All the gifts bore the Arcane Mark of the sender. Pierce quickly found the name of the Wizard who had gifted the Sprite's Sanctum.

  "Talbot."

  Pierce quietly memorized the name, then continued to inventory the other items.

  It took him more than half an hour to finish counting everything, and an uncontrollable, satisfied smile appeared on his face.

  "Everything added up is worth about twenty thousand Magic Stones."

  "Wizards are indeed generous."

  Pierce exhaled with joy, storing the sorted items into his spatial ring one by one.

  He planned to sell the useless items at a shop in the Inner City later, keeping the valuable ones for his own use.

  For instance, some of the rare metals were just enough to make up a standard metal combination for the Argent Star.

  Without hesitation, Pierce took out the Argent Star and manipulated it to absorb the metal combination.

  As the numerous metals quickly turned into liquid and fused with the artifact, the silvery liquid metal immediately boiled violently, bubbling crazily like boiling water and sizzling.

  Countless energy particles surged from all directions, rushing into the silver liquid metal.

  The latter expanded rapidly as if inflated, turning as large as a medium-sized carriage in the blink of an eye.

  Eve, who was on the side, was startled. She flew into Pierce's arms with a whoosh, burrowing into his collar, only revealing a pair of eyes to look at the liquid metal in amazement.

  The anomaly lasted for about half a minute. Then the silver liquid metal calmed down, shrinking rapidly at a speed visible to the naked eye until it was only the size of a fist, floating motionless in front of Pierce.

  Pierce grasped the liquid metal and focused his senses. Instantly, a large amount of information flooded into his mind.

  It was all the magical attributes and functions of the Argent Star after its evolution.

  A few seconds later, Pierce's gaze sharpened. In an instant, the Argent Star quickly submerged into the pores of his palm, turning into a dazzling silver color that spread rapidly along his hand.

  Arms, chest, abdomen, head, legs... Almost in the blink of an eye, Pierce's whole body became glittering silver, as if covered with a layer of extremely tight-fitting silver film, revealing an indestructible texture.

  "Is this the Argent Star's new ability...?"

  A look of surprise appeared in Pierce's eyes.

  He could clearly feel that at this moment, the Argent Star had fused with his skin, muscles, bones, tendons, and even internal organs, becoming a part of his body.

  At the same time, he felt his physical fitness skyrocket significantly, and it was an all-round improvement.

  "Reinforcing the physique after fusion, and greatly enhancing defense."

  Pierce tapped his arm, making a crisp sound like metal clashing.

  "A very practical ability."

  He smiled faintly and withdrew the Argent Star from his body.

  After evolving into a Tier 2 Arcane Artifact, the Argent Star's power in its regular state had also increased a lot, in addition to the new ability to fuse with the holder.

  However, the mental consumption hadn't decreased; instead, it had increased.

  But this didn't matter.

  With Pierce's mental energy level after the breakthrough, supporting the Argent Star's consumption was more than enough.

  Putting away the artifact, Pierce then summoned the Eye of Omniscience.

  [Spirit: 5.12 Energy Levels] [Physique: 4.35 Energy Levels] [Task 1: Calculate secret technique for rapid mental power increase and refinement. Estimated cost: 585.5 Energy Levels] [Task 2: Improve Magic Tattoo. Estimated cost: 13.4 Energy Levels]

  Pierce thought for a moment and decided to pause the calculation for increasing and refining mental power for now.

  The most important thing at present was to improve his strength. He couldn't consume limited mental power on things that wouldn't yield returns in a short time.

  Whether learning new spells, analyzing Metamagic techniques, analyzing potion formulas, or mastering more Magic Tattoos and Elemental Runes, all required a large amount of mental power.

  "Eye of Omniscience, analyze Empower Spell and Enlarge Spell."

  [Task Created. Beginning analysis of Empower Spell. Estimated cost: 3.5 Energy Levels.] [Task Created. Beginning analysis of Enlarge Spell. Estimated cost: 3.4 Energy Levels.]

  Pierce raised an eyebrow.

  This consumption was much lower than expected.

  He didn't hesitate to consume the mental power. With a thought, Empower Spell was analyzed instantly.

  Pierce immediately issued a new command.

  "Eye of Omniscience, analyze Extend Spell."

  [Task Created. Beginning analysis of Extend Spell. Estimated cost: 3.4 Energy Levels.]

  Extend Spell could prolong the duration of a spell's effect.

  Enlarge Spell could increase a spell's range of influence, such as explosion radius, linear distance, or diffusion radius.

  For a qualified Wizard, Metamagic techniques were almost mandatory skills.

  "I should be able to finish analyzing these two Metamagic techniques by tomorrow. After that, it's time to learn new spells."

  Learning new spells wasn't a problem for Pierce.

  With the Eye of Omniscience, learning new spells was just a matter of an instant.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  Instead, improving spells and imprinting spells would take a lot of time.

  Especially the latter; the Eye of Omniscience couldn't help him. He could only imprint them one by one honestly by himself.

  Glancing at his mental power, which had 1.62 Energy Levels left, Pierce decisively consumed 1.5 Energy Levels to accelerate Enlarge Spell, then took out the Resonance Potion to prepare for cultivation.

  The principle of the Resonance Potion was to align the user's mental fluctuations with external energy particles, creating resonance to increase mental power.

  As soon as the liquid entered his stomach, Pierce immediately felt himself fall into a trance-like state, as if merging with the surrounding environment.

  In this state, he clearly felt the gaseous mental power inside the Spirit Crystal deep in his mind increasing bit by bit.

  Although the magnitude was very slight, it was continuous.

  He didn't know how much time had passed when Pierce suddenly woke up, breaking away from that peculiar state.

  He immediately looked outside and found the sky was already bright.

  Looking at the clock on the wall, nearly twelve hours had passed.

  "The potion effect lasts this long?"

  "Very different from previous potions."

  Pierce was thoughtful.

  The effect time of previous potions was mostly relatively short; very few lasted nearly half a day like the Resonance Potion.

  Perhaps this was the main reason why the drug resistance of the Resonance Potion increased slowly.

  Recovering his senses, Pierce summoned the Eye of Omniscience and found that his mental power had increased by 0.21 Energy Levels.

  "Only 0.21 Energy Levels?"

  Pierce frowned slightly, but soon relaxed.

  Thinking about it carefully, this increase seemed quite significant.

  Converted to the previous mental power unit, it would be equivalent to a dozen or twenty points of mental power.

  "But a bottle of Resonance Potion only increases 0.21 Energy Levels, and this is the first bottle with the strongest effect. Subsequent effects will gradually weaken. Even taking potions increases it so slowly; relying solely on meditation, I'm afraid it won't even increase by 1 Energy Level in a few months."

  "No wonder the difficulty of breaking through each stage for a Wizard is so high."

  Pierce sighed.

  It seemed he still had to find a way to get the Bloodline Activation Technique quickly.

  At least before the Resonance Potion completely lost its effect, he must calculate the secret technique for increasing and refining mental power.

  Stretching himself, Pierce got up from the floor, sent the sleeping Eve on the sofa into the Sprite's Sanctum, then cast a spell to send out two letters before leaving the apartment.

  Black Cat Tavern.

  When Pierce got off the carriage, he looked up and saw Sophia and Payne standing at the door, their expressions excited yet slightly anxious.

  Seeing Pierce, the two quickly walked up to him.

  "My Lord!" "My Lord!"

  "You guys are quite fast," Pierce laughed.

  Sophia smiled sheepishly.

  She had been thinking about Pierce and the follower matter these days, almost to the point of losing sleep and appetite. So as soon as she received Pierce's letter, she rushed over non-stop.

  Payne scratched his head, revealing a simple and honest smile.

  He happened to be cultivating in a Knight hall nearby and rushed over upon receiving the letter.

  Seeing Pierce as kind as ever, the two relaxed slightly, and smiles appeared on their faces.

  "Let's go inside and talk."

  Pierce led the way into the tavern.

  Sophia and Payne hurriedly followed.

  After advancing to Wizard, the magic heavy armor on Pierce had long transformed into a white robe.

  As soon as he walked into the hall, the waitress who came up to greet them saw his iconic white Wizard robe, and her expression instantly froze, becoming somewhat overwhelmed.

  The hall was originally quiet, but with Pierce's appearance, the whispering voices vanished instantly, and the entire hall became silent enough to hear a pin drop.

  "A private room, thank you," Pierce said.

  The waitress woke up as if from a dream and hurriedly led the way.

  "Please follow me."

  Just as she turned around, she was stopped by a man who looked like the boss. The latter waved the waitress away and personally led the way for Pierce and the other two.

  It wasn't until Pierce disappeared at the entrance of the corridor that the hall buzzed with bursts of discussion.

  "Why would a Wizard come to the Black Cat Tavern? Don't those Lords usually move around in the Inner City?"

  "Ignorant, aren't you? That was Lord Pierce just now!"

  "Pierce? That Pierce from The Spire Academy who advanced to Wizard at seventeen?"

  "Shh! Do you want to die?! Calling that Lord by his name directly, you won't have a good ending if you annoy him!"

  "The two people following Lord Pierce just now seemed to be Knights. Are they his followers?"

  "Should be. Tsk, two guys with dog-shit luck!"

  Many Wizard Apprentices showed envious expressions.

  It was undoubtedly very strange for Wizard Apprentices, whose status was much higher than Knights, to envy the latter, but no one felt it unusual at this moment.

  After all, they were followers of the most popular genius in Aurora City recently!

  If they could become Pierce's followers, they would definitely agree without saying a word.

  While the hall was buzzing with discussion, Pierce and the other two arrived in the private room.

  Casually dismissing the tavern boss, Pierce signaled Sophia and Payne to sit down, looking them over scrutinizingly.

  Sophia felt Pierce's gaze was incredibly deep, giving her the illusion of being seen through inside and out in an instant.

  While she was dazed, she heard Pierce say:

  "It seems you have been cultivating hard during this period and have reached the limit of Peak Grand Knight. Very good."

  Sophia was startled, her eyes widening slightly. Recovering her senses, she felt even more awe for Pierce.

  Was this the power of a Wizard?

  Just a casual glance saw through her strength level.

  Truly unfathomable means!

  While she was marveling, she saw Pierce wave his hand over the table, and two bottles of potions and two sets of armor appeared on the table.

  Pierce pointed to the potions and said, "This is Sun-Splitter Potion. You should have heard of its effect, so I don't need to say more."

  As soon as the words fell, Sophia and Payne inhaled lightly in unison, eyes wide open.

  As Peak Grand Knights on the verge of breaking through, naturally, they couldn't have unheard of the Sun-Splitter Potion, a god-tier potion for Knights.

  With the Sun-Splitter Potion, breaking through to become Legendary Knights was basically a sure thing.

  "My Lord, are these potions for us?" Payne swallowed, asking cautiously.

  "Of course, I have no use for this stuff." Pierce laughed and pointed to the armor. "And two sets of Faint-aura Magic Armor, also for you."

  Sophia and Payne instantly felt the surprise of being hit by a pie falling from the sky.

  Whether it was the Sun-Splitter Potion or the Faint-aura magic heavy armor, they were things they could only dream of usually. They didn't expect them to be placed in front of them now, within easy reach.

  Ultimately, Sophia was sharper. Taking a deep breath to calm down, she looked at Pierce with hopeful eyes and asked, "My Lord, are you ready to accept us as followers?"

  Pierce smiled faintly and said, "Why, are you unwilling?"

  Sophia was overjoyed, nodding repeatedly like a chicken pecking rice.

  "Willing! Of course I am willing!"

  Payne also hurriedly said, "I am also willing, my Lord!"

  Pierce smiled and took out two parchments with content already written on them—the standard format of a Follower Contract.

  Once the contract was signed, the followers' lives were basically in the hands of the followed.

  With just a thought, the followed could instantly annihilate the follower's soul.

  And once the followed died, the follower would also die, but not the other way around.

  Therefore, the follower contract was a very harsh one-way contract.

  However, Sophia and Payne didn't even look at it. They bit their fingers without hesitation and signed their names on the contract.

  Pierce then signed his name as well.

  As the last stroke fell, a corner of the parchment ignited spontaneously without fire. The flame spread rapidly, turning the two parchments into fly ash in the blink of an eye, dissipating in the air.

  Pierce's mind trembled lightly, feeling a strange sensation flowing through his body before slowly disappearing.

  He instantly understood that the follower contract had been formally established.

  Sophia and Payne also sensed it. Both showed great joy, without the slightest unease or worry about their lives being forcibly bound to another person.

  For a Knight, following a great Wizard, or a future great Wizard, was an honor and a stroke of luck.

  Patiently waiting for the two to calm down, Pierce took out a memory crystal ball and placed it gently on the table.

  Sophia and Payne immediately cast their gazes over.

  "This is a breathing technique I obtained by chance. It is of extremely high grade; even Legendary Knights can cultivate it. Before breaking through, you'd better try to cultivate this breathing technique first. It will be of great help to your awakening of Elemental Power."

  Teaching Sophia and Payne the Omniscient Breathing Technique was something Pierce had decided long ago.

  But it had to be after signing the follower contract.

  With the restriction of the follower contract, Pierce didn't have to worry about the two leaking the Omniscient Breathing Technique.

  Although he believed they wouldn't do so even without signing the contract, one must always be wary of others.

  At this moment, Sophia and Payne were stunned on the spot, their eyes wide with shock.

  A breathing technique that even Legendary Knights could cultivate?!

  Was there such a breathing technique in this world?