Leon was ’swimming’ three meters underground, like a fish in the water.


    His Spirit energy went through the dense fog of Earth Elementium surrounding him, showing him the surrounding earth. Twisting roots of old trees; coarse sand and rocks; wriggling insects; gophers hiding in their nests; rotten tree branches, and some other unidentifiable things...


    It was only a short journey, but it allowed Leon to glimpse apletely different world that had always been right under his feet. In this secret world, Leon was like an untouchable king overlooking his kingdom, not caring about anything. If he really wanted to do something, with just amand, Demon Alligator Hunter would be able to wreak havoc in this ce.


    Although he wished he could spend a little longer traveling underground, but after merely seven to eight minutes, he could no longer stand it anymore.


    It was not because he had depleted his Spirit, but because he was out of breath.


    As an Apprentice Mage who worked with supernatural forces every day, no matter if it was resistance or endurance, Leon’s body was way stronger than an ordinary mortal. Any ordinary human would go into aa after holding his breath for a few minutes, but he was able to hold his breath for nearly eight minutes before needing to catch his breath.


    Following hismand, the Earth Elementium around the outside of the Demon Alligator Hunter’s body started to vibrate, pushing away the thick and heavy soil above its head and slowly squeezing its way to the surface.


    The sudden arrival of the Demon Alligator Hunter had shocked the surrounding demons. Numerous sharp cries rung through the air, as curses poured onto them like rain.


    "Damn it! We surfaced in the nest of the Demon Babies!" Leon cursed, driving the Demon Alligator Hunter forward and breaking his way out of the swarm of Demon Babies.


    Although the Demon Babies’ Curse spell was unpredictable and hard to defend against, they were just low-ranked demons. Faced with the Elementium formed Demon Alligator Hunter, the sess rate of their curses was not very high. Instead, two Demon Babies were killed by spears thrown by the Hunter, causing the rest of them to scurry away, hiding in nearby bushes and daring not to move the tiniest bit.


    At this moment, Leon had dimly tasted the mentality of Lucy and the other two Advanced Apprentices when they intruded into the Magical Swamp. Once a person possessed the abilities and resources of an Advanced Apprentice, ordinary low-ranked demons were no longer a threat to them. As they were only faced with a bunch of ’ants’ they could kill easily, no wonder that, even they knew this was a forbidden ce, they could still behave so recklessly.


    To be honest, if Mage Eclivel hadn’t done anything, with just the Apprentice Mages and demons of the Magical Swamp alone, there was no way they could’ve stopped the trio.


    As for Lucy’s sad encounter, it waspletely by ident.


    Just because Lucy possessed an overpowered skill and a frightening ability, it had forced Worm controller to fight her with his life. Then she had chased Leon all over the swamp and suffered a great loss at the hands of Bleia.


    In the past, these hateful Demon Babies were a group of frightening and hard to deal monsters. If he had been surrounded by them, even with the protection of his magical talisman, he would have faced miserable consequences. But now, with the help of the Demon Alligator Hunter, Leon could actually kill them easily, and no longer feared them.


    Unknowingly, Leon’s mentality had started to change.


    Use one’s strength to bully the weak; the weak are easy prey to the strong; be pushy and overbearing... all these phrases sounded nasty to the ear, but, now that he was in the position of the strong, it was rather an enjoyable experience.


    Driving his Demon Alligator Hunter forward and rushing out from the Garden of Whispers, Leon came to the stony trail and jumped off his Golem. He dispersed the Earth Elementium and picked up the two summoning cores. He was quite close to the entrance of the Tower, thus, Leon decided to try to appear like his former weak self.


    Pulled his hood up and covering his face, Leon stealthily returned to the Tower.


    The experiment had been sessful, and Leon’s confidence had grown. But, at the same time, it had exposed some problems, the most serious of which was how to handle long periods of time underground.


    Perhaps the Demon Alligator Hunter didn’t need to breathe, but Leon did! Deep underground, protected by the Earth Elementium emitting from the Demon Alligator Hunter, Leon had been given the ability to travel through the Earth. However, there was no air underground. If he didn’t solve this breathing problem, he would never be able to stay underground for more than 8 minutes.


    Hence, after returned to the Tower, for the next few days Leon spent most of his time running between different Apprentices, searching for a solution that would allow him to have dark vision and breath underground. When he had some spare time, he would sneak out from the Tower to hunt for suitable demons that he could use to craft new Golems.


    But too bad, up until thest day before he had to set off, he still couldn’t find any suitable demons.


    After all, this Magical Swamp was just an extremelymon resource site of an Mage family. It was all ordinary demons and nts being raised and nted here, where they were all easy to maintain and harvest. Therefore, it was just a fancy dream to harvest arge quantity of demon cores from this ce. In fact, both Sinbad and the Giant Alligator King were rare advanced demons of the Magical Swamp, which only leveled up in the past hundred years. If not because of this, Leon would never have found any demon cores he could use.


    But though he didn’t find any new demon cores, Leon still harvested a bunch of magical materials and ingredients for magical medicine. Using these materials, Leon was able to exchange for some rather useful items from other Apprentices.


    Out of these items, Leon was most satisfied with an exquisitely made Circlet of Nobility.


    Wearing the Circlet of Nobility on his head, the crystal clear diamond socked right in front of the circlet was pressed against Leon’s forehead. Besides making him look a little regal, it also increased his Spirit by one.


    For an Advanced Apprentice, this circlet was unable to supplement their Spirit. But for Leon, who only possessed 8 Spirit, it brought him a rather significant improvement.


    Also, his dark vision problem had been solved.


    The solution? A pair of Gnome Goggles!


    ording to the exnation he had received from the Intermediate Apprentice who had sold this item to Leon, the goggles were a product from another ne. It was made frombining a ck leather belt with two transparent crystals. Wearing it, Leon had clear vision in low-light environments.


    Leon had the Chip run an analysis when he returned. This strange object was supposed to be a product of a mechanical civilization. The Chip couldn’t sense any Elementium ripplesing from it, as if it was just an ordinary item used by mortals. It was made from a type of underground crystal and was polished using a special method. This allowed the wearer to pierce the veil of low-light environments.


    N?v(el)B\\jnn


    The Chip had also performed an analysis on theposition of the crystals. They were not a product that could be found in the World of Mages, and should be a unique material that only existed in the ne of that mechanical civilization.


    As a major scale ne, the World of Mages had conquered countless small and middle sized nes. These Gnome Goggles most likely came from a secondary ne that had been conquered.


    It wasmon knowledge in the Mage World that only those who were official Mages were qualified to travel between nes. Anyone below this level, even those Pseudo-Mages who possessed extraordinary talent, were not allowed to participate in the conquering war for other nes. Therefore, Leon could only let his mind run wild as he tried to imagine what this mechanical civilization was like. Meanwhile, he carefully ced this Gnome Goggle in his waist pouch.


    As for the problem of breathing underground, Leon had also solved it by employing a biological method.


    Within the Tower, some Apprentices were experts in biological modification. Using ’Snake Vine’ and ’Purple Left Flower’, together with ’worm ointment’, toad poop, and some other bizarre items, an Apprentice had produced a bulbous looking breathing organ. When Leon needed to travel underground, he just had to ce this biological apparatus into his mouth and he would gain the ability to breathe through his skin.


    As it was only a supplementary organ, and not a recement for his own organs, the risk of having his bloodline contaminated was non-existent.


    After solving all these problems, Leon could finally put his heart to rest. He spent all his day on either meditating or restlessly researching those magical books he had just copied.


    On the fifth day after signing up thepulsory mission, Leon finally received the message he had been waiting for from the Chip. The optimization of Fire Arrow spell had finally beenpleted!


    "Beep"


    "Optimization for the spiritual model of Fire Arrow has beenpleted."


    "Does the host wish to see the optimized content?"


    "Show me!" Leon yelled out in impatience.


    Following a long stream of data, the look of his long-ranged offensive spell, Fire Arrow, after extensive optimizations done by the Chip, was projected into Leon’s mind.


    If the look of Fire Arrow before this was a magical arrow, it had now transformed into a ming spear. The seemingly tame me had formed into a zing spear. With a thought from Leon, it would shoot out with an incredible speed, dealing twice the damage the Fire Arrow had.


    While wearing the Circlet of Nobility, Leon had a total of 9.37 Spirit, giving him a little less than 94 Mage energy. As the ming Spear used 24 Mage Energy every time it was used, his Spirit would be depleted after using it four times. Thus, a skill like this would have to be reserved, only being used at the most critical moments.


    After all, with the offensive strength of the ming Spear, he could easily break apart an Intermediate Apprentice’s magical defenses. Even if he had to face an Advanced Apprentice who had mastered defensive magic spells, the ming Spear would still be able to put a dent in it.


    To be honest, only now did Leon feel that he had finally mastered a good skill. With it, he felt a slight bit of confidence in surviving the mission he was going to undertake.


    Finally, after a nerve-wracking few days, it was time for the mission.


    ...


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