There is no doubt that this world has magic, but exactly what kinds of magic are there? And how does one use them? What is the world outside the mountains really like?

Up to now, he still remained completely ignorant.

Every so often—sometimes as long as half a year, sometimes as short as a month—someone would come to challenge Fiona Carter. Each time, these people would arrive cursing loudly, furiously denouncing Fiona Carter as a bloodthirsty demon, a necromancer who blasphemes the gods.

Fiona Carter would simply burst out laughing, candidly admitting to their accusations.

After that, the two sides would come to blows. Although Fiona Carter forbade him and Vera Smith from watching the fights, even through the city walls, Logan Bennett could still sense the surges of magical energy—sometimes strong, sometimes weak, sometimes intense, sometimes urgent—passing through from the other side.

He could hear but not see; as time went on, Logan Bennett's curiosity grew wildly, like weeds, threatening to spiral out of control at any moment.

Now, he had unexpectedly obtained this damaged spell scroll, and he was overjoyed, like a traveler who had wandered three days and nights in the desert without a drop to drink, on the verge of dying of thirst, suddenly discovering a clear spring.

Instinctively, he was about to stuff the scroll into his clothes to take it away, but halfway through, he stopped.

“Fiona Carter is cautious and suspicious—how could he have left a spell scroll behind in the garden? For five years, he hasn’t mentioned a word about combat spells, and he strictly forbids me from asking. If I secretly study this and get found out, he’ll definitely punish me severely, maybe even kill me outright. Or maybe, this is just a test he’s set for me?”

More than four years ago, he had naively asked Fiona Carter about magic, only to be fiercely threatened by Fiona Carter, who then whipped him five times, nearly killing him on the spot.

The searing pain of that memory forced Logan Bennett to act with extreme caution.

“I really am stupid—don’t I still have my Mind Lab?”

The most basic function of the Mind Lab: duplication!

As long as Logan Bennett had personally touched an object, he could duplicate it into the lab. The copy would be identical to the original in every way, with all the same properties. Any experiment done on the copy would yield the same result as on the original.

Logan Bennett held the scroll and murmured in his heart, “Duplicate.”

In the next instant, he saw the scroll split in two—one solid, one phantom. The solid one remained in his hand, while the phantom drifted into Logan Bennett’s body. At the same time, Logan Bennett felt a slight tingle, indicating the duplication had succeeded.

Logan Bennett put the scroll back into the brambles, carefully erasing any traces around it, and finally let out a long sigh of relief.

‘Hopefully, Fiona Carter has never seen this scroll before.’

By now, it was nearly four in the morning, and droplets of water had begun to appear on the tips of the grass. These droplets were crystal clear, shimmering with a soft blue glow, like the most perfect pearls in the world.

“Pure dew has appeared!”

Logan Bennett quickly picked up the crystal bottle, held the mouth of the bottle under the leaf, and patiently waited for the dew to fall naturally.

A dozen seconds later, the droplet grew to the size of a pinky fingertip. The leaf could no longer support it, dipped slightly, and the dew rolled off like a pearl.

“Ding~”

The dew landed at the bottom of the bottle with a crisp, pleasant sound, like jade beads falling onto a plate.

Logan Bennett had no time to admire it. He immediately moved the bottle to another flower leaf, and in less than half a second, another droplet quietly fell.

Filling a whole bottle with dew before sunrise was no easy task.

Logan Bennett moved through the garden as if dancing, shifting left and right, reaching up and down, so busy he was nearly frantic.

About two hours later, when the first ray of sunlight crept over the hillside and into the garden, Logan Bennett had just managed to fill a bottle with pure dew. The dew was highly transparent, tinged with a faint sky-blue glow, seemingly brimming with vitality, making one want to drink it at first sight.

He remembered once, when he had collected a bottle and a half of pure dew, Fiona Carter had been in a good mood and shared a bit more. According to him, this stuff was an excellent alchemical ingredient; with a few more herbs, it could be made into a high-quality mana restoration potion.

“Ah, if only I could get the recipe for the mana restoration potion,” Logan Bennett thought enviously. Unfortunately, he was under someone else’s control and could only work for others for nothing.

With a full bottle of pure dew in hand, Logan Bennett returned to White Stone Castle and headed for the third floor.

He had walked this path thousands of times and knew it by heart—up the damp, cold steps, then along a spiral stone staircase, and finally into a dim, empty corridor. At the end of the corridor was a dark, heavy iron door, and lying on the ground at the entrance was a terrifying one-eyed ogre—the executioner, Grant Howard.

It was still early. The demon was fast asleep, its massive body curled up like an elephant, dagger-like claws tucked under its pads, head buried in its arms, snoring so loudly it shook the mountains.

Logan Bennett tiptoed to a spot twenty meters from the ogre and stopped, waiting patiently.

He had no desire to interrupt this monster’s sweet dreams—the creature was notorious for its bad temper upon waking.

Five years ago, an unlucky enchanter had disturbed its sleep and was devoured alive on the spot. It was precisely because of this that Logan Bennett had managed to escape the hellish pens.