"How long will you be out?"
"I'll be back before your vacation."
"How do you plan to get out? Flying or crawling?"
"Swimming out. There's an underground waterway in the Black Lake that leads to the outside world, directly to the sea. I want to play in the ocean for a while and look for some things."
Without asking what Kulkan wanted to find, Sean just nodded. "Alright, be careful and remember to come back."
"Hehe, okay, I'll remember."
As soon as she finished speaking, Kulkan whooshed around Sean's neck, rubbing her little head against his cheek. "I knew you were the best – you don't try to stop me from doing things."
"The key is I couldn't stop you anyway."
Kulkan giggled, then extended her head to look at Sean seriously. "Sean, if you don't want me to go, I can stay. Those things aren't that important really. I've already reached this level – whether I go out or not doesn't matter much."
Hearing this, Sean reached out to gently stroke Kulkan's small head, whispering, "Go, Kulkan, go find those things that attract you. Since you can sense them even from Hogwarts, then they should belong to you. Find whatever's calling to you – don't leave yourself with regrets."
Kulkan gently bumped Sean's cheek with her head, nuzzled him once more, then turned and left, departing the Slytherin common room, leaving Hogwarts castle, and swimming into the Black Lake. Surrounded by three Kelpie minions, Kulkan swam into the depths.
Sean sat at his desk, looking through the window opposite. The Slytherin windows were all underwater in the Black Lake. Through the window looking into the lake water, Sean faintly saw a white figure glide past his window.
Smiling with relief, Sean lowered his head and continued studying the life alchemy papers in his hands.
In the classroom at the end of the third floor, Sean looked at his two teachers and slowly activated the life alchemy array carved on the table!
This was a very basic life alchemy array that Sean had developed after reading all of Antonius's papers on life alchemy. At the centre of the array sat a withered flower, while at the thirty-six points of the thirty-six-pointed star were placed thirty-six different materials that, according to Sean's calculations, could be transformed into life factors.
"Teacher Antonius, Teacher Nicolas, I'm about to begin."
Hearing Sean's words, Antonius strangely felt a trace of nervousness – an emotion he had never experienced before as a ghost.
Like Antonius, Nicolas was also very nervous. Both teachers stared intently at the life alchemy array before Sean.
"Huu..."
Exhaling, Sean officially activated the life alchemy array. The array glowed with a faint emerald light as wisps of green mist slowly extracted from the thirty-six materials at each point, gathering above the withered flower. The mist continued condensing until it formed an emerald droplet that fell precisely into the flower's centre.
Green luminescence seemed to spread across the withered flower's surface.
The green mist above continued extracting from the materials, and more condensed droplets kept falling.
After three emerald droplets had completely fallen onto the withered flower, all thirty-six materials decayed and crumbled into useless residue, and the life alchemy array entered its next phase.
The array released threads of electric light that surged into the withered flower. With this electrical activation, the three emerald droplets that had fallen into the flower were fully activated, and waves of green mist poured out, rapidly repairing and revitalising the withered bloom.
Gradually, the withered flower became full and moist, transforming from a dried flower back into one that looked freshly picked.
Seeing this, Sean's face showed a trace of smile.
But in that instant, the flower that had seemingly come alive suddenly took a sharp turn for the worse, reverting to its withered state and bursting into flames under the continuous electrical current from the life alchemy array, turning to nothing.
Sean slumped into the chair behind him and sighed.
"Another failure. What's going wrong? Why do we always fail at this final step?"
Hearing Sean's murmur, Antonius wanted to pat his shoulder but found his hand passed right through.
Just then, Lisa wheeled Nicolas to Sean's side. Nicolas and Antonius exchanged glances and nodded before Nicolas reached out to pat Sean's shoulder. "Failure is the mother of success. You've only failed fifteen times total. When I was creating the Philosopher's Stone, I failed over a hundred times. Alchemy itself is about gradually finding the correct path through failure. Your failures actually prove you're on the right track."
Taking a deep breath, Sean looked at Nicolas beside him and Antonius standing nearby with a worried expression. He suddenly smiled and nodded. "Teacher Antonius, Teacher Nicolas, you don't think I'm discouraged, do you? I'm not that fragile. Don't worry."
Was he really not discouraged? Of course he was.
Sean had indeed felt somewhat despondent just now.
But hearing Nicolas's words and seeing Antonius's worried expression, Sean pulled himself out of that state. After all, Sean had taken many detours in his potions research too – he wouldn't be so easily defeated. Though fifteen consecutive failures was his highest failure count to date, it was far from unbearable.
"Teacher Antonius, Teacher Nicolas, I think after fifteen consecutive failures, the problem might not be the activation step. There must be other issues, so I plan to start from the beginning and carefully review every detail. Perhaps I'll make some new discoveries."
"Life alchemy is your research now. We support any ideas you have. If you have questions, you can discuss them with us. If you need help, we'll assist you. So be bold in your experimentation – don't overlook even the smallest idea, as it might be the key to your breakthrough. With us behind you, feel free to try anything."