This wizard only wishes to be a teacher

Floating Island, in the temporary laboratory.

Lucien was currently testing two pages made from different materials. Under the continuous guidance of his spiritual power, one of the pages, which had a lighter color, was unable to withstand the increasingly high intensity of the external tests. Its internal structure began to destabilize and rapidly disintegrate.

"No matter how I try, the pages made from Sosha tree bark are far worse than those from Morey Beast hide," Lucien said as he discarded the ruined page and shook his head helplessly.

Since the success of the Wizard’s Notes, Lucien had been attempting to use the materials available on the Floating Island as a substitute for Morey Beast hide in page production, but most of these attempts ended in failure.

The Sosha tree bark, which had the best results among these, could mimic the effects of Morey Beast hide, but the end product was inferior in every aspect. Even with Lucien’s improvements, pages made from Sosha tree could only seal zero-level witchcraft two to three times and the duration of the sealed witchcraft was reduced to within three days, barely qualifying as usable.

However, with the Morey Beast hide almost exhausted, the Sosha tree became an acceptable alternative for Lucien.

"I wonder how much longer Carly’s transformation will last," Lucien muttered as he reinserted the intact Morey Beast hide page back into the Wizard’s Notes and glanced at the system panel. Carly’s character panel still displayed the "Slumbering Transformation" tag.

During this period, it was the explosive growth phase for the Moonlight Moss, whose quality was at its finest. Combined with the tears of joy and happiness from the Beauty Shell, the Praise of Moonlight that Lucien concocted on the island had significantly improved in effectiveness.

Through continuous meditation over this period, Lucien’s spiritual power level had also greatly increased, to the point where if he was not careful, his surging spiritual power would readily break through the threshold between a third-level Wizard Apprentice and a Formal Wizard.

In fact, Lucien needed to use some of the techniques from the Meditation Methods, using his spiritual power to "reinforce" the shaky bottleneck, to delay his promotion.

"Other third-level Wizard Apprentices are desperately trying to raise their spiritual power by every possible means, but in my case, I am desperately trying to figure out how to suppress my spiritual power level," Lucien closed his eyes gently, feeling the surging spiritual power in his Spirit Sea, and couldn’t help but reflect inwardly.

By his estimate, he was at most a month away from breaking through the limit for a third-level Wizard Apprentice. Once his spiritual power reached the limit set by the modified Greybone Meditation Method, it’s likely that his spiritual power, which was already at its peak, would no longer be suppressible, catapulting him toward a new realm that every Wizard Apprentice dreamt of.

This would ordinarily be a good thing for Lucien. The only problem was that the ruins he was currently in appeared to repel those who had reached the realm of Formal Wizard; if he were to be promoted within the ruins, he might encounter some unnecessary troubles.

"Forget it, I’ll just keep waiting. If all else fails, I’ll leave a spiritual rune unfixed to delay it a bit longer," Lucien decided rather reluctantly.

What Lucien didn’t know was that at that very moment, Carly, inside the Crystal Coffin, had reached a crucial turning point in her transformation.

Inside the Crystal Coffin, Carly had lost all human characteristics from her appearance, embodying a fairy-like beauty instead. The ears on either side of her head had become pointed and elongated, with two smaller pairs of secondary ears behind them.

Her eyes had also grown significantly larger than before, and if those eyes were to open, one would find that Carly’s pupils had transformed into a pair of somewhat eerie vertical slits. Even on either side of Carly’s forehead, two unremarkable little bulges were swelling, as if something was waiting to completely burrow out from under her skin.

"Umm..." Carly, in her slumber, seemed to be experiencing pain; she kept twisting her body, but to no avail.

Soon, her snow-white, translucent skin quickly broke out in a fine layer of tiny blood beads, followed by the growth of blood-tinged silver feathers from within her body.

These silver feathers were elegant and exuded a divine beauty, yet they looked somewhat out of place on Carly, like a harpy with a body full of plucked feathers.

Perhaps because of this dissonance, Carly’s body also began to change gradually. Her hands slowly deformed, and a layer of wing membrane rapidly grew out from her hands and flanks, constantly transforming into the shape of "wings".

Her legs, in turn, became thicker and her toenails longer and sharper, eventually transforming into a set of talons somewhere between those of a raptor and a beast.

The two pairs of little bulges on Carly’s head had also become a pair of curved antlers, resembling velvet, and the moment these antlers grew, Carly’s body underwent rapid changes. Even the Crystal Coffin that had contained her before began to eject her from within, allowing her now somewhat gigantic form to rest quietly in the pool water, continuing to sleep.

Breathe...

The underwater environment did not affect Carly’s normal sleep; in fact, the stimulation from the spring water further accelerated the changes in her body.

Swish—a tail quickly appeared at the end of Carly’s spine and grew rapidly in length and girth, and the same silver feathers swiftly covered it, matching those on Carly’s body.

"Flara!" The mermaids living in the pool were evidently attracted by the commotion caused by Carly’s transformation, but when they saw Carly, now in the form of a "Sprite Dragon," slumbering at the bottom of the water, they burst into cheers.

Then they joined hands and began to circle Carly, singing a beautiful and ancient ballad, seemingly praising Carly’s rebirth and extolling the formidable power of fairies.

...

Carly felt as if she had been asleep for a very long time. Subconsciously, she wanted to end this prolonged slumber, but her eyes were incredibly heavy and simply refused to open.

She tried to rise instinctively, yet it seemed her body’s changes weren’t quite as she wished, leaving her with no choice but to flounder helplessly.

Splash—

Finally, Carly stood up, and although she couldn’t open her eyes, she still groped her way up from the pool and then clumsily climbed out of the water.

But for some reason, Carly felt her body had become somewhat strange.

After a long time, Carly felt her eyelids seem to twitch, and she quickly opened her eyes, only to suddenly feel her field of vision had gotten unprecedentedly high.

"How long... how long have I slept?" Carly felt somewhat bewildered, and then she looked toward the surface of the water. When she moved over with measured steps, she could even hear the dull sound of her footsteps.

Thud, thud, thud...

Carly, who had just finished her transformation, was still in a semi-dulled state of mind, so she didn’t notice these anomalies until she slightly lowered her head and saw a creature somewhat resembling a huge dragon’s head in the reflection of the pool.

Carly: !!!

"Roar—" Carly let out a mournful cry, then she felt dizzy all of a sudden, and her whole person seemed unwell.

"Change back... change back..." Carly looked at her "Moon’s True Body" and could only try to make her body slowly transform back.

However, for Carly who had only just mastered this ability, she couldn’t freely control the surging Bloodline Power inside her.

Thud—

As Carly tried to control her Bloodline, her head quickly shrank and turned into a human-like head.

But Carly’s small head atop a monster’s body had an eerily unsettling feeling, not unlike that of a grotesque giant.

"Retract, retract, retract..." Carly frantically adjusted her spiritual power.

Soon, her body began to shrink rapidly, wings morphing back into arms, tail retracted back inside her body, and feet also transformed back into the pair she was familiar with...

It was a success!

Carly let out a cheer, but it came out as a roar akin to a dragon’s roar.

She walked to the edge of the lake with a bit of panic, and then saw the reflection of a naked girl with a draconic head on her body.

Carly: ...

This is even weirder, right?!!

While Carly was continuously adjusting her Bloodline Power in the space created by the painting scroll, on the other side, Lucien was also already alerted of Carly’s awakening through a series of system notifications.

[Your student Carly has mastered the Magic "Moon Dance", congratulations on comprehending the related Magic "Moon Dance·Modified"!]

[Your student Carly has mastered the Magic "Frost Mark", congratulations on comprehending the related Magic "Frost Mark·Modified"!]

...

After a long string of messages, a torrent of knowledge rushed in.

Under the torrential impact of immense knowledge, Lucien’s consciousness buzzed, and he then entered a self-protective state of faint.

"Phew... there are 12 Zero-level Witchcraft related Magic spells, 2 first-tier Witchcraft related Magic spells, 1 natural talent technique of the Moon Fairy race, and 1 true body Magic spell that only a Pureblood Fairy can master. However, if I want to display Carly’s kind of true body from her Bloodline, I would need to borrow Carly’s Bloodline Power..."

Lucien closed his eyes, and only after a long while did he feel that he had completely arranged the knowledge.

He quickly came to the painting scroll that contained the special space, but no matter how much he waited, Carly did not come out.

Lucien: ???

Where is, where is my apprentice? My apprentice?!!

If it weren’t for the system panel showing that Carly had completed her transformation and was now in an exceptionally good health state, Lucien would have suspected that Carly had encountered some unpredictable trouble.