I, the wizard, the foolish Buddha

That night, a heavy rain began to fall.

The abandoned ranger's cabin outside the contaminated zone was on higher ground and was not flooded. However, the dilapidated cabin leaked everywhere.

Roland sat in a relatively dry corner, gazing at the heavy rain before him.

There was no wall in front of him, and the roof on that side had also collapsed. The rain poured down in front of him, but he felt very peaceful.

He was playing with a silver candlestick, with a small pile of magic stones in front of him.

Withdrawing his gaze, Roland looked at the pile of magic stones in front of him and picked up a very round and beautiful one.

Normal magic stones are only the size of a fingernail. Moreover, their shape is not very regular, and there are often many impurities inside, making them look like they can't be cleaned.

This magic stone was the size of a thumb, perfectly square, and looked crystal clear and very beautiful.

It was three times larger than a normal magic stone, but the purity of its magic power was more than ten times higher, and its value was a hundred times higher.

"So this is a mid-grade magic stone?"

Roland played with it for a while, reluctant to put it down.

The Red Skull people were very rich. The ten low-level apprentices alone had seven or eight hundred magic stones. The money in the bags of the three intermediate apprentices was twice as much as all of them combined.

The total number exceeded 2,300, of which more than 1,500 were low-grade magic stones, and eight were mid-grade magic stones.

All eight mid-grade magic stones came from the three of Elina.

Roland took out all the oddities from the Red Skulls, a total of six items. Or seven. The seventh was on Red Spirit, the wooden stake. So Roland didn't count it.

Among these six oddities, Roland had seen three, namely the silver candlestick and the chain. There was also a mud doll that could reflect the enemy's damage, but not negate it. Roland planned to keep these three items, and he planned to give the last one to the Ballet Ghost.

Of the remaining three, one was for refining magic potions, but it was far inferior to the Bitter Slumber Cauldron. One was needles, threads, pliers, etc., used for sewing corpses and refining souls, which could improve the quality and success rate when making undead. One was a stomach pouch, which, when sewn into the body, could restore life force and magic power by digesting various foods. If it ate magical creatures, it would increase its own magic power.

These three things were a bit useless to Roland. He originally planned to keep the set of tools for making undead, but its side effects were too great. Celine was covered in stench and looked like a withered tree. Using it too much would probably lead to loss of sexual function. And sooner or later, he'd be caught.

On the other hand, Bernard was handsome, suave, and charming. He drove Benjamin's sister crazy. While researching undead, he didn't neglect the important things in life at all. Moreover, the Alaka wizard had checked him 12 times and couldn't find anything wrong with him.

Both were undead wizards, but obviously, there were better, less harmful oddities available for undead magic.

Besides, this set of tools couldn't be used to refine Red Spirit. Roland planned to earn more money and get a better undead oddity to turn Red Spirit into a high-level magic puppet or something.

In addition to these three oddities, the robes, inner armor, etc. of these ten people added up to quite a bit of money. After discarding the damaged ones, they could be worth a thousand magic stones. But they had various emblems on them, so he had to take some time to deal with them before selling them.

After collecting these things, Roland kept the silver candlestick and the chain.

Elina's chain had already been turned into a wooden puppet and needed to be un-puppeted before it could be used. Roland couldn't see its quality for the time being, but he guessed that it should be a high-grade oddity. He could un-puppet it and refine it himself later.

Roland was a little reluctant to part with the silver candlestick. It had a very good effect when used on the undead. It also had functions such as protection and hiding traces. Adding the lantern provided a double layer of protection.

The only drawback was that the candles on the candlestick consumed soul essence, and once the candles burned out, he would have to inject soul essence.

In addition, there were some magic locks and mental imprints on the silver candlestick that others couldn't use. Normally, decrypting these things would be time-consuming and laborious, but Roland relied on his intuition (Eye of Truth) to fiddle with it and found it surprisingly smooth. He planned to take some time to work on it during his patrols these two days, and then add his own magic locks and mental imprints.

He collected all these things, and then took off the fire vine wrapped around his body.

The fire vine had just been rained on with Roland, but the flames on it were still burning. This kind of magic flame was not afraid of rain and did not need oxygen. As long as there was magic power to maintain it, it could continue to burn.

Then, Roland opened the floor of the cabin and chanted a spell on the ground. After a while, the stone and soil on the ground loosened.

Afterwards, he chanted a spell on the fire vine again.

In the spell, the fire vine crawled onto the nearby wall like a snake, deeply rooting its roots into the stone and soil.

The flame flowers on the fire vine became more vigorous, and the cabin was much warmer.

Taking off his fire lizard skin, Roland put on his hood and went to the basement through the heavy rain.

The door to the basement was sealed, but there was still a lot of accumulated water. However, the magic array was not damaged as a result.

"Entering and exiting the barrier requires a spell. When Elina and I repaired the barrier, we specifically changed the opening spell. Now, only I know this spell, and no one else can enter the barrier."

Roland used a few cantrips to drain the accumulated water from the basement, and then closed and sealed the door to prevent more water from entering.

"It's even safer now."

This was deep in the Black Forest, and few people would come here. The mountain roads leading to the ranger's cabin were very difficult to walk, and now it was so dark and rainy. Coming up the mountain was like looking for death. No one would come.

Roland put on his hood, took the ranger's compass, and patrolled outside again. Half an hour later, he returned to the corner of the cabin, soaked to the bone.

Taking off his coat, Roland used a magic spell to dry it, and then leaned against the fire vine to warm himself by the fire for a while.

After warming up for a while, Roland took out a wine glass and poured some wine. He drank two glasses himself to quench his thirst, and then poured the third glass onto the roots of the fire vine.

A few minutes later, there was a creaking sound from the fire vine. The vine visibly grew larger and thicker, and soon covered the entire wall.

The flame flowers on it were originally like plum blossoms, but now they were growing bigger and bigger. Before long, they were as large as the palm of a hand.

At this time, Roland suddenly felt a crying sound coming from the bag around his waist. He opened the bag in surprise, and a little sprite flew out.

The little sprite circled around the fire vine, its eyes twinkling with excited little stars. Then, like a little bee, it pounced into one flame flower after another and started rolling around.

Looking at the little sprite picking 'honey,' Roland's face was very ugly.

"Damn it! I actually forgot about it! I originally planned to release it, but now, I'm sorry, you must become my slave."

The little sprite didn't hear Roland's muttering and was still happily feasting.

At this time, Roland discovered that the flame flowers that the little sprite had picked 'honey' from were slowly turning into buds. After a while, these buds slowly withered and extinguished. Among them, three tiny, strange fruits condensed in three of the buds.

They looked a bit like cherries.

Roland picked off a flame fruit. He studied it for a long time but couldn't figure out what it was.

"I remember that the flame flowers licked by creatures like fire lizards would condense into fruits, but not like this."

These few 'cherries' contained very pure flame power. Roland wrapped them in magic foam and put them in a small box to prevent them from being damaged in a collision.

Looking up at the little sprite sleeping on the fire vine, Roland bound it with a magic spell and held it in his palm.

After observing it for a while, Roland found that the little sprite's wings had grown a little.

"Hmph, you've been kidnapped, little girl."

While the little sprite was sound asleep, Roland took out a magic contract scroll from Elina's bag and added some devilish clauses to it.

Because the strength of the two was too different, the contract could be forcibly signed using certain unethical methods.

The relevant content was in the Book of Demons, and the whole process went very smoothly.

After the contract was completed, a rune appeared on the little sprite's body. It gnashed its teeth, turned over, and continued to sleep.

"From now on, my magic potions will have someone to get rid of insects and water them. I wonder if the little sprite can learn to refine magic potions. I'll have to check later."

Roland smiled and released the magic spell on the little sprite's body and put it back into the dimension bag.

Looking at the thick fire vine on the wall, Roland chanted a magic spell and spent a long time and a lot of effort to slowly pull out its roots.

After contacting the Treant Shepherd, Roland had a strong urge to break through.

According to Aleyeh's notes on Roland's condition, his success rate for advancement had increased by one time—from 3% to 6%.

This kind of increase was no different from no increase, but Roland had a strong intuition that today was his lucky day.

"A 6% probability of advancement, plus the root of the fire vine, and that bottle of low-grade advancement magic potion... I should have a 60-70% chance of success."