Elementary

After Gloria finished speaking, Lizer smiled and explained,

"We are allies; this isn't a business transaction. Besides, as you can see, I'm dealing with large orders now and don't need to rely on brewing potions to make money."

Seeing that Gloria was about to say more, he interrupted her and continued,

"Furthermore, brewing potions also helps me quickly accumulate potion-making experience. Also, consider this my contribution to our brothers at the police station. If you can pay out of your own pocket for them, me simply not charging a fee is nothing compared to what you do. However, I have been quite busy lately. If you want me to brew potions, it would be best if you purchased the raw materials and brought them directly to me. That will save me the trouble and time of sourcing the ingredients myself."

If he were to brew a large number of potions over a long period, the massive amount of raw materials required wouldn't even be available in Grey Mist Mountain Town. He might have to make a special trip to the plantations in Gele City, and Lizer was unwilling to waste time doing that.

Praised by Lizer, Gloria's face flushed slightly red. She let out a soft sigh. "Since you've put it that way, I can only thank you on behalf of the brothers! I will truthfully tell them about the help you've given us."

With that said, Gloria reverted to her capable and sharp demeanor as the Deputy Chief, formally bowing to Lizer on behalf of the brothers at the station.

Sven and Gloria were exceptionally efficient. Early the next morning, before classes had even started, Perisman rode his bicycle over, delivering a large box of raw materials and a combination lockbox to the academy.

Seeing Perisman sweating profusely and riding carefully for fear of tipping over, Lizer became even more certain that his soon-to-be-manufactured Little Wizard Donkey and three-wheeled carts would definitely be a huge hit.

His own dormitory wasn't very convenient for storing this large pile of items, so Lizer arranged for Perisman to temporarily move the things to Felina's apartment. In two days, once the factory was completed, he could move them to his own apartment across the lake.

Tossing the medicinal ingredients aside for the moment, Lizer opened the lockbox using the password Sven had given him in advance. Inside lay a thick book titled Basic Meditation Technique.

Lizer opened the book and quickly flipped through it, though in reality, his Pay-to-Win ability had already activated:

[Consumed 50 energy points to analyze Basic Meditation Technique]

Although 50 energy points was expensive, Lizer knew that his true talent was actually extremely poor. It might have taken him a very long time to truly learn it and turn it into a skill.

Now that his spiritual power met the standard and the meditation technique was in his hands, it was as tempting as having Felina right in front of him. How could Lizer resist? He directly used Pay-to-Win to analyze it.

Basic Meditation Technique (Apprentice) (Initiation 0/100)

Note: The most basic and lowest-level meditation technique in the wizarding world. Suitable for the wizard apprentice stage. It can construct a relatively stable mental consciousness space. Long-term persistent meditation can slightly increase a wizard apprentice's spiritual power.

After all, it was the lowest-level meditation technique. The stability of the consciousness space, the growth of spiritual power, and all other effects were at the absolute minimum, and there were no special additional attributes or effects. However, it was the first step of a long journey, and Lizer was already very satisfied. After all, he was now a wizard apprentice:

Lizer (Junior Wizard Apprentice)

Strength: 2.0 (2.2) Agility: 2.7 (3.0) Constitution: 3.0 Spiritual Power: 3.0

The values in the parentheses were brought about by his Basic Sword Technique advancing to the Proficient stage; the bonuses could only be enjoyed when fighting with a sword in hand.

For about fifteen minutes, the stream of information regarding the Basic Meditation Technique (Apprentice), parsed by the Krypton Gold system, continuously flowed into Lizer's memory sector. It was as if Lizer had already studied and memorized it by heart, and he finally understood one thing.

He understood why an apprentice wizard, even after their spiritual power met the requirements, still lacked the ability to cast spells and had to successfully learn a meditation technique before being able to do so.

This was the importance of a stable consciousness space.

The effect of a meditation technique in enhancing spiritual power was only one aspect; its most fundamental role was to form a stable consciousness space, allowing the apprentice to use their spiritual power to construct various mysterious spell models within it.

How should one put it? It was like having the ability to draw and possessing a pen, but you still needed a piece of paper, right?

Human consciousness space itself was illusory and unstable. Therefore, people's minds were always fickle, making it difficult to calm down and focus solely on one thing. For example:

If you tried to visualize a clear image of a fish swimming in water in your head right now, you might be able to think about it at first. However, to visualize the fish's mouth, fins, scales, and tail step by step, while maintaining a state completely devoid of other distracting thoughts—where only this fish existed in your heart, achieving a state of seeming empty yet not empty—was incredibly difficult.

Ordinary humans actually couldn't do it. Their thoughts would constantly fluctuate, be influenced, and become intermittent.

It took the wizard pioneers of the past countless years to summarize runic characters. Then, based on these runic characters, they found stable rune combinations capable of relying on human spiritual power to construct a seemingly existing yet not existing stable consciousness space within the illusory level of consciousness.

With the help of this stable consciousness space, wizards could construct spell models without any obstacles, and then mobilize mana to form spells.

In the Krypton Gold remarks, the Basic Meditation Technique could construct a relatively stable consciousness space, meaning it was sufficient for the vast majority of ordinary spells. However, some extremely special spells required superior meditation techniques to construct an even more stable consciousness space in order to be cast successfully.

Therefore, the wizarding world always said that meditation techniques were the foundation of a wizard, and there was absolutely nothing wrong with this statement.

Although it was the Basic Meditation Technique, Lizer would not aim too high. Meals must be eaten bite by bite, and roads must be walked step by step. The Basic Meditation Technique was the oldest meditation technique, and all subsequent meditation techniques were based on it. If he acquired a better meditation technique later, he could simply switch to it without any problems.

After thinking for a moment, Lizer spent another 50 energy points to parse the Wizard's Hand that Professor Mary had demonstrated in class earlier. This was a must-have spell for every apprentice:

Zero-Circle Spell: Wizard's Hand (Initiate 0/100)

Remark: Consumes a certain amount of spiritual power to summon a transparent, telekinetically controlled floating arm capable of lifting heavy objects. The spell can last for 30 minutes.

The spell's consumption, duration, and effects are determined by the caster's tier, spiritual power, and proficiency.

Lizer consumed his spiritual power to cast the Wizard's Hand to fetch a book on the nightstand ten meters away. He felt as if he had gained an extra arm out of thin air that picked up the book. He made it fly further away, but upon reaching a distance of about thirty meters, he felt it could no longer go any further.

He tried to lift the large wooden bed that weighed a hundred jin. It felt like he could just barely manage it; if it were any heavier, it would be impossible. The attempt consumed about 0.5 points of his mental energy.

According to the information analyzed by the Pay-to-Win system, the range, weight limit, and mental energy consumption could all be improved through practice. Increases in his mental energy and advancements in his apprentice rank would also positively affect these aspects, clearly demonstrating just how crucial mental energy and rank truly were.

Even when casting the exact same spell, the difference in power between a low-tier apprentice and a mid-tier apprentice was quite significant. Furthermore, the higher one's mental energy stat, the stronger the spell's effects would be, and the greater the number of spells one could cast.

Lizer really wanted to continue boosting his mental energy, but he simply didn't have enough gold coins. What else could he do but sigh in frustration?