Wizards: Starting with Fairy Crests

042: Infant

Lynch quickly and calmly searched the bloodstained hall.

He removed all the recognizable leather or cloth pockets from the nearly torn remains of Blackstone, Grey Falcon, Old Pipe, and Shadow Raven, and roughly scanned the insides with his mental power.

The haul was quite fruitful. A rough estimate suggests that it contained over a dozen handwritten copies of potion recipes and magic notes of varying completeness, numerous finished potions with different uses, and a number of magical materials.

In addition, there were magic stones they carried with them, several unique but not top-tier sorcery tools, and so on. There were so many that Lin Qi didn't have time to examine them closely; he stuffed them all into his bag, intending to count them carefully when he got back.

What puzzled Lin Qi was that Shadow Raven's spatial pocket couldn't be opened, as if the spiritual imprint on it hadn't disappeared.

"That's strange. The person has a spiritual imprint, but it's still there? Could it be that this guy isn't completely dead?"

Lin Qi glanced at the Shadow Raven, which was clearly split in two and beyond dead, and was utterly puzzled.

Having no clue what to do for the time being, he could only put it aside for now and deal with it later.

Having done all this, he lingered, his gaze fixed on the depths of the castle.

Following the remaining traces of the aberration, he cautiously explored downwards along a partially destroyed spiral of stone steps.

We descended to the very bottom of the stairs.

At the end of the stairs was a mostly collapsed laboratory, the air thick with a pungent, acrid smell of chemical reagents mixed with some kind of decaying organic matter.

In one corner of the laboratory, a huge cylindrical petri dish made of reinforced crystal and a metal frame had completely shattered.

A thick, luminous, dark green culture medium had spilled onto the floor, not yet completely dried, and contained some flocculent tissue residue that was rapidly losing its activity.

This is clearly the container that imprisoned that mutant for a thousand years.

Lynch's gaze swept across the wrecked ground and landed on the relatively intact side of the laboratory. There stood a metal workbench fixed to the ground, covered in dust but largely intact in structure.

Some rusted tools were scattered on the lab table, and in the center of the table, there was a thick notebook protected by a dark animal hide cover.

Lin Qi stepped forward, brushed off the dust, and picked up the notebook.

The cover had no title, only a blurred symbol resembling a twisted double helix was imprinted in one corner.

He casually flipped through the book; the inside pages were written in a dark red, durable magical ink, and although they were old, the writing was still clear.

"The 7th day of Frost Moon. Received a pair of 'materials', a brother and sister, descendants of northern mountain people. Preliminary tests show abnormal latent bloodline resonance rate, which is consistent with the theoretical basis of 'Twin Chain'."

"The 19th day of Frost Moon. The elder brother (No. A) experienced a strong rejection of the 'Source Type VII' injection, with his body collapsing at a rate of 37%. An emergency stabilizer was administered. The younger sister (No. B) is showing stable performance, and her resonance index is increasing."

"Day 3 of the Melting Ice Moon. Attempt at 'Resonance Grafting' surgery. Reversely channeling the purified life essence from part B into part A... Failed. Part A has undergone uncontrollable distortion, with its life force surging and aggression increasing dramatically. Activating Level 3 Binding Field."

"Day 15 of the Melting Ice Month. The aberration of A has stabilized. A trace amount of 'Magic Essence' inducer was injected to observe its long-term binding reaction with the aberration variant. The 'container' tolerance test for the 'Water of Life' project yielded negative results. A new carrier direction needs to be found..."

The log continues with numerous entries about other test subjects, attempts with different formulas, and various bottlenecks and theoretical deductions encountered in the project, but the record of the brother and sister ends here.

Lynch closed the journal, feeling little emotional. Such were the experiments of the wizarding world.

He put away the journal and turned his gaze to a metal cabinet embedded in the wall next to him.

The cabinet door was tightly closed, but the lock was already rusted. He pulled hard, and the cabinet door opened with a "creak". There were no bottles or jars inside, only a few documents written on specially made, anti-magic silver leaf paper and sealed in a crystal plate.

His gaze was instantly drawn to the top document. On the silver-leaf paper, the title was written in elegant, ancient cursive script:

"The Water of Life—The Theory of the Foundation of Immortality and the Initial Refinement Scheme (Top Secret, 7th Edition)"

Lin Qi's breathing quickened slightly behind the mask for a moment, and a burning light suddenly shone in his eyes.

that's it!

This was precisely his ultimate goal in risking great danger and venturing into this den of dragons and tigers even after obtaining the bloodline of the Phantom Cat Demon!

This same Crimson Court's potion laboratory, which consumed countless resources and conducted numerous cruel experiments, including those on the brother and sister, was pursuing its ultimate research project—

The prototype of a legendary magic potion that can fundamentally prolong life and refine the essence of life!

Water of life!

......

Whispering Swamp, at the entrance.

The air was thick with a sweet, rotten smell, and the ground felt damp and sticky underfoot—

All of this clearly reminded Lin Qi that he had left that silent, dry, death-filled dimensional space and returned to reality.

"Sizzle..."

A faint sound, like oil dripping into cold water, came from behind. After completing the teleportation, the distorted gray light screen fluctuated violently a few times, then vanished silently like a burst bubble, leaving no trace, as if it had never existed.

The entrance to the Crimson Court's Potions Garden has once again vanished into the cracks of time and space.

Lynch stood there, took a deep breath of the "fresh" swamp air, and his nerves, which had been tense for nearly two hours, finally relaxed slightly.

His bag was stuffed with potion recipes, materials, recipes for the Water of Life, magic stones, witchcraft tools, and other spoils.

It was heavy, yet a reassuring weight.

Although this adventure was extremely dangerous and his companions were all killed, the rewards he gained far exceeded his expectations...

However, in that moment of slight relaxation and a secret sense of relief—

A voice rang out beside him without warning.

The voice was extremely childish, like that of a newborn infant, yet its enunciation was exceptionally clear, even carrying a coldness and surprise completely incongruous with the age of the voice:

"You're still alive?"

Lynch's hair stood on end instantly! It was as if ice water had been poured over him from head to toe; all his relaxation and joy froze and shattered in an instant!

He reacted extremely quickly, his body retreating several steps to the side and back almost as soon as he heard the sound. With a "clang," the cross sword was halfway drawn from its sheath, its cold blade pointing towards the source of the sound, his gaze sweeping over it like lightning!

The sound came from the same clump of pale straw where Shadow Raven had placed the strange, faceless baby doll.

At this moment, the thing lying on the haystack is no longer the roughly sewn, lifeless rag doll.

There, lying there, was a living, breathing baby who looked to be only a few months old!

The baby's entire body was bright red, not a healthy rosy red, but a strange, dark red, as if the skin had just been peeled off. The surface was smooth and hairless.

It lay there quietly, its tiny head raised at an angle completely out of a baby's reach, its dark, unblinking eyes staring intently at Lin Qi.

The small face was expressionless, with its mouth slightly open; the words just spoken clearly came from there.