Free Web NovelIn the hall, Sylutia stared at the mountain of flesh before her—the severed tentacle with its clean-cut cross-section, revealing purple-red flesh inside, with a small amount of dark red blood seeping out, emitting a strange aura in the air.
“Well..." The instructor scratched his cheek, thought for a moment, and then answered.
“I’ll find a colleague who specializes in material preservation later, and have them store it for you in the academy’s warehouse. You can retrieve and use it whenever you want.”
Hearing this, Sylutia finally breathed a sigh of relief.
At that moment, a crowd of apprentices curiously surged forward, gathering around the fallen tentacle and gawking at it.
“It’s still pretty fresh.”
“Can you eat this?”
“Better not. Who knows what would happen if you ate something from the Astral Plane? What if you got corrupted or infected by Distortion?”
“Eating it yourself is definitely out. But what if you fed it to another creature? Would it cause some strange mutation?” One apprentice thought of a possible use.
“It might mutate, but the downsides are greater. Better to use it as a spellcasting material.”
“I remember the academy library has records of a ‘Tentacle Summoning’ spell. Its power is decent.”
“With a tentacle this big, even a Third Tier knight would be tied up tight. No way they’d break free.”
“If that tentacle started thrashing around, it could probably shatter an Ogre’s bones.”
“If you used this as a casting material to summon tentacles, it’d definitely be powerful.” Some apprentices only cared about raw strength.
“Would Chief Hedra learn a spell like that? If she summoned a whole swarm of tentacles to fight, that’d be pretty epic, wouldn’t it?”
“Epic or not, I don’t know. But judging from the Chief’s expression, she seems a bit creeped out by the tentacles, hehe.”
Sylutia stood off to the side, listening to everyone’s chatter and teasing, a helpless expression on her face. It was true that the material was incredibly rare, but for the life of her, she couldn’t think of a good way to use it right now. Was she really supposed to go learn the Tentacle Summoning spell like they suggested?
On the other side, Spencer also walked over, expressing his admiration and respect for the young woman who had summoned a Fourth Tier Eye Tyrant.
“Maybe, from now on, I should ask Hedra for advice on summoning courses.” This was the first time he had publicly expressed his respect for her in front of other apprentices.
Many apprentices were surprised by this move. Everyone knew Hedra was incredibly strong, but they also knew Spencer, as the apprentice second only to Hedra in their year, was equally proud. As the Chief, their status was the same. But they hadn’t expected him to publicly express his admiration this time, which was essentially conceding defeat and ending the competition.
“Looks like there won’t be any more rivalry in our year from now on.” A few apprentices whispered among themselves.
“Chief Hedra is on a completely different level. It’s only natural Spencer can’t compete.”
“This is good, too. From now on, we should be able to go to Chief Hedra for advice, just like those ‘Gemor’ apprentices.”
“Even though the Chief looks a bit young, she has a strange sense of authority about her. There’s a powerful kind of beauty and a feeling of safety.”
“I think you’re just idolizing the strong. Don’t try to dress it up as aesthetics.”
“You can’t say that about me. Lady Hedra is truly beautiful. It’s just that her strength makes a lot of people overlook that fact.”
Amidst the lively chatter of the apprentices, the practical summoning class finally came to an end.
That morning, Sylutia heard the sound of a carriage arriving while inside her residence. Curious, she opened the door and saw several staff members from the academy. The leader was a Seventh Tier scholar with the Aspect of Castle.
They hopped down from the small cargo carriage they had taken, and what the carriage was carrying was none other than the flesh tentacle Sylutia had obtained that afternoon.
“You’re Hedra, right?” The white-robed scholar in the lead walked over. He looked to be in his forties and held a prism-shaped Staff in his hand.
“That’s me.” The young woman nodded. Her eyes beneath her black hair were bright and clear as she curiously asked them, “Shouldn’t this be sealed in the academy’s warehouse? Why was it brought here?”
“That’s right, it should have been stored in the warehouse. But I had them bring it back here instead.” The man smiled as he answered.
“You might not know this, but this Black Rose Palace was designed and built by me. I originally intended to leave it for a certain professor to use, but there was never a suitable candidate, so it sat empty until you moved in last year.”
“Since you were just an apprentice, you didn’t need many of its features, so I sealed off a lot of it.”
“But this time, since you’ve managed to get your hands on this big fellow, having it stored in the academy’s warehouse is too far away and takes up space. Why don’t I just unseal the rooms and structures of Black Rose Palace for you to use?”
With that, he walked over to the grassy area beside the front yard of the mansion. He raised his hand and waved, and the lawn beneath was pushed up, revealing a building with the same architectural style as the main mansion. Its style was elegant, with a deep purple roof and pristine white brick walls.
“There’s a side entrance here that can be opened for use.” After saying this, he showed Sylutia how to open the side door.
Soon, the heavy door here automatically swung open, revealing a spacious interior.
“This area is used to park carriages. If you keep going further in, you’ll find a warehouse where you can store miscellaneous items.”
“And underneath that warehouse is a special storage cellar. It’s kept at a low temperature year-round and has Castle Aspect Magic Arrays to seal special materials and prevent their aura from spreading.”
“So there’s this much space here all along.” Sylutia followed him into the basement, which was an underground structure as large as the entire above-ground yard. It not only contained a warehouse for storing special materials but also an empty laboratory, an underground library, and so on.
“That’s right. After all, if a professor were living here, they would definitely need a fully equipped laboratory.”
“You can use this place from now on. But you’ll have to buy all the various experimental instruments and equipment yourself.” The instruments used for mid-to-high-tier Alchemy and Forging were quite expensive.
“I understand. Thank you.” Sylutia nodded, then seemed to remember something. “Since this side above ground is a warehouse, what about the other side? By the rules of symmetrical design, that side shouldn’t be empty.”
“Haha, no, it certainly isn’t empty. In the original design, the plan was to build a ‘glass greenhouse’ on that side, or a ‘workshop’ for tinkering with Machinery. The intention was to wait until a professor moved in before building it according to their needs.”
“If you want to expand that space, I can help you finish the construction. But you’ll need to cover the material costs yourself.” He pulled out a list that detailed the prices for various construction options.
A greenhouse would cost around 6,000 gold coins, while a workshop would require 12,000 gold coins. There were other options too, like a “Monster Breeding Room,” a “Sky Pool,” and an “Astronomy Tower,” all with different prices.
So expensive, the young woman grumbled to herself. The prices here were nearly three times what they were back at the Hidden Grove Alliance.
Still, she could certainly consider expanding the place later, if she ever had the need.
“I understand. I’ll get in touch with you if I need to.” She accepted the list and expressed her thanks.
After that, the group helped Sylutia move the mountain of tentacles into the underground storage room. They then activated the cold-storage sealing Magic Array inside, isolating the internal and external auras to prevent the Aspect from corroding and spreading.
“It’s all sealed up now. Whenever you need to retrieve materials for an experiment, you can just come directly from the underground passage beneath your residence.” Beneath the laboratory on the first floor of Black Rose Palace, there was an entrance leading to the underground structure.
Once that was done, they left. Sylutia also returned to Black Rose Palace. Her body floated weightlessly into the air, and she looked down from above at the place she lived.
The entire Black Rose Palace grounds covered a vaguely enormous circular area. It was surrounded by walls, and her residence was roughly in the very center of the circle, with open spaces and gardens in front and behind.
According to what the scholar had said, the complete building was probably shaped like an ‘H’, cutting horizontally through the center of the circle. But right now, most of the area was just empty land. The front yard was planted with a large number of white roses, while the back garden had flowers and plants, with a simple pavilion built among them. She often took walks or sat for a while in the back garden.
As for the use of the tentacle material, she could go to the library to look into that later. For now, she planned to get back to her old hobby and give the front and back gardens of Black Rose Palace a proper makeover.
She could now plant Eyeball Flowers to watch over the grounds. Let those flowers automatically guard the house and courtyard. Maybe she could even bury a few tentacles in the garden, so if anyone tried to steal anything, they could just reach out and grab them.
But if she did that, her image might end up being tied to all sorts of weird things. Sylutia felt a bit conflicted about whether she should actually do it or not.
Ah, forget it. Let’s just give it a try first.
