However, just as Lynn was feeling anxious and his thoughts were tangled like a messy thread, the bespectacled man in front of him finally completed the data processing.
"Name: Lynn, Battle Merits Earned: 20 Points."
Lynn was stunned, unable to react for a moment.
Had he not received over three hundred battle merit points?
Though the amount was far less than he had expected, upon careful consideration, this might not necessarily be a bad thing...
Still, in a daze, Lynn handed in his task and turned to leave.
As he walked away, he overheard a conversation behind him.
"Twenty points must be the basic battle merit. This guy doesn't seem to have gained much..."
Fortunately, the Furnace Outpost wasn't far from the main Furnace itself. Dragging his exhausted body, Lynn managed to return to his dormitory in the Furnace's potion garden.
His dormitory door was tightly shut, but a slight gap in the window allowed fresh air to drift in, bringing a hint of coolness.
Sitting on his bed, Lynn took some magic potions, and the backlash from the Life Seed gradually eased, at least enough to restore some of his ability to think.
"Why do I only have twenty battle merit points? That's just the base amount... Forget about the three hundred points for the third level, even clearing the first level of the labyrinth should have earned me more than this..."
Lynn slowly realized could it be that his connection with Little Green had caused the bracelet to fail to record the latter part of his achievements.
His aura had already completely merged with Little Green's. Not only had this allowed him to exploit a loophole in that strange space, but it might have also bypassed certain tracking mechanisms of the Furnace's bracelet...
"Well, this works in my favor..."
Lynn narrowed his eyes. If the battle merits had been properly recorded, he would have likely been summoned by the core tower of the Furnace by now to meet the Furnace Lord himself...
He lay on his bed, contemplating his next move. But soon, his eyelids grew heavy, and the backlash of the Life Seed once again dragged him into sleep.
Time passed slowly, and by the next morning, the sun was already high in the sky, its bright light spilling into the room through the window.
Lynn groggily opened his eyes, realizing that he had slept for an entire day and night. Thanks to the effects of the magic potion, he had barely managed to suppress the backlash.
Though he would still need a few more days of rest for a full recovery, he was no longer in immediate danger.
The moment he opened his eyes, his heart-tightened memories of last night's nightmare surged back like a tidal wave.
In the dream, the Furnace had discovered his true identity. The Furnace Contract activated, and he instantly became a paralyzed vegetable.
Then, the Black Dragon Witch, Aestry, strapped him to a table. Using knives, tweezers, and other tools, she sliced his flesh apart, meticulously dissecting his brain searching for the secrets of his knowledge from another world...
As a wizard apprentice, Lynn's strong mental power meant that he rarely had nightmares unless he was under extreme pressure or trouble.
Right now, he was caught in such a crisis. Though temporarily safe, if he were exposed, at best, he would be captured and subjected to soul-searching; at worst, his brain would be dissected, and his secrets completely laid bare...
Lynn took a deep breath, forcing himself to remain calm.
He knew that only by staying composed and rational could he find a way to solve his predicament.
"For now, I'm still hidden in the shadows. The Furnace won't find me in the short term... But if I delay too long, who knows what methods the Furnace might have to track me down..."
He murmured to himself, "The most urgent matter is resolving the Furnace Contract. In my dream, the contract's backlash left me utterly helpless if I don't take action soon, I might end up as a vegetable..."
Lynn's eyes sharpened. The mission in the Emerald Island Forest had earned him battle merits, but he remembered that resolving his contract issue required a total of one hundred points. Right now, he only had twenty leaving a significant gap.
"I still need eighty more battle merit points. Where can I get them?" Lynn pondered.
His first thought was to return to the Emerald Island Forest, but he knew that solely relying on the battle merits earned there would take too long. Unless he repeatedly ventured in and out of the forest, accumulating the necessary points quickly would be difficult.
However, doing so would attract unwanted attention and increase the risk of exposure.
That said, Lynn still had an ace up his sleeve before being forced into the mission in the Emerald Island Forest, he had planned to use it, but for various reasons, he had never executed his plan.
Now was the perfect time to use it.
He took out three bottles of mysterious magic potions.
These potions were essential for advancing to an official wizard. However, they were incompletely flawed...
Given Lynn's current expertise in potion-making, he was now capable of attempting to complete them...
After completing his mandatory mission, Lynn returned to the potion garden.
However, the moment he stepped inside, he received an unexpected piece of news his research group, "Rejuvenation Overnight," had been disbanded.
The reason was simple and brutal: too many apprentices had failed to return from missions, leading to a severe manpower shortage in the potion garden.
At the same time, the frontlines' demand for various resources had only increased, placing immense pressure on the garden. In the end, many small research groups had to be disbanded, and personnel were reassigned to ensure the most critical production projects remained operational.
As a result, the variety of potions the Furnace could produce had drastically decreased, leaving only a few high-demand standard potions.
Most other potions now had to be acquired through external trade whether through partnerships with the Whiteheart Tower or through negotiations with distant neutral factions.
Not long after returning, Lynn was reassigned by a manager and tasked with brewing "Bone Blood Potion."
This potion also belonged to the medical category but was vastly different from "Rejuvenation Overnight."
While "Rejuvenation Overnight" primarily healed injuries and accelerated recovery, "Bone Blood Potion" was a life-saving remedy crucial for stabilizing critically wounded individuals.
The shift in potion production made it clear that the situation for the Furnace apprentices was worsening. Casualties on the frontlines were rising at an alarming rate.
Nevertheless, Lynn quickly adapted to the new work rhythm, thanks to his talent.
Brewing Bone Blood Potion wasn't particularly difficult for him, but it wasn't his true goal.
For Lynn, returning to the potion garden was merely a temporary measure an opportunity to utilize its resources and facilities for a more important task.
His real objective was to complete the three unfinished magic potions in his possession.
These potions were crucial for advancing to a full-fledged wizard, but in their current state, using them would be highly dangerous. They needed to be perfected and refined first.
Each day, after finishing his assigned work, Lynn devoted himself entirely to his research, experimenting with different formulations and making adjustments.
At the same time, he remained highly vigilant, keeping a close eye on any developments related to the Emerald Island Forest afraid that any information regarding him might be leaked.
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