Chapter: Healing Moon House’s domination

The scouts under Blaze’s orders went out to search the area. The quick reaction force were also dispersed, heading in the direction of the wild reaches. They followed along with Erik and Rugrat to the different locations that Tommins had given them.

It could barely be called a fight, the parties would lock down any beasts in the area, killing or driving them off as Erik would harvest the ingredients.

“Remember when we had to distract the beasts so we could steal the ingredients?” Rugrat asked as Erik simply shook his head and harvested the last ingredient.

The parties got used to the area and to know the lay of the land. Erik and Rugrat quickly gathered all the required materials and then headed for Wild Reaches outpost.

Erik and Rugrat hid their appearance under doupengs, a conical hat with cloth around it to hide their appearances.

The guard didn’t seem to mind, taking their fee to enter the outpost.

“No killing inside the outpost,” he said before allowing them inside.

Erik and Rugrat entered the outpost, Rugrat headed off to go find the quick reaction party that was supposed to meet them.

Erik headed off to go and see Alchemist Tommins.

He didn’t miss the eyes that fell on him as he entered the store.

“Is there anything that I can interest you in?” Alchemist Tommins asked.

“I’m here to hand in the different ingredients,” Erik walked up to the counter, filled it with different bottles that held an assortment of ingredients.

Tommins’ face turned from bored to excited in a moment. He seemed to pause a second, looking at Erik, trying to peer through his doupeng.

“You remind me of someone, oh there was a guy trying to learn alchemy, seems that he was lost to the beast mountain range. I thought that he might be able to learn something,” Tommins shrugged. At the edge of the beast Mountain range, some people gained great fame and wealth, others would lose their lives in the pursuit.

If it was Erik of the past he would try to get some more knowledge from Tommins, now he had access to Journeyman and Expert level manuals he could rely on himself to increase his knowledge.

“Here is one gold and seventeen silver,” Tommins held out the money Erik accepted it and Tommins made the ingredients disappear into his storage ring.

His notification bar flashed after the transaction.

Erik turned and left the store without a word.

He left the store and went some distance before he turned down an alleyway and opened the notification.

=========

Quest Completed: Gathering ingredients

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Rewards:

1 gold 17 silver

7,850 EXP

=========

I guess because I finished all of the orders I got some more experience. This little bit of experience isn’t much but all of it adds up.

Thinking of his alchemy skill, Erik looked it up as well.

***

Grandmaster Eri looked over the two small figures that were lying next to one another, his face was aloof and imperious as if the children’s maladies were just a simple cold.

Lord Chonglu’s fist tightened, he wanted to beat the man until he healed his children, if he did that then the healing Moon house would send their enforcers and none of the healing houses would help Chonglu city.

He could feel their hands around his neck suffocating him. He would do anything for his children and he saw how they were undermining his authority, poisoning a man in the market in broad daylight, the people had called for blood for weeks but he didn’t give into their demands knowing that the Healing Moon House would stop healing his children.

Based on their actions he felt that the Healing Moon House could heal them with ease but they were instead playing him along to try and gain more benefits.

So, Lord Chonglu sat there, biting back his words as he watched the grandmaster moving around.

“What is your diagnosis?” Chonglu asked, his voice deep as he held his killing intent at bay, he was hidden in the corner of the room, the darkness hiding him from sight.

“This is indeed a powerful malady, their odor is foul and their skin has been turned pale and lifeless, they are holding on but by a thread. If I was able to, I would assist them, but my hands are being tied by the Rosa House,” Grandmaster Eri sighed and opened his hands pitifully.

“Might there be a way to remove this issue and gain this assistance?” Chonglu asked, he was tired of word games but he played along, he’d suffer a hundred times worse for his children.

“Lord Chonglu is indeed benevolent!” Grandmaster Eri’s acting skills were superb as he made it seem like the idea had sprung from Chonglu’s lips.

“It’s like this, our healing services are of a much higher quality and we put a lot more effort into healing people, but still we are taxed at the same rate as the Rosa House, how is this fair? We are only taking a loss accepting these taxes,” Grandmaster said as if he was some pious saint.

Chonglu wanted to rip the sniveling little cockroaches neck out. Chonglu knew that the healing houses gouged their patients and the people for even the most basic of services. Who wouldn’t be willing to pay everything for their health?

“Grandmaster Eri’s words make a certain sense, two percent tax will be removed from the Healing Moon House,” Chonglu said.

“It would speed up the rate that I can get that assistance from the capital if there was, more Grandmaster said as if trying to find the right word.

“Two percent tax will be added to the Rosa house,” Chonglu ground out.

Eri could sense that this was all he was going to get and beamed as he bowed deeply to Lord Chonglu. Both of them knew who was the winner in this game, still Chonglu could sense that Eri liked to play around trying to look like some holy and pious saint.

Once his children were healed, Chonglu wanted to rid his city of these scammers that called themselves ‘healers’.

“How long until that assistance is ready?” Chonglu asked.

“It shouldn’t be longer than two weeks,” Grandmaster Eri said, “I will make the necessary arrangements.”

With that he dismissed himself. As soon as he left the room Chonglu’s fist slammed into the wall beside him, the solid stone was cracked and there was a fist print in it now.

The hidden experts in the room that protected his children didn’t chose to say anything or move from their positions, chilled by the killing intent that washed out of Chonglu’s body.

“Snakes and fake promises, these healers will be removed from my city and if they let my children die I will hunt them down to the root.”

The wind in the room stopped moving, fully under Lord Chonglu’s control.

***

Grandmaster Eri laughed in his room as he drank red-white wine a rare delicacy that was not only delicious and could get one drunk, it also increased the rate that they absorbed mana, this relaxing feeling of having mana circulate through one’s body was wonderful.

“That little fool! Does he think that I would ever heal his children?” Eri laughed to himself a cruel smile on his lips, Lord Chonglu’s children were at death’s door anyone could see that, Eri didn’t know what was affecting them, but he knew how to keep them from dying. As long as he kept them on that line between death and life, then Lord Chonglu was like a dog willing to do anything that he asked.

A sound transmission request appeared in front of Grandmaster Eri from his secretary.

“Grandmaster Eri, nobleman Zhan Su wishes to talk to you,” his secretary said.

“Oh?” Eri said.

Zhan Su came from one of the larger families in Chonglu CIty, it seemed that the nobles sensed that there was a change in the policies and the true leaders of the city.

Eri’s smile widened as he chuckled to himself, enjoying this sense of power, he never thought when coming to this little Chonglu City that he would be able to take control of the city! He thought that he would just be a grandmaster of the Healing Moon House.

Having the same power as the City lord, this was more than most grandmasters in the larger tiered cities and capitals had!

Lord Chonglu wasn’t accepting guests but Grandmaster Eri was, allowing him to further increase his backing with the nobles and consolidate his control.

“Send him in in ten minutes,” Eri said as he downed the wine in his hands, his expression turning red with excitement.

***

Erik let out a sigh as he put down the book he was reading and rubbed his tired eyes.

“I guess this is how Rugrat felt after reading all of those smithing manuals,” Erik let out a dry laugh.

“You losing your mind too?” Egbert asked as he walked through the manor, holding a duster and a frock he had found somewhere, the eccentric skeleton was well known to the people of Alva by now.

It had been a week since they arrived in the Dungeon, construction was still going on but the barracks had been completed and the growing area would be done soon.

If anything the original Egbert seemed to be tamer than the current ‘maid’ version.

“Is there anyway I can return a defective skeleton?” Erik muttered to himself.

“I heard that!” Egbert said, dusting some molding on the Manor’s wall.

Erik’ felt a new headache coming on as he pinched the bridge of his nose.

Reading alchemy books all day is better than trying to have a real conversation with him.

Erik stored the manual back into his storage ring.

“What are the four stages of alchemy?” Egbert asked as he was dusting. He might be a brainless idiot at times but Egbert while an animated dead, had a very good understanding of alchemy.

He had needed to concoct many different pills powders and other alchemy concoctions to sustain and improve his own body.

Erik didn’t know how strong Egbert was, but Rugrat had once hit him with a war hammer and Egbert only looked partially annoyed and complained that he’d need to polish his bones again with all the dirt.

“Growing, harvesting, preparing and formation,” Erik said, reclining in his chair more.

“What do the stages mean?” Egbert asked, his voice taking on an air of authority-as he turned around and waved his duster with a serious expression on his face.

“Growing deals with the growth of the plant. Many alchemists create their own gardens of items in different regions or specific formations that will improve the growth and quality of the different ingredients. Also, alchemists might splice together different plants and strains to create more powerful ingredients. Sometimes extremely rare ingredients won’t be grown, but are found in hard to find and secretive locations, such as dungeons, ancient realms, and other special locations. Whether the ingredient is located in one’s own garden, or within a hidden cave, harvesting is vitally important, as is storage. If the ingredient is not harvested properly, then it might become useless. Many heroes travel with at least one person who is well versed in harvesting so that they might claim these ingredients to sell or use them later. One must also store these plants in containers that complement the ingredient or else the efficacy might decline. Then there is the preparation. This is made when you confirm you want to make a specific alchemic product, such as a powder, potion, or pill. For different alchemic formulas, ingredients might need to be prepared in a variety of ways—sometimes boiled, other times burned, chopped up, ground down, frozen, or grilled. Methods of preparation of the ingredients will have a vastly different outcome when you move to the last stage, which is formation. Forming a powder is the easiest; a potion is much harder and creating a pill is in another level of difficulty.

“The more suitable and tailored growing conditions for the plant, the greater the efficacy. If it is harvested properly and stored in the right container, it will retain the highest level of efficacy, with the preparation drawing out this potential for it to be combined with other ingredients in the formation stage according to an alchemic formula to create a substance that will have a great effect on whoever consumes it.”

“Good!” Egbert said.

Erik let out a wry smile but didn’t say anything, after all, just from knowing the basics one could tell that being an alchemist wasn’t easy, the cost of ingredients was incredibly expensive and once they were used they were used, sometimes years or decades would go by to grow the same plant, or one would need a powerful bone, organ or monster core, all of these meant one have to have a powerful background to pursue the heights of alchemy.

Egbert had shown Erik all of the ingredients he had and passed on technique books that detailed all kinds of different ingredients the issue was the ingredients and information was too high level! Erik couldn’t try to learn them because they were of the Expert level, the books on Novice and Apprentice level information were useful, but even the gnomes with their information had only left behind a few alchemical formulas, most of the ones that Egbert knew were of the High Journeyman level and above.

Still Erik thought that he might be able to make some concoctions, but most of the alchemy ingredients were taken away by the fleeing gnomes and a number of different plants had been left on the other dungeon levels when they were taken over by the creatures there.

Egbert only had a limited number of ingredients left, while Erik had looked at them, based off of his knowledge and Egbert’s explanation each and everyone was a treasure, no matter how flippant Egbert was when talking about them.

Egbert was simply too used to high quality ingredients.

While Rugrat and Taran could melt down the metal that they were using and form new weapons from it, taking apart an alchemy product was many times harder and much more laborious.

“I have a feeling that I’m going to be broke as hell or rich beyond my imagination,” Erik said.

“Not if you don’t study!” Now, what is nirnroot!”

Egbert said, taking his cleaning and questioning seriously.

***

“Ready for some fresh air?” Rugrat asked Blaze as he and the two parties under his command for this mission checked their gear.

“Damn right,” Blaze said, he had spent his time working with the villagers to build more structures and carve up new runed roads.

“You having fun with your new teacher?” Blaze asked Erik who was to Rugrat’s side a tired expression on his face.

“I hate plants,” Erik said, his eyes dull.

The others grinned and laughed it was good to see that their leaders were normal people just like them and had their own faults.

Rugrat snorted and shook his head.