Chapter 106: Chapter 106: Human-faced Snail

Under the sea, a shadow flashed by like an arrow, yet it barely disturbed the water, as if merging with the sea itself.

Duke even passed right next to a little fish, but the fish did not notice at all, completely oblivious.

He soon arrived at the area where he had previously discovered the Human-faced Snails. The terrain here was rather complex, with large coral reefs and various undulating hills.

A large number of rocks piled together, forming mounds like hills.

The Human-faced Snails lived in the crevices among these rocks, requiring careful searching to spot them.

These Human-faced Snails were very alert; other sea creatures approaching would cause them to retreat into the cracks.

The interior of these rock-mounded hills was extremely complex, with many holes and crevices, making it very difficult to catch once they get inside.

Duke directly entered a lurking state; with the ability of these Human-faced Snails, it was hard for them to sense his presence.

What was difficult for others to capture, Duke collected like picking up stones, throwing them into the Space Ring one by one.

He was currently using the Space Ring given by Hela, with sufficient space inside.

Hela didn’t mention whether she wanted the Space Ring back before she left, so Duke thought he would keep it safe for her and mention it once Hela came out after her rest.

Duke spent almost half a day gathering more than fifty Human-faced Snails. For now, that was enough, so he returned directly.

After returning, he needed to quickly process these Human-faced Snails, separately cutting out the snail meat from the middle part and soaking it in a preservative potion for future use.

Now, this many Human-faced Snails was enough for him to use for quite a while; any more would just be soaked in bottles.

A single Starlight Meditation Potion only required twenty grams of snail meat, and one Human-faced Snail had enough meat to make two portions.

After Duke returned to Academy Island, he particularly went to buy a large basin and, back in the dormitory, poured all the Human-faced Snails inside to soak in seawater.

Many Human-faced Snails were already on the brink of death, only managing to catch their breath now that they were soaked in seawater.

However, they could only live for a short time longer, soon to face Duke’s blade.

Duke picked up a Human-faced Snail, observing the human face on its shell and two eyeballs.

The eyelids of the eyeballs resembled shells; when closed, the shell on the outside protected the eyes from external harm.

The Human-faced Snail’s eyes were different from human eyes, pure white, with a small red dot in the center.

At this moment, the face on the Human-faced Snail revealed an extremely human-like look of horror, its eyes filled with fear as it gazed at Duke.

Its mouth opened and closed continuously, like a fish seemingly trying to drink some water, but now, being held up, could only drink air.

Duke barely discerned from this face, which seemed somewhat like a man, but it was hard to see clearly.

He took out an iron hook, the tip of which glowed silver, a tool specifically for extracting snail meat.

The Human-faced Snail seemed to understand something upon seeing this iron hook, its expression became more terrified, and its entire body started to tremble and sway, as if trying to escape Duke’s grip.

But Duke’s hand was like an iron clamp; with his strength, there was no way the Human-faced Snail could shake itself free.

Duke stabbed the iron hook inside and pulled out the clean white snail meat, along with some black internal organs.

On the shell of the Human-faced Snail, the human face opened its mouth wide, both eyes round with an expression of extreme pain and ferocity.

But the expression was already fixed; this Human-faced Snail had completely perished.

The basin beside also began to stir, many Human-faced Snails witnessing the scene here, started to sway and leap, with a few even jumping out of the basin, slowly crawling towards other places.

Duke stood up, picked up each of these runaway Human-faced Snails one by one, and tossed them back into the basin.

After handling the Human-faced Snail in his hand, only a piece of clean white snail meat was left, which he threw into another basin filled with clean water.

Duke nonchalantly picked up another Human-faced Snail and heard a sharp cry.

Looking at it, this Human-faced Snail had the face of a little girl, who was crying at the moment.

The hand holding the iron hook faltered; he found it hard to proceed.

The wizarding world was indeed like this, always with many creatures bearing human faces, and as a human, there would always be some compassion.

This Human-faced Snail was relatively small, seemingly not fully matured yet.

After hesitating for a while, Duke put this Human-faced Snail down.

After all, with so many Human-faced Snails, he would just choose some he could bring himself to act upon.

He sighed and picked another Human-faced Snail from the basin, continuing to extract snail meat from it.

Duke picked up another Human-faced Snail and discovered the human face on this snail was unexpectedly beautiful, just the face was an extremely standard beauty, with red lips opening and closing, and the curvature of the lips was perfect.

He thought with a smile, “Considering how good-looking you are, I’ll spare you.”

Duke couldn’t help but think, wasn’t this just another form of nature’s brutal selection?

A total of over fifty Human-faced Snails in the large basin, finally, only fifteen were left alive, all of which Duke couldn’t bear to harm.

He threw these Human-faced Snails into the sea a short distance from the shore, where it was relatively safe, leaving their fate to luck.

For now, he didn’t need that many, and could just go catch more later if necessary.

Duke placed all the snail meat, which had been soaked and washed clean in fresh water, into a pre-prepared potion for long-term preservation.

Each small bottle contained some snail meat, looking like specimens.

Duke then went to town to buy some materials for Starlight Meditation Potion, though he didn’t buy any Golden Grass.

For his first attempt, he didn’t buy much, purchasing only materials for five portions, costing him about a hundred magic stones.

Although the notes in the journal were very detailed, they weren’t necessarily true or effective, real knowledge came from practice.

After acquiring these materials, Duke returned to Hela’s island, using the laboratory there to conduct experiments, saving some money.

When he returned, Hela was still inside her home and hadn’t come out yet, apparently needing more rest.

The Starlight Meditation Potion was a Secondary Potion, more complex to refine compared to the Basic Magic Recovery Potion, though not by much.

Duke meticulously conducted experiments in the laboratory, and soon had a pale yellow solution in his hand.

The color was somewhat different from the usual Starlight Meditation Potion, which was golden yellow, not as pale.

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