“Sorry about the mess,” Eric said, absent-mindedly dragging a spare chair into the laboratory. “It’s been a busy few days, what with shutting down the Slime Project and playing around with the conditions for Project: Liquid Fire and all.”

“Ah.” That was all Aksal could say, as he peered around the room. After seeing how Eric had worked back in Aksal’s store, he had been expecting a certain level of untidiness and madness common to all good [Alchemists], but this… well, this was something else.

Aksal didn’t know exactly what these ‘projects’ Eric was referring to were, but his words were hardly the biggest oddity around. He glanced around the laboratory, that looked halfway between a traditional [Alchemist’s] workplace and the studios of new-age [Artificers] up in Grynasar.

Discarded lab equipment were laid around haphazardly in a corner of the room. Of what looked like active, ongoing work, there were shelves upon shelves of glass dishes normally used for alchemy that now each contained a fine layer of Slime jelly, a pair of giant tanks meant for long-term alchemical fermentation that held a liquid that looked almost like the innards of a Slime, and a set of distillation flasks that were currently fractionating the contents of a green and black coloured liquid respectively.

Earlier, when he’d been brought into Eric’s house, he had spotted a pair of Fire Eels kept inside a pond that was filled with Slime liquid. Aksal had noticed how Eric had glanced at them momentarily, scowled, tossed a handful of something that looked like chopped up pieces of Slime jelly, before ushering Aksal into the house. It had been an extremely bewildering experience, which was saying something, after all the time that Aksal had spent both as an apprentice and later a master [Alchemist] up in the city of Grynasar.

Aksal had known that Eric was different from the people of Vergence, and not just because of his origin as one of the Summoned, even if he wasn’t a Hero. Word had spread from the capital of how Shinya Haruto, [Sword Saint], had been successfully brought to Everach, and would follow in the footsteps of the great Heroes of legend in quelling the demon threat.

Though Aksal sorely wanted to believe that, he was sceptical of those claims: this present Demon Lord was nothing like those written in historical records over the past centuries. Yhorm, Eltheim, and Tennall had all summoned their own Heroes soon after the Demon Lord’s emergence, but even with their combined might, more and more territories were being subsumed by the Demons. Yhorm’s hero had already perished, while Eltheim’s was missing. For now, Tennall was putting up a great defence, but the stalemate would eventually fall. After all that he’d seen and lost over the years, even before the threat of the Demon Lord arose, he wasn’t naïve enough to think that one Hero’s might alone could turn the tide of battle.

It was why Eric so intrigued him. [Sword Saint], [Crimson Reaper], [Amazon], [Windranger] – those were the classes of the Heroes who had been summoned to deal with the current Demon Lord. They were rare, highly specialised classes, and their practitioners mostly went on to perform great deeds since ages past.

Yet, Aksal had never once before heard of a [Biologist]. It honestly confused him as to why Eric was only Level 8, when all records of past Heroes had painted them as arriving in Vergence in the Level 10 to 20 range, and only continuing to climb up rapidly over time. Sure, he wasn’t a Hero, but he was undeniably summoned to Vergence.

Why was Eric not one of those Heroes of legend, despite having been summoned to Vergence? Why did he not possess the mark of the Hero, if he had a class that had never before been seen by this world?

And unlike those Heroes whose tales were sung in the songs of [Bards], Eric had shown zero desire to face the Demons in battle, or even to put down bandits, goblins, wolfpacks, or other threats in the Kingdom’s outskirts. Instead, he was perfectly content to live the way he was, isolated even from the rest of the villagers in Hawksmoor. For the past month since Aksal had first met him, he’d been showing up to his store every few days, clearing out his stock of basic alchemical glassware, and returning to his ‘experiments’.

“Sorry – I’d offer you tea, but Slime broth is all I’ve got stocked here.” Eric handed a cup over – no, an alchemical beaker repurposed as a drinking cup – smiling apologetically. “So… what’d you think of that little demonstration?”

Demonstration, he called it.

Abruptly, he was reminded of that time that Grandmaster Nyrissa – Deities bless her departed soul – brewed a Dragonsbreath Elixir, and promptly made use of her newfound fire-breathing for cooking. Eric certainly had that same odd sense of energy and eccentricity. With how he had devised a cure for the Blighted Curse that he had called ‘smallpox’, he was arguably no less capable than the now-deceased Grandmaster.

Aksal considered what he had seen objectively. Eric’s creation was certainly a force to be reckoned with, particularly in a quiet village like Hawksmoor that didn’t see much traffic from adventurers. Still, it wasn’t something altogether otherworldly in the way that the songs portrayed the capabilities of the ancient Heroes.

“This, ah – Boom and Bang, you called it, yes?” Eric gave a quick nod, and Aksal continued speaking. “I’m not too informed with the adventuring type, but from my past experiences... I’d say that it’s mighty close to the potency of a [Firebolt] from a Level 12 [Flame Acolyte].”

“Hmm…”

Aksal couldn’t discern what Eric was thinking. That was another oddity about him – Aksal hadn’t seen much of him truly in his element before, but back when he had been creating the cure for Arlett, there had been times where he’d been lost in thought, muttering blankly to himself occasionally, before snapping into action and going about his tasks with a zeal that could match all the master craftsmen that Aksal had ever met – himself included among them. It had only been when he was addressing Aksal and Prisca directly that he had taken the time to carefully consider his words rather than let his thoughts run wild.

Even in his youth, with all the eagerness and fervour of a junior [Alchemist] playing with oils, ethers, and herbs, Aksal had never been quite as engaged as Eric was in whatever he was doing with the alchemical supplies purchased from him.

“Only Level 12, huh?” Eric mused aloud, unaware of Aksal’s observation of him, jotting down some notes on a stray piece of paper he’d procured from within his garment. “At point five grams each of Boom and Bang… perhaps the potency could be raised by increasing the quantity used? Hmm, but no… there’s no evidence yet to suggest a one to one stoichiometry of reaction; maybe it would be better to trial adjustments of the ratio first…”

Yes, there he was at it again. Aksal had seen many types of [Alchemists] at work, and some were similar in how eagerly they pursued their craft, but Eric possessed a different type of curiosity and passion that made it hard for Aksal to keep track of his train of thought. Coupled with the Slime far larger than any he had seen before that was nudging Eric by his shin as he grew increasingly lost in thought, Aksal could say with confidence that Eric was special. He wouldn’t go so far as to call him a madman, but at times he was perilously close to it.

Aksal coughed politely, and Eric jerked in his seat, as though having forgotten that he wasn’t alone in his laboratory. “Sorry about that, Aksal,” he said, fidgeting slightly in embarassment, clearing away the scraps of paper he had taken out. “It’s been awhile since anyone’s been to the lab.”

The Slime again nudged its body against Eric’s leg, an act that surprised Aksal despite having seen first-hand how odd the Slime had been back in his store. Slimes were mindless, thoughtless creatures that went wherever the course of nature took them, and to see this ‘Slime-bro’ behave in such a different manner from every other Slime in his past five decades of life had left Aksal flabbergasted.

“Oh – except Slime-bro, of course,” Eric corrected himself, leaning over and patting the Slime’s head almost like a pet.

There were many questions that Aksal wanted to ask Eric – what he planned to do with the cure, how in Sylar’s name he had found whatever it was in Fire Eels that he had brought to his store, what his plans were for the immediate future, and why he was interested in alchemy – but seeing that bizarre sight unfolding before him, Aksal blurted out his question as though he were an apprentice [Alchemist] studying under Master Rynwald once again.

“How did you even meet this Slime, Eric?” he asked. “And why… why is it bigger than before?”

Eric blinked, before looking over at Slime-bro, brows furrowed. “You know, Slime-bro, you kind of never did explain why you sneaked into my lab,” he said, frowning.

Slime-bro made a series of squeals and trills that Aksal couldn’t decipher, but Eric nodded sagely, patting it affectionately on the head before addressing Aksal once more. “He came in while I was working on Project: Slime, displayed an intelligence that I hadn’t seen in other Slimes, and then decided that he wanted to watch me dissect his peers, drain their blood and flesh, and soak himself in it.”

The Slime gave a high-pitched gurgle, and shifted its body in a manner that looked almost like it was nodding. Before Aksal had even begun to register that fact, Eric had already continued speaking.

“As for why he’s a thick Slime-boy now… ehh, you’ll need to know the full details of Project: Slime for that, but I suck at explanations, so I’ll give you a summary – turns out, Slime membranes coming from the same Slime expanded in culture can be fused together, and I thought: hey, if a Slime could shed its own membrane and I then grew it in culture and put it back onto the same Slime, wouldn’t that be cool?”

Aksal didn’t know the fine details of what Eric was saying, but he could stitch together something coherent enough. He nodded slowly.

Eric’s face brightened at that. “Great! So because Slime-bro’s skin is thickened now, he gets to sustain a higher turgor pressure internally without blowing himself up!”

On second thought, perhaps pursuing that line of questioning wasn’t such a smart idea. With the many jars of Slime-liquid being kept around the laboratory, alongside bits of Slime skin that had been cut to exact dimensions hanging from racks and shelves all around the room, and the fact that Eric had served his guest Slime-broth as opposed to the more customary tea or ale, Aksal had the feeling that Eric had an odd obsession with Slimes, a fact made only more apparent by how nonchalantly he was behaving around Slime-bro.

Aksal had another question in mind, but it was probably for the best that he didn’t go on to ask Eric about why he had chosen such an unorthodox name for the pet Slime, which was already an outlandish idea. Hopefully, the [Sword Saint] Shinya who also hailed from Eric’s world behaved a little more like the old Heroes, otherwise King Everach might have a little bit of difficulty trying to rally the armies of Everach to his cause once the time came that they were ready to face the Demon Lord’s forces.

Yes, best to get a move on.

He cleared his throat, broaching the topic. “Eric… about the cure you created –“

“Oh yeah, you can have it.” Eric didn’t hesitate for even a moment before he shrugged, glancing over at the distillation flasks for an instant before looking back at Aksal. “All yours; good luck with the eradication programme. Pro-tip: Use ring-vaccination and make sure to properly quarantine people. Don’t let a second wave hit you. You should be fine, since it’s pretty easy to tell when someone’s contagious with smallpox.”

He paused, while Aksal’s mind was still adjusting to the fact that he was giving away the cure that had eluded the brightest and most gifted [Alchemists] and [Clerics] of Vergence. He’d been ready to offer up any material possession of his, even petition to the Alchemist’s Guild using what clout he had left after these years operating away from the Guild. If it came down to it, perhaps write up an official request to the King himself for a royal title if Eric desired it, but this…

“Oh yeah,” Eric said, hesitating for a moment, and Aksal tensed. Had he reconsidered? He readied the arguments in his head, but once more Eric caught him off guard. “If King Everach or whoever’s in charge of something like this offers you some gold for it, mind sparing me a little extra for research funding? It’s not embezzlement if it’s between friends, right?”

He rubbed the index finger and thumb of one hand together, looking at Aksal knowingly, but he hadn’t had the slightest clue about what that gesture was even supposed to mean.

“What?”

With the repeated subversion of his expectations, Aksal didn’t quite know what to say. The words he had rehearsed on his mad run to Eric’s house stubbornly etched themselves in his brain, despite no longer being required in the wake of Eric simply giving away his cure.

“The Fire Eels did set me back quite a bit,” Eric explained, although Aksal had no idea just when Fire Eels had come back into the picture. Eric’s thought process was… intriguing, to say the least.

Eric continued speaking. “The breeding pair seems kind of worthless now, anyway, since it’ll probably take another few months before I even get any offspring out of them. Now that I’ve already started in vitro production of Bang and Boom, maintaining a Fire Eel colony looks pretty pointless.” Then, his tone grew mildly agitated. “Why don’t I have [Bio-acceleration: Colony Management], anyway?”

Yeah, forget intriguing – Eric’s thoughts were straight up impossible to follow. Aksal didn’t quite know what to say in light of how he had brushed aside any kind of non-monetary compensation or recognition for curing the Blighted Curse, instead airing his grievances over something related to Fire Eels. He didn’t know what ‘Bio-acceleration’ was, but if his inference regarding that skill was correct…

“Why don’t you let Prisca handle that?” he asked curiously.

“Prisca?” Eric looked nonplussed. “She’s a… [Farmer], isn’t she?”

He nodded. “Prisca’s originally from the [Priest] archetype, and while her [Tend Wounds] can’t hold a candle to the [Heal] from a [Cleric], she does have [Animal Breeding] –“

In the span of a second, Eric’s expression morphed from incomprehension, then astonishment, to annoyance, and then to excitement. The suddenness of that change had been so unexpected that Aksal stopped speaking, while Eric fired off a flurry of questions.

“She can speed up the reproductive cycle of any animal?” He stood up from his chair abruptly, his words blurring together as his excitement grew. “How does that even work? Does she boost the rate of cell division? But no, it has to affect cell migration too… is that a global acceleration of all cellular activity, then? Or could it be that –“

Aksal was puzzled by just why that skill so amazed him, but it only highlighted just how many cultural differences were present between Eric’s world and Vergence. He spoke of so many things as though he assumed Aksal would know about their meanings, when they were as undecipherable as the gifts of the Deities. Likewise, things that were so commonplace here that even children wouldn’t bat an eyelid were worthy of the tirade that Eric was now spouting.

“Ah.” Aksal thought it best to interrupt before he got further off-track. “Let me stop you right there. Actually, the skill increases the fertility of the animals involved.” Seeing the blank look on Eric’s face, he continued with the explanation. “She gets more calves out of every breeding cow, see? Pierre – Prisca’s husband – he’s a [Farmer] of the [Warrior] archetype, and if he tried doing what she does, he’d maybe only get one calf at a time, while she could get five or six.”

Rather than being disappointed, Eric only grew more curious, reverting to his previous habit of airing his thoughts aloud. Aksal stared at him blankly as the stream of words left his lips.

“She induces changes in progeny number? How is that even possible?” he pondered. “Even if we just consider twins, never mind sextuplets… does the embryo split early on in pregnancy? Before or after implantation? Would they be monoamniotic or diamniotic?” He frowned. “Wait… are they even monozygotic to begin with? Perhaps the skill increases the number of ova released per ovulation cycle? But how… a change in FSH and LH to induce more follicle growth and trigger ovulation? Or could it be an interaction directly with the ovaries?”

Again, Aksal felt a sense of déjà vu, once more an apprentice observing Grandmaster Nyrissa at work in the grand theatre in Grynasar, as she made offhand remarks about alchemical reagents seen only by a precious few people in the Guild. If she hadn’t passed away all those years ago, he suspected that she and Eric would get along very well indeed.

“Wait.” Eric’s eyes turned focused, fixed upon Aksal with a blazing intensity. “You’re certain it works on fish as well?”

He nodded slowly, mildly perturbed at the odd question. “She and Pierre supply most of Hawksmoor’s carp and trout.”

“Huh. So that’s the name of the village.” Eric shook his head, the dismissing the abrupt tangent as quickly as it came. “But how can it work on fish? They aren’t mammals… if so… then it can’t be related to placental invasion or implantation, so perhaps it does act directly on ovaries after all? Or…”

His voice trailed off, but Aksal had no doubt in his mind that he was carefully considering whatever revelation had arisen from his latest bit of information that every child in Vergence knew. One of these days, Aksal really needed to sit Eric down, and have a long chat about his world and the knowledge they held. He doubted he could understand everything, but if their society had managed to cure the Blighted Curse, who knew what other impossible tasks Eric could solve with all the ease and indifference of a [Shepherd] tending to his sheep.

Scientific collaboration, he called it. Aksal smiled to himself. If something as simple as a [Farmer’s] skill could spur such a long and detailed thought from him, he wondered what would come out of more impressive skills.

“Magic is nuts,” Eric concluded, exchanging a nod with his pet Slime. He looked at Aksal once more. “Oh, right, we were talking about the vaccine, weren’t we?”

Well, at least this time it was Eric that steered the conversation back on topic. “Information on alchemy aside, are you sure there’s nothing else you want?”

He shrugged. “Back in my world, there was a famous researcher named Jonas Salk,” he said. “He created one of the two major vaccines for poliovirus – not sure if you have that here – and when asked who owned the patent on it, he said that there was no patent, in the way that no one could patent the Sun.”

Eric paused momentarily. “Come to think of it, do you even have patents in Vergence?”

He would want to press Eric on the nature of this ‘poliovirus’ at some point, but for now, it was probably best not to further detract away from the main reason for his visit. Aksal addressed his latest question instead. “The Artificer’s Consortium has been trying out that idea to encourage innovation, or so I hear.”

“Oh, cool. Anyway, there’s no patent on the smallpox vaccine. Knock yourselves out,” Eric said. “Besides, you’ve got plenty of work ahead of you if you really want to get rid of smallpox here.”

“How did your world manage to eradicate the Curse?”

“That’s another really long story,” Eric said, sighing. “I’ve forgotten quite a bit of it since it’s been years since I had that lecture, but people discovered scabs taken from smallpox sufferers could be used to induce a weaker version of the disease and entrain immunity about five hundred or so years ago. The practice spread around parts of the world, until Jenner created his safer vaccination method using the Vaccinia virus, but even then it took another close to two hundred years before we all decided to make a concrete effort to systematically get rid of the virus. Still, we took a couple more decades before the virus was declared eradicated.

“I won’t lie. Here in Vergence, it’s going to be a hell of a lot tougher,” he said, holding his hands out as he counted his points. “You don’t have good distribution and communication networks. Other than myself, you don’t have anyone who knows much about vaccination – and that’s considering that I barely know a couple things myself. With the Demon Lord business, you can’t fully commit resources to dealing with it, and God help you if a smallpox outbreak happens in the midst of your armies. You don’t have epidemiologists, or scientists, or logisticians with the training and background suitable for monitoring and suppression of viral spread.”

Aksal didn’t know what most of those words meant, but the defeated tone in Eric’s voice told him what he needed to know. Even he, who created the cure, didn’t think it was possible to repeat the feat that had been performed in his home world.

“What do we need to do?” he asked anyway.

“First things first, you probably want to make sure that no one else in the village has smallpox. If Arlett was patient zero, you’re probably all mostly safe, but you’ll want to vaccinate everyone else here anyway,” Eric informed him. “After that, it’s pretty hard, really. It takes time for word to get around here in Vergence, meaning that the virus could disseminate quite quickly if another outbreak happens.

“You’ll need a simultaneous effort working to immunise people all across the Kingdom, and try to get herd immunity going. For that, you need to set up a central distribution centre and regional networks, create more stocks of the virus, and –“

He paused, and his eyes widened for an instant, before cursing loudly. “Damn it. I completely forgot about cryopreservation. We kept the primary stocks on ice, but that’s not going to work for long-term use. You wouldn’t happen to have an [Artificer’s] device that can freeze things?”

Something like that wouldn’t be found in a middle-of-nowhere village like Hawksmoor. Aksal shook his head. “No,” he said. “But perhaps up in Grynasar to the north-west, the Artificer’s Consortium could create something suited to your specifications.”

Eric looked thoughtful. “Hmm… how far away is this place?”

“Two to three weeks from Hawksmoor, at a reasonable pace on carriage, and stopping at several villages to resupply.”

“If you get there fast enough, and the sample is kept on ice the whole time, you might be able to keep the virus stable enough that it doesn’t degrade.” He frowned, his fingers tracing little symbols in the air, as though performing calculations. “I could try making a subunit vaccine with [Manipulate Protein] instead with our existing stock as a framework to build on, but then I’d need to find a way to isolate an immunological adjuvant with what you’ve got here, and there’s no way I can keep production rate high enough for you to get the whole of Everach and the other Kingdoms immunised.”

“For me –“ Aksal echoed, before coming to a realisation. “Wait – Eric – you’re not going to help?”

He hesitated, but maintained his stance. “Look, Aksal – I want to help, I really do – but with what Vergence has, it’s going to take loads of time, effort, and influence that I don’t have. It took decades for hundreds of scientists and bureaucrats to do that back on Earth.” He gestured around himself. “This lab and research – this is what I enjoy doing. I’ll scale up production of vaccine stocks if you need, but the fine details of an eradication programme… sorry Aksal, but that’s not something I can commit to.”

If it was as difficult as Eric had described it to be, Aksal knew he had no hope of eradicating the Curse, even with the influence of the Alchemist’s Guild. Eric could explain the methods of this ‘ring-vaccination’ of his or how quarantine measures should be put in place, but without his direct input, they would probably not know where to even begin.

Aksal thought he now understood a bit more about who Eric was as a person. He couldn’t help but compare him to Grandmaster Nyrissa once again – like Eric, she had rejected an offer to work as the Court Alchemist despite being approached by King Everach himself years ago prior to her death, choosing to continue her lifelong work as an [Elixir Master] in Grynasar as she appraised reagent after reagent, trying out all the different exotic combinations of them she could think of.

Like the previous Grandmaster, Eric was motivated by knowledge – he didn’t seem to care at all about prestige, save for when it could give him the means to carry out more research. If that was the case…

Well, Aksal just had to offer exactly what it was that Eric wanted. After all these years running a store, and having to deal with his nephew’s constant attempts to slip away to an adventurer’s life despite Aksal’s many objections, he’d learnt a thing or two about driving a hard bargain.

“What if I told you that Grynasar has much more to offer you?” he slyly pointed out. “The city is home to the Noble House of Grynas, and they have their roots as the premier [Artificers] of the realm dating back to before the days of the eighth Demon Lord, before they earned their nobility. All master craftsmen congregate there, you know? The Alchemist’s Guild, Artificer’s Consortium, Leatherworker’s Guild, Blacksmith’s Brotherhood, and every single trade profession – even the city’s library has the largest collection of the works of [Scribes] in all of Everach – you wouldn’t want to turn that down, would you friend?”

There was a flicker of doubt in Eric’s eyes, and he knew that his words had an effect. Time to drive the wedge in further.

“Besides,” he continued, gesturing around the room. This was no different from negotiating a price for his magical fertiliser to [Farmers] from surrounding villages. “Surely Hawksmoor doesn’t have much more to offer you? Your dear friend Aksal doesn’t know much about your experiments, true, but Slimes and Fire Eels… are they really suitable for someone like you? Don’t you wish you could do more?”

“True…” Eric eyed the Slime by his feet, before his gaze shifted to a section of his lab that had been emptied out. “I’ve kind hit the plateau phase of the growth curve now…”

Strange choice of words aside, Eric’s resolve was weakening. There was the promise of knowledge, and a little word of the potential he could achieve if he agreed to leave for Grynasar with Aksal. Beside Eric, the Slime cheered, nudging him lightly at his feet.

Ah, an ally from the most unlikely of places. Time for the finishing touches.

“You don’t need to take charge every step of the way,” Aksal assured him soothingly. “We just need your, ah, input, from time to time.”

There was a pause. Then –

“Scientific consultancy,” Eric said, eyes widening. “Of course…”

Consultancy? That wasn’t something Aksal was familiar with, but the meaning of the word seemed close enough to what he was suggesting. He nodded. “Indeed. And as for your other concerns – well, you’ll find that the Alchemist’s Guild can be most generous to our friends indeed. I don’t mean to brag, but I was formerly given the rank of Master in the Guild.”

He didn’t miss how Eric had reacted to that, and he could practically see how his mind started to work its way through what was unsaid in Aksal’s words. It had been years, but he did make some close friendships from before leaving to settle down in Hawksmoor to take care of his orphaned nephew. There were a number of contacts he maintained good relations with, even if his current level was likely lower than theirs by a decent margin now. Hopefully, things hadn't changed too much in the Guild, and he could rely on their help.

“Think about it, Eric – your own lab, your own research funds, in a city filled with the all the knowledge accumulated in Everach,” Aksal enticed. “Free for your use, no strings attached, and all you need to do is come along with your friend Aksal to Grynasar, get us started up, and maybe offer your comments from time to time.”

Aksal knew he had him. If his read was right, all that was left was for Eric to challenge him on a few remaining points.

“You won’t limit the topics I can research on?”

“Nope,” Aksal promised, suppressing a smile. Ah, for all the otherworldly knowledge he possessed, he was so untrained in the ancient art of bargaining. “The Guild has a policy of never constraining the curiosity of any one of our members.”

Besides, it wasn’t like Eric could be that bad in the use of Guild resources. There had been a past Grandmaster that spent the Guild’s total annual fund in order to procure a Shadow Panther from the Kingdom of Eltheim, only for that research to never bear any fruit. He didn’t last long.

“I get my own lab and choice of lab staff. Full independence. After the first few matters are settled, I’ll agree to only a maximum of one hour of consultancy work per day,” Eric warned. “And every month, I get a week – no, two weeks – solely dedicated for research use.”

“Done,” Aksal agreed easily. Hopefully, the Guild would agree to that.

“The Guild will help me find what experimental reagents interest me to the best of their abilities, or if that is not possible, assist me in procuring them, whether by hiring adventurers to search and retrieve them or asking around for relevant information.”

“I'll try my best to make the arrangements.”

Aksal wasn’t stupid – he knew it was a very generous offer, but there were two sides to it. Eric had demonstrated an ability to not only find a reagent from Fire Eels, but also the conditions required for their activation, all without [Appraise Reagent]. Aksal had no idea if what he retrieved had any alchemical use, but just that fact alone was enough to draw the interest of the Guild if they ever caught word about it. If he could find a way to go around the normally lengthy process of finding out the exact properties of a reagent and the other partnering constituents needed for brewing, the art of alchemy could advance in ways unheard of in past centuries. There was no chance that the Alchemist’s Guild would turn him down once they arrived.

...right?

“I get to continue on with my experiments during the journey to Grynasar,” Eric raised. “Even if it might delay our trip, so long as the vaccine reaches there before degrading, I’m allowed to detour if there’s anything interesting along the way.”

“You’ll find no argument from me.”

Besides, he was curious about exactly how Eric underwent his experiments. Back when he’d created the vaccine, Aksal hadn’t been able to understand much, but a more prolonged period of working together with Eric might reveal something that could change the way Aksal approached alchemy. By his own admission, Eric was terrible at explaining things, but perhaps Aksal could stand to learn a thing or two purely by observation.

Eric studied Aksal with narrowed eyes, and Aksal readily gave a wide grin. It was as good as settled.

“Fine,” Eric acquiesced after a few seconds. “I want all that in writing to make it official.”

Victory.

“I will settle the matter post-haste.” He extended a hand toward him, and Eric slowly took the handshake. “When will you be ready to leave?”

Eric considered for a moment, glancing at the pieces of equipment in the lab actively in use. “Two days,” he finally said. “Is that alright?”

Two days… he could probably make that work. There were a fair number of things to be done, but there should be enough time for that.

“Two days,” he agreed.

“Great!” Eric’s mood suddenly shifted into what Aksal now recognised as his semi-crazed state where little of what he said made any sense. “Anyway, Aksal, I was wondering if I could get you to appraise these two items?”

He walked over to the distillation flasks – with how long they had talked, the liquid had run dry, and all that was left were a pair of coloured powders. “These are Boom and Bang,” Eric explained, bringing them over. “In the previous test, I used about point five grams of each. There should be somewhere in the range of three to four grams in here, I think.”

These were what had replicated the effect of the [Firebolt] spell? Now even he was curious, since he’d never before seen such a thing from Fire Eels despite making Fire Oil for the occasional adventurer that came passing through Hawksmoor.

Eric looked at him expectantly. Aksal reached out toward the glass flask, calling upon his skill to manifest itself with practiced ease. He felt the mana draining from him as he focused on the powders.

To his surprise, though, they remained blank to him, despite mana depleting from his body. That hadn’t happened to him ever since he took his leave from the main branch of the Alchemist’s Guild.

That meant that –

“There’s nothing,” he breathed, awed.

“No effect?” Eric frowned. “Damn… I was so sure that –“

“No, lad,” Aksal interrupted. “I mean that it’s blank to my skill. You know how I told you that [Appraise Reagent] sometimes works, and sometimes doesn’t?”

He nodded slowly, and Aksal continued his explanation. “If a reagent has no alchemical use, the skill tells you that. If there is one, we get a sense of what it might do – a sensation of heat from oils of the Fire Eel, for example – or it remains completely blank. As our levels increase, that little bit of intuition that we get becomes stronger.”

“Then what you’re saying is…”

“That’s right, lad,” Aksal confirmed. “My level isn’t high enough to reliably appraise this.”

And wasn’t that something, given how fairly abundant Fire Eels were in comparison to more exotic creatures? Why did the Fire Eel possess such reagents, that even he, a Level 27 [Alchemist], failed to appraise it? Just how had Eric found whatever this Bang and Boom were?

“Huh.” Eric made his usual offhanded comment. “Really makes you wonder what our mysterious Loch Ness monster might be like, eh Slime-bro?”

Aksal didn’t know what this ‘Loch Ness monster’ was, but Eric was clearly excited about the notion of meeting it. Unless he wanted to spend yet another ten minutes listening as Eric droned on about terms and nomenclature that Aksal barely understood, it was best that the conversation went another direction. There were things that needed to be done today and tomorrow.

“If it is agreeable, shall I arrange for the carriage to arrive at your place at, say, noon in two days’ time?” Aksal asked.

“Sure,” Eric agreed. “Two days… I’ll need to scale down my cultures to what I can bring along for the ride, and maybe see what to do about my breeding eels. You’ll handle vaccination of the villagers?”

He nodded. “Rest assured, friend; I will be more than capable of doing so.”

“Oh, good luck, then. Give me a ring if you need anything.”

Another odd choice of phrase. Aksal didn’t know whether it was a personal quirk of Eric’s, or if everyone from his world was like that, but he was starting to get used to it. He took his leave, heading back to his store to finalise the remaining matters.

Already, he had a plan for what needed to be done. There might be some resistance initially, but he was confident that with Pierre and Prisca vouching for him, the rest of the village would be willing to take up the cure that Eric had created. The community here was tightly knit enough for that. Advance deliveries of his alchemical products would come after, and he’d also need to arrange for several horses to draw the carriage. Pierre and Prisca would be more than happy to help with that, after how Eric had single-handedly saved Arlett’s life.

Then, he’d need to make it abundantly clear to Kylan that he was not to run off to Everach and sign up for the Adventurer’s Guild. The [Trickster] teenager was far too eager to follow in his parents’ footsteps, even though their entire party had perished all those years ago dealing with the odd happenings up in Yhorm. Aksal did not wish for Silas’ and Reina’s tragedies to be repeated unto his nephew.

And despite his growing age, and how long it had been since he’d seriously practiced advanced alchemy past what was required for the villagers in Hawksmoor, Aksal felt a growing excitement within him he hadn’t felt for ages. Perhaps it was Eric’s passion for unravelling secrets long since accepted as fact in Vergence, or merely the idea that his work could make a great change in Everach and the Kingdoms beyond her borders. Perhaps he had simply itched for more, after seeing the wondrous things Eric had managed to retrieve from a Fire Eel, something [Alchemists] had mostly considered to be of no further interest for centuries.

Regardless – he knew he was in for some interesting times ahead. Even if they had to take a ‘detour’, to quote Eric’s own words, so long as the Blighted Curse was eventually eradicated, he would have no complaints. In fact, he found himself eager to see just what else Eric could demonstrate, and how he might shake things up once they got to the Guild.

Two days. He’d better get himself ready. It had been a long time since he’d last travelled around.