Despite King Mark's foreboding statement, Isabella remained calm. And just a few seconds later, she asked thoughtfully, "Is he really a god though? Not even the Divine Organizations are aware of such a massive matter... Are you really going to believe in the words of some idiots that had been isolated inside a forest for thousands of years?

King Mark's grew silent. After a while, he spoke in a careful tone, "That is true... I might've been a bit too hasty. But, even if he isn't an actual god, I sensed the power of that divine spirit..."

Isabella shook her head, "So what? Even if that fellow is stronger than a summoned Divine Apostle, will he continue to protect Isolde? Did you think about that?"

Isabella continued, as King Mark remained silent in thought, "Couldn't it be possible that Isolde happened upon that powerful relic by chance? And that relic just happened to have a spirit that mentioned the same mysterious 'god'?"

King Mark shook his head, "That's a lot of coincidences, too much to be safe..."

Isabella grimaced and spat out in rage, "What!? You're going to give up everything because of some coincidence? You want to throw all of our preparations away... just because of this!?"

The King was speechless for a moment, but finally, spoke resolutely, "You're right Isabella, as always. I'll keep sending Tristram until we can get it to work properly."

Isabella nodded with a smile, her anger receding, "Good to see that you're back to your senses."

King Mark nodded in agreement with a smile of his own.

Suddenly he turned towards the golden harp, and a grin slowly crept on to his face, "Perfect! Even if that spirit is strong, I can already sense that the interference around the Brishman mansion is becoming weaker... If all Isolde has is a one-time use artifact that she gained by sheer luck, perhaps I was worried about nothing!"

Isabella grinned as well, however, she continued in a more serious tone, "Even so, we failed tonight. Next time, make sure that it works out."

King Mark nodded thoughtfully, "Regardless of what happened, we can still force Isolde to accompany Tristram somewhere outside. Perhaps, the Centenniel Appraisal Competition of the Lyon and Turnbull market hall? That girl Isolde wouldn't expect anything untoward to happen in public. Besides, getting her to drink it first, might be a better choice... after all, there was no specific order mentioned, now was there?"

Isabella smiled, with her work done she slowly turned around to leave.

King Mark raised his head hurriedly, "Wait! Isabella, where are you going? It's been a while… hasn’t it? Shouldn't we have some 'fun' together?" and asked with a wink.

Isabella shook her head with a condescending frown, "Sure we can. When you actually succeed without messing up,” and saying so, she walked away, through the side-door and into the raining porch.

But as she did, she fluttered her fingers in goodbye and left behind a few words, "Until you get this to work, I'll have to make do with my annoying buffoon of a 'husband'... So hurry up! Nevertheless, I bid you sweet dreams, brother of mine."

And the door closed behind her.

King Mark was extremely unhappy but silently turned to a corner of the throne room.

Surprisingly, the dwarf-like Midge, who must've silently entered into the room at some point was standing there.

King Mark commanded, "Midge, use your spirits to investigate Isolde and her necklace. Find out everything."

Midge nodded and raised his hands, a translucent silver energy manifesting around him... but the raising of his hands revealed a strange iron collar on his neck...

And the light rain continued to fall.

🏯🏯🏯

At the same time, back in the Lyon and Turnbull Market Hall.

Less than two hours after starting, Zhen Shi had completed refining the last pill. Just to finish the quest sooner, he had even made sure to refine only the Mortal Tier Healing pill.

But of course, he had used all the grade improvement skills along with resulting in ten Stage 1 Soul Tier healing pills, with the same but slightly different pictures of the small boy fighting off a terrifying giant with a simple slingshot.

Despite the strange worries that continued to trouble him, how could he not be happy when he was literally only a couple of steps away from receiving the quest rewards?

But he was beginning to become rather impatient. Fortunately, the notification rang almost immediately.

Ding!

Congratulations to the user for completing the {Mortal Tier-Pill Refining} quest!

Ding!

The user has been rewarded one random refining ingredient: Ephemeral Ghost Ashes.

Ding!

The user has been rewarded a gift of experience. Will you accept it?

Zhen Shi was rather intrigued regarding this 'ephemeral ghost ashes' and how it could be used as an alchemy ingredient... But, since the System was asking so politely, just to give him a bunch of experience points, how could he be distracted by other matters?

System: "..."

Even though Zhen Shi knew that forcefully cultivating was not good for him, especially since he was annoyingly slow when cultivating manually, he couldn't help but be excited!

He was basically an addict to fast cultivation.

As such, he laughed gleefully with all his worries about the side-effects thrown into the sea, and mentally replied, "Yes, System. A thousand times, yes!"

Ding!

Granting experience...

However, despite the successful notification, Zhen Shi's grin slowly dissipated.

He felt no improvement in his cultivation, instead, he felt queasy.

He began to lose his bearings as the entire room began to revolve around him. His vision began to blur as he began to see strange colors and visions... a tree on a hill... a mysterious man...

'SHIT! I know I'm an addict for this, but who knew you'd actually overdose on cultivation like a normal drug?'

His next decision was to blame the system for not warning him of a possible overdose which would lead to his untimely death.

But he collapsed onto the floor and his life left his eyes before he could do so...

🐕🐕🐕

Zhen Shi's vision was now veering off towards a confusing dark space of colors and noises along with nonsensical trippy visions. The colors kept shifting back and forth, the sounds were mind-boggling and the smells were even worse.

Zhen Shi's mind was reeling and being bombarded with heavy nausea. He even felt like barfing blood.

Fortunately, after a while, his senses began to clear and his vision began to return to normal. At the same time, the nausea lessened and his mind calmed down.

Now that he was no longer being forced to go through a mind-boggling trip, Zhen Shi focused on his surroundings and looked around.

He was inside a strange room.

But what immediately caught his attention and placed directly in line with his gaze, was an open leather-bound book placed on an oak table.

For a moment, Zhen Shi wondered if this could be another memory from the original Zhen Shi, but immediately scrapped that thought. The resurgence of those memories had been extremely natural, with them instantly popping up in his mind at specific occasions.

But this... this was completely different, this felt unnatural. This wasn't a memory, this was a vision.

Putting this matter aside, Zhen Shi turned back to the intriguing book.

As his eyes fell on to the first page, for just a moment, he felt as if the letters were beyond his level of comprehension... But almost instantly, the letters jumped out and about along with his still stabilizing vision, ultimately clearing into a completely readable page.

Apparently, he was currently being shown the first page of the First Chapter: The Essence of Alchemy.

Zhen Shi couldn't help but retort mischievously, 'Ahh! So the gift of experience wasn't an actual gift of Exp, but was related to the profession! It appears that the system is giving me alchemy experience through a drug-induced haze... Then system are you a drug dealer as well? Perhaps even a drug lord? A true kingpin?'

System: "..."

Nevertheless, Zhen Shi could feel his inner-bookworm kicking in and began to read voraciously.

As he continued along, he felt his alchemy knowledge gradually deepening and even began to see vague glimpses of a strange arduous path surrounded by mystical trees.

But he couldn't quite put this newfound wisdom into words... it was almost as if he was learning but not learning at the same time.

Having finished reading the first page, with great anticipation for the oncoming torrent of knowledge and his rapid improvement as a pill alchemist, Zhen Shi proceeded to move to the next page.

But, to his great dismay, he realized that he couldn't move the page. Honestly, he couldn't even move his body...

Basically, he couldn't move and his vision was stuck at one spot, the open page. Now that he freed his mind from the book, he realized that there wasn't even any sound, just an uncomfortable pause.

'System am I lagging? Wait... is the System lagging?!'

System: "..."

With the expected lack of response from his system and no change to his 'frozen' situation, Zhen Shi calmed down and decided to look around the room. But, to his greater dismay, he realized that he couldn't even move his head!

So basically, he had to look around the room while having his eyes focused on the first page of the book.

He could vaguely see a small room with rough wooden walls just barely lit by glowing orbs of light. There were various herbs and other ingredients hung up on the wall and in jars.

But Zhen Shi was unable to identify any of them as he found that he was unable to access his golden eye, the appraisal skill , or even the {Scholarly Library} inside his head.

In the end, using his own memory, he was able to identify just one from the plethora of ingredients available. And even that was due to the distinctive yellow cloudy leaves of the herb which was considered to be priceless and hadn't been seen around for hundreds of millennia, Syphilim!

Besides the herbs, there were some small tools placed on another, much larger table to the side, but Zhen Shi couldn't see much as it was out of his eyesight.

But suddenly, he could smell again and his nose was hit with the confusing smell of all those different herbs. His sense of touch and hearing came next.

He could hear a lightly crackling fire and the sounds of unfamiliar birds from outside the hut, but nothing much else. He was hit with a rather terrifying cold, despite being wrapped in bundles of warm fur. He could also feel that he was seated on a chair, but surprisingly his legs were not touching the floor.

But even with things returning to 'normal' and his body shivering due to the cold, he found that he was still unable to move around or control his body.

Completely at a loss on what to do, Zhen Shi was just about to blame a certain someone...

But suddenly, a fairly high-pitched voice rang out, "Uhh... This is boring."

Zhen Shi was speechless, 'Who is it? System... is that you? Have you finally gained sentience? But I agree, this IS boring!'

The reply came almost immediately, "I'm just going to play with Hecabe."

Zhen Shi was now completely confused, "What the hell is Hecabe? Can you eat it?"

But his confusion was immediately solved, as his head automatically lowered focusing on a slightly warmer part of the furs wrapped around his lap. Apparently... it was a black-furred puppy which had basically blended amidst the wide varieties of fur, almost like a wild animal in its natural habitat.

His small hairless hands proceeded to furiously rub the head of Hecabe, the puppy, who in turn looked at him with its puppy dog eyes while furiously wagging its tail.

Zhen Shi would have facepalmed if he could've. It appeared that the System was completely fine and hadn't gained sentience, and he was just having an unnaturally realistic dream of the life of some other person. And based on the short legs, high pitched voice, and small arms, he was either in the body of a small child or a female dwarf... with the latter highly unlikely due to the ordinary size of the furniture.

Zhen Shi watched on with slight interest as this kid played around with Hecabe for several HOURS.

It was always the same pattern. It began with Hecabe, and then almost immediately, Hecabe's head was being furiously rubbed, over and over again!

'SHIT! I take it back. THIS is even more boring! Please kid just read the damn book... or at least turn the page! Don't you know neglecting your homework and playing with your dog is how you end up in the streets?'

But the child remained unresponsive, continuing to rub Hecabe’s head.

Zhen Shi had tried many times to skip or fast forwards this 'gift of experience' but the system was completely unresponsive.

So, in the end, he had decided to wait silently while continuing to read and memorize the first page of the Alchemy book over and over again.

Since Zhen Shi also had a vague suspicion that what was written in the book might not be easy to remember, especially with {Scholarly Library} offline, maybe it wasn't a bad idea to be stuck watching a kid rubbing the head of a dog... repeatedly... with nothing else happening.

But to his surprise, after around three hours of furiously rubbing the puppy's head, his lap became unusually warm and strangely wet.

Immediately, his hands lifted up the puppy causing the heaps of fur to slide on the floor revealing a rather large wet-spot in his trousers.

'FUCK! The puppy actually peed on me? Shit, this is the worst drug-induced dream ever! System, I want a refund!'

The child proceeded to lift up the dog even higher and shouted out in a rather cute voice, "Mummy! Hekabe peed again!" Zhen Shi mentally grimaced as that voice and those words came out of his 'own' vocal cords...

A hurried shout came out from afar, "Little Hex, Mummy's coming soon!"

Zhen Shi wash horrified, 'Is this kid's name really Hex or is he an actual Hex?'

But he didn't get to find out as the room started to rotate around him once more. And before Zhen Shi could complain, he was thrown away from this dream... and into a mass of pure confusion.

🐕🐕🐕

Zhen Shi hurriedly stood up from the floor with a start while muttering, "I can't believe the so-called 'gift of experience' is actually a drug-induced dream," and shook his head to somehow reduce the continuous banging inside his head.

Luckily for him, the headache receded rather fast. Perhaps he was getting used to it?

Either way, with the twitter of birds backing up the boombox which was still playing instrumental Chinese music, he looked around the pavilion to realize that it was already dawn!

It appeared that he had basically dreamed through the rest of the night and now it was only a few moments away from sunrise.

But despite the horrendous memories, he had been able to memorize the first page of that divine alchemy book.

An identical copy was even present within the {Scholarly Library}.

Zhen Shi stretched his muscles while walking over to the boombox, which he quickly switched off and carefully put back into the system inventory.

Taking a deep breath, he relished the cool breeze of the early morning. Despite the mind-boggling dream he had experienced and the worries of the night before, Zhen Shi was surprisingly calm and free. He almost felt relieved...

Feeling that the inside of the pavilion was a bit stuffy even with the open central garden, Zhen Shi walked over to the main entrance door and began to open it hoping to get a view of the surroundings, perhaps a view of the shimmering lake and some of the lush trees...

But what awaited him was a huge mob!

Zhen Shi was speechless, 'What the actual mob?'

There were maids, servants, guards, random sales-clerks, and even managers of the Market Hall, with most dressed in usual uniform and some even in their night robes. Most of them had their eyes closed as if they were enjoying the beauty of nature together...

But they all turned towards him with annoyed looks on their faces, perhaps since he had opened the door rather noisily.

Zhen Shi wordlessly and instantly closed the door.

But inside his mind, he was completely confused, 'What the hell did I just see? It obviously can't be something as ridiculous as a strange hobby where you enjoy the resting in the front yard of random people's houses... right?'

'So... did I sleepwalk and do some strange things while I was in that drug-induced dream? Is that why those people have gathered?'

In the end, unable to find an answer, Zhen Shi decided to just find out.

Since the people outside weren't shouting and chanting his name with pitchforks and fire, he couldn't have done anything too bad...

And so he opened the door.

The mob outside was ready this time, as they all asked in different ways, "Young master, were you the one responsible for the music that was being played?"

As these words reached his ears, Zhen Shi immediately made sense of the situation and heaved a sigh of relief.

'Aiya! So it was only a simple cause of sound pollution! In that case, I can just apologize.'

So he smiled apologetically while answering, "I'm sorry for the disturbance everyone. It was indeed my fault. I'll make sure to lower the volume in the future."

But everyone in the mob, simultaneously frowned, almost in worry and fear.

A cute maid who was nearby, spoke hurriedly, "Young master, please don't do that! Please INCREASE the volume as much as possible! We all loved your music!"

Her words unleashed a cacophony of follow-ups from the entire mob,

"Yes! Master Musician, I love your music too!"

"Master Musician, are you the god of music descended from the heavens?"

"Wait... now that I look closely, this young master looks truly different from us untalented people! A dragon amongst men!"

"Young master, I had a horrible backache. But after listening to your music, I feel like I've gained wings!"

"Forget about your back, that divine music helped me breakthrough into the next level of cultivation! My family will no longer be bullied!"

"Bah! Forget about that! I was suffering from a heart demon due to a past regret. But now, the demon has become a baby angel! I can finally take my revenge!"

"Divine Musician, you're also very handsome. Will you marry me?"

"Why would he marry someone as ugly as you? Divine Musician, you don't even need to marry me. Just give me a baby so that it can play music, at least a fraction as good as you!"

" I don't even need a baby. Divine Musician, just play once more!"

"I agree. Encore!"

"Encore!!"

Zhen Shi forced a grin, 'Shit, I didn't even do anything and was fainted for almost all of last night. It was all the work of Odin's Boombox! Not me!'

Observing the cheering crowd, he felt profoundly uncomfortable, 'Is this what piracy feels like?'