Wizard: Starting from the Skill Tree

On the way back, he re-verified several areas he had passed through before; that hollow, broken tree trunk showed no change, and the small energy signals beneath the layer of dead leaves continued their leisurely wanderings, while the gray and white flocculent matter in the forest still moved as if blown by an invisible breeze.

Duke opened his eyes in the basement. From his Space Ring, he took out pen and paper, and using the faint light of a nightstone embedded in a rusty lamp holder on the wall, he started to transfer the map he had been marking with his Spiritual Power in his mind onto paper, stroke by stroke.

The shape of the forest’s boundary, the rise and fall of the hills, the flow and convergence points of the Earth Element Dark River, the suspicious position of the broken tree trunk, the precise coordinates of each Nightmare Dust attachment point and the current density assessment.

In the lower right corner of the map, he noted in small letters the calculated result of the moon phase formula, marking the time for the next moon phase window peak, roughly three days from now in the Wizard Plane.

The collection path was also clear: starting from the manor, following the route through Panshi, crossing the forest, heading south along the vegetation belt at the hill junction, and then returning the same way after collecting.

Panshi had also returned to the safe house area, standing by the shrub fence, its dark golden lines rippling slightly under the gray-white sky light.

Everything seemed to go smoothly for it, with no unexpected incidents; this area seemed devoid of any formidable demons.

Duke, of course, remained vigilant, carefully organizing the information he gathered through Panshi’s perspective, knowing he must not be complacent.

From the information so far, it appeared highly likely that indeed no powerful beings resided in this area.

The energy concentration here was somewhat too low, at least for a top-tier plane like the Nightmare Plane, it was considered very low, suggesting this was an extremely remote region.

When Duke had visited the Nightmare Plane before, the energy concentration he felt was far beyond this level.

This was actually a good thing because the lower the energy concentration, the lower the likelihood of powerful entities being present.

Duke also noticed that the location of this teleportation was different from his previous entry point in the Nightmare Plane on Academy Island.

This was likely due to the uniqueness of the Nightmare Plane, where the coordinates recorded in the Coordinates Earring seemed fluid and shifting, making each entry potentially lead to a different place.

If not for the plane projection area serving as a temporary safe house, Duke would never dare randomly use the Coordinates Earring to teleport here.

Two days in the Nightmare Plane were almost imperceptible to the naked eye.

The sky bore neither sunrise nor sunset, with the gray-white firmament maintaining a constant oppressive brightness, only the massive moon occupying a third of the sky silently orbiting, its densely packed gray-white veins slowly drifting, intertwining, and diffusing, just like an invisible clock recording the passage of time.

Duke spent most of his time in the basement, occasionally standing in the manor yard, observing the moon’s changes.

During these two days, the moon’s veins gradually diffused towards the edges, with the rate of diffusion on the first day being relatively gentle, while by the second day, the primary veins noticeably accelerated, like rivers suddenly quickening their flow as flood season arrived.

By the end of the second day, those veins had covered almost two-thirds of the moon’s surface, with subtle signs of retraction at the edges beginning to appear.

Within a few hours of this retraction beginning, the window for the appearance of Nightmare Dust would open.

This timing was in line with his previous calculations, with an error margin of no more than half an hour.

Over these two days, he sent Panshi out twice more.

The first time was to re-verify those points with the highest attachment density on the south slope, ensuring the surrounding terrain had not changed and no new energy signals had appeared.

The second time was to patrol near the safe house boundary, testing the decay rate of the safe house barrier.

The results were both reassuring and concerning; reassuring in that the decay rate was slower than his estimation, with no risk of rupture within the next day at least.

The concern was that the rate of decay was uneven, faster in some directions than others, particularly towards the hill side, as if the Nightmare Plane environment repelled projections from that direction more aggressively.

Duke noted this phenomenon on the map and decided to minimize deep excursions into the hills during collection, staying only along the vegetation belt at the forest edge.

Now, the third day had arrived.

In the basement, Duke took out the necessary tools for collection from his Space Ring one by one, arranging them neatly on a piece of velvet cloth spread before him.

Collecting Nightmare Dust requires precision and patience.

Any slightest leak of Spiritual Power, any tremor of the hand, any disturbance to the energy field of the collection target could ruin the entire batch of materials.

The instruments were all prepared in advance, specifically designed for collecting Nightmare Dust.

Duke learned of these from library materials, deducing that wizards had ventured into the Nightmare Plane to collect Nightmare Dust quite frequently.

Otherwise, they would not have developed these specialized instruments, and likely he was not the only wizard in the Nightmare Plane.

After confirming everything was correct, Duke walked up the stone stairs, pushed open the secret door of the tool room, passed through the decayed hall, and opened the slanted front door, standing in the manor yard.

Panshi continued to guard by the shrub fence, its Soul Fire within its eye sockets flickered slightly, sending a steady, inquisitive emotional wave through the Soul Link.

"You stay here," Duke said to it. "If something approaches the manor, stop it, delay if you can’t. If I come back in an abnormal state, whether injured, unconscious, or otherwise, drag me into the basement, close the door, then activate the Witch Array I set up in advance."

Panshi’s Soul Fire stabilized, conveying a simple, almost instinctual emotional signal signifying compliance.

Duke nodded at it, then turned, taking a deep breath of the Nightmare Plane’s dry, cold air, and stepped across the invisible boundary of the safe house.

The next moment, the whole world changed.

Upon stepping out of the safe house, the true environment of the Nightmare Plane enveloped him like an invisible giant hand from all directions.

The sound of his footsteps on the dry leaves suddenly became unnervingly clear, each crisp crunch piercing his ears like needles.

The safe house barrier was no longer an insulating wall; it had dropped all protective layers, exposing him vulnerably to the silent and oppressive world outside.

The air was drier, rougher, and colder than inside the safe house, and each breath tasted of a metallic, dried-blood sweetness.

The strongest change was on the mental level, as the pressure he had already experienced during his apprentice days, akin to deep-sea water pressure, descended again, pressing on his Spiritual Sea, reducing his Spiritual Power perception range by nearly half.

But Duke was no longer the Duke from his apprentice days; his Spiritual Sea was a Six-Element Compound Spiritual Crystal, its strength far surpassing his peers. The environmental pressure alone was insufficient to hamper his actions.

He stood still for a few breaths, allowing his body and Spiritual Power to acclimate to the pressure, then followed the path Panshi had tread, quickly heading into the depths of the forest.

Fifteen minutes later, he traversed the Twisted Forest, reaching the low vegetation belt at the forest and hill junction.

The moon’s veins had already spread over more than two-thirds of its surface, with the retraction signs at the edges becoming increasingly evident, and the ends of several main veins tentatively curling back towards the moon’s center.

The collection window had opened.

Duke knelt on one knee beside a clump of low plants, taking the collector from his bosom, and with his left hand, poured a buffering agent into the opening of the collector.

The transparent solvent formed an ultra-thin liquid film at the opening, barely visible under the gray-white daylight, detectable only by Spiritual Power, with its tension quivering at a high frequency.

He suspended the mouth of the collector above the layer of gray-white powder adhered to the plant branch surface, moving as slowly as if plucking a spider’s thread with tweezers.

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