Seake began to tidy up the cookies on the shelf. As he wiped the dust off the shelf, he turned the side of the jar with the label facing outward. Meanwhile, he glanced at Miss Hana to see what spell materials she had in her hand.
"Comptea bird feathers," he wondered. "Aren't Comptea bird feathers always blue? Why are these feathers light blue? They look a lot like cheap helmisaurus feathers."
"Peggy bulbs," he remembered. "They were supposed to have black spots on them, but these bulbs look like regular garlic, with black dots painted on them with a black pen to make them look like Peggy bulbs."
"Loose scale powder," Seake was pretty sure it wasn't loose scale powder. It didn't reflect any light. Since it looked a lot like chocolate drink powder, he couldn't help but open the jar and take a sniff, only to be met with the smell of moistened chocolate powder.
Seake inspected a lot of materials and found that many of them had problems with labels not matching the contents at all. There was always at least a somewhat subtle similarity, but Seake couldn't find anything like strawberry-stuffed pastries that even laymen could identify clearly as non-spell materials.
He picked up an unlabeled jar and wiped it. Through the glass, he saw rings of various colored hair inside, brown, red, black, gold, long hair, etc. From the luster and texture, Seake thought it should be human hair.
After cleaning the shelf, Seake started sweeping the floor. He carefully swept into the crevices and expected to find a lot of dust, but he found some scraps of paper as well. Worried that it might be an important document, Seake picked it up and found a lot of familiar items on it:
Comptea bird feathers, five gold coins - isn't the current market price one silver coin?
Half a catty of Peggy bulb, ten gold coins - don't they sell about fifty silver coins for ten kilograms?
Loose scale powder - each gram price two gold coins is already exaggerated, yet they actually scribbled it out and wrote four gold coins?
Did Hana get ripped off, or did she knowingly pay such prices to the material supplier?
Seake didn't have too much time to think, he heard a noise near the door and quickly stuffed the paper into his pocket and threw the dust into the trash can.
The door of the studio opened and Miss Hana came in with a large plastic box, which she threw directly onto the workbench. Soil and water splashed out and seeped into the crevices that Seake had just cleaned.
"Kill all these frogs and prepare them," said Hana.
Seake looked into the box and saw fifteen palm-sized amphibians. Seake obediently slaughtered the frogs, classified their viscera and meat, but whether it was Hana's or the supplier's mistake, after he had processed more than ten golden thread frogs, he actually found two blue line frogs among them. Gold line and blue line have very different uses in spellcrafting and cannot be mixed together. Although with Hana's method of storing spell materials, it wouldn't be long before even pure materials like these wouldn't be usable.
Seake had heard that among all the various spellcasting professions, family mages were the group with the most stark differences in quality. Because ordinary people don't know how to judge a mage's abilities, family mages often rely on their mouths to do their work. As long as their academic background is impressive or they can talk convincingly, they can earn a high salary.
If their spells are ineffective, family mages have a myriad of excuses they can use: they can exaggerate simple spells to make them sound as difficult as ascending to heaven, rationalize their own failures, or claim that family mages from other households are obstructing them. According to rumors, some family mages spend hours each day astral projecting. They say they're fighting other mages in the divine or astral realm, but in reality, they're just napping.
From Seake's observations on his first day of work, Miss Hana probably belonged to the group of family mages with the worst quality in their profession.
Seake stuffed the two blue line frogs into his pocket, ready to release them later in the evening.
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Seake continued to work as a handyman for Hana until dinner time. He had a little time before dinner to take a shower. Seake headed to the employee bathroom hoping to wash away the bad luck he had experienced earlier. After seeing the desolate dormitory, he thought they might have to take an open-air shower in this weather, but the bathroom was much better than he expected. It had all the necessary amenities, was clean, and had a separate cubicle for personal use. Perhaps it was because other subordinates not under Hana's rule also used it, but it definitely wasn't Hana's doing.
As Seake undressed, another man walked in. He had soft hair, and although he was off duty, his hairstyle was still neat and tidy, making him look both serious and careful. He was wearing a servant's uniform, which he quickly took off to reveal perfectly toned but not overly muscular muscles. He walked elegantly and his gaze didn't wander, not even glancing at Seake as he walked into the cubicle. It felt like Seake was in ancient times, watching a brave warrior.
Seake thought to himself: with such a healthy body, using his blood to draw summoning circles could summon quite excellent demons, for example...he quickly stopped himself. He was no longer an evil mage; he couldn't look at people with that kind of eye anymore!
He sighed and stepped into the cubicle, squeezing out a pile of shampoo and diligently washing his hair, which always seemed to be excessively greasy no matter how hard he washed it. While he struggled to produce any foam, he heard the man's voice from the next cubicle: "Are you Hana's new assistant?"
So he had seen Seake after all. Seake felt that there was a bit of hostility in his tone. Seake replied, "Yes."
"What's your name? And what do you do?" the man asked.
"Seake. I helped her sweep the floor and cut up the field chicken today," Seake answered honestly. But then he asked not so honestly, "What about you?" He knew the man was trying to interrogate him, but he wouldn't be so obedient as to just answer all his questions.
The other man was silent for a while before choosing to answer, "Valru." From the tone of his voice, he might have been worried that Seake would use his name to curse him. But not answering was rude, and he wasn't a person who would be rude to others.
"Hello, Valru," Seake said. "That's all I did for her today."
"Aren't you helping her cast curses on people, using bones for sacrifice, and performing all sorts of strange rituals?" the man asked.
Seake thought it sounded like Hana was asking him to help with those things.
"Is Hana always doing this kind of thing?" Seake asked.
"I don't know, but she seems like that kind of person! I warn you, don't get too close to Miss Hana or her servant, XiaoBa."
"He's dead," Seake said.
"He's always dead. He's always bumbling around Miss Hana, doing who knows what--"
"Can you help me drag him out?" Seake asked, holding out a small shred of hope to Valru.
"You should have been gone a long time ago! All you mages are no good!" Valru said and then Seake heard the sound of him leaving.
After Seake rinsed off, he walked out of the cubicle. Valru had already gone far away. Seake then went to the kitchen to get his food and took it back to his room to eat. Dinner was quite miserable, and Seake suspected it had something to do with Valru's attitude. The chef only gave him hard bread, meat scraps, avoided the ingredients when scooping up soup, and only gave him one braised egg, but with an expression that clearly conveyed disdain. It was the same facial expression you would see when a restaurant encountered freeloading customers.
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Seake was at a loss, obediently squatting on the floor of the room to eat. Just like when XiaoBa and he left, XiaoBa still lay there without moving. Seake squatted beside XiaoBa's body, observing and eating at the same time. He used to deal with corpses frequently in the Night Cult, so he was used to being close to them and not afraid of them.
XiaoBa was wearing a dark purple wizard's robe, a color that could conceal stains and was the first choice for poor wizards like Seake who couldn't afford many clothes. XiaoBa was a bit older than Seake, around twenty-seven years old. He was skinny, with many acne scars on his skin. XiaoBa's body didn't show any signs of decay, and Seake originally thought it was because the weather was too cold and the leaky room was a natural freezer, but he found that XiaoBa was holding an empty glass bottle. After examining the plant fibers remaining on the bottom of the bottle, Seake guessed that XiaoBa may have committed suicide.
He recognized the plant it came from. The upstanding wizards usually wouldn't touch that kind of plant, even if they did it was to learn how to deal with it. It was one of the formal courses at the Dark Academy of the Night Cult. The plant was called Sweet Herb. The name was harmless, and the taste was harmless, just sweet, but it had a powerful taste-enhancing effect when added to dishes. It was known as the most delicious poison.
Seake and his roommate in the Dark Academy used to joke: if someone's cooking suddenly improved, don't eat what he made. This thing would cause serious harm to the stomach with just a little, and a small amount was enough to kill. Seake had witnessed the teacher's demonstration in the academy. Animals didn't eat it in the first place. After forced feeding, the animal quickly died.
Sweet Herb had a strong preservative effect, and the body of that animal didn't undergo any treatment and didn't show any signs of decay even after being left for a long time. This was the reason why XiaoBa's body didn't decay. Seake searched XiaoBa's body for a long time but couldn't find the room key. It was very inconvenient because he couldn't lock the door when he wasn't in.
Seake swallowed his meager dinner and then opened his previously placed luggage. He unlocked the several protective spells on the suitcase and took out everything inside. He only had a few pieces of second-hand clothes, a worn-out coat that was quite laborious in this kind of weather, two pairs of socks sponsored by a charity organization, and a pair of gloves. In addition, there was a hardcover book published by the National Magic Academy, "Compendium of Magical Terms". The National Magic Academy was officially called the Wand of Light. It was just a common name used by the public.
This hardcover cloth book had a glowing wand pattern on the cover, was twenty-six point seven centimeters high and nineteen point eight centimeters wide, and was a staggering seven point nine centimeters thick. It contained explanations for all spell terms and was an essential tool for all wizards. It was said that this book was called a weapon of the National Magic Academy. The students unanimously agreed that this book was quite suitable for smashing people's heads. Somehow, in the crowded wizard dormitories facing exams and rising stress levels, when dorm residents fought, this book often flew out first instead of a fireball.
Thinking of the wizard college, Seake wanted to sigh again. He joined the Night Cult from a young age and learned magic in the Dark Academy. The learning experience of the Dark Academy was certainly not recognized by civilized society. He only got his education from a wizarding remedial school after amnesty. If his background wasn't so poor, his ability would definitely be much better than Hana's. But he could only do odd jobs for people and didn't encounter any work related to magic all day long.
Seake took everything out of his luggage and stuffed it into the slats that made up the bed, and then cast protective spells one by one. He carefully added curses for protection against fairies, demons, monsters, spirits, humans, and beasts, and even added a curse for protection against zombies. God knows if XiaoBa will crawl up and dig through his luggage. For him, it was not surprising that dead people come back to life!