The long staff in his hand looked quite ordinary, but once he stood beside it, Ethan could feel a surging wave of magical energy emanating from it. There was no doubt that this was a magic staff, and of rather high quality at that.

For a moment, he even wanted to reach out and claim the staff for himself. Ethan snapped back to his senses, realizing that this state of mind was not a good sign. He immediately used the method for training mental strength that the Ancient One had taught him, calming his inexplicably restless emotions.

All of this, of course, was noticed by Isabella.

“Oh? So you’re a mage apprentice… Though a bit weak, your willpower is fairly strong.” She glanced at the herbs on Ethan’s back. “Are you gathering herbs? It seems your teacher is skilled in potion-making. Take me to your teacher; I’d like to ask about why the dark energy in this area is so dense.”

Chapter 10: Only with a Healthy Body Can You Be a Mage

Although Ethan didn’t understand what Isabella was saying, after working for half a day, the sky was growing darker and his vision was starting to be affected. He had already planned to return to camp.

So even though the two of them couldn’t communicate smoothly, Ethan still led Isabella to the Rogue Encampment.

The wooden walls and the Rogues patrolling at key posts all told Isabella that this was not the town she was looking for. However, from their earlier interaction, she realized that she and Ethan couldn’t communicate effectively, so she suppressed her questions and quietly followed behind.

“I’m glad to see you return safely.”

The Rogue guard at the gate greeted Ethan upon seeing him, then stopped Isabella to ask about her purpose.

“I am a mage from the East, currently traveling around. Lately, I’ve noticed the dark forces in this area growing stronger, so I came to investigate.”

“Hello, esteemed mage, welcome to the Rogue Encampment. I believe Lady Katherine can give you a satisfactory answer to your questions.”

After greeting his fellow guard, he led Isabella to find Katherine.

Ethan did not go with them. He took the herbs he had gathered straight to Agatha. He wasn’t very interested in the upcoming conversation between the ‘main character’ of this world and Katherine, especially since he couldn’t understand it anyway.

Right now, he wanted to hand the herbs over to Agatha in exchange for his reward, and also see if he could learn Agatha’s potion-making skills.

He didn’t expect to master it right away; as long as he could record the knowledge and practice it slowly later, that would be enough.

He hadn’t thought of this before, but while gathering herbs and fighting zombies, he realized that in that ocean-filled world, he couldn’t guarantee he wouldn’t get sick or injured. Without companions, it was necessary to learn some basic survival skills.

After counting the herbs, Agatha handed over the prepared food, clean water, and some gold coins to Ethan. When she learned that Ethan wanted to help make magic potions, she nodded.

“The corruption of dark forces is getting worse, and these herbs inevitably contain increasingly strong dark energy. Before making potions, this energy must be removed, which costs me a lot of effort.” Agatha seemed quite helpless about the worsening situation. “So, I do need help. Unfortunately, the Sisters of the Sightless Eye are all busy and can’t spare anyone for these trivial tasks.”

“If you’re willing to help me with these chores, I can teach you the knowledge of potion-making…” Agatha thought for a moment. “As for healing spells, you probably won’t be able to learn those.”

With a simple question, Ethan learned that the mainstream spells used by the Sisters of the Sightless Eye were based on devout faith. Unlike many mages who use various energies to achieve their goals, their healing spells were more like divine magic that borrowed power from the gods.

“I see.”

Fortunately, Ethan was not a greedy person to begin with. He was already happy to learn potion-making. The painful part was that before learning to make potions, he had to memorize an entire hefty introductory book on herbalism.

According to Agatha, he had to first learn to distinguish the types of herbs and their different properties before he could begin to learn how to properly use them to make various magical potions.

With the introductory book from Agatha in hand, Ethan gloomily returned to his tent. He really didn’t know what use this book would be to him.

“Could it be that the herbs of the dark world are found across all realms?”

His only hope now was that the herbs recorded in this book would be more ‘universal’ and could be found in more places. Otherwise, if he memorized it and left this world, it would be useless.

“Huh?”

When he opened the book, he realized how wrong he had been.

This introductory herbalism book from Agatha did not record herbs by fixed shapes, fixed colors, or even fixed properties as he had imagined.