I'm doing daily quests in Wizarding World

Chapter 124 Immortality (Part 1)

A hunched figure stood in the laboratory.

He looked up at the ceiling, where an old man lay in an ice coffin beside him.

The old man's face was pale and his eyes were closed.

Gou Lou slowly lifted his hood, revealing a withered, bluish-purple face with jet-black pupils that seemed to burn with flames deep within them.

"Why can I manipulate the dead at will, yet still not extend your lifespan?"

The wizard muttered to himself.

Looking at the old man in the ice coffin, it felt as if I had traveled back through the long years to my childhood hundreds of years ago.

His parents were first-level wizard apprentices. Due to their limited aptitude, they returned to their hometown and had him after realizing that they could not make progress. Growing up in his family, he developed an interest in wizardry from a young age.

Although his aptitude wasn't particularly good, it was still much better than his parents'. After learning all the knowledge, he embarked on the wizarding academy's entrance exam with his parents' blessing.

That year, he was full of vigor and waved goodbye to his parents and family behind him.

"My dear, I look forward to you getting into wizarding school in the future. You will make me proud," the father encouraged loudly.

"Don't listen to your father. Even if all you learn to do after you go out is roast sweet potatoes, I will still be proud of you, because in your mother's eyes you have learned another skill," the mother said gently.

He walked towards his new life full of hope. His parents stood in front of the house watching him go, hoping he would have a bright future, but their figures gradually became blurred.

After overcoming countless hardships and arduous journeys to finally cross that threshold and become a formal wizard, he suddenly wanted to show off his success to his parents. In the eyes of outsiders, he was a cold and cruel wizard, but only in front of them would he show the little tenderness he had left. When he returned to his hometown, he found that his parents had long since grown old.

Over the years, he has used every means to extend their lives, which has consumed a lot of resources and taken up a lot of his energy.

Many of his apprentices who broke through later than him have now reached higher levels, but he has made slow progress.

Some people advised him that it wasn't worth it. He wasn't very talented to begin with, and it was already a rare stroke of luck for him to become a formal wizard. He needed to seize every opportunity to climb higher and go further.

But he was stubborn and inflexible.

The old wizard's aged fingers gently stroked the ice coffin, his face calm.

The mirror placed to the side showed the scene of Lynn and the others being taken into the wizard's tower.

The wizard closed his eyes, then opened them.

He turned and left the laboratory.

"I am the wizard who issues the quests; you can call me Wizard Doragon."

"Let's test your aptitude first. I'll put a drop of your blood on it, and then infuse it with my spiritual power." Doragon took out a crystal ball.

The other wizard apprentices in the room hesitated; the blood dripping on it didn't look like that of a good person.

"Don't worry, I've followed the Academy's requirements. There won't be any hidden curses or traps. Everything is under the monitoring of the Wizarding Network when a mission is issued by the Academy," Doragon said.

The apprentice, standing alone to one side, drew his longsword from behind him and slashed his palm, the blood dripping onto the crystal ball.

The crystal ball absorbed the blood, its color becoming alluring, and its transparent body seemed to shimmer with a faint glow.

When the palm rests on it, and mental energy is injected, the color of the crystal ball begins to change.

The azure light gradually condensed from the bottom, finally stopping when it had condensed to four-fifths of its full strength.

The apprentice released his grip and looked at Doragon.

"Your aptitude is quite good," Doragon exclaimed. "According to the five grades of aptitude, from lowest to highest, your aptitude is in the second grade."

After saying that, Doragon smiled and said, "If you study hard, as long as you're not too unlucky, becoming a full-fledged wizard shouldn't be too difficult."

The other three apprentices also underwent a qualification test.

The best one was only third-class, and the other two were only fourth-class.

First class is the best, fifth class is the worst.

Doragon comforted the apprentices, "Your aptitude is quite good. Speaking of which, my aptitude is only fourth-rate. Aptitude is just the starting point, not the end point."

When it was Lynn's turn, he dripped his blood into the crystal ball and then poured his mental energy into it. The crystal ball seemed to meditate on its own and began to absorb the free mental particles in the surrounding air.

Lynn seemed to understand something; he probably guessed the purpose of the crystal ball.

It is estimated that this drop of blood is used to mimic the host's meditation, temporarily absorbing mental particles from the surrounding air.

However, this absorption is only temporary, and the absorbed spiritual particles cannot be stored, but it is enough to test the efficiency of meditation.

In just a few breaths, the crystal ball in front of them was filled with blue.

"First-class aptitude!" Doragon paused, looking intently at Lynn. First-class aptitude only means that the upper limit that can be tested is first-class, not that Lynn's limit is first-class. He had just observed that the blue light's rate of increase still had room for improvement.

"Your aptitude is truly rare. With the right resources, becoming a full-fledged wizard with first-class aptitude isn't difficult," Doragon said.

"In that case, it'll be just the two of you this time," Doragon said, pointing to Lynn and the aloof apprentice. "The rewards will be distributed as usual; each of you just needs to choose one material."

With his selection, Lynn had more time each day to assist Doragon in conducting experiments.

The mission was clearly stated from the beginning that Doragon was conducting an experiment related to necromancy.

However, the apprentices do not have high requirements for their knowledge of necromancy; they only need to be obedient and willing to cooperate with the experiments.

As Lynn participated in the experiment, he learned about the contents of the experiment that Doragon was conducting—the soul extension ritual.

Compared to the decay of the physical body, the soul also decays, but the rate of decay is much slower than that of the physical body. When the soul has decayed to its limit, it also means that life has come to an end.

Doragon's research focused on how to rejuvenate the souls of ordinary people.

Because the strength of the soul increases with the wizard's meditation, a strong soul is the foundation for accepting various transformation rituals and modifications.

As the experiments progressed, Lynn gained a deeper understanding of the soul.

It even gave Lynn an additional profession—soul studies.

Unlike necrology, soul studies is a separate discipline, but the two disciplines are closely related.

Just like the relationship between bloodline studies and mutation studies, there are many similarities and overlaps between necrology and soul studies.

The more efficient a wizard's meditation, the more acute their perception of the soul. Doragon's experiments required precise capture of soul particles, and Lynn and another apprentice's daily work was to observe the absorption efficiency of different ritual arrays for these particles during the experiments. This is also why he needed highly qualified apprentices.

Doragon created a ritual that passively absorbs and strengthens the soul. If this ritual is successful, even ordinary people can gradually increase their soul strength by staying in the ritual array for a long time, thus indirectly prolonging their lifespan.

(End of this chapter)