This wizard only wishes to be a teacher

"Young people just aren’t steady enough," Lucien, watching Carly who was sitting by the fire with an apparently bewildered expression, sipped his tea and shook his head gently. He then closed his eyes and began trying to mobilize the constellation of spiritual power he had formed, to speed up the accumulation of his own spiritual power.

Carly, on the other hand, was sitting on a large rock, holding a Blood Qi Fruit in her hand, constantly observing the patterns on the surface of the fruit, her brow furrowed in thought.

The Blood Qi Fruit is the core ingredient for making physical potions. If one wants to improve the physical potion, it is necessary to fully exploit the effects of the Blood Qi Fruit.

But in Carly’s view, the original version of the physical potion had already made full use of the Blood Qi Fruit, reaching a threshold.

It’s not that there aren’t ways to bring out the effects of the Blood Qi Fruit better, but it’s not worth it. After all, the cost of potions needs to be considered; one needs to find a balance between cost and effect, and only by lifting this balance point as a whole can it be considered an improvement over the original potion.

Otherwise, it’s hardly meaningful to increase the cost of a potion substantially for a slight increase in its efficacy.

For example, adding a piece of "Snow Orchid Essence" to the recipe for a physical potion could increase its effect by at least 70%, but the problem is that the price of a piece of Snow Orchid Essence exceeds 10 Magic Stones, which is enough to buy two standard units of the finished physical potion. Using it to improve the effectiveness of the potion is definitely not worth it.

However, out of trust in Lucien, Carly felt that the mentor’s suggestion for improvement should not be this kind of meaningless stacking, but should be a truly effective way to enhance the effect of the physical potion.

But she just couldn’t figure out what approach Lucien planned to take to enhance the effect of the potion, since in Carly’s view, the original physical potion was already perfect enough.

Is it the detoxification step? But if the brown patterns on the surface of the Blood Qi Fruit and the flesh underneath were not removed, the toxins inside the Blood Qi Fruit could cause the produced physical potion to carry a slight poison, which, upon ingestion, would not only fail to produce a feeling of fullness and provide energy, but would cause the consumer to suffer from diarrhea, a loss not worth the gain.

Or is it the preparation step? Did Lucien improve a certain preparation process, thus enhancing the overall quality of the potion? But this seems not to relate much to the formula? And the preparation process for a physical potion is already quite straightforward, with each step causing not especially great material loss...

Carly pondered with a frown; this was an assignment given by Lucien, and she wanted to complete it with her own abilities.

"Lady Carly," Brown said, passing by with his own cup of tea. As the weakest member of the five-person team, although Lucien and Carly hadn’t said anything, he still tried hard to show his "usefulness." He had just taken care of the horses and, seeing Carly, bowed respectfully.

"Hmm," Carly responded absently, her mind fully immersed in this complex problem, occasionally writing and drawing on the ground, noting down her thoughts.

"Wrong again, all wrong!" Suddenly, Carly tugged at her hair in annoyance, her entire being snapping out of her previous deep concentration.

"Lady Carly?" Brown hadn’t gone far and noticed her expression, revealing a humble and somewhat ingratiating smile.

Carly, seeing the somewhat ingratiating smile on Brown’s face, couldn’t help but flash a complex expression. In a daze, she too had become a Third-level Wizard Apprentice, someone to whom others had to address respectfully as "my lord."

"It’s nothing. I’m just pondering a problem and got a little too involved," Carly said, influenced by Lucien, she was not as condescending or harsh to these weaker Wizard Apprentices as other Third-level Wizard Apprentices, and showed a gentle smile to Brown.

This somewhat overwhelmed Brown. After all, in his view, Carly could be considered a genuine Formal Wizard in the making; as long as she diligently worked on developing the Bloodline in her body, she would steadily advance to become a Formal Wizard, while he was but a plain Second-level Wizard Apprentice. Yet, Carly was talking to him so amiably...

But soon, when Brown noticed Lucien meditating with his eyes closed beside him, Carly’s behavior seemed somewhat more reasonable.

"If only my mentor back then..." Brown’s eyes showed a touch of sadness, but soon his spirits were buoyed. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

After all, he had gained hope from Lucien.

With more effort in accumulating points, he would exchange them with Lucien for an improved Meditation Method. Then, he might have hope of becoming a Third-level Wizard Apprentice.

Although not as prominent as Carly, a Third-level Wizard Apprentice in Greybone Academy still had some status. When he returned to his hometown, he could at least become a royal retainer, and his family would benefit and thrive...

Brown mused over this, but he knew that if he wanted to cling to Lucien’s coattails, he needed to "show" his value, and from what he saw, he was far behind Gagarin in this respect.

But Brown hadn’t given up; looking at Carly, who had fallen back into contemplation, he thought of a roundabout plan of salvation.

Thus, he carefully poured a cup of black tea for Carly in a clean cup and gently placed it not far beside her.

"Hmm?" Carly noticed the tea Brown handed her. She didn’t feel thirsty but noticed the few black tea leaves floating in the amber tea.

The amber tea was slightly steaming, and the leaves inside undulated with the ripples in the water.

Carly’s eyes became somewhat glazed over, her thoughts seemingly captivated by the few leaves of tea.

"Tea leaves... no, fermentation... it’s fermentation!" Carly seemed to have realized something, and she stood up excitedly, her eyes sparkling with excitement.

Looking at the tea leaves in the water, she finally connected a previously unclear point in her mind, associating fermented tea leaves with the concoction of potions.

Thinking of this, Carly stood up excitedly and used her awakened Talent, the "Force of Nature," to catalyze the Blood Qi Fruits in her hand to reach a state of fermentation for her experiment...

Lucien, sensing something, opened his eyes and looked at Carly, who was busy and somewhat fanatical at the moment, and the corners of his mouth couldn’t help but lift slightly.

Meanwhile, Gagarin, observing the fervor in Carly’s eyes, had a hint of astonishment in his own. "Madmen, two madly talented geniuses."

He had never thought that the potions sold by the academies could be improved, but from Lucien’s and Carly’s recent conversation, it appeared that one was trying, and the other had already succeeded!

Improving potion recipes is an extremely difficult task. Even the renowned Pharmacists at Greybone Academy might not be able to achieve it; they primarily excel at having a higher potion crafting success rate compared to other Pharmacists.

Yet Lucien had assigned such a challenging task to Carly as "homework"??!

And what’s more ludicrous is that one dares to assign, the other dares to accept, and looking at Carly’s expression, she seems to truly believe she has a chance of success?

Or is it precisely because of this that Lord Lucien managed to improve the Meditation Method?

Gagarin tapped his head lightly, feeling as if his worldview was slightly overturned. But he resolved in his heart that since he had decided to cling to Lucien’s coattails, he must push himself to be close to Lucien in all aspects, so as not to be abandoned by him.

...

"You mean... you want to learn some basic knowledge from me?" The next day, as Gagarin was carefully driving the carriage and cautiously making his request to Lucien, Lucien blinked and then turned to look at the strangely looking Carly.

"Yes, Lord Lucien, I am willing to pay with points or Magic Stones to learn some basic knowledge from you," Gagarin said softly, also somewhat worried that Lucien would not agree.

At this moment, Carly gently tugged Lucien’s sleeve, batting her large eyes, nearly ready to accept on Lucien’s behalf.

Lucien’s mouth twitched, observing Carly’s "Since I’ve been rained on, I’d like to watch someone else get rained on too" expression, and he couldn’t help but give Carly a gentle thump on the head.

"The foundation of my teaching is quite taxing on students, and Carly almost loathed it..." Lucien said looking at Gagarin, yet he did not agree immediately.

"That’s not true? My feelings were more love-hate at most..." Carly muttered under her breath.

"I want to learn, Lord Lucien," Gagarin affirmed determinedly.

"Alright then, let’s settle with points..." Lucien nodded lightly, but Carly was already eager to volunteer. "Instructor Lucien, let me take on this simple task!"

Lucien looked at Carly silently, observing her barely concealed wicked smile, and he covered his face with a sense of helplessness, but ultimately nodded in agreement.

After receiving Lucien’s permission, Carly’s smile became even more radiant. She ran slyly up to Gagarin, who was driving the carriage, and asked in a mysteriously teasing tone, "Gagarin, do you know what ’Wizard Prodigy’ is?"

Gagarin was stunned, then he watched as Carly began to pull things out of her spatial storage device.

Thump, thump, thump—

Pile after pile of thick tomes appeared, gradually astonishing Gagarin.

Because by now, the height of these stacked "bricks" had already surpassed his seated height.

"Knowledge is in numbers, strive on, young man!" Carly cheered Gagarin on, but her eyes betrayed a sense of a senior sister looking down fondly on a younger brother about to experience hardship.