Saul marked the spot he needed, then returned to the center of the room.

Here stood a circular, dark cyan pillar covered in dim etchings.

Saul placed his hand on the pillar, then closed his eyes and sent his mental body through his arm and into it.

Very soon, familiar mental fluctuations fed back into his mind.

They were hundreds of soul fragments.

Mouths, eyes, and unpleasant-looking arms.

Perhaps the space was too cramped—these fragments were all tangled together like a mess of yarn that couldn’t be unraveled.

Saul’s mental body slipped through the gaps between them and continued probing inward.

At last, within a multicolored halo of light, he found a black iron box.

The black iron coffin lay quietly at the very center of the Wizard Tower’s support pillar. The surrounding halo pulsed with every shift in color, like the coffin’s heartbeat.

Saul observed the black iron coffin for a full minute before inserting his mental body into it.

Five minutes passed. Just as Hope was about to step forward to remind Saul, the Wizard Tower suddenly trembled slightly.

Saul opened his eyes and saw that in the corner of the room, at the marked location, a square-shaped opening had appeared.

He walked over and peered down.

Pitch black. Not even his meditation method could penetrate it.

But this place belonged to his Wizard Tower, after all.

Without much hesitation, Saul jumped straight down.

During the descent, he realized the air was incredibly dense and heavy with moisture—even breathing became difficult.

By the time his feet touched flat ground again, his clothes were clinging damply to his skin.

“Is it because this place extends deep underground and is soaked by Lake Rhine that the dampness is so heavy?”

Saul summoned a small light orb, but its illumination barely reached two meters around.

So he summoned a few more light orbs to spin around him, finally expanding his visible range.

The newly opened space beneath the Wizard Tower was indeed five meters tall, but its area was only a few square meters.

Still, Saul had created this space for the purpose of planting Little Algae.

Given Little Algae’s current size, this area was more than enough.

When it grows up in the future, the Wizard Tower should have accumulated enough energy to continue expanding the second underground level.

“Come on out, Little Algae. Take a look at your new home.”

A black tentacle slipped out from the back of Saul’s neck.

Back then, in order to follow Saul, it had willingly abandoned its already-formed body beneath Gorsa’s Wizard Tower.

It had gladly shrunk into a tiny bean-sized blob and nestled in the back of Saul’s neck.

And it had stayed there for four years.

Now, Saul finally had his own territory and could finally give Little Algae a home of its own.

This five-meter-tall underground floor—he was giving it all to Little Algae.

Play however you like!

After all, the Wizard Tower wasn’t an ordinary building—it wouldn’t collapse.

…As long as there wasn’t a wizard war raging inside.

Little Algae dropped to the ground and quickly familiarized itself with the environment.

Both the humidity and brightness were exactly to its liking.

It bounced in front of Saul, split open a shark-toothed mouth, and stuck out a black tongue as if it wanted to lick him.

Saul leaned back immediately and pinched Little Algae’s upper and lower jaws with one hand.

“Squeee!!!”

Its tongue, now caught in its own bite, instantly rippled like a wave.

Saul couldn’t help but laugh. “Sorry, sorry, the position was too perfect—I couldn’t resist.”

But Little Algae didn’t get mad at Saul’s prank. It turned around and bounced to the center of the room, then knocked its head against the floor.

“Here?”

Saul walked over and drew a simple sorcery formation on the ground with one hand.

This formation would turn the soil into a swamp, though not on the massive scale of a proper Swamp Spell.

When the formation began to emit a faint black glow, Saul placed his palm on it, then gently pressed his hand into the mire.

According to his original plan, he was supposed to channel magic through his palm, then carefully control the formation to expand the swamp’s range.

However, just as he began to implement the plan, something unexpected interrupted him.

Because—

A hand suddenly reached out from the unseen depths below and grabbed his!

Cold fingers slipped through the gaps between Saul’s own and gripped his hand tightly, like a drowning person grasping at their final straw.

Saul was startled at first, then suspected it was some wraith from beneath Lake Rhine sneaking its way up to the central island.

He wasn’t afraid of wraiths.

Lake Rhine wasn’t rich in resources—no way it could spawn wraiths or specters strong enough to match Second Rank power.

If it were just a common wraith sneaking in, Little Algae alone could deal with it.

After the initial shock of being grabbed, Saul quickly calmed down. He gripped back with his other hand and pulled hard.

He wanted to see just what kind of wraith dared sneak beneath his Wizard Tower.

Following Saul’s strength, a hand was pulled out from the mire—pale and strangely unreal.

He kept pulling—an arm, a shoulder, then a lolling head.

Herman: It’s a ghost girl!

It really was a ghost girl.

Her skin was like rough grayish-white lime plaster. Her long hair, the same color, hung limply behind her head.

Even standing fully upright and raising his hand high, Saul couldn’t fully haul the wraith out from underground.

She was at least two meters tall.

Little Algae rushed over to help, wrapped around Saul’s waist, and lifted him entirely into the air.

“Ahem!” Saul coughed awkwardly and quickly told Little Algae to put him down.

Then he casually tossed the wraith to the ground.

“This wraith is tall, and judging by her body proportions, she was probably this tall to begin with—not stretched out from turning into a wraith.”

Saul looked at the hand she had grabbed.

The wraith’s grip was strong—his hand was bruised with bluish-purple marks.

But Saul merely shook it off. No need to even use healing magic, his arm returned to normal instantly.

Then he stopped caring about his hand and crouched down, looking excitedly at the ghost-like figure on the ground, unconscious and unresponsive.

“Interesting. If it weren’t for the complete lack of life force, she could easily be mistaken for a living person.”

Saul turned his index finger into an octopus tentacle and gently curled it around the wraith’s neck.

Still no response.

Just like someone truly passed out.

“Strange. The feedback I’m getting from my tentacle doesn’t feel like a soul body at all.”

He examined other parts of the wraith as well. “Weird… she has a certain ‘realness’ that normal wraiths lack. Is it because of this gray-white skin? And how did she end up like this?”

Saul’s gaze shifted back toward the swamp.

Suddenly, he had the urge to go down and take a look.

But the moment that thought crossed his mind, the diary in his mind abruptly opened!

Lunar Calendar, Year 318, March 3rd.

Curiosity drives progress.

Curiosity also digs your grave.

Just because you’re curious about how something came to be—

Must you become part of its world?

You may have mistakenly believed:

That the fastest way to study a strange new thing

Is to become it~

“A death warning?!”

Saul didn’t expect that just from planting Little Algae in his own Wizard Tower, he’d trigger a death warning.

Completely absurd.

Who farms monsters in a safe zone, huh?

Saul casually tossed out a complaint.

But he understood clearly: in the Borderland, there was no such thing as a true safe zone.

Just as Saul turned away, deciding to give up on exploring the swamp and instead study this strange wraith first—

Agu spoke up—and left him utterly dumbfounded.

Agu: T-This… This… isn’t this Tower Master Camus?!

(End of Chapter)

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