A few days after returning from the bookshop, Carter Bill went to see Subaru again. He used the remaining magic stones to commission Subaru to help cultivate some Lucid Magic Beans, which could restore mental power.
Mental power is of great significance to warlocks. Every activity of a warlock consumes mental power—including meditation, experiments, learning, and even eating and walking. As long as a warlock is awake, their mental power is constantly being used up.
Once mental power is completely exhausted, a warlock can do nothing but stop and rest to recover it. The conventional ways to restore mental power mainly involve sleeping and resting, but these methods are obviously inefficient.
There is a ten-to-one ratio between mental power and mental attribute. Carter Bill's current mental attribute is 1.3, so his mental power is 13.
This amount of mental power is only enough for him to complete two meditation sessions, three basic biological modification experiments, six hours of non-stop spell reading, or one elementary magic plant modification. Often, it would be exhausted before noon, and the time he spent resting every day would take up more than half of his day. Calculated at this rate, he would hardly make any progress before the assessment.
Therefore, after much thought, Carter Bill decided to rely on some external help. As a basic magic plant, Lucid Magic Beans can restore about 10 points of mental power within half an hour and can be used three times a day—perfectly matching Carter Bill's current mental power level.
In addition, there was the Fairy Fountain in the square. If he was really sleepy, he could also go there to splash some water on his face to restore a small amount of mental power.
With these methods, the time he spent recovering mental power would be greatly reduced. If he arranged his cultivation tasks properly, he could even stay in a state of cultivation 24 hours a day, only needing to sleep every two days to replenish his mental power.
This allowed him to make one day feel like two. The original three months of preparation could be extended to half a year or even longer.
Of course, when Subaru heard this news, he thought Carter Bill had gone crazy.
Everyone knew that using external forces to restore mental power and extend cultivation time was a feasible idea, but almost no one would actually do it. After all, warlocks are not machines. Cultivation and learning are already boring enough—many apprentices can't even finish their daily tasks, and quite a few feel dizzy and sleepy just looking at runes.
Now, Carter wanted to give up his rest time for cultivation, even sacrificing his basic sleep.
"My goodness! Has no one ever told him that sleep is one of life's greatest pleasures?"
Although Subaru did not look down on hardworking apprentices, he still thought that rushing forward blindly like this was extremely foolish. After all, this is the warlock world—a place that values resources and backers.
Months of non-stop cultivation day and night might be equivalent to the effect of a bottle of magic potion or a single magic fruit. Years or even decades of relentless hard work could not compare to the guidance from a powerful warlock if one happened to catch their eye.
Instead of wasting this kind of hard work on blind cultivation, it would be better to use that energy to figure out how to obtain high-level resources. Think of ways to please other powerful warlocks and gain their support—wouldn't that be a hundred times better than working hard day after day alone?
In response to Subaru's persuasion, Carter Bill scratched his head and honestly said, "I still think I should focus on cultivation first."
Subaru was left speechless. "You're really beyond saving!"
...
Time flew by, and in the blink of an eye, more than a month had passed.
Outer Ring of the Shadowlands, Carter Bill's Stone Hut.
Late at night.
Mosquitoes fluttered around, candlelight flickered, and the dancing flames cast long black shadows on the wall—twisted shadows that wriggled like tentacles.
At the experiment table, Carter Bill was busy at work.
In his left hand, he held a strange plant, somewhat similar to the pitcher plants on Earth, with a funnel-shaped insect-trapping cage. This was a Devouring Magic Flower, an elementary apprentice-level magic plant. It had a unique ability: it could release a wonderful fragrance to attract small insects in the forest and eat them.
However, unlike the pitcher plants on Earth, the Devouring Magic Flowers here had an additional excretory system. There was a thumb-thick rhizome under the insect-trapping cage. After digesting the insects it ate, the remaining parts would be excreted through this rhizome.
Almost all plants and animals in the Magic Forest are infused with elements. These elements cannot be digested by the Devouring Magic Flowers, so they form crystals and are excreted together with the insect remains.
These elemental crystals have a wide range of uses for warlocks and are relatively common magic materials. For this reason, many warlocks grow large areas of Devouring Magic Flowers to produce elemental crystals.
But Carter Bill was not here to grow Devouring Magic Flowers. After all, cultivating magic plants is no easy task. Devouring Magic Flowers are elementary magic plants, requiring a specially created growing environment, specific pollination and fertilization methods, and more—all of which require at least second-level skills from Elementary Magic Plant Cultivation. This was far beyond what he could handle.
What he was doing now was still modification.
Although Devouring Magic Flowers can produce crystals, their digestive ability is weak, and they can't produce much in a day. So, was there any creature with stronger digestive ability?
The answer was yes: the elementary magic plant, Venus Flytrap.
The digestive ability of this magic plant is well-known—an adult Venus Flytrap can digest an elephant in a quarter of an hour.
Thus, some warlocks had a clever idea: if they combined Venus Flytraps with Devouring Magic Flowers, wouldn't the Devouring Magic Flowers gain the strong digestive ability of Venus Flytraps, allowing them to produce a large number of elemental crystals?
That's how Venus Flytrap Gastric Mucosa Transplantation Method came into being. By extracting the gastric mucosa of Venus Flytraps and transplanting it onto Devouring Magic Flowers, the latter could gain the terrifying digestive ability of the former. This had basically become a standard practice in the cultivation techniques of Devouring Magic Flowers.
However, warlocks have limited energy and mostly specialize in one or two disciplines. Those who have mastered advanced cultivation techniques rarely excel in biological modification. Therefore, when it comes to modification, many warlocks simply spend some magic stones to issue tasks and entrust them to other apprentices who specialize in biological modification.
Carter Bill had taken on such a task from the High Tower: modifying 100 Devouring Magic Flowers. The materials would be provided by the client, and the reward was 20 magic stones.
This was a decent price, and it would also help improve his professional skills. So, without much hesitation, Carter Bill accepted the task and had been busy with it these days.
Soon, the modification of this Devouring Magic Flower was completed.
The suddenly increased gastric acid clearly made the Devouring Magic Flower uncomfortable, and a "gurgling" sound kept coming from its insect-trapping cage.
Carter Bill knew it was hungry. After modification, the Devouring Magic Flower needed to eat constantly throughout its life cycle. If it stopped eating even for a moment, the gastric acid would burn through the entire insect-trapping cage.
So, Carter Bill opened the window and placed it on the windowsill outside. There were plenty of insects at night—enough to fill its stomach.
[Elementary Magic Plant Modification Experience Points +3.]
[Elementary Magic Plant Modification Lv1: 88/1000.]
At the same time, the system notification sounded.