Saul wasn’t surprised to see that the Old Witch had only returned with a corpse.

“Looks like there’s a big shot behind this guy. Otherwise, even you wouldn’t have failed to catch one alive.”

His words made the Old Witch feel a little better.

“This brat sure knows how to be polite… No, wait, he’s just a smooth-talking little liar!” she grumbled inwardly.

“The two I caught didn’t know anything either. Either the person behind them is hiding too well, or the real mastermind doesn’t need to get involved directly.”

The Old Witch glared at Saul with her large, bulbous eyes.

“Fine, I’ll spell it out.” Saul took out a spinning top from his storage—it had just been renamed Red Alert, “Whoever’s behind them is likely a Third Rank wizard, or a particularly influential Second Rank wizard.”

“The first time they came, I deliberately quoted an exorbitant price. But they came back the very next day with this rare magical tool and claimed it was their own… I seriously doubt that. It’s more likely that whoever’s backing them prepared it. Now, it’s a matter of figuring out who’s more likely to be testing me.”

“No need to figure it out.” The Old Witch’s expression changed the moment she saw the top. She snatched it from Saul’s hand and held it up to her face. “They’re from the Wind Sprite Faction. I’ve seen this top there before!”

The Old Witch’s face was at first twisted in rage, but then slowly stretched into a grin. “Hahahaha, I knew it! That crazy woman must’ve been seriously polluted!”

She tossed the top back into Saul’s lap. “Hmph. No wonder people haven’t been coming to see me lately—looks like she’s gotten herself into big trouble.”

She thought to herself: If the Wind Sprite comes here personally… should I leave this place first?

But then she stole a glance at Saul, who was staring thoughtfully at the top, and shook her head inwardly again. No, that wouldn’t work. The pollution in me hasn’t been resolved yet. And my current appearance and magic signature have changed completely. If I stick close to this brat and don’t show my face, maybe I’ll actually be safer!

At that moment, Saul had already overlaid his mental energy on Red Alert, setting the top spinning slowly on the table.

As it spun, intricate rune formations appeared on its surface. The faster he twisted it, the more those formations morphed—visually transforming into flowing lines.

At the same time, Saul felt a surge of lightning magic gathering at his fingertips.

He didn’t release the energy, instead reversing the spin.

This time, the lightning morphed into wind.

Saul extended a finger, sensing the cutting force. The wind wasn’t fully developed yet, so it couldn’t break his skin.

“How do you make a top spin clockwise and counterclockwise at the same time?”

After thinking for a moment, Saul pulled a small mirror from a pile of junk and propped it up on the table.

He then positioned the top in front of the mirror and started spinning it slowly.

Outside the mirror, the top spun clockwise; within the mirror, it spun counterclockwise.

All eyes immediately focused on Saul.

But the magical energy in the air didn’t change in the slightest.

Saul’s fingers slowly stopped twisting. Then he gave it a firm spin—the top danced rapidly across the smooth tabletop.

Yet Saul only felt the lightning power brewing inside, waiting for his mental energy to activate it and let it explode.

He pressed a finger down, stopping the top.

“No good.” He stowed the top away. “The mirror can show both clockwise and counterclockwise motion simultaneously, but the top inside the mirror has no power. It can’t generate the catastrophic storm.”

The Old Witch had no interest in how the top worked. Even though she’d decided to stay for now, she couldn’t stop worrying that the Wind Sprite might come knocking.

“Stop messing with your little trophy. Aren’t you afraid the Wind Sprite will come straight to you and demand it back?”

But Saul didn’t think the Wind Sprite would come at all.

“If you hadn’t recognized who the top belonged to, I wouldn’t have been able to confirm that she’s the one behind it. If she shows up to claim it herself, she’ll be exposing the fact that she may be severely polluted.”

“And she can’t send too many people either—doing so would be the same as coming by herself.”

“And if it’s just another Second Rank on their own… Well, isn’t that why you are here?”

The Old Witch was coaxed into a good mood and walked away, grinning.

Saul returned to the first basement level.

“An and Herman just had their first real combat exercise. But even working together, they could only barely match a First Rank wizard. I had to step in to finish the kill.”

“You protected both their soul bodies and their enemy,” Camus immediately pinpointed the core issue.

“Exactly. So we need a one-way output shield,” Saul paused and then chose another term, “or call it a protective membrane.”

With the Homunculus magic modification project stalled due to a lack of progress, Saul simply switched gears to refresh his mind with a different subject.

“Today I collected three fresh First Rank corpses. We can finally begin testing modifications for merging flesh and soul into the perfect body.”

Corpses of First Rank wizards weren’t easy to come by.

Especially for someone new to the Borderland like Saul—it wasn’t a good idea to go around killing people himself, or openly collecting such corpses.

Camus didn’t react.

Whether Saul succeeded or failed, she showed no emotion.

She only seemed interested in the thought process itself.

Saul didn’t mind. In fact, he treated Camus like a low-tier diary—one that “can’t help but point out your mistakes.”

The experiments proceeded in silence.

Anatomy and material extraction were now tasks An could handle.

Herman assisted her.

Saul focused on the formulas he’d previously developed, writing them on the wall, then annotating his thoughts beneath each one. This method helped him spot errors and omissions in his logic.

Camus also stared at the wall. The moment Saul stopped writing, her gaze turned to him.

“These formulas don’t match you.”

“…Huh?” Saul was momentarily stunned, not understanding what she meant.

But when he looked down at his hands, realization struck.

“Of course. My body has already gone through two rounds of physical wizardry modification. The foundation for this experiment should be me, not the Old Witch’s so-called perfect body!”

A sudden burst of insight sent chills racing across his skin. He grabbed a pen and began frantically revising the equations on the wall.

He even paused mid-way to extract samples of his own tissue for testing.

This time, he finally found the key problem.

“I’ve already completed the basic part of merging flesh and soul. The next step is deepening that integration. But the base flesh component still isn’t up to standard.”

In truth, the flesh of his former Third Rank apprentice self was no longer sufficient to meet the physical baseline for full wizard-level body modification.

“Also, while the Old Witch’s perfect body does incorporate various racial advantages, it didn’t enhance magical capacity. Her focus seems to be on magical agility and physical recovery rate.”

“If I want to design a new plan tailored for myself, I’ll need to greatly increase its magical potential.”

And if magical potential needed to be increased, it had to be a drastic improvement.

Once again, Saul found himself face-to-face with his century-long dilemma—

What do you do if you don’t have enough magic talent?

But unlike before, he was no longer that powerless little apprentice who had to grind with a diary just to survive.

(End of Chapter)

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