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Chapter 118

My eyes brightened at the declaration from the Grandmaster. “Is it valuable?”

“Uh… no.” The Grandmaster’s expression flickered slightly.

“Huh?”

He let out a little cough. “This old fool is unfortunately correct. These herbs were not handled properly. Do you not know anything about alchemy? I’m very curious about your family origins. For your house to hold such valuable plants, your family had to descend from some alchemic line.”

I shook my head, continuing with the lie. “None that I know about. We’re just simple farmers. I was just told that if we ever had money troubles, to search the chest upstairs. This was what was available.”

“Hmm…” His eyes sparkled as he watched me. “Well, I suppose if this did come from an alchemist, he would have at least stored it in proper containers. From the moment a plant is picked, it begins to lose its medicinal properties. Alchemists use alchemy bags and special boxes with preservation formations to help them last. In such a state, such herbs can last dozens of years, but in a chest, they’d expire within a few months at best.”

He showed me his alchemy box. When he opened it, a medicinal fragrance immediately spilled out as a small flower appeared which looked like it had been freshly cut. He snapped the box shut almost as quickly as he opened it as if to say that even that few seconds of exposure could decrease the medicinal strength of an item.

“I see…” I responded carefully.

Of course, I knew that these herbs had been stored in a specialized room within the ruins of the immortal city. Given the nature of that room and the care they took to hide it, I suspected the preservation formations used were many times stronger than these so-called alchemy boxes. However, a great deal more time had passed as well. Rather than dozens of years, it had likely been thousands of years, which also explained why some of these herbs were extinct.

“Don’t feel too bad, my lad.” He patted my shoulder. “You might be able to make a little by selling them. Although they’ve lost all medicinal properties and can’t be used in alchemy, they still have an intrinsic educational value. I’ll tell you what. Since I’m feeling magnanimous, I’ll buy it all off of you. It’ll even pay a full kilojoule. What do you say?”

“Just one?” I asked.

“Are you kidding me?” He frowned. “I’m already being very generous here. These herbs are moments away from crumbling into nothing. You won’t find anyone in town who would pay you more! If they still had medicinal properties, they might sell for a hundred times that amount, and if they were alive, their value might not be measurable. However, this is just trash.”

“Alive…” I fell into deep thought.

“So, what will it be? Do we have a deal?” He reached for the bag.

“Ah, no, sorry.” I grabbed it and pulled away, causing his expression to darken. “I think I want to hold onto them a bit longer. However, if I change my mind, is there some way to contact you?”

He narrowed his eyes, but he nodded. “You do that. You can return here. This old man knows how to contact me.”

“R-right!” The old man nodded.

“Thanks!” I smiled, giving a polite bow before I left the store with the bag in my hands.

Of course, I left a monitor behind. As soon as I was outside the store, my fake smile turned to a frown, and I continued to listen to their conversation.

“If those plants are truly as rare as you say, wouldn’t they still be of interest to most alchemists? It still could sell for a few kilojoules each plant on auction.”

“Hmph, in Stormberg? I’m the only grandmaster here. If he wants to head to the capital, he could be able to make some money, but he’s merely a country bumpkin. Such people only exist to be taken advantage of by their superiors.”

“What about fair business?”

“Fair business? Is that what your Lady Capala cares about? It is no wonder that your branch is going under.”

“You…”

“Hmph, since you haven’t found any new sources of plants, I’ll be on my way.” He spun away and left the store.

As he exited, I pretended to be considering things, looking at my bag while standing at the edge of the street. His eyes naturally dwindled on me for a moment. I could see a hint of cruel desire. After a moment, he walked over to me, the gentle smile he had been wearing earlier returning to his face.

“Don’t fret about it too much. How about we go for a drink? The first round is on me.”

“Really?” My eyes brightened as I did my best to look innocent and gullible. “That would be wonderful!”

Thus, Grandmaster Bai led me to the nearest tavern. He wasted no time ordering several shots. It had been a while since I had experienced drunkenness. I no longer had the volume of a pond, so it should be a lot easier for me to imbibe alcohol. I wouldn’t need to produce my ethanol and could get drunk naturally. That said, the grandmaster wasted no time as he began to push drinks on me. While we drank, we talked about various things.

“If you plan to further your research in plants, I’d recommend you check out this book.” He touched a ring on his hand and a flash caused a book to appear on the table which he pushed toward me.

I picked up the book while my other hand held the glass of alcohol I was drinking. The cover of the book had some text the Translation immediately revealed, ‘Compositorium of Local Plants, Poisons, and Medicinal Herbs.’ I flipped open the cover to see page after page of drawings of plants along with their name and a brief description.

“This would be useful…” I muttered, realizing this would help me identify what plants were valuable and what were useless.

The book didn’t look that interesting. It was more like a reference book than anything. If I had that book while I had been in the immortal palace, I wouldn’t have passed by so many plants without realizing their value.

“Well, take your time and work your way through it.” He waved his hand. “If you want to do alchemy, the bare requisite is that you must memorize this entire book.”

“I see…” I nodded, taking another sip. “Where can I buy one?”

“Keep it!” He waved his hand while filling up my mug, a grin on his face. “I have no shortage of books as a grandmaster, and it’s my responsibility to nurture the next generation of alchemists. You never know, maybe you’ll take to it and become even more distinguished than me.”

I nodded as he put on a vicious grin, but only took a long and slow sip as he watched me down an entire glass. I took the opportunity to put the book into my bag, although I threw it into my Luminal Space instead. I immediately began to Transcribe it, imprinting the contents into my memory. I’d only need a few minutes to memorize the entire book, but since it was a gift, I might as well keep it. When I finished, my glass was already full again.

I smiled drunkenly. “So, tell me more about alchemy.”

Although I knew the grandmaster had nefarious purposes, when it came to alchemy, he was eager to speak freely about his profession. I came to realize that there was a great deal to alchemy. Alchemists could make poisons or medicines. There were hot mixtures that required a medicinal furnace as well as cold mixtures that were created using a mortar and pestle. Plants needed to be refined and the medicinal properties extracted before mixing, and the end products could come out as salves, tonics, and pills.

As he spoke though, he made sure to keep pushing drinks on me. I drank freely since it was on his dime, and I also realized that besides alchemy, the tavern was a good place to gather information. I heard about some kind of competition that the city has every year among the youth, but this year was going to be different because Lady Capala said that she would marry whoever won. There were also rumors about the Capala medicinal farmlands failing to produce stock this year. There were rumors about the other families too, but most of the talk was on Capala and I was most focused on Capala and the other families located in the capital.

As the night wore on and I drank three or four glasses for everyone the grandmaster finished, I was a bit shocked at how high my alcohol tolerance was. The grandmaster also looked rather stunned. He was sweating a bit, clearly frustrated by how much this was going to cost him. In the end, I decided to fake that I was drunker than I felt before the Grandmaster finally made his move. At this point, he was nearly as drunk as I was acting, but he still had enough of his mind to give a nod to a few men in the corner.

The two of us head out, the Grandmaster’s arm around me as he led me away from people. Meanwhile, the hoodlums he hired followed behind from a safe distance. Well, their safety was relative to how much I allowed them.