Locke ate all the meat on the entire cart while channeling his mana into the Deep Purple Jade.
His stomach made sounds like thunder as his digestive abilities, enhanced by the ancient bloodline, rapidly and completely digested the dried beef.
Locke heard the sound of gemstone cracking. Looking down, he found that the Deep Purple Jade in his hand had turned into a pile of gem powder.
"The special substances inside the Deep Purple Jade have been completely consumed, causing the gemstone to shatter. To completely eliminate the side effects on my body, I still need seven more Deep Purple Jades. It will take me at least two weeks to synthesize them all, but this is already quite good," Locke thought. "If it were other second-class wizard apprentices, they probably wouldn't be able to suppress the side effects without several years." ɪꜰ ʏᴏᴜ ᴡᴀɴᴛ ᴛᴏ ʀᴇᴀᴅ ᴍᴏʀᴇ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs, ᴘʟᴇᴀsᴇ ᴠɪsɪᴛ NoveI~Fire.net
"Of course, Lilith's Cottage sells potions to clear the side effects of degraded mental strength, but those potions are very expensive and can only be purchased from one's wizard mentor."
"Moreover, the effects of those potions are not as effective as Deep Purple Jade."
The potions themselves also had some side effects, so even using expensive potions to clear the degraded impurities in mental strength would ultimately leave some side effects.
Locke could even sense that the potion toxicity in his mental strength caused by taking moonlight potions and Focus Ointment had also been cleared under the effect of the Deep Purple Jade.
It could be said that Deep Purple Jade could keep him in a completely pure state as if he had never used any [potions].
"Star Domain Sea... Teacher Sophia has been mentioning this term frequently lately."
"Deep Purple Jade contains the special energy of the Star Domain Sea, void energy. That sparse void energy is enough to purify all the impurities in my mental strength completely."
"Unfortunately, void energy seems unable to purify ether elements, so the partial ether elements entangled in my mental strength still exist."
Locke frowned slightly at his reflection in the study mirror. He had never been certain what negative effects this portion of ether elements entangled with his mental strength would have on him.
However, from current observations, there seemed to be no effects at all, so he didn't need to be too nervous.
Locke returned to his bedroom, applied some Focus Ointment to his temples, then began the night's meditation.
The next day, Locke went early to the patrol team's hut to report.
However, for some unknown reason, many patrol team wizard apprentices looked at him with strange, curious gazes.
But when Locke looked at them, these people would greet him with smiles or nod at each other.
Since Locke's impressive performance in the last mission, he had become welcomed in the patrol team and had integrated into it.
Faced with this slightly abnormal situation, Locke frowned slightly.
It seemed he had caused some commotion and become one of the central figures in hot news.
Locke had some guesses about this.
He entered Captain Bruno Suarez's office. When Bruno saw Locke, his eyes brightened. "Locke, you came today."
"Perfect. This afternoon we have a rather dangerous mission to clear a herd of Berserk Rhinos that broke into Lilith's Cottage at the city's edge. This time I plan to take you and Haylia together."
Since the last incident, in Captain Bruno's mind, Locke was a second-class wizard apprentice with good combat ability and naturally gained his attention.
Haylia looked at Locke curiously, "Hello, Locke."
"I heard you rejected the Reeves family's investment contract and even said you don't need wizard family investment."
"Do you know? You've become the hot topic among second-class wizard apprentices at our Lilith's Cottage recently."
"Everyone's saying different things."
Captain Bruno became serious and raised his voice at Haylia. "Haylia, why are you bringing this up?"
"We're all from the same patrol team. Why gossip about our own people for outsiders?"
Haylia shrugged her shoulders, raised her eyebrows, and showed an exaggeratedly comical expression to ease the atmosphere. "There are also wizard apprentices from the seventy-two local wizard families in the patrol team."
"Besides, after I heard about this this morning, I clearly refuted those wizard apprentices spreading the news."
"I told them it was just a rumor, and Locke Augustine is an excellent wizard apprentice in the patrol team."
Haylia turned to Locke apologetically, "Sorry, Locke. I just wanted to remind you that the Reeves family seems to have taken some kind of revenge against you."
"These declining local wizard families are really petty."
Although Haylia and Captain Bruno were also local wizards, they both came from local commoner families, so they had no particular bias in this matter.
They even had more favorable feelings toward Locke because he had fought alongside them.
Locke frowned. He hadn't expected the Reeves family to engage in such boring petty tricks.
Obviously, the Reeves family was very dissatisfied with his rejection and wanted to use this method of smearing his reputation to prevent him from getting investment from any wizard family.
If he really wanted investment, encountering this situation would make him very anxious and might even make him go apologize in person.
But he wasn't like that.
He had never considered accepting investment from those seventy-two local families, as that would be self-imposed bondage.
Locke didn't care much about this, just made a mental note of the Reeves family's account, then said to Captain Bruno and Haylia, "Thank you both for the reminder."
"However, these are just harmless little tricks. As wizard apprentices, studying and exploring the path of magic is our primary job."
"Captain, could you tell me about this afternoon's mission?"
Haylia and Captain Bruno nodded in agreement. In their eyes, this rumor was indeed a despicable trick.
But Locke's complete indifference to it still surprised them both slightly.
Haylia looked at Locke with surprise, not knowing why Locke was so calm.
Captain Bruno said, "Good, then let's talk business."
"Berserk Rhinos possess a passive 0.5-circle enchantment school cantrip [Berserk], numbering about seven, so we plan to use our numerical advantage to drive them away."
"In this process, we'll also have some benefits."
Captain Bruno said, "The magical materials from killed Berserk Rhinos can be divided equally among our patrol team."
"On Lilith's Cottage's territory, we can safely kill some magical creatures that intrude into urban areas. This is much safer than hunting and collecting magical materials in dangerous wild environments. This counts as one of our patrol team's benefits."