Basement

  This is already Dufan's third day back home.

  For the past three days, he had been searching for a secluded courtyard in the Duke of Green's mansion and then ordered the servants in the mansion to redecorate the place.

  After learning that it was the intention of the Duchess, these servants who were normally fond of being idle and lazy suddenly became several times more diligent, so in less than a few days' time they had renovated the entire courtyard.

  Du Fan looked at the courtyard in front of him, which was built entirely according to his own wishes, and nodded in satisfaction.

  Now this small courtyard is filled with a mysterious atmosphere everywhere. In the courtyard, there is a neat flower bed, but nothing has been planted in these flower beds. In the middle of the flower bed, except for a house that looks quite decent, there is also a tower about ten meters high.

  Old Mark stood behind Du Fan and said in a low voice: "Third Master, what are you trying to do by making such a big show?"

  "Can't you see, Grandpa Mark?" Dufan smiled, "I built this tower to cultivate magic, of course. You should also be aware that at my age, even if I have some achievements in cultivating Qi, it will be limited. In that case, it's better to focus on cultivating magic instead. However, don't mention this to anyone, or else I won't be able to cultivate anything and people will laugh me to death."

  Old Mark nodded and said, "Alright young master, since you trust me, I won't say anything about this matter. Also, why did you specifically ask me to come today?"

  Du Fan felt a bit embarrassed and patted his pocket, taking half a day to pull out a piece of paper and stuffed it into Old Mark's hand, saying: "Grandpa Mark, can you help me buy these things back? These are the basic supplies for becoming a magician. As for the money, Mother should not have restricted me now, right?"

  Old Mark nodded and looked at the paper in his hand, nodding: "Alright, Third Master, I'll go take care of it now."

  As he spoke, he bowed his head and quickly retreated.

  Du Fan smiled slightly and walked quickly into the house in the center of the courtyard. The servants who were still helping him pack saw him arrive, stopped what they were doing, and bowed: "Third Young Master."

  The servants in the house naturally knew about the recent events of this third young master, but they all understood the difference in status and didn't dare to ask anything. They just curiously sneaked a peek at the third young master, their eyes full of question marks.

  Du Fan couldn't see through their intentions, so he patted his hand and pulled out a handful of gold coins from his sleeve to throw at one of the servants: "Alright, I'll take care of this myself. You all go ahead and leave first, but leave someone at the door to keep an eye on things. If anything happens, I'll call for you."

  Those servants exchanged a few glances and also understood that the third young master probably had something to do, so they hurriedly bowed and retreated.

  Du Fan nodded in satisfaction, and when those servants were all out of sight, he said in a low voice: "Alright Chenchen, shouldn't you come out too? I asked you to help me renovate the basement, is it done?"

  The little white cat that had been hiding somewhere suddenly darted out and made a gesture with her paw to Du Fan, then took the lead in front of me.

  Du Fan's house is not very big, apart from the living room and study, there is only one bedroom.

  She walked into the bedroom and jumped onto the bed, not knowing where she touched something. A blue light flashed by, and the originally clean floor suddenly revealed a pitch-black hole.

  Du Fan stood at the entrance of the cave, looking around with satisfaction, and couldn't help but say: "Not bad, not bad. If I were to do it myself, even if you gave me a year's time, I'm not sure I could dig out a place like this."

  The two cat feet stood up, stretched out their paws and said: "What's so great about this? As long as you have enough spiritual power, I'll teach you a few earth-based magic spells. You can naturally do it. This kind of thing is the most basic in magic."

  Du Fan smiled and reached out to grab Chenchen's neck, pulling her into his arms. As he stroked her smooth skin, he said, "No matter what, I have to thank you. To show my gratitude, I've decided that tonight when you're taking a bath, I absolutely won't go study art. Will that do?"

  Speechless for a moment, don't know whether it's being angered to death or laughing and crying at the same time.

  To know, Chenchen although became a cat, but girls are born with cleanliness, so these days every time at midnight, she would transform back into human form and secretly go take a bath - after all, her existence cannot be known by others.

  But for some reason, Du Fan always managed to wake up "very punctually" when she went to take a bath, and with a holy expression, he grabbed an unknown paintbrush from somewhere, stuck his eyes on the bathroom door gap, and started what he called "artistic creation".

  But Chenchen was no ordinary person. At the first moment, she knew his intention and casually threw out a few magic spells, making Du Fan dizzy and disoriented.

  But this damn pervert's temperament is extremely stubborn, almost with the idea of not giving up until he sees it, so the things that happened these few nights can be written into a tutorial on voyeurism and counter-voyeurism.

  This result naturally made Chen Chen's sister extremely angry, if it weren't for the fact that Du Fan was her master, she would have cut him into eight pieces and destroyed his body long ago.

  Based on Chen's understanding of Du Fan, he naturally knew that if there was no other purpose, this guy would absolutely not speak or act with integrity. All the good rumors about him in the Imperial City were just a disguise for him to live a better life, and in front of himself, he had stripped off all pretenses, doing things in a shameless, evil, and despicable way that was simply infuriating.

  So when Du Fan said that, Chenchen naturally didn't dare to speak up, otherwise who knows what kind of crazy thing this abnormal guy would come up with.

  Du Fan saw that Chenchen didn't respond, and he didn't mind either. He hummed a little tune from who-knows-which country and walked down the stairs with a humming noise.

  According to Du Fan's requirements, the basement was divided into three layers: upper, middle and lower. The first layer had some ordinary magic supplies and food, making it look like a normal magician's laboratory. However, Chenchen knew that in reality, apart from a large number of mechanisms and traps as well as magic arrays, there was nothing else on the first floor.

  The second floor is a training ground, although it's unclear what Du Fan wants to use it for, Chenchen still built it according to his requirements. As for the third floor of the underground room, it's the most crucial part of the entire underground room. In addition to an enormous alchemy research lab, there are also several warehouses and a study. This is where Du Fan truly needs to be.

  There is a secret passage from the third floor's basement that leads to the outside of the mage tower, but I estimate that except for Du Fan, no one can guess where that secret passage is.

  In short, this basement was not only secretive but also full of various mechanisms and traps. All sorts of despicable means were fully embodied in this basement, with ordinary methods such as falling nets, dropping stones, poisonous sand, and water immersion. The traps designed by Du Fan himself made Chen Chen's scalp numb when setting them up.

  To put it in Chen's words, this underground chamber isn't particularly large, but the defensive measures inside are so intricate that they're even more stringent than those of a royal palace. Probably only Saints or stronger can infiltrate this place without getting hurt.

  Carefully jumping over the mechanisms everywhere, Du Fan and his companions finally arrived at the third floor of the underground room. At the center of the third floor was Du Fan's research lab, but currently there was nothing inside.

  Several warehouses near the laboratory are also empty at this moment.

  Du Fan took out Chen Chen and put her on the table, laughing and saying: "Okay little girl, now we can also take a look, our family's wealth is really rich."

  Chen Chen was utterly disgusted by the two words "we", she knew clearly in her heart that this bastard had already regarded her as his private property since their first meeting, otherwise, with his personality, he would have definitely said "I" instead of "we".

  Du Fan smiled and rummaged through the space ring on his hand, pulling out a pile of things in an instant.

  Apart from the pile of Templar armor and weapons, there were also many trinkets, scrolls and other miscellaneous items. There were even tens of thousands of gold coins alone, which wasn't a lot but still made Du Fan a small fortune.

  Then he took out the ring he had snatched from Emily last time and fiddled with it for a moment, then looked depressed.

  Emily's spatial ring only had a few hundred gold coins, nothing else of value. Fortunately, the spatial ring itself was very valuable, so Du Fan didn't regret his actions at all.

  After rummaging for a moment, he pulled out the culprit's gloves and several scrolls. He opened them at random and couldn't help but chuckle - these were just ordinary magic spellbooks, not even comparable to the one given by Archbishop Anthony. Dufan naturally didn't think much of them, but he still carefully placed them on the table, who knows when they might come in handy again?

  He carefully sorted out the pile of things and put them away, Du Fan was exhausted enough, if it weren't for the fact that this kind of thing couldn't be left to others, he would have called in a bunch of servants long ago.

  Du Fan picked up the last thing on the ground, a small leather pouch that looked ordinary, but after he casually opened it, he couldn't help but stare blankly.