Mystical Journey

Although the halo of light from the oil lamp was snuffed out, the bedroom remained strangely illuminated.

Moonlight crept in from the window and bathed the carpet.

Vanderman was sitting on a chair, quietly, with a rather perplexed expression on his face.

"The royal family still has us and the three major departments! It’s impossible for us to lose!" He murmured.

At some corner of in a forest far away from the manor lied a person dressed in black. He was none other than Tonci.

He turned his head around and looked at the Trejons’ manor.

"You and I have done our duties, Vanderman."

"Have we failed?" Another black figure slowly crept up alongside him from the dark. "I knew it, that old man had placed his hopes in the royal alliance. His household was in a predicament in the past, but he was blessed by the Kovitan’s eldest prince. He had sworn loyalty to the royal family, to never betray them. To suddenly have that happen would be a miracle."

"Nothing can be done. We’ve failed. Have some consideration and stop harping on it." Tonci said coldly.

"Whatever. The split doesn’t favor Vanderman from the get go anyway. Now that you, his only old friend, has given up on him, his life will not be that easy."

"That is his decision. Let’s go." Tonci replied coldly.

Both of them went into a corner away from the moonlight, and disappeared into the darkness without a sound.

*************

Cia seemed to be shocked by the blue-scaled snake during his two days in the campsite, and lived his days in the tent with a very pale face. He didn’t even dare to go near Aquarius and flatter her.

Occasionally, Prynne and Marin would come and accompany him. Garen didn’t even participate in the group hunt, his excuse being that he was feeling unwell.

However, everyone knew that he was actually traumatized by the blue-scaled snake. He was almost bitten by the venomous blue-scaled snake, which had the lethal potential to kill a man. No one could blame him, anyone would have required some time to recover if they had a brush with death.

On top of that, it was a natural reaction from the spoiled Acacia.

Garen took this opportunity to bring Ulun out to search for different kinds of known herbal medicines in this wide area. He didn’t have much knowledge in this field as he hadn’t specialised it in this practice. However, he knew enough knowledge in herbal medicine to get by.

He explored at least a thousand-square-meter wide area, and hence, two days had passed in the blink of an eye, and it was already time to head back. Garen had finally dug up all the herbal medicine that he was searching for.

Amejade grass, pinweed and giant roc flowers were the ingredients he had been looking for in this journey. These were essentially ancient herbs, but it was obvious that these people treated them as a common weeds. Some of the ingredients even let slip that they had been stepped on.

Garen estimated that he would be able to successfully conjure up to three kinds of herbal soups with these ingredients. It was unfortunate that there were a lot more ingredients that he wasn’t able to find, so he wasn’t sure how effective the overall medicine might be.

He filled the exquisite wooden box that was used to pack meals with soil and planted the herbs into these small boxes. They became makeshift planters.

**********

Early in the morning, at the entrance of the road just beside the forest.

A few carriages were parked on both sides of the road, and a few bodyguards, in either white or black shirts, were engaged in conversation.

Prynne was ordering the guards to move the beasts they had hunted onto the car beside the carriage, while the remaining ladies were chatting and giggling over to the side.

Aquarius was standing in the shade under a tree, as she gazed at the rest of the people moving camping equipment into the carriage. She then had her sight on the Trejons Household’s black carriage, and she looked at the bodyguards, carrying stacks of exquisite wooden boxes onto the carriage.

As she looked at the emblem of the Trejons Household, it reminded her of the results of her probes from earlier.

She hesitated for a moment as she looked at a guard in white, who was standing by a carriage not far away from her.

She flicked her fingers, and a blue colored flash appeared at the tip of her finger.

The curtains on the carriages were pulled down and a female guard in white came down from the carriage. Two of them whispered to each other for a moment before approaching the Trejons carriage together.

Garen was inside the carriage, carefully securing the small boxes to one corner with ropes. When he opened the carriage’s curtain, he saw Aquarius and two of her personal guards whispering among themselves.

His heart threatened to jump.

"Could it be that those two blue-scaled snakes from earlier on…" He could faintly feel that the smell of those two snakes and Aquarius’s smell were rather similar. Perhaps fragrance would be a better choice of word. "If the incident was man made… It’s most likely Aquarius’s doing."

He squinted his eyes as he gently touched his wooden boxes with his hands.

"The blue-scaled snakes are extremely fast and venomous. I can only handle two of them at best, since I am a martial artist who doesn’t focus on speed. With more than two, I can only avoid them. I’ll see how it goes when I regain some of my strength after drinking the herbal soup."

Based on his estimations, a typical Luminarist with an average threat level was at least level C and above. They might be able to reach level B if they really had a go at it. The Luminarist who were fighting against teacher Emin was definitely at least level B during his final struggle. This were just typical Luminarists, imagine the stronger ones.

"The only way to hasten my learning process to become a Luminarist, is to increase my physical attributes and recover as soon as possible!" As Garen recalled the details of the ambush; he was sure that it was a setup. The only person here who was capable of such a feat was Aquarius.

"I will remember this…" Garen closed the curtain.

***********

Back in the Trejons manor.

Garen noticed that Vanderman’s mood was getting worse lately.

According to the female housekeeper, Vanderman’s mood was affected by a letter he had received.

He had his suspicions, the only thing that could affect Vanderman’s mood was the situation involving the Luminarists.

Garen didn’t think much of it as it would be a better option for him to increase his own strength than to conjure a plan at this point in time.

He could only rely on himself during this chaotic period.

It took him three days to treat and cultivate all the medicinal herbs that he brought back, which were considered fairly simple tasks. Due to his inexperience, he had broken some of the roots of the herbs during the cultivation process and he felt quite saddened by it.

After that, he followed the ancient method in mixing the herbs together and stored them nicely into packets.

The final step was to soak them in the medicinal bath.

It wasn’t easy to collect the herbs. He managed to follow an ancient recipe to create something called Endurance Liquid.

The source was unknown, its main effect was of a simple enhancement and supplement to the body. It only required one whole day of brewing in fire.

Garen hid in his building for that whole day as he carefully set the fire up. He kept adding in water every once in awhile to prevent it from drying up. He stopped the whole process when there was a faint, sticky green mud appearing in the herbs.

The whole building was completely filled with the slightly pungent smell of the herbal soup.

Every female servant was told to leave by him, hence he was operating this process all on his own. The reason for this was of course to keep it as a secret. As for Vanderman, a father that always went out early in the morning and only came back late at night, he would only be in the manor during the unearthly hours of the day. The building was filled with a strange aroma, The servants had no idea what he had been up to, let alone Vanderman.

Garen took five full days to brew the herbs into ointments. He placed them into three small jade green bottle since the day he came back from the camp.

*******

Garen told the servants to carry the bath tub into his own room, pour in some hot water, light up the fireplace and close the curtain.

Then, they delivered and the towel and body wash in a wooden basin.

"Alright that’s more than enough. Get out, the lot of you!" Garen hushed them.

"Do you want us to add in the hot water for you?" An old lady servant asked.

"That’ll be fine. I will do it by myself."

"Alright then. Please be careful not to fall asleep inside the bathtub young master Acacia." The lady servant warned him with care.

"I got it, Anna." Garen nodded his head. "Please don’t disturb me. I need to realize some inspirations during my bath!"

Whenever Acacia reminded the servants about his poetry, the old servant, Anna, who had been watching Acacia since young, could even feel a chill in her nerves whenever he talked about his poetry.

"Then I shall take my leave. Please take your time to realize your inspirations." She forced out a smile and then gestured the rest of the female servants to leave the room before she closed the door gently.

Garen walked towards the door and locked the door with a chain.

As the sound of the footsteps gradually disappeared, only the crackling sound of the burning wood inside the room could be heard.

Garen walked towards the study desk gently and took out a palm sized emerald green glass bottle from the drawer. As he swung the bottle, the green liquid which was as viscous as the royal jelly was flowing gently in the bottle.

He walked towards the bathtub, opened the bottle cap and gently tilted the bottle.

Bloop!

A drop of viscount liquid went into the crystal clear hot water and swiftly dyed the hot water into faint green like an ink mixing in clear water.

He then poured the remaining viscous liquid into the bathtub. He even rinsed the bottle in the hot water to ensure there were no remnants left behind. It was only then that Garen took off his clothes, stepped onto the stool and entered the bathtub.

As he soaked his whole body inside the hot bath, it was no different than soaking in a normal hot bath, other than the pungent medicinal odor.

Garen took a deep breath, shut his eyes and immediately immersed himself completely into the water.

As the water splashed about, the sounds he heard were similar to being covered with a thick cloth. Everything sounded so far away, and was very quiet.

Garen recalled the ancient preparation method, using his index fingers and placing them on the other side of the shoulders to form a gesture which resembled him hugging himself. He started to expand and contract his chest periodically as he completely soaked himself in the water.

This was the most basic breathing technique from the Divine Statue Technique, which was used to build the foundation and train his skin, blood and qi. However, the original method did not require one to use any medicine for assistance. Garen was merely using the endurance liquid as the catalyst.

As he immersed himself inside the water, he occasionally got out of the water to catch a breath. This process continued for quite a while. He did not feel anything untoward happening to his body.

What he felt when he was immersing himself was that the water was getting hotter over time. It was as if there was someone who kept adding more wood under the bathtub to increase the temperature. The water’s temperature was getting higher, and getting hotter over time.

The green pigment in the water became fainter as the water started to clear up over time.

Garen’s skin started to become green at this point.

Splash.

As Garen came out of the water for the fifth time, he wiped off the water that was on his face and opened his eyes.

"It’s getting hotter… This endurance liquid had proven itself. According to the ancient documents, the endurance liquid was one of the basic medicines for the Emerald Jade Panacea. It was unfortunate that it was a lost art and this medicine was now primarily used for body enhancement." Garen sighed repentantly. The Emerald Jade Panacea was similar in theory, compared to the Divine Statue Technique’s White Gold Divine Statue. However, its specialty was not focused on defense and recovery, but full immunity to toxins and increasing of one’s lifespan.

He was unsure of the effect when he used the breathing technique from the Divine Statue Technique to absorb the medicine into his body. He had to give all of his attention to the breathing technique and thus he did not see the changes in the attributes pane.

He was slightly stunned as he looked at the attribute pane just below his sight.

The attribution pane had an overall increase without his knowledge.