that the materials issue has been largely resolved, all that remains is to learn how to craft the Mermaid Secret Soup combination potion.

Just as he was deep in thought, a hoarse voice suddenly came from behind him:

"Excuse me, are you Lord Hughes... right?"

Upon hearing this, Hughes turned around and saw a mermaid sorceress wearing a seashell mask and pearl accessories walking towards him from behind.

An invisible force field seemed to surround the opponent, and the blue slime on the ground would automatically move away when he approached.

"Who are you--"

Upon seeing the iconic seashell mask, Hughes was immediately startled and recognized the other person instantly.