After picking up dinner from the Alchemy Room, Ailin returned to the apprentice dormitory reeking of alcohol.
Vesemir had taken the Drowners King's corpse away to deal with.
The Witcher Master had promised to find the chief and help him solve the problem of processing the materials.
"Don't worry. 'Material Processing for Large Monsters' was compiled by the chief together with Lady Vesemir. Even advanced sorcerer apprentices at Ban Ard Sorcerer Academy and Aretuza Sorceress Academy use this textbook."
Those were Vesemir's exact words.
In the apprentice dormitory, Huus caught the scent of alcohol on Ailin when he took the "dinner" and asked curiously, "Ailin, where did you go?"
Ailin hesitated for a moment. "I just went to the castle hall and attended the bonfire feast this afternoon."
"Wow!"
Huus exclaimed, setting down his cup and rubbing his little hands excitedly as he pressed on:
"How did you get in? What was the castle hall like? ..."
The barrage of questions left Ailin struggling to cope, while Fred and Bont beside him held their cups with expectant looks on their faces.
Ailin sighed and could only give them a rough account of slaying the Drowners King that afternoon, then being brought into the castle hall by Vesemir afterward.
Ailin was not much of a storyteller.
Yet the apprentices still nodded along, anticipation and envy nearly spilling from their shining eyes.
The castle hall did not actually forbid apprentices from entering, and apprentices were not barred from joining the witchers' winter bonfire feasts either.
But rarely...
Or rather, aside from Ailin, no witcher apprentice who had yet to pass the trials had ever attended such a feast.
The reason was simple: no full-fledged witcher would invite them.
"Do not remember the names of apprentices."
It was an unspoken rule passed down among the witchers of the School of the Wolf.
It was also a lesson handed down through the years.
In truth, even though Ailin was, as Vesemir had said, the only witcher apprentice to slay a large monster before the Trial of the Mountains,
several witchers at the feast in the castle hall still deliberately or casually conveyed those words to Vesemir.
They thought Ailin's senses could not pick it up.
In fact, he had heard every word clearly.
After finishing the story, Ailin patiently answered the apprentices' questions about Signs under their admiring gazes.
Afterward, he chased them off to eat and sleep.
Lying in bed, Ailin opened his character panel with a thought, intending to sort through today's gains.
Name: Ailin Age: 13 Title: Child of Miracle Level: 10 Health: 100%, Stamina: 150/150, Magic Power: 87/87 Attributes: Strength 9.6, Agility 9.6, Constitution 15, Perception 14.9, Mystery 8.7 Special Skills: Witcher's Handbook LV3, Appraisal LV1, Tracking LV1 Special Skill Points: 0 Skills: School of the Wolf Two-Handed Sword LV2, Tracking LV1, Quen LV3, Ald LV1, Yrden LV1, Igni LV2 Formula: Killer Whale (Unavailable) Items: Lesser Experience Orbs*5763, Experience Orbs*45, Drowners King's Heart Essence Fluid*3, Drowners King's Chest*18, Drowner's Chest*23, Drowner Heart Essence Fluid*186... Evaluation: Trash!
Seeing the vast fortune he possessed, all his earlier melancholy vanished at once.
Money gave a man courage.
The ancients had not deceived him.
Ailin sighed happily to himself.
One Experience Orb was worth one hundred experience points, so forty-five of them were equivalent to four thousand five hundred Lesser Experience Orbs.
Altogether, Ailin's savings exceeded ten thousand Lesser Experience Orbs.
He opened the system prompt from that morning.
Spend 7101 Lesser Experience Orbs to unlock the Alchemy skill?
The breath he had been holding in his heart instantly eased.
More than enough, Ailin thought.
The twists and turns of life were truly impossible to predict.
After Mary's alchemy lesson that morning, he had thought he would have to face the Trial of the Mountains without any preparation.
Who could have expected that by nightfall, he would not only have enough, but a considerable surplus as well?
Should he unlock Alchemy tomorrow and start brewing potions?
Or should he wait, attend a few more lessons, and save some Lesser Experience Orbs?
After thinking for a moment, Ailin recalled that Lady Mary had only reduced the cost by nineteen Lesser Experience Orbs after teaching for three or four hours. He sighed and shook his head.
I'll raise it after tomorrow's final lesson, Ailin thought.
The Witcher's Handbook was rigid. He could review the system prompts for unlocked skills, but they were only historical records.
So he could only wait until tomorrow to unlock the skill.
It had been a while since Ailin drank his "dinner."
Only now did his body begin to feel the pain.
However, the pain caused by the meal was now very faint.
Correspondingly, Ailin's physical attributes no longer increased.
This showed that the witcher apprentice's body had almost completely adapted to the mutated organs created by the Trial of Grasses.
Still, even though he no longer needed it, Ailin used one Drowner Heart Essence Fluid.
The icy liquid slid down his throat, and the faint pain and itch vanished instantly.
Ailin waited a moment, then looked expectantly at the Drowners King's Heart Essence Fluid.
"The Drowners King was so strong. His Heart Essence Fluid should be able to strengthen all five attributes, right?"
The other four attributes were manageable, but Ailin was truly weak in Mystery.
Moreover, common monsters seemed unlikely to drop Essence Fluid that could increase the Mystery attribute.
At present, Ailin could only rely on the natural growth of his witcher physique.
But most importantly, this attribute was extremely important to him.
The Mystery attribute determined the amount of magic power he possessed and the strength of his Signs.
The latter needed no explanation, while the former directly determined the effectiveness of Ailin's use of Mirage Pearls.
The Drowners King had taught him that how well he used Mirage Pearls directly determined whether he lived or died in battle.
Thinking of how that arm-thick Ice Spike had pierced through his illusion right before his eyes during the day, Ailin could still feel phantom pain in his chest. His body trembled instinctively.
Taking a deep breath, he used his thoughts to select the Drowners King's Heart Essence Fluid.
In an instant,
an avalanche erupted in his throat and rushed straight into his stomach.
Immediately afterward, Ailin felt as though his internal organs had frozen into blocks of ice, and even his blood seemed about to solidify.
I was careless!
Ailin had not expected the Drowners King's Heart Essence Fluid to be so potent.
The Ice Spike from that afternoon seemed to explode directly inside his body.
The witcher apprentice's eyes widened, his teeth clamping tightly onto the thin linen quilt. The moment a drop of saliva fell into his mouth, it froze solid.
Had Ailin not been a witcher apprentice who had seen his share of things and endured part of the Trial of Grasses,
he would have definitely screamed by now.
About an hour later,
the blizzard inside the body gradually subsided.
"Phew—"
Ailin let out a long breath.
A cloud of cold mist blew from his mouth directly toward Huus, who lay in the neighboring bed.
Huus was still digesting dinner and did not notice anything unusual.
He shivered, muttered something, then reached out with a small hand to tuck in the corner of the quilt by his neck, wrapping himself into a ball.
Seeing this, Ailin breathed a sigh of relief. He then turned his head to check on Fred and Bont before finally relaxing completely.
Looking at the frost that had formed across half his quilt, Ailin sighed inwardly, then impatiently opened his character panel.
Ailin was very curious.
Just how great an improvement would such a huge phenomenon bring him?
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