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Although Gao De still knew very little about the world of mages, he could already understand just how outrageous the ability to enhance spells truly was.
This was an elevation of a spell's very essence.
"If one complete Origin can strengthen one spell of the corresponding rank, then if I master more spells in the future—and strengthen every spell I know…"
Just imagining it was enough to make Gao De's heart race.
What did that amount to?
It was like playing the same game everyone else played—except while they were using the normal version, he was using a modded version.
That was far more absurd than simply being a pay-to-win player.
"So this is what you do…" Gao De shifted his attention once more to the crescent-shaped gemstone floating at the center of his Spell Starsea, inwardly astonished.
At this point, he fully understood that this gemstone was no ordinary treasure.
It was something far beyond that—something that could only be called priceless.
As he marveled at the gem's mystery, Gao De casually grabbed another Gray-Eyed Mouse from one of the cages and, with a familiar snap, sent it on its way as well.
His consciousness sank inward again.
Inside the gemstone, after the "Big Dipper" representing the Gray-Eyed Mouse Origin had merged into the Mending spell model, only a single glowing point remained.
This eighth Gray-Eyed Mouse had not lit up any new point.
Origin:
0 Ring — [Human] (1/7), [Gray-Eyed Mouse] (Used)
"So each species can only provide one point of Origin…" Gao De murmured.
He had already expected as much, but guesses were only guesses. In the end, they had to be verified through practice.
Clearly, as powerful as the crescent gem was, it was not without limitations.
Still, even with those restrictions—even without yet knowing the upper limit of its spell enhancement, or whether it could strengthen only 0 Ring spells—the gem still deserved to be called priceless.
Because although 0 Ring spells were low-ranked, they had all been created by great mages renowned throughout history. Their structures were rigorous, nearly perfect, and had been passed down for countless years without anyone successfully reforming or improving them.
That alone made clear how difficult the act of enhancing a spell truly was.
"What exactly are you… to follow me into this world and possess such an absurd power…" Gao De thought to himself, his guard rising at the same time.
An ordinary man might be innocent, but possessing a treasure invites disaster.
If outsiders ever learned that he had such an item, greedy opportunists would descend on him at once, doing everything they could to kill him and seize it.
To say nothing of distant threats—Mage Seda would likely be the first person to murder him for it.
"I have to be careful from now on. I absolutely cannot let word of this treasure slip."
Fortunately, the gemstone had already rooted itself within his Spell Starsea. Unless he exposed it himself, who could possibly imagine that something so precious was hidden inside him?
And because of the gemstone's existence, Gao De saw—for the first time—a faint sliver of hope for escaping his current predicament.
If he could purchase a damaging spell formula, master a new spell, and then use the gem to enhance it…
Then perhaps he might have some chance of standing against Seda head-on.
Staring at the exquisite gem within his Spell Starsea, Gao De decided it needed a name.
After all, it was not simply a gemstone, whatever its outward appearance. In essence, it was some kind of miraculous treasure. A thing like that deserved a proper name.
Looking at its crescent-like shape, and thinking of its cheat-like effect—like a game modifier—an idea came to him naturally.
"I'll call you…"
Wemod Moonshadow.
Suppressing the excitement in his heart, Gao De cleaned up the Gray-Eyed Mouse's corpse as though nothing had happened, then headed to the dining hall for lunch.
The afternoon was still work time.
The herb garden's daily labor mostly consisted of herb cultivation, processing, and preparing simple potions for Mage Seda.
Though they were called "simple" potions, only three apprentices were actually capable of doing the work.
After all, everything required talent.
And Gao De was the strongest among all the apprentices.
Because of that, he had the privilege of having a workroom of his own.
Of course, Gao De only knew all of this because Aimi had told him—and had even pointed out where the room was. Otherwise, Gao De would never have found it by himself.
His workroom was not large.
It contained only a long worktable covered with various tools needed for potion-making.
On one side of the table stood a foot-operated bellows, a stove, and several cauldrons of different sizes hanging overhead.
The bellows were used to control heat.
He had heard that advanced potion masters used spells to heat their mixtures, which was not only more convenient but also allowed far more precise control of temperature.
On the other end of the table was a large shelving rack lined with ingredients used for potion preparation, each stored in a different kind of container.
After carefully taking in this environment—both familiar and unfamiliar—Gao De drew a deep breath.
"Then let's begin."
His task for the afternoon was to prepare a batch of Beginner Spider Venom Potion.
Just as in xianxia novels, where alchemists, artifact smiths, and formation masters were called the "three great side professions," this world also had many disciplines related to spellcraft—such as golem studies or scroll studies.
But those were secondary paths.
The three most respected disciplines had always been these:
Alchemy,
Potioncraft,
and the most mysterious of all—Runecraft.
Alchemy could roughly be compared to artifact refining.
Potioncraft was even easier to understand—it was essentially pill refining.
As for Runecraft, the knowledge left behind by Gao De's predecessor offered almost no real understanding of it.
Still, as one of the three great disciplines, Potioncraft was an extremely deep field. It was absolutely not as simple as the Western fantasy movies Gao De had once seen, where one merely tossed materials into a pot in sequence and boiled them.
Before a potion could even be prepared, the necessary materials first had to undergo magicization.
Magicization released the hidden properties of an ingredient and, through the potion master's precise control, aligned those properties with the needs of the potion.
This was an essential step.
And also an extremely difficult one.
The reason most apprentices could not participate in potion-making at all was because they got stuck right here.
Gao De narrowed his eyes slightly and reviewed every detail once more in his mind.
"One Snake-Fang Herb, one mountain wormwood, one Green Spider Sac…"
Following memory, he took the main ingredients needed for the Beginner Spider Venom Potion from the shelf and set them aside.
Then he picked up the Snake-Fang Herb and placed it into an ordinary-looking wooden bowl—which, in truth, really was just an ordinary wooden bowl.
After calming himself slightly, Gao De fixed his gaze on the gray-green Snake-Fang Herb and called upon his spiritual power.
At that moment, his five senses became abnormally sharp.
About two minutes later, something different began to appear across the surface of the herb in his vision.
Spiral ripples like strands of DNA.
Sharp serrated ripples.
Wave-like ripples…
Nearly seven or eight different kinds of patterns emerged, each manifesting from the herb in a strange yet orderly fashion.
Gao De knew these ripples were the visible expression of the herb's many properties.
Snake-Fang Herb was not a rare medicinal plant, yet it still possessed seven or eight different medicinal traits.
Of course, for preparing Beginner Spider Venom Potion, Gao De only needed one of them—
its toxic property.
His face growing solemn, Gao De reached out and touched the Snake-Fang Herb in the bowl.
At the same time, mana extended from within his body, gathered in his palm, flowed through his fingers, climbed the surface of the herb, and then steadily poured into the sharp serrated ripple—
as if he were charging it with energy.
At once, all the ripples except the serrated one—the one representing the herb's poisonous quality—stopped spreading outward.
It seemed that with the other ripples frozen, the serrated ripple suddenly had more room to expand.
Coupled with Gao De's "charging," its size nearly doubled in an instant.
But the stillness lasted only a moment.
Soon, the other ripples began to emerge once more from the Snake-Fang Herb, trying to reclaim the space now occupied by the serrated pattern.
Yet the serrated ripple had grown too strong.
The returning ripples could only seize back a small portion of their former territory. Most of it remained firmly under the control of the serrated ripple.
Seeing that the task was complete, Gao De—who had been holding himself taut the entire time—finally let out a breath of relief.
He knew the magicization of this Snake-Fang Herb was complete.
Silently, he withdrew his mana.
From beginning to end, the entire process had taken less than a minute, but the drain on Gao De's mana and spiritual power had been considerable.
And Snake-Fang Herb was only an ordinary herb with no rank at all.
One could easily imagine how much mana and spiritual strength it would take to magicize high-grade herbs.
No wonder it was said that a powerful potion master was necessarily also a powerful mage.
Though this was Gao De's first time personally performing magicization, his predecessor had done it many times before. The body's accumulated habit-memory had ensured he made no mistakes.
And now that he had gained this first experience, the magicization of the remaining ingredients became even easier.
Very soon, all the materials had been completely magicized.
The first stage of the work was done.
What came next was processing the ingredients.