Diary of a Dead Wizard

When black tides arrived, large numbers of polluted and mutated monsters would emerge from the seabed, slaughtering and destroying everything they encountered.

Although Evernight’s Red Sea Trees could absorb black tide pollution, they had no resistance against monsters.

So the wizards’ defensive line against black tides was actually set up around the perimeter of the Red Sea Tree forests.

They had to kill monsters before they approached, to prevent massive damage to Red Sea Trees that would affect pollution absorption from black tides.

If Wizard Stuart was staying until the black tide arrived, he would probably also participate in battle.

Currently, among Evernight’s third-rank wizards, probably only Saul hadn’t been assigned battlefield combat tasks.

Seeing Saul, Stuart immediately recalled his secret conversation with Emperor Elo a few days ago.

Meeting Saul again now, many complex emotions flashed through his heart. However, he had always been emotionally reserved and didn’t show it.

But Saul didn’t rely entirely on his eyes to read people.

“Oh?” Saul immediately realized Stuart might know something or was planning to do something to him, which explained his different emotional expression compared to when they discussed problems together a few days ago.

Saul and Stuart hadn’t interacted much—they had only discussed Red Sea Tree issues together.

What could the other party know that would cause such emotional fluctuations when facing him, even alerting Penny?

With so many people present, Saul temporarily set aside his desire to verify. Thinking of the deliberately preserved mark on his body, he decided to secretly follow Stuart after the experiment to see.

As long as he didn’t follow the other party to the Black Flame Emperor, he wouldn’t be discovered.

Seeing Royer and Alfonso’s whispered conversation wasn’t finished yet, Saul approached Stuart to chat. “Regarding the issue we discussed last time about Red Sea Trees being completely suppressed by Black Sea Trees, have you thought of any solutions?”

Stuart was just looking for a topic and quickly followed up. “Red Sea Trees and Black Sea Trees are essentially more like animals. So the natural bloodline suppression between them is hard to change through artificial domestication. My idea is to imitate the method used on mermaids—destroy part of Red Sea Trees’ instincts. Could this make Red Sea Trees lose their instinctive fear of Black Sea Trees?”

“Destroy Red Sea Trees’ instincts?” Saul considered Stuart’s proposal.

Although the other party lived on Nephret Continent, his research on Red Sea Trees wasn’t extensive.

Though Red Sea Trees’ characteristics were more animal-like, they lacked consciousness or souls as complete entities. Wanting to destroy the specific instinct of fearing Black Sea Trees was extremely difficult.

If there was a mistake and the scattered consciousness of Red Sea Trees was damaged, they might even lose their initiative to absorb pollution.

The Tribunal would definitely immediately conduct humanitarian destruction to prevent affecting the survival capabilities of Red Sea Tree groups.

However, Stuart’s suggestion made Saul more confident about his original idea.

Saul also wanted to utilize Red Sea Trees’ instinctive fear of Black Sea Trees.

Stuart thought this instinct could be destroyed; Saul believed this instinct could be exploited!

The two discussed some details about instincts, then Alfonso and Royer returned together.

Alfonso’s expression showed no change.

Royer still had a smile on his face, but wasn’t as happy as before.

“Good, let’s start now.” Alfonso didn’t care about Royer’s mood and began explaining the experiment’s operational procedures to the three.

“…Currently we haven’t found methods to prevent diseased mermaids from falling ill. No, we can’t say we haven’t found any.”

The three were immediately intrigued.

“You found a method?” Saul was the most concerned.

Alfonso coughed lightly. “Actually, you all know this method—separate mermaids from black tides.”

“Pfft!” Royer laughed exaggeratedly. “If mermaids are separated from black tides, how will we clear pollution from Red Sea Tree root stems? If mermaids can’t do this, what’s the point of raising them?”

Alfonso immediately explained, “Currently, only atavistic mermaids develop pollution diseases—other mermaids aren’t affected. So I want to use Pearl’s ability to summon all atavistic mermaids in the Red Sea, then isolate them. This way, during the upcoming black tide pollution, we won’t worry about mass mermaid infections.”

“Is this the last experiment?” Saul was somewhat disappointed.

This shouldn’t even count as an experiment, but rather a cleanup of the mermaid population.

In that case, he had no need to participate. Better to return and race against time continuing his own experiments.

“Not just that. I also want to use this opportunity to experiment on different bloodline concentration atavistic mermaids’ resistance to black tide pollution.”

Alfonso looked around at the three. “So I’m asking you all to record data on multiple subjects together.”

Saul was about to agree when his peripheral vision suddenly caught what seemed like a small head emerging from the deep water pool.

He turned to look and discovered Pearl, the mermaid rarely brought out of the palace by Alfonso, was watching their group of four with keen interest.

“Can I be responsible for recording Pearl’s data?”

“Pearl?” Alfonso immediately said, “I brought her to attract atavistic mermaids from the sea. As the mermaid with the richest royal bloodline, Pearl naturally has appeal to other atavistic mermaids. Though she can’t do other things, she can still lure mermaids out. So Pearl won’t participate in…”

However, before Alfonso finished speaking, Royer suddenly slapped Alfonso’s shoulder, directly interrupting him.

“Hey! We’re not going to slaughter this white-haired mermaid—just conduct one black tide pollution experiment. Besides, having Saul in charge is perfect, right? He’s best at treating black tide pollution, so having him record data is safest.”

Stuart stood nearby looking up at everyone, taking in all their performances with his small eyes.

Alfonso was originally worried, but couldn’t resist Royer’s jokingly forceful suggestion. Finally, he could only look at Pearl with concern and reluctantly agree.

Pearl had been staring at the four people and happened to make eye contact with Alfonso, immediately showing a sweet smile.

Then everyone began executing their respective responsibilities according to Alfonso’s experimental procedures.

Alfonso first walked to the deep water pool and lifted the mermaid princess by placing his hands under her armpits.

The mermaid princess showed no resistance, obediently emerging from the water.

She looked at Alfonso close by and approached with a face full of smiles.

Alfonso also leaned forward, but he used his forehead to press against Pearl’s forehead.

With their foreheads touching, Pearl’s approaching movement was halted. She rolled her eyes forcefully to look at Alfonso so close by, seemingly still wanting to get closer, but her body was restrained by some force and couldn’t move nearer.

Saul stared intently at the two. He sensed mental power emanating from Alfonso being transmitted through the contact point of their foreheads.

It seemed he was using a special method to convey information to Pearl.

Pearl’s soul body was incomplete. According to Water God Floco’s analysis, someone had deliberately damaged Pearl’s soul body.

This made it very difficult for her to understand others’ thoughts and commands.

Therefore, getting her to obediently lure out atavistic mermaids from the Red Sea wasn’t easy.

Alfonso had cared for Pearl for many years and seemed to have figured out how to communicate with Pearl, transmitting his commands more accurately to her mind.

This should have been a very proper, serious matter. But Saul watched Pearl lifting her small eyes, excitedly and eagerly glancing at Alfonso, making him feel something was strange.

The atmosphere between this person and mermaid… why did it seem somewhat ambiguous?

Suddenly sensing intense emotional changes nearby, Saul kept his head still but glanced sideways at Royer, discovering to his astonishment that his expression had been… extremely sinister for an instant.

(End of Chapter)