Chapter 55: Ring Ascension Potion

“What are these pages?”

Gao De picked up the small stack of yellowed pages beneath the magic potion recipe, pondering.

His excitement soared due to the immense haul.

The spell formulas and potion recipes were all here.

He simply could not imagine what other papers could be worthy of being carefully placed inside a magically locked wooden box by Master Seda.

Gao De flipped through a few pages at random, glancing briefly—and froze in shock.

They were a stack of letters.

Most were from Bremen City.

One was written in Master Seda’s own hand, likely a letter he had prepared to send but never got around to delivering before dying in Gao De’s hands.

In Gao De’s understanding, Master Seda was a solitary, reclusive, evil mage with no family or friends—that was precisely why he had dared take over the herb garden.

How could such a man have so many letters? Who were they addressed to? A flicker of unease stirred in his mind.

Could Master Seda have had a mage friend?

If so, perhaps that person noticed the sudden halt in correspondence, grew suspicious, and came looking.

He had no confidence he could kill another senior apprentice mage.

Gao De felt uneasy, yet his curiosity flared—he quickly read through the entire stack of letters in detail.

After finishing, Gao De let out a long breath of relief.

These were not letters to a friend—they were family letters.

“So you weren’t alone after all.”

Gao De couldn’t help but murmur.

The entire stack of letters consisted solely of correspondence from Master Seda’s wife in Bremen City.

His wife had sent him a letter roughly every six months for the past ten years.

A total of twenty letters.

From these twenty letters, Gao De pieced together Master Seda’s past.

Master Seda had been born into a mage family in Bremen City—barely a second-generation mage.

His family had once been prosperous.

At its peak, the family boasted one Second-Ring mage and nearly ten First-Ring mages, making it a notable force in Bremen City.

But after generations of decline, the family’s talent had dried up; in the last four generations, not a single First-Ring mage had emerged, and the family gradually faded.

By Master Seda’s generation, the once-grand family had dwindled to just him as the sole male heir.

And his magical talent was mediocre at best.

Despite consuming numerous mana potions using the family’s remaining wealth, he had only barely reached Third-Class Apprentice at age thirty-five—virtually no hope of becoming a First-Ring mage.

Master Seda had long accepted his fate.

Though he lacked cultivation talent, he had unexpectedly shown modest talent in potioncraft, successfully mastering the potion recipes his family had acquired during its heyday.

With this trade, his life, though far from the family’s former glory, was still comfortable—he never lacked food or drink in Bremen City.

Yet somehow, a rumor began circulating in small circles: that Master Seda’s ancestors had passed down several precious supernatural items.

An innocent man bears no guilt, yet possessing jade invites death.

Master Seda noticed mysterious observers lurking near his home and heard the rumor.

Though his talent was poor, he had lived long enough to become shrewd—he sensed a hidden hand behind this rumor.

With no choice, Master Seda risked attempting “Ring Ascension” without preparation or confidence.

What was “Ring Ascension”? It was the process by which an apprentice mage advanced to First-Ring mage.

In simpler terms, it was “Foundation Establishment.”

Only by becoming a First-Ring mage could he possibly scare off these hostile observers and intimidate the hidden hand behind them.

The result, as expected, was failure.

Master Seda suffered severe damage to his foundation, his lifespan plummeted, and he showed signs of premature aging. The observers, already restless, now saw him weakened to the extreme—didn’t that embolden the thieves secretly coveting his wealth?

Master Seda understood this well.

Helpless, he bid his wife farewell, left his homeland, and vanished quietly to Hogen City to live in hiding.

But during his escape, to avoid leaving traces, he had no choice but to leave his wife and children behind in Bremen City, fleeing alone.

To ensure he wouldn’t be tracked, he cut off all contact with his wife for three full years.

Only after three years, when he assumed the hidden hand had lost patience and believed he had abandoned his family with their wealth, did he reestablish contact using the prearranged method agreed upon before their separation.

Forced into hiding in Hogen City, separated from his wife and children, Master Seda was filled with bitterness.

Worse still, his failed Ring Ascension had drained his vitality, causing his life force to dwindle day by day.

To reunite with his family and return openly to Bremen City, and to extend his lifespan and avoid dying of premature aging, Master Seda had to attempt Ring Ascension again.

But how difficult was Ring Ascension for a man with average talent like Master Seda?

Especially after one failure had damaged his foundation—ascending now was exponentially harder.

Unless he drank Ring Ascension Potion, he had at best a slim chance.

What was Ring Ascension Potion?

If “Ring Ascension” was “Foundation Establishment,” then “Ring Ascension Potion” was essentially “Foundation Pill.”

The problem was:

Ring Ascension Potion was as rare and precious as a Foundation Pill.

The standard Ring Ascension Potion in the Xien Kingdom was called “Water of Soul Ascension.”

But because one key ingredient was exceedingly scarce, the entire kingdom produced only a tiny amount of “Water of Soul Ascension” each year.

Even that minuscule output was first consumed internally before a few vials trickled onto the market—far beyond Master Seda’s means.

Fortunately, his ancestors had left behind an incomplete recipe for Spirit-Linking Potion.

It was said to originate from the ancient Miser Dynasty.

This gave Master Seda hope.

If he could complete the Spirit-Linking Potion recipe and successfully brew it, he could trade it for “Water of Soul Ascension”—no matter how rare, “Water of Soul Ascension” could never match the value of a first-tier potion recipe.

After drinking “Water of Soul Ascension,” if he succeeded in Ring Ascension, his lifespan problem would vanish, and he could return openly to Bremen City to reunite with his family.

Driven by this hope, Master Seda threw himself into completing the Spirit-Linking Potion recipe, nearly obsessed.

Since reestablishing contact with his wife, each year he entrusted a caravan to deliver a letter detailing his progress.

Though Master Seda still owned property in Bremen City that he couldn’t take when he fled, he had left it to his wife.

She collected rent from these properties, enough to cover daily expenses.

But as a husband and father, Master Seda always worried his wife and child lacked food or clothing—each letter included fifty Xien gold coins.

These were the fifty Xien gold coins Gao De had seized from the wooden box.

“My dearest Misu, I know these years you have managed our home alone and raised Sel with great difficulty—your resilience and wisdom have always been my greatest pride.”

“Please continue managing our property as we planned, and arrange our household expenses wisely.”

“As always, I have enclosed fifty Xien gold coins with this letter, hoping they will sustain our household and slightly make up for my absence.”

“Since going into hiding, the brewing of Spirit-Linking Potion has drawn impossibly close to success.”

“If all goes well, perhaps this year I will return home, reunite with you, and return to your warm embrace—we will never be apart again.”

“When I left, Sel was just over a month old, unable to call me father; now he is thirteen, a little man—he must have inherited your beauty and my wisdom.”

“You wrote in your letter that Sel’s magical talent far surpasses mine—I am overjoyed. When I return, we will send him to the Magic Academy. Everything will improve.”

“Though we are apart, our hearts remain tightly bound, like the two wisteria vines before our window, their roots forever intertwined.”

“Eternal love.”

“Seda.”

(End of Chapter)