After leaving the room where the others were held, what lay ahead was an extremely primitive tunnel.

The surroundings were all soil, with faint traces of formations used for reinforcement.

The only lighting came from the glowing plants at their feet.

Saul followed closely behind the Old Witch. They passed the first door, then the second, and only after walking for about five minutes did they reach the third.

The third door was just half a meter from the fourth, after which another long, dim corridor stretched ahead.

“I must be underground… or inside a mountain,” Saul silently estimated, trying to sense the airflow to determine the direction of the exit.

The Old Witch stopped at the third door and pushed it open to enter.

Behind the door was clearly a laboratory, though most of the equipment appeared quite primitive.

There weren’t many glass instruments—most of it was wood. To account for liquid seepage, everything was coated in some unknown substance.

“Since you claim to be skilled at wizard-body modification, let’s start with a simple assignment. Show me what you can do.”

The Old Witch shoved Saul inside and made him sit down at a table.

Then she rummaged through a cabinet by the wall and slammed a large basin in front of him.

Inside the basin was a heap of rolled-up parchment scrolls.

Saul took all the scrolls in hand, revealing a dough-like mass hidden beneath them.

But on closer look, that “dough” was continuously wriggling.

When Saul poked it with a finger, the mass immediately sank in and didn’t bounce back for a long time.

But the moment he turned to look at the contents of the scrolls, the mass instantly returned to its original shape.

“With a talent as strong as yours, I assume I don’t need to explain anything. I’ll come check on you this time tomorrow. If you haven’t improved this modification concept by then, I’ll slam you into the basin.”

The Old Witch didn’t bother to explain anything, leaving Saul to figure it out himself.

Seeing that Saul had no questions, she headed straight into the room next door, not even closing the door behind her—fully confident that Saul couldn’t escape.

Saul had only one day to review and solve the problem. But he didn’t panic. Calmly, he began spreading out all the parchments.

With no room on the table, he placed some on the floor.

“Alright. Ten scrolls per person. It’s fine if you don’t have any ideas yet—let’s start by organizing the questions.”

Saul rolled his neck, twisted his wrists, and suddenly felt as if he’d returned to those days in the Wizard Tower… when all he had to do was study.

…

A day passed.

The Old Witch let out a long sigh and slowly stood up from the ground.

Though she always claimed her wizard-body modification experiment was nearing success, only she knew the truth—her work had been stuck at a critical step for over a year now.

The breakthroughs brought by Oqili in the past hadn’t been useful lately. Every suggestion he made now was useless.

“Hopefully that boy can come up with something new. Even if he only solves one small problem, it’ll help.”

“If he spends an entire day and still accomplishes nothing… If he can’t even see through it… then I’ll… no, forget it. Things have been tense lately—too dangerous to go out capturing people. Maybe I’ll give that boy a few more chances. After all, even Master Alchemist Oqili couldn’t solve my issue.”

She shook her head. Just as she was about to take a step, her left foot didn’t follow her right, nearly making her fall.

Her expression twisted in pain, as if she were suppressing a surge of rage.

She rolled up the pants around her left ankle and saw that it was constantly shifting shape, as if someone were kneading her calf like dough.

Gritting her teeth, her massive lower jaw nearly engulfed the upper half of her face. She raised a hand and smacked her calf several times, loud enough that she could hear bones cracking.

Then, in the next instant, she used magic to heal herself, and the distortion in her leg ceased.

She lifted her head, straightened her pants, and walked out as though nothing had happened.

Out the door, left turn, into another room.

There, she saw Saul sitting at a round table, resting his chin on one hand.

All the parchment had been opened and spread across the floor. On the table, discarded paper was crumpled into a small mountain.

Saul’s brow was tightly furrowed, and sweat clung to his forehead, about to drip but never falling. The pen in his hand trembled mid-air, its ink hanging on the verge of falling—but he never put it to the page.

The Old Witch frowned at the sight, thinking: Does he have no ideas at all? And he had the nerve to claim he was good at wizard-body modification?

She felt a flash of anger at being fooled. With her first step, she was already thinking about tearing him apart for materials. But by the time her second foot landed, her thoughts had shifted.

Forget it. I’ll just make up an excuse to let him pass for now. Maybe three days… or ten… maybe a month. If he still hasn’t come up with anything after a month, then…

At that thought, the Old Witch caught sight of the page in front of Saul.

Covered—densely covered—with writing!

She froze, then quickly stepped closer, moving to Saul’s side.

And Saul was still lost in thought, seemingly unaware that the Old Witch was standing right next to him.

She looked at the writing on the page. At first, she studied it like a judge reviewing homework, but the deeper she read, the more immersed she became.

A fresh, brilliant line of reasoning—far more compelling than gossip between the Firefly and the Wind Sprite.

She read from the beginning all the way to the end. When she finally saw a drop of ink that had fallen on the page, she spent a moment wondering what strange new rune it might be, before realizing—it was just ink from the tip of the pen.

What happens next? Why did he stop writing? The Old Witch felt as if her heart was being scratched raw. At the same time, she was stunned by Saul’s ingenious ideas.

She even had the urge to crack open Saul’s skull and see how his brain was wired.

Saul seemed startled. The pen dropped from his hand onto the table.

He looked up at the Old Witch’s ugly face, now just inches away, then glanced at the messy pile of papers on the table. His voice trembled slightly.

“I… I ran into a problem. I might need a bit more time.”

The Old Witch turned her head stiffly, like a machine glitching, staring at Saul’s youthful face—unable to say the words that lingered in her throat:

You’re almost done solving this entire modification theory?!

Yes!

The task she had given Saul wasn’t some random project.

It was the exact same wizard-body modification experiment she had been working on—one aiming to fuse the traits of multiple races into a perfect body!

She had been holed up in this place for years. This experiment was her only hope of redemption. Why would she waste time designing other assignments?

And not telling Saul the true nature of the experiment was meant to avoid stressing him out. If he knew how difficult it really was, he might freeze up and fail to even begin.

This was a lesson she’d learned from experimenting on over a dozen captives.

But no matter what, she never imagined Saul would spend just one day to break through the obstacle that had blocked her for a year—and even push the modification formula to its final step.

The Old Witch struggled to open her mouth. She could almost hear her teeth warring with each other.

“H-how much longer do you need to overcome the last obstacle?”

Saul opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again. Carefully, he raised one finger.

“Would… a month be okay?”

The Old Witch opened her mouth, closed it, then opened it again.

“…Fine…”

Saul: Knowledge changes… fate.

(End of Chapter)

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