Close Combat Mage

Chapter 268 – Deviant Evolution Pt. 2

Under Suo Jia’s astonished gaze, the little Frost Wyrm opened its eyes after a while. The dozen magic potions it’d taken from the ground had already been swallowed down into his stomach, which it had closed its eyes to enjoy. Seeing the dragon’s light-headed, swaying manner, Suo Jia couldn’t help but laugh.

In order to make sure that the little pet wouldn’t make any more trouble, Suo Jia just took out all the potions in his interspatial ring, and piled them up in the room instead. Then, with the alchemy furnace in hand, he hid outside a corner and began to make refined potions.

This was indeed a useful trick. After seeing so many potions at once, the little Frost Wyrm completely ignored the Ice Soul. It would just laze around in the room every day, swallowing those potions one after another, and closing its eyes in contentment. Like this, it didn’t bother Suo Jia at all for an entire month, all the way until the potions were all gone. Only then did it anxiously run to Suo Jia’s side and pull at Suo Jia’s robes hard with its mouth. It was clear to see that it definitely still wanted to eat.

Seeing the little dragon incessantly tug at his pants legs, Suo Jia picked up one of the refined potions and tossed it at the little Frost Wyrm. Either way, these things had quite large negative effects. He only needed to keep some prepared for any unexpected measures, and he could give the extras to the dragon to eat.

The refined potions were different from normal potions. Normal potions typically used up 20% magic power and spirit power to create various types of potions with different effects based on different proportions. The higher one’s magic power and spirit power were, the more magic power and spirit power would be replenished.

Of course, the amount of energy the normal potions could replenish wasn’t limitless. After a certain point, it would reach a cap. With Suo Jia’s current state, using up all his magic power and spirit power could produce several thousands of potions, as creating one took even less than 1%, not 20%. It probably used up closer to 1/1000. Obviously…this was also because Suo Jia’s magic power was too frightening. If it were any other mage, managing to create 100 bottles of potions in one go was already brag worthy.

But these refined potions were different. Each bottle of potion required constant compression of one’s magic power to refine, extract, and purify the most concentrated potion in order to surmount the limiting barrier of replenishing effects. However, creating this potion also required much more time.

Since he’d just made refined potions, Suo Jia could only make 20-30 or so within an hour. Even if he managed to get better at it in the future, he wouldn’t be able to go past 60 bottles in one hour. The refined potion had a set manufacturing process. No matter how fast one was, it still required that amount of time.

However, although the refined potions required longer to create, it also improved one’s magic and spirit power at an even higher rate.

The compression, refinement, and extraction of the magic power was a method that only an Advanced Mage could train in. By means of the Enchanted Zhiyao, Suo Jia’s magic power and spirit power had wildly shot up, but unfortunately…his affinity with magic and comprehension of the elements were aspects he still needed to work on. This was something that couldn’t possibly occur through Enchanted Zhiyao.

Right now, Suo Jia would spend 6 hours every day in Enchanted Zhiyao. Although this could only crazily raise his magic power and spirit power, and not his affinity or understanding, Suo Jia discovered another benefit to to his delight.

No matter if one was compressing, refining, or extracting the magical elements, it was controlled by water. With the production of the refined potions, Suo Jia’s water manipulation had suddenly broken through a bottleneck that he’d been stuck at for a long time, and began to rise once more. Moreover, his improvement speed was abnormally rapid.

In reality, Suo Jia’s current strength was just that of a typical Great Mage, with the exact same level of might. The only difference was that Suo Jia’s magic power and spirit power were extremely abnormal; when the opposite party’s powers had long since been exhausted, Suo Jia’s would still be full.

If he wanted to improve the might of his magic further, then he couldn’t just raise his mastery of magic, but improve his affinity and comprehension with the elements. Suo Jia had never considered this aspect much before, after all…Suo Jia always prioritized his control of the ice stream over his magic attack.

Only the strongest people were best at covering their weaknesses. This was what Suo Jia believed in. As a mage, his weakness was close combat, but his control over the ice stream just happened to resolve this issue. There were many critical moments that Suo Jia had survived through by relying on his ice stream to go against his enemies, not with magic.

Of course, Suo Jia didn’t only practice his ice stream. Since he had already grasped magic, combining his control over the ice stream and his magic together would be perfect. Suo Jia had already sketched out a grand blueprint; now he needed to slowly turn it into reality one step at a time.

“Wu…wu…” A low humming sound could be heard, and Suo Jia sensed something pulling at his pant leg again. He furrowed his brows and turned around to look at his side; he knew that it was definitely the little dragon wanting to eat more potions.

While still deep in his thoughts, Suo Jia grabbed a batch of potions once more, and turned around to toss them into the little Frost Wyrm’s mouth. However, the instant he turned around, Suo Jia’s jaw dropped open, and he could only stare at the Frost Wyrm in shock.

The little Frost Wyrm was no longer how it had been a few days ago. Its fat and tall body had begun to shrivel up. What shocked Suo Jia the most was that the dragon’s pale blue skin had gradually turned lighter.

Only a few days had passed without Suo Jia noticing, but the little dragon’s body had already shrunk from a height of 2 meters to a height of 1.5 meters. Its body had also slimmed down a lot, and its pale blue skin had turned a faint silvery blue, making its entire body look almost transparent.

A long time ago, Suo Jia had carefully researched about the Great Frost Wyrm. He was certain that no matter when, the Great Frost Wyrm should never be in such a shape. Without question, this guy was a deviation.

According to typical growth patterns, the Great Frost Wyrm’s body was supposed to continue growing larger. At a certain size, it would officially enter the long term period. But at the moment, the little pet had not only stopped growing larger, but had even shrunk in size. This was too abnormal. Suo Jia had never seen records of this in any of the materials he’d read.

Suo Jia looked over the Frost Wyrm cautiously, and began to contemplate the issue. Soon…Suo Jia had roughly figured out where the root of the problem was. Everything was the refined potions’ fault.

Originally, the concentration of the little Frost Wyrm’s inner magic power and spirit power had been around the same as Suo Jia’s. Most of its magic power had been stored up in the form of fat, which was why the little Frost Wyrm had grown larger and fatter so quickly. After reaching a certain point, it finally stabilized, and began to learn how to compress, refine, and extract the magic power and spirit power it possessed.

But now, after drinking too many refined potions, the dragon’s spirit power and magic power concentrations had been raised. The refined potion had been like a glass of saltwater dumped into a glass of freshwater, quickly increasing the concentration of it to another level.

At Suo Jia’s current level, he could compress, refine, extract, and concentrate so that its purity would double. It was precisely due to this reason that all the magic power-storing fat in the little Frost Wyrm’s body had quickly dissolved. Its inner magic power and spirit power had been extremely concentrated this whole time. In some sense, this little pet had already become a refined Great Frost Wyrm.

Suo Jia frowned. Strictly speaking, he didn’t know whether this was a good or bad thing yet. But after considering it for a while, he decided that it was more likely that it was a good thing, so there was no reason not to give it more potions. Thus, Suo Jia tossed all the refined potions in his hand into the little pet’s mouth.

The Great Frost Wyrm was an elemental creature, originally formed by the condensing of the ice elements. Activating magic was just one ability it had; without magic affinity and understanding, there was no need for one to nurture its affinity with it.

Like this, human and dragon spent every day in that room. Suo Jia would create potions, while the little Frost Wyrm would eat them. After three months, their relationship had already become unimaginably close. The little dragon was no longer willing to return to the interspatial ring, and would commonly wrap itself around Suo Jia, hoping for Suo Jia to grant it a favor and award it magic potions to eat to its content.

Finally, after Nicole had finally finished arranging everything, half a year had already passed. During this time, Suo Jia’s magic power had suddenly flew up. However, because he had focused all his concentration on the Enchanted Zhiyao and absorbing knowledge from meditation, Suo Jia hadn’t yet broken through to the Magic Scholar realm.

However, Suo Jia was still pretty satisfied with his diligent closed-door training this past half a year. His increase in powers had risen astronomically to almost twice what it had been before. At the same time, his control over the water elements had reached a peak, but was still rising to a ridiculous realm.

However, within this half a year, the greatest changes hadn’t been from Suo Jia, but the little Frost Wyrm that just ate all day. When Suo Jia looked at the pleased little pet currently wrapped around him, he really couldn’t connect it with the little pet from half a year ago.