Beast Speech Ring

A gentle breeze caressed them all the way, and it was utterly pleasant.

There were occasional bumps, but they had a flavor of their own.

Things you paid for really were different.

"Sir, we've arrived at Seda's Herb Garden."

In less than half an hour, the carriage had stopped before the herb garden gates. The driver turned and called out to Gao De.

Gao De nodded slightly, retrieved his belongings from beneath the seat, and climbed down from the carriage with some reluctance.

Gao De pushed open the herb garden gates.

The moment he entered, an apprentice sweeping the garden noticed him. The apprentice immediately came over with great tact and took the bundles and bags from his hands.

Gao De did not stand on ceremony and casually instructed, "Send the bread, vegetables, and meat to the kitchen. Take everything else to my workshop. Also, tell Lamos we're having an extra dish for lunch—potato stew with meat!"

"Okay!" At the words "potato stew with meat," the apprentice instinctively swallowed, his eyes shining as he answered excitedly.

In truth, it was not just the apprentice craving meat. Gao De craved it badly too.

Ever since arriving in this world, he had not eaten a single meal with meat!

For Gao De, a modern man, that was simply unimaginable.

He had always been someone who could not enjoy a meal without meat. If there was no meat on the table, it was the same as not having eaten at all.

At the thought, Gao De could practically taste the fragrant meat juices flooding his mouth.

In the end, Gao De's expectations were not entirely dashed, but neither were they fulfilled.

He did get to eat meat, but the taste left much to be desired.

In this world, unless a family was well-off, most common households did not have many seasonings. Their methods of preparing meat were even more rudimentary:

They blanched chunks of meat in boiling water, then added potatoes and peas, along with a little salt and an herb called Spicy Grass that carried a faint spicy flavor. They simmered it all for over half an hour, then served it straight from the pot.

The resulting potato stew with meat was not bad, but it was still worlds apart from the potato stew with meat Gao De remembered. It relied entirely on the meat's own flavor to hold it up.

Still, the apprentices—and Gao De as well—ate with great relish.

For people who had gone so long without meat, as long as it was not burnt or spoiled, it was delicious no matter how it was cooked.

I must live a life where I get meat with every meal! After eating his fill, Gao De made this grand vow in his heart.

After becoming the Garden Master, there was another enormous benefit.

Gao De's days had originally been packed to the brim:

In the mornings, he handled the herb garden's daily tasks, including cultivating herbs and raising Gray Rats. In the afternoons, he brewed potions. At night, he cultivated.

But given his position in the herb garden, he naturally no longer needed to perform those basic daily tasks.

In other words, Gao De had gained an entire free morning out of thin air.

For a while, he had been recovering from his injuries, and his nerves had only just been released after a month of tension. Gao De had enjoyed his free time with a clear conscience.

But after that period passed, Gao De gradually began to feel restless.

It was too boring!

The main reason was that this world did not have many forms of entertainment—and even if it did, Gao De could not afford them.

At the same time, he could not find enough things to fill his extra free mornings.

Limited by his Mental Strength and stamina, he could only brew one batch of Novice Spider Venom a day.

If he increased his workload, his Mental Strength would be overburdened, and it might even affect his nighttime cultivation.

His cultivation time was also fixed at three to four hours. Beyond that, excessive Mental Strength consumption would send him into a low-efficiency stage where twice the effort yielded half the result.

The importance of Mental Strength was displayed in full.

Thus, when the time he had agreed upon with Pierre arrived, Gao De left the herb garden early in the morning with two freshly brewed batches of Novice Spider Venom, hurrying toward the general store in high spirits.

General store.

"You settled it? They were willing to raise the price to eight Sien Gold Coins?"

Gao De looked at Pierre's self-satisfied expression, still finding it hard to believe.

Was this little old man really that good at bargaining? He had nearly doubled the repair fee?

With a tongue like that, why did he not become a traveling merchant and amass a fortune, instead of curling up here as the owner of a little shop?

"Why would I lie to you?" Pierre raised a brow. "But they were indeed in a hurry, which was why I could pull off such a smooth 'price hike on the spot.'"

"Didn't I tell you the other day that the number of wild beasts and Leyline Creatures outside the city had noticeably increased lately, and that they'd become unusually violent?"

"Some people in the city suspect that a high-tier magical plant may be about to mature, drawing the Leyline Creatures into action."

The little old man's intelligence was remarkably detailed as he explained to Gao De, "So those people sent men deep into the forests and mountains outside the city to search. But after nearly half a month of searching, they still found nothing."

"The client who asked you to repair the Magic Item is one of those people searching for the high-tier magical plant."

"This Magic Item can help him search for the high-tier magical plant he has in mind?" Gao De asked.

"Smart." Pierre praised him as he fished a plain, unadorned ring from a drawer beneath the counter and handed it to Gao De. "This is the Magic Item the client wants repaired."

The ring was made of polished copper, its surface carved with delicate rune patterns. Under the light, those runes gave off a faint glow.

Gao De examined it carefully.

Sure enough, one of the runes' originally pale white lines was covered in a thin layer of green rust.

The once-unbroken line had been corroded apart, exposing the duller metal beneath the ring's surface.

The ring must have suffered some sort of corrosive damage. While damaging the ring itself, it had also ruined the magical runes engraved upon it.

"It's called the Beast Speech Ring." Seeing Gao De take the ring, Pierre introduced it. "It has the 1st-ring spell Animal Communication attached to it. This spell allows a person to temporarily gain the ability to speak with animals."

"What people cannot find, perhaps they can only ask animals about." Gao De already understood the client's plan.

"Exactly." Pierre nodded and reminded him, "The client requires the Beast Speech Ring to be repaired within ten days."

"No problem." Gao De put away the Beast Speech Ring and confidently promised, "I'll get it done properly."

Gao De understood that the only reason he could receive the Beast Speech Ring so easily without any collateral, or even meeting the client, was because Pierre had taken on all the risk.

The monk might run away, but the temple could not run with him. Pierre's general store was right here—surely he would not flee over a damaged 1st-ring Magic Item?

That was precisely why the client could entrust the Beast Speech Ring to Pierre without worry.

Yet Pierre had handed the Beast Speech Ring to him purely out of trust.

Gao De was deeply grateful for that trust.

After putting away the Beast Speech Ring, Gao De took out the two batches of Novice Spider Venom he had brought this time.

Pierre still purchased them at the price of thirty-five silver coins per batch.

With the huge sum of seventy silver coins freshly in hand, Gao De rushed straight to the herb shop, where he spent sixty silver coins on five one-year Green Spider Sacs.

It could not be helped. Green Spider Sac was one of the three primary ingredients for Novice Spider Venom.

Without it, Novice Spider Venom could not be brewed.

After reluctantly paying for the goods, Gao De actually wanted to buy a book on herb cultivation or herb identification.

But unfortunately, there was no way the herb shop would put such things up for sale.

Though they were not as precious as potion formulas, they were still the tools of the shop's livelihood, enough to be passed down through several generations.

Knowledge was extraordinarily precious and expensive in this world!

This made Gao De even more eager to open the wooden box Mage Seda had left behind—the box most likely contained the formula for Novice Stamina Potion.