Chapter 83 – Companion Flower

Chapter 83 Companion Flower

The world outside didn’t seem so scary.

Leaving the Sorcerer’s Tower, the lives of ordinary people might be similar to the ancient times of Sol’s previous life.

However, in the next second, Mentor Kaz’s words shattered Saul’s illusions.

“Enclosed carriages like that are basically transporting materials over.”

“Materials?”

“Mostly contaminated corpses from the outside world, after all, there are only so many people in the Sorcerer’s Tower in total. If you were to point to the corpses produced in the tower, you would have run out of work a long time ago.”

No wonder many of the corpses looked like nothing Saul had ever seen.

“Do the surrounding towns send people over voluntarily?”

“They don’t have that kind of strength. It’s basically third level apprentices who take the initiative to collect contaminated corpses. It’s also a disguised way to protect the safety of the surrounding territories. Otherwise, why do you think they’re all willing to send their children over?”

Kaz laughed, and it was hard to tell if the smile was more of a smug one or a mocking one.

The two of them headed for the gardens.

As they approached, the small window of the cabin was opened and a middle-aged man with a waxy face poked his head out of it.

He had flat features, only his nose was prominent and long, like Pinocchio.

It had probably been remodeled as well.

“Good noon, Lord Katz!” He greeted Mentor Kaz warmly.

With a nod in response, Kaz pointed at the man and said to Sol, “That’s the florist, he’ll teach you how to cultivate the companion flowers after you pick them out.”

Sol hurriedly nodded to the florist, who returned a wide smile filled with a mouthful of large yellow teeth.

The two of them walked to the entrance of the garden just as a gust of wind brushed by, and a scent of toasted bread drilled into Saul’s nose.

What was said to be a garden in front of them was actually more like a vegetable patch.

The land was divided into several pieces, on which flowers were planted one after another. The stems of the flowers were slender, but the buds were not small, and each flower only had two leaves.

Some flowers are in full bloom, and some are still blooming.

When the wind blew, they looked like rows of big-headed dolls dancing.

The aroma of bread is even stronger.

Obviously having already eaten, Saul still felt hungry.

“Mentor, are these all companion flowers?”

Kaz raised his chin, “All of them. Companion flowers are just a general term for a class of plants. You can see that they look different, but the growth process and characteristics are the same.”

The two traveled between the fields.

Saul always felt that the flowers seemed to be turning their heads along with them, only the flowers had heads that he couldn’t tell back from front.

“This type of companion flower loves rotting gas. That’s why normal soil can’t be planted. After you pick the flowers in a while, go to the florist just now and ask him to transplant them into small pots for you, and give you a packet of flower fertilizer.”

Flower fertilizer?

Saul’s footsteps lurched.

Was it the same kind of flower fertilizer he’d almost turned into?

“Companion flowers bear fruit almost every six months. Each plant bears one fruit. It has many different kinds of fruits, with different probabilities of what kind of fruit it bears, and there’s no means of targeted cultivation for the time being. The blue color is the fruit that can grow magic power, and the red color is the one that strengthens the body ……”

Saul hurriedly took out a pen and paper from his backpack and started recording.

Kaz swept a glance at Saul and shook his head, “You should have recorded it a long time ago. Green can detoxify, purple is poisonous by itself, and if it’s white, remember to turn it in to the Wizard Tower.”

Saul’s recording action paused, and after waiting for a while he did not see Kaz continue.

“Mentor, is there something wrong with the white fruit?”

“That’s not true, the white fruit is to stabilize the mental body, the tower is rather short of this. If you can really cultivate the white fruit, there’s nothing wrong with exchanging it for 20 credits.”

20 credits …… half a year’s salary!
It’s really worth it!
When Sol looked at the flowers again, he had the feeling that he was looking at a golden mountain.

“The ones that have already bloomed are hard to transplant, just go pick a bud.”

“Yes, mentor.” Sol put away his notes and approached the field.

There were hundreds of flowers in the field, most of them had already bloomed, and a few were in the form of small buds.

With credits at stake, Sol didn’t get down to business quickly, trying to mon a companion flower that could bear white fruit through his own observations.

Even less, bearing blue fruit would be fine. It was just that these flowers grew irregularly. Different colors, different shapes, some like roses, some like tulips, none of them bore fruit.

The ones that should have borne fruit had already been picked.

Just as Sol was carefully observing, Mentor Kazi’s ghostly voice came from behind him again.

“Rum, does he want you to go under his name?”

Sol stopped his observation and immediately turned back.

After a very brief hesitation, he honestly admitted, “Yes.”

Kaz nodded, not really showing signs of anger.

“I’ve found that out as well. There was another reason you chose me as a mentor in the first place, wasn’t there?”

The fact that Sol would choose Kaz as his mentor was of course Kong Sha’s handiwork. At first, that bottle of potion had temporarily boosted Sol’s perception of dark elemental particles, at one point surpassing the light element and becoming the elemental attribute with the highest perception for Sol.

This also made Saul, who originally might have chosen Rum as his mentor, choose Kaz without knowing it.

“So do you regret it now?” Mentor Kaz asked.

“No regrets.” Saul immediately responded.

Saying that wasn’t just for the sake of licking his mentor, Saul truly felt that there was nothing to regret.

If it wasn’t for the opportunity given by Kong Sha, Sol wouldn’t even have the qualifications to become an apprentice.

Instead of being bent on complaining about Kongsha’s calculations, it was better to think of it as the price to be paid for becoming an apprentice.

That’s very much in line with Senior Byron’s values then.

Kaz skimmed his lips and smiled, but his smile was a bit grim.

“Yeah, you don’t have a chance to regret it now that you’ve undergone a sorcerous body transformation and have favored the dark attribute yourself.”

Sol immediately felt the sunlight shining on his body was not so warm.

He immediately emphasized, “I really don’t regret it, mentor! If I hadn’t worked in the necropolis room, I wouldn’t have been able to complete the transformation at all ……”

Crap, almost said something about enriching himself.

Sol hastily diverted his attention, “…… And I kinda like the work in the corpse room, it’s especially suitable for concentrating on research and study.”

I don’t know if Kaz had heard about Saul stealing materials, but the other party’s face was obviously much better.

“Alas ……” Mentor Kaz arched his back and stood with his arms folded, letting out a soft sigh, “If only everyone learned to be content like you.”

Everyone else?
Who?
Where is the lack of contentment?
Ever since he knew the identity of the Tower Master, Saul suspected that the work in the corpse room might have been arranged for him by the Tower Master as well.

The Tower Master had asked him to study corpses and souls, so how could Saul dare to disobey?
Besides, his words were not against his heart, the work in the corpse room was indeed very suitable for him now.

It was just that he didn’t expect Mentor Katz to emit such sentiments.

It made Saul vaguely uneasy.

Whose unawareness could make Mentor Katz so despondent?

Kaz took the initiative to terminate the topic, only leaving Saul with a stomach full of questions.

“With your current ability, there’s nothing wrong with working in the corpse room. In the future, as long as you can turn in all your materials on time, I’ll give you a pass on the test.”

The tests every month from now on are this simple?
“Thank you mentor, I’ll finish it.”

Saul was originally worried about how much sorcery the mentors would ask him to learn again during the second test.

He had a lot to learn now, and the learning of sorcery could only be slowed down.

Saul remembered that Elder Mark’s test seemed to also be a test of the nature of organizing the lab for this kind of task.

This made him even more certain of his original conjecture:
The Sorcerer’s Tower was actually not a school, but a unit.

The apprentice’s initial rapid learning was the induction training. After training, if a newcomer could not perform any of the jobs, he would be dismissed.

The Wizard’s Tower is a very strict unit, and dismissed employees must also use themselves as sustenance to shine for the Wizard’s Tower.

In this way, the two newcomers who were the first to leave the classroom during the initial test and had not even learned a single compound rune were actually dangerous.

Thinking back, Saul didn’t seem to see them in today’s class.

They couldn’t be …… already “dismissed”, right?
“Thank you mentor, I will always try to finish.” Saul made a serious promise to his mentor once again.

“Uh-huh.” Kaz turned and started to walk back, “Take your time picking out the flowers and go to the florist when you’re done. Just be back at the tower by sundown.”

(End of chapter)