Thanks to the Alchemy Box's outpouring of its grievances, Marvin finally learnt everything.

The Alchemy Box itself was an extremely magical Alchemy Item.

Because it possessed its own will!

From this, it could be seen that its maker, the currently freeloading Alchemist in White River Valley, was really a successful Alchemist, despite all the signs suggesting that he was totally useless.

The peacock guy was named Will, so he had decided that the Magic Box would be called Wilson.

Will regarded the Magic Box Wilson as his masterpiece, even treating it as his son.

Marvin didn't know if it was a coincidence or not, but he found out from Wilson's mouth that the powerful Alchemist had lost his memory because of some ineffable causes, but he was also a powerhouse who survived the 3rd Era.

The 3rd Era, a distant era, such a dazzling Era!

Despite how much the glory of the Wizards had shone throughout the 4th Era, even after a millennium, all the corners of Feinan were still filled with traces of the 3rd Era.

That Era had some many shining stars. The Great Alchemist Will was one of them.

According to the Magic Box, Will had been known as the King of Alchemy back then, and almost everyone had believed that he could even ascend to Godhood eventually based only on his great understanding of Alchemy.

But everything faded to dust after an unexpected disaster.

And after Will disappeared, Magic Box Wilson passed from hand to hand, before eventually being unfortunate enough to fall into the Snake Witch's hands.

The only gratifying part was that although the Snake Witch was a Greatmaster Alchemist, she was completely ignorant about the truth of the Alchemy Box.

She didn't even know that the Alchemy Box was sentient.

The reason for the construction of the airtight room was that she had once read a book about Alchemy Boxes which claimed that such boxes could be harmed by exposure to light or too much airflow. Such exposure could increase the chances for Alchemy rituals conducted with the box to fail.

The Alchemy Boxes came from an era when Alchemy was rather well-developed, and almost all Alchemists had one.

And Magic Box Wilson was definitely at the peak of these.

Despite being tormented by the Snake Witch for so many years, it still didn't give up hope.

Wilson had just sensed the Snake Witch's death, and thus, when it saw the door to the sealed room open, it decided that this was the best time to flee.

It couldn't open the door of the room by itself, so it took advantage of Marvin's moment of inattention to blind him and try to escape.

Unfortunately, Marvin's Post-Godly Dexterity had come as a surprise, and the little box ultimately fell into Marvin's hands.

But after finding out that Will was in White River Valley, the Magic Box changed its mind.

It desired to return to Will's side.

And after Marvin promised that he wouldn't "mistreat" it like the Snake Witch did, Magic Box Wilson agreed to follow Marvin for the time being.

Although the Alchemy Box was very powerful, it had been tormented by the Snake Witch for practically an entire Era, so its strength had declined by a lot.

The previous surprise attack on Marvin and the ensuing escape attempt had used the final bit of its strength.

Thus, after both sides finished discussing, Marvin put it in the Origami Space, letting it slumber for the time being.

Once he returned to White River Valley, he would return the Magic Box to that nameless Alchemist.

If that guy really was the outstanding Alchemist from the 3rd Era, then his hunch to let this guy stay in White River Valley would have finally paid off.

...

After the encounter with the Magic Box, Marvin didn't waste any more time and went straight for what he wanted.

His trip to the Rotten Mushroom Swamp was mainly for a certain spell of the Snake Witch.

The Dark Specters had invaded once in an ancient era, and at that time, people invented a spell to counteract them known as the Ghost Barrier.

This spell had already disappeared from Feinan, but it could still be found in two places.

The first one was the South Wizard Alliance's final headquarters, hiding in the floating city of Esomia, among towering mountains and precipitous ridges. But unfortunately, Esomia was probably now the most dangerous place in Feinan.

After the Great Calamity, it was uncertain whether even a few Wizards might have managed to survive in Esomia. Although those in Esomia great privileges, to the point that only the highest Wizards in the entire South Wizard Alliance could access the top floor, there were still many ordinary Wizards inside.

After the Great Calamity, Esomia should have enacted their emergency procedures, shutting itself in. If so, even Dark Phoenix's influence couldn't have reached that Wizard Plane.

Naturally, the Legend Wizards wouldn't be influenced by Chaos Magic Power, but all the people at their side would have turned into monsters, which would likely have struck a huge blow to the Legendary Wizards of Esomia.

Who knows what Esomia might look like now? Based on the information in the game, the floating city of Esomia was an instanced zone. This suggested that there would be enemies to fight within the city.

Although Marvin was confident, he still didn't plan to challenge the power left behind by South Wizard Alliance.

As for the 2nd place where the spell could be found, it was naturally the Snake Witch's cabin.

Although this place was also dangerous, it was relatively simpler to get the spell here.

The Snake Witch usually put her finished spell scrolls in the library, along with her books.

Marvin entered the library and saw a row of bookcases with old books.

There were a lot of them, and they had all originated from the 3rd Era.

Marvin also had many books in his hands, which he had gotten from the Dragon Library. But the problem was that these books were related to the Dragon Race and not about mankind.

Marvin approached the Snake Witch's books and started sweeping them away unceremoniously without a trace of respect!

Knowledge is power!

At least in the case of Magic Books.

As he cleaned the place up, Marvin thought to himself that after this event, he would go back to White River Valley and establish a new library.

He already had a large pile of books from the Chromatic Dragon Temple's Dragon Library, and now he had gotten many more shelves of books from the Snake Witch's library. These books concerned Magic Power, Alchemy, and other important resources for casters.

It would help accelerate White River Valley's inexorable rise.

...

As he swept through the entire library, Marvin found a book that he was looking for called –The Origins of Dark Specters and How to Defend Against Them–.

The book was written in an Ancient Common, which, as was evident from the characters, was the precursor to the modern version of Common.

By reading this book, powerful casters could understand the workings of the Ghost Barrier spell. Marvin checked and found out that he truly wasn't caster material and simply couldn't make sense of the contents...

He could only give up on that for the moment.

But at the very least, he did manage to find some flattened scrolls at the end of the book.

These scrolls were very old, certainly predating the 4th Era, but there was no damage to them at all, which could be considered rather amazing.

These scrolls contained spells that weren't considered particularly powerful, but they had been specifically designed to counter something.

These were the [Ghost Barrier] scrolls!