"Now you can pour the snake grass powder you crushed into the crucible and mix it with Ding Ming, remember a trace amount. "Daphne stood on a high place, looking around at the dozen or so apprentices below who were clumsily trying to boil potions, and admonished, "If you don't know what a trace amount is, taste it with the tip of your tongue, and feel just numbness, if it's scorching hot, it's excessive." ”

As Seniors tinkered with the cauldron, he often glanced at Devonne with the rest of his eyes.

It's so beautiful!, he thought.

Not only the beauty of her appearance, but also the slender red hair that hangs down like a waterfall, the royal blue pupils that look like a clear sky, and the unique temperament that emanates from her body, all of which make her beauty even more brilliant.

Seniore had never seen such a beautiful woman since she was born.

But I've heard the townspeople mention that this Daphne teacher who teaches them herbal medicine is actually a witch?

However, this does not seem to match the image of a witch he is familiar with.

Ever since he was a child, Seniors could hear witches either in horror stories or absurd legends, in which the witches were mostly the same, with wrinkled faces, crooked black pointed hats, and either cursed toads or noisy crows, they were the embodiment of evil, deeply malicious towards humans, and most liked to use witchcraft to bewitch children in the middle of the night, luring them into huts deep in the swamp, brutally killing them, breaking off their heads and using children's brains as their own drink.

Senior, like the others, believed in this until he enlisted as an apprentice herbalist and met Daphne, only to begin to waver in the veracity of the story he knew.

Needless to say, he had never found out that Devany had taught them any evil recipes or tricked them into doing unbelievable evil.

She behaved like a normal herbalist, and although she was more stern in teaching them herbalism, she was in fact patient with clumsy apprentices.

Witches - Doesn't seem as scary as you think?

Syllable!

He heard a crunch, followed by a burning pain in his wrist.

He hurriedly looked up, and he didn't know when it started, but Devany was already in front of him, looking at him coldly, and she had a solid wooden stick in her hand that was about the length of her arm, and it was this thing that came to strike Senior's wrist.

"I ought to have said, Tinky! Are you trying to melt your patient's tongue with snakeweed?" said Devonie solemnly.

Seniore looked down, ashamed to find that because of his distraction, a whole scoop of snake grass powder had been poured into the crucible, and the liquid mixed with Ding Ming in the pot had turned into a viscous lump, and the edges could still be seen burnt.

"Attentively, remember. Devany slapped a stick on Senior's desk and reminded, "You can still be allowed to fail, when you truly become a herbalist, you will face a living person, and any mistakes caused by distraction will be irreparable." ”

"Do it all over again. ”

......

"It's rare to see you back so early. Devany walked into the room to her surprise to find that Hodge and Hera had returned, Hera was preparing dinner in the kitchen, while Hodge was sitting at the wooden table, holding her chin with one hand and tapping her fingers on the table with the other.

"Hmm. Hodge replied nonchalantly, and after a moment said, "I'm thinking about something." ”

"How long have you been thinking about it?"

"For a while. ”

"How long?"

“...... All day. ”

Devany took a chair and sat across from him, and said, "If you can't think of it, you can't think of it, it's not a matter of time that can make up for it, tell me about it, maybe I can give you some advice." ”

Hodge really needed some people to discuss opinions at this time, and he sighed slightly and said, "Have you experienced a cold wave?"

"You're asking as stupidly as, 'Have you ever drunk water?' because I was born and raised in the North, and of course I've experienced cold snaps, far more than you've experienced. Devany pouted, "Besides, I should know better than you about the cold wave, and you should all stay in the wood-burning house when the cold wave comes, right?" ”

Hodge then remembered that Daphne's awakened body was not so much adiabatic, but rather that no matter how the outside temperature changed, it could not change the temperature of her body itself, and for her, there was no difference between going out on a sunny day and going out in a cold wave.

"Well, I wonder if there's a way to increase the odds of a person surviving the cold snap. ”

"Who are you referring to?"

"Slaves, they still need to work in the mines in the cold spell. Hodge had nothing to hide from Daphne and said his thoughts bluntly, "I have to keep them alive as much as possible, if a large number of slaves die every year and a large number of new slaves are brought in, then Blackstone will always be the Blackstone of the Chamber of Commerce, not mine." ”

"Lighting a big bonfire in the mine, do you think it will withstand the cold?"

Daphne scoffed, "No way, you can't imagine how difficult it would be to keep a campfire burning in the cold, unless the entrance to the mine was blocked with stones to prevent the snow wind from blowing into the mine, but that would obviously not be able to transport the ore, and the merchant wouldn't agree." ”

Sure enough, it still doesn't work.

He tugged at his hair irritably, thinking about it for a long time and not having a clue, which was a terrible feeling.

"You should take a break and calm down before thinking about it. Devany suggested.

"I know, I know ......"

Hodge waved his hand, he didn't know that it was almost impossible to come up with a solution in his current situation, and his irritability would clog his thoughts.

But he didn't have much time left, and the cold wave was getting closer, and the urgency made it impossible for him to sleep well even if he was tired.

"Alright, don't worry about me, Hera should have made the pie already, you go to the kitchen and take a look, let me think again. ”

Hodge looked up at Daphne and was about to send her away, when he suddenly noticed a pendant around her slender neck.

There is nothing unusual about the pendant's chain, it looks like it is just made of metal coated with silver powder, and what really attracts him is the pendant's gemstone, which is a pure black stone with a surface covered with coarse grains, and if you look closely, you can see that it is not actually a complete gemstone, but is made of countless pieces glued together.

At first glance, it is inconspicuous, compared to the little-known rubies, jadeite and other jewelry almost no sense of existence, which is why Hodge did not notice it in the first place, but at this moment, in Hodge's vision, most of the threads floating in the air around Daphne are slowly penetrating her body and merging into her abdomen, but there is one thread that stands out from the rest.

It didn't enter Devine's body, but ...... Plunged into the black gem.

It wasn't quite inside, just a little bit at one end of the line, and at first glance it looked like it was just bumping into each other, but Hodge was sure that the line was actually going through the black gem.

How is this possible? After having the vision, Hodge has not been less aware of these ubiquitous threads, which will gradually move closer to the wizard's body over time, and then absorbed into his own body by the wizards, which is why he deduced that the threads he saw were the wizard's power itself.

But he had never seen these threads absorb by anything else, ordinary people, animals, metals, ores without exception, only wizards could avoid these threads.

But now, there is a substance that can absorb threads?

"Wait. He hurriedly stopped Daphne, who was about to leave, and held the pendant on her chest and asked in a daze, "What is this?"

"Huh?" Daphne was a little stunned, "This is a gift from the Chamber of Commerce last time, one of those trinkets." ”

"No, that's not what I'm asking. He pointed to the black gem on the pendant and said in an anxious tone, "I mean, what is this stone?"

Devany sighed, "Haven't you seen it? It's obsidian." ”

"That's why Blackstone got its name. ”