The two-and-a-half-meter tall giant muscle head standing in front of the door didn’t have the same reaction. A flash of anger, confusion, and fear flashed over Baldie's face. As fast as he could, Res stretched out his arm to defuse the tense situation. Luckily, Baldie grabbed his hand and crushed it. In time, he hardened his hand and pull Baldie into the building with the aid of an aether push. The pressure on his hand increased tenfold until Res had to channel half his aether. With an aether push, he pushed the door close, which luckily stopped the pressing. He put on his most amicable mask and clapped.

“It is so good to see you, Baldie. Why are you here?”

Baldie’s thick brows pulled together in anger. “My name is Reinhard and I would like to know why you are here.”

Undisturbed, Res turned and walked up the steps to the waiting room. “That is no matter. May I lead you to the waiting room?“.

For a moment, Res thought that Baldie would punch a hole in the wall out of frustration, but in the end, he followed Res. A single sweat drop was running down Res’s head and his primordial emotions tried to break down his facade.

When they reached the waiting room, his entire demeanor changed to that of a gentle bear. With open arms, he shouted. “Jessica, is everything fine? I am so sorry that I wasn’t there to protect you. I should have …”

He sat down next to the woman to Emma’s great displeasure and smoothed out her dress. Emma cleared her throat and Baldie shut up. “Last question: Are you on any medication right now? I assume so, as you can still talk.”

“Yes, I had some pain reliever pills.”

“All right, that is all. I will try to talk to master now and see whether she would be available.”

The room went silent and Baldie positioned himself in front of the prostitute. Judging by her expression, she didn’t like being protected and hissed at Baldie: “Reinhard, do you know that boy?”

“Yes, he is dangerous. Very dangerous.”

Res imitated being shot in the chest. “Baldie, those words out of your mouth … I feel betrayed. I even let you live last time.”

Baldie growled at him, but Jessica seemed more interested in Res. “Did you tear his biceps?”

“I had to. He was attacking me like a mad bull, tearing down houses and stalls alike.”

Jessica scrutinized Res closer. “Do you know that there is a fifty-platinum bounty on your head?” His entire macho facade crumpled, and he coughed. Jessica didn’t seem finished. “It is increasing daily. On the first day, it jumped from ten gold to one platinum. Don’t understand my intentions wrong. I know that I couldn’t kill you and that if I told anyone, you would kill me. I know that you killed the master of intelligence.”

That was news to Baldie, who sat down and toned his aggression down by a lot. The woman’s eyes bored into his and he realized that she wanted something. Res refrained from circulating aether in his brain and tried the direct approach. “What do you want?”

He was startled when it actually worked. “I want something to change. Our living conditions of most of the women are like living in a dark cellar and they treat us like animal stock. You have shown that you can change the rigid structure of the council and I beg of you to change us. We all would pay you, of course.”

Res was taken aback by the change in topic that he sat there silently for an indiscriminate amount of time. “Bro, this is an amazing opportunity. You will get paid for the stuff you already wanted to do. Additionally, you can grow the ‘young revolution’ even further. If that isn’t the definition of a fucking great deal, I don’t know.”

His initial impulse was to immediately deny the extra work. In the weird trance or dream, the entity had asked him who he was. He felt that denying her request would be equal to him running away from his responsibility.

“All right, I will do it. Under one condition, though.” Baldie and Jessica alike stared at him with dread in their eyes. “You will have to join the ‘young revolution’.”

Before that, they were hiring someone to do it. Now that contractor was asking them to do parts of the job themselves? “We will join the young revolution, but we won’t be under any jurisdiction from you after that.”

Res held out his hands and both Jessica and Baldie shook on it. “I will need you to follow several important rules of the young revolution. First, you don’t fight. You will infiltrate the organization and destroy its resources. You lay fires, destroy grain, steal money … do everything to hinder them. Where do you live?”

“Bard Lane 45”

“I will send a boy to you who will have more information. For now, recruit more followers.”

“Let the boy drop off the message to the small food stall across the street.”

“If you have any trouble and have to blow your cover, you can go to ‘il ristorante’ for shelter. But please …”

Res was cut off by a deafening, ear-piercing cry from the direction that Emma had gone. Immediately, he jumped up and ran out of the room in the direction of the scream. Long ornate hallways passed in a blur as he pushed himself forward with aether. With his entire body hardened, he burst through the door into the room where the screams had come from. A part of him noted that he had demolished the door in the process. He cast about, but could only spot Emma and an elderly female alchemist, Silvia, in a normal alchemy lab. Feeling that he had overreacted, he looked down at his feet and murmured.

“Sorry for the intrusion, I thought you needed some help. I will go back to the waiting room.”

He half-turned to leave, but Silvia recovered from her shock and motioned him to stay. She shot an angry glare at Emma: “You said that there was a guest waiting, not my best friend’s apprentice, Res.” She turned to him and smiled. “I am sorry. My lazy and dumb apprentice didn’t say that it was you outside, else I would have let you in immediately.”

Outside the splintered door, Baldie and Jessica were staring at the mess. Silvia gave the prostitute a short once over and told her to wait some more. Instead, she scrutinized him. “How did you do it?”

A brief glance at the lab’s workplace revealed a cracked open farmer’s nut. “You mean the booster-nut?”

“What else would I mean? Stupid.”

“Are you sure everything is ok? You are shivering. Very much so.”

Through clenched teeth, she hissed out. “I touched the nut, and I was too distracted to create a simple aether skin.”

Everything clicked into place and Res whirled around to face the wall and stammered out. “So … Seems the nut is working … I … I can’t say how the nut was made.”

“Figured. How about twenty platinum coins.”

Res was about to whirl around and shake on it when Jason shouted. “Bro, stop! The idea you have is worth so much, you can’t imagine it. If you have the recipe, you can ship the merchandise all around the world. It will be needed everywhere. Even old farts in the north have problems with their ding dongs. I wouldn’t sell the recipe for any amount of money. This is an amazing opportunity to exchange nuts for cultivation potions.”

When Res thought about it some more, he realized what an impact such an invention would have on a population. “The recipe isn’t up for sale.”

Silvia hissed out through clenched teeth. “Clever boy.”

“I can sell you more nuts. The only thing is – They are in such high demand right now that it would only be profitable for me if we exchange for cultivation potions. I will give you three nuts for potions that will prevent me from exploding. I want to go from four aether brain to the completion of my foundation.”

The room was deadly silent for several moments and he feared that he had asked too much. Finally, Silvia spoke up: “You want me to believe that you want to finish your foundation now? I know low master alchemists who didn’t achieve that level of aether cultivation.”

“I want potions that protect my aether channels. I want them to be made of diamond.”

Through their mental link, Jason sent him feelings of gratitude. “That will cost you more than three nuts. Six at least.”

“Five and we have a deal.”

“Deal. I have something in stock for you. Follow me.”

Res turned around and saw the old alchemist walk deeper into the lab on jittering legs. Her workspace looked identical to that of Granny. The back on the other hand was stuffed full with rack upon rack of herbs, liquids, powders, and potions. When they were at the back of the windowless warehouse, she pulled a hidden latch which made a rack swing to the side. It revealed a small gap, which they pressed themselves through. The gap led into a small room that had a trapdoor embedded in the ground. A small black ring, presumably an artifact, secured the latch. The artifact glowed and Silvia pushed specialized aether it until it snapped open.

“Bro, that is some high-level security shit going on here.”

Silvia opened the trapdoor and climbed down deeper into the building. Res followed and found himself in a room with a single rack that contained only four potions. Jason cried out in glee. “Shit bro, that is a fucking anti-aging potion, that is a berserk potion that lasts at least fifty days. That one I don’t know, but that green-orange swirling one is an iron body potion.”

Granny grabbed the iron body potion vial from the rack and gave it to Res. “This is an iron body potion. It turns you into a dense form of iron which makes you indestructible and unmovable. It is a powerful potion often used to escape ambushes or fights that you can’t win. You could wait out until help arrives. It has never been tested, but it might also make your aether channels indestructible. It would be foolish to do so as it wouldn’t be worth it, but your aether channel technique might change that.”

Following his intuition, he turned inward. “Jason?”

“Ok, ok bro. I used a special technique that monks used to commit mass suicide. Hundreds of monks would explode so they can execute a big spell. I have formed a suicide circle of sorts between us two. You don’t have to worry now, but it all worked out, didn’t it?”

“Does your technique work with the potion.”

“It should. Back in my days, I could open and close my aether channels when I used one. That is the core of the technique. Of course, it is about nine-hundred times more complicated than that.”

Res turned to Silvia and gave her an enormous smile. “This is perfect. I can’t wait to try this out. Can I sit down here?”

Silvia looked at him as if he were the dumbest person on the planet. ”You trust me to not lock you in?”

He realized that he couldn’t do a one eighty degree turn now, so he smiled and said that he trusted her. Not wanting to waste any more time, he sat down on the floor and chugged the potion down in one go.