A Walking Medicine Cabinet

Chen Xu quietly drew his silver sword and cast [Detection] on the goat's head.

--------

Character: Princess

Race: God-Chosen Battlefield · Low-tier mammal · Goat

Class: Livestock Lv.2

...

--------

Even without [Detection], Chen Xu could have gauged roughly what level she was at from her heartbeat and breathing.

He was merely worried that some curse or magic might catch him off guard.

His level far exceeded Princess's, so [Detection] did not alert her.

But now he distinctly heard two different sets of heartbeats and breathing. Raising his silver sword, he crept closer...

And whipped off the covers!

"Eeeugh-"

He let out a strange cry, leaped through the window in the wall, and lay trembling in the little herb patch:

Mental pollution!

I've been defiled!

"2π∫∞0r²/e2a²rdr=∫∞0e^xd(x)=e^∞-e²..."

He tried to crowd the image out of his mind, but it was futile.

A bald old lunatic strode out of the hut. "Damn you! Rude one! What business do you have with the pellar?"

A string of chicken feet hung around his neck, and a short brown-black bearskin cape draped his back.

"Get lost! Stay away!" Chen Xu hastily backed away, as though afraid something unclean might rub off on him.

He felt nauseated, yet his will could not force his powerful constitution to vomit.

"This is the pellar's herb patch! It's the rude one who should get lost!" The old baldy showed none of the panic of someone caught in a scandalous act. Instead, he was remarkably composed.

He tugged at his loose waist cord and spat at Chen Xu:

"Get out of there. Don't trample the pellar's herbs."

Chen Xu was speechless. Right then, he wanted nothing more than to gouge out his own eyes, then use Gram to chop off the meddlesome right hand that had pushed open that door:

"Fine, fine. Move aside, and I'll come out."

He carefully climbed out of the herb patch. The two stared at each other in silence until the old baldy asked impatiently:

"Rude one, why have you come?"

"I-I wanted to buy some things," Chen Xu stammered.

The little goat named Princess pushed open the hut's wooden door and came out, giving him another fright.

But Princess merely hopped quietly into the goat pen to eat the fodder in the trough.

Everything that had just happened seemed like a nightmare.

Chen Xu swallowed, steadied himself, and began buying the herbs he needed from the pellar.

Perhaps because he had offended the man, the herb prices were nearly thirty percent higher overall than those charged by Tomira, the herbalist in White Orchard.

But he was wealthy now and did not care about such a small sum.

"Could I use your alchemy equipment?" Chen Xu forced himself to ask.

The little medicine pot in his storage space was actually a milk pot from the Crow's Perch kitchen, with a capacity of less than two liters.

The old baldy gave Chen Xu a surprised look, then planted his hands on his hips and made things difficult. "The rude one wants to use the pellar's fine things, too? Ten crowns!"

He had not expected the other man to be genuinely rich, paying the ten-crown rental fee without batting an eye.

Chen Xu had spotted a fairly complete alchemy workbench inside the hut earlier. He still had 487 liters of [Soul Juice] to purify and could no longer bother with such trifling sums.

First, he filtered out the larger impurities with a sieve, then added high-sugar spirits, water, and some old sourdough starter from the baron's kitchen to make a clarifying agent.

Once the juice was purified, he added mandrake root and chickweed, which could dispel lingering thoughts and neutralize resentment and regret, then reduced it over high heat at a ratio of seven to one.

Batch after batch, until all 487 liters of [Soul Juice] had been concentrated into less than seventy liters of [Spiritwood Essence].

The old baldy stood beside him, his face full of envy and anguish:

"Sorcerer, there's no need to waste so much! Such fine spirit essence-you're killing the pellar!"

He rather regretted charging Chen Xu only ten crowns. With such an enormous workload, who knew how much wear the alchemy equipment would suffer?

And that ability to retrieve things out of thin air had truly startled him.

He even fetched a wicker basket and placed it beside the smoke vent, hoping to capture some of the impurities Chen Xu discarded through condensation.

By then, it was broad daylight. Princess deftly pried open the hut's wooden door with her horns and affectionately rubbed her neck against the pellar's trouser leg.

"Hungry?" Unable to bear watching Chen Xu's extravagance any longer, the old baldy stroked the goat's head, took an apple from the table, and fed it to her.

As he cleaned the tools, Chen Xu warned him, "Those condensed impurities need at least three rounds of processing. Don't use them carelessly and hurt someone."

"The pellar knows! No need for the rude one to teach him!" the old baldy cried indistinctly, taking the apple back and biting into it.

All the [Spiritwood Essence] had now been purified. The potion ingredients in Chen Xu's storage space consisted of:

[Red Mutagen] ×9

[Blue Mutagen] ×6

[Green Mutagen] ×2

[Wraith Mutagen] ×2

[Wyvern Mutagen] ×1

[Werewolf Mutagen] ×1

[Mottled Heart of the Land Powder] ×1

They were worth 1,500 points in total, but if he brewed them all into potions, their value could theoretically increase eightfold!

Even though a single Mortal Tier attribute potion required at least 300 milliliters of ancient-tree spirit essence, raising the cost by roughly ten points, there was still a substantial profit to be made.

The process was just rather tedious. He wanted to use skill points to advance [Alchemy] Lv.3 into an art.

Then he would be able to use Source Power to extract the essence of ingredients, or even directly remove conflicting medicinal components whose intermolecular forces were weak.

But the panel kept notifying him, "Skill comprehension failed."

One step at a time.

He worked all the way into the afternoon. Alchemical fumes had left his eyes red and swollen, and his nose could barely smell anything.

He sold all nineteen potions granting +1 to various attributes to the shop, earning a total of 2,850 points.

He kept for his own use [Heart of the Land] (Spirit +2), the namesake potion made from the Qi Sensing Level material [Mottled Heart of the Land Powder], as well as [Diluted Dragon's Strength] (Strength +2), blended from [Wyvern Mutagen].

The [Werewolf Mutagen] contained a curse. Every method he tried to remove it failed.

He could only formulate it into an injectable that granted [Werewolf Bloodline]: [Wolfsbane] (Strength +2). Even [Spiritwood Essence] could not remove this modifier, which did not count as a negative effect.

The shop considered its side effects substantial and would only buy it for 200 points.

In truth, this was already extremely fair. It effectively meant the shop served only as a platform for the God-Chosen to circulate supplies.

It did not even charge service or transaction fees.

He then spent 750 points at the shop on attribute potions that boosted Constitution, Reaction, and Soul Quality. They had side effects, but their prices were very friendly.

Something like [Diluted Dragon's Strength], which granted Strength +2 without any negative modifiers, cost a hefty 400 points.

Meanwhile, [Blood Fiend's Embrace], which granted Constitution +2, dropped to just 200 points merely because it inflicted the [Blood Craving] status.

None of that was a problem. Reprocessing them with [Spiritwood Essence] would remove at least one negative modifier.

The sun was sinking in the west, yet Chen Xu was still busy. The old baldy finally lost his patience:

"The rude one must leave before sunset! The pellar needs to sleep!"

Chen Xu glanced at him and tossed out another ten crowns. This time, however, the man flung the money back, looking deeply indignant:

"Stop insulting the pellar with money!"

"Oh, are you going to abuse an innocent animal again?" Princess had stayed affectionately beside the old baldy all along. Chen Xu looked at him strangely.

He was nearly finished with his work. Now that he had relaxed, his words had grown rather disrespectful.

"The pellar and Princess truly love each other! Worldly folk have no right to pass judgment!" The pellar seemed genuinely angry and moved to drive him out.

On horseback, Chen Xu shook the half-finished potion in his hand with a wry smile.

He had been thrown out after all. Fortunately, this bottle of [Blood Fiend Decoction], which granted Constitution +2, needed only the final clarification step.

He had already taken [Shaelmaar Decoction], which granted Reaction +2, and [Heart of the Land], which granted Spirit +2. Both were currently being absorbed.

Until his body and soul had each finished strengthening completely, the panel advised against taking any other potions.

The past two days had drained an enormous amount of his energy, and now he only wanted to sleep. Lizi, on the other hand, seemed full of vigor after a day's rest at the pellar's home.

As he passed Blackbough, Chen Xu suddenly sensed three figures approaching at tremendous speed!

Focusing his gaze, he saw that they were the swordsman Guan Chuan and his teammate with the rotting hand, being pursued by a stranger intent on killing them.