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57.76% Learning To Live As A Cultivator / Chapter 186: Chapter One Hundred And Eighty Six - This task is quite messy

Chapter 186: Chapter One Hundred And Eighty Six - This task is quite messy

It was not an hour after sunrise when Leon encountered an unexpected situation that caught him off guard and caused an inability to say 'no'. And thus he found himself whisked away to another location where he was currently covered in an oily potion, which glistened in the sunlight peeking through the dense canopy above. A deep grumble of satisfaction came from below him, the sound reverberating through his fingers as he worked the oil into each crevice and along the increasingly slippery surface.

"Done," a sudden voice muttered nearby.

"Yes," agreed a voice that sounded much the same.

"En," Leon said, with a soft sigh, before picking up the rag cloth beside him and cleaning the remnants of the potion from his hands.

The Giant Tortoise, which really was gigantic, not just a larger version of the small original, rumbled its thanks, nearing purring its relief, for the itchiness caused by its dry and cracking shell had eased immeasurably.

Rewinding time a few hours; Leon had risen with the sun, making tea for one and a solo breakfast before heading towards the Herb Hall to gather and allotment of herbs in order to practice making some pills he felt were still too unfamiliar to him. He had been concentrating so much on making pills to sell via Pharmacist Clawse and the pervert Ursam, he had become worried that it would effect his schooling. So with renewed interest, he'd made his way to the main thoroughfare of the outer alchemist school. Only, not half a heart beat of him reaching the doors of the Herb Hall, was he tapped upon the shoulder with a slightly heavy finger.

Turning around, he had found himself facing his senior brother; Hue. "Come and help?" Hue had asked him, without really explaining what he wanted. Leon was curious, not so much that he would willingly follow anybody to sate it, but Hue had never done him any harm and was, afterall, his senior brother.

"Where are we g-going?" Leon had asked him.

"Beast Taming school," Hue had replied and they had made their way there by Baku.

The journey had been made in silence, Hue did not mention his intent when they arrived earlier, but it was clear that he knew exactly where he was going when he reached the school, familiar with the location and surroundings. He went straight to one of the buildings housing students and knocked on the door. This had been opened by a man who was the mirror image of Hue. In fact, were it not for the fact that Hue wore robes and this man wore leather trousers and a wrapped jacket, Leon had doubted he'd be able to tell them apart.

"You arrived," the man had said. His tone was much like Leon's senior brother, deep and short of expression.

"En, I have the potion," Hue had agreed and then nodded.

The man had then glanced towards Leon, who had been standing in silence behind his twin. "No Stygar?"

Hue had shaken his head. "Stygar went with Master," Hue had mentioned and Leon hadn't helped but detect a small hint of unhappiness and loneliness. Teacher Sagi had left the school with his oldest apprentice just yesterday, seeking to renegotiate a few things with a sect that they often dealt with, which happened to be the Heavenly Arts Medicinal Sect. Leon did not happen to know the details, but if he had, he might have been quite surprised.

In the past, the Heavenly Arts Medicinal Sect sent several worthy disciples to the Ascending Mountain Institute to learn from the alchemists of the school. These disciples were neither useless peons nor top or succeeding disciples, keeping their best close to them, while not revealing their failures. The disciples sent to be students were both to learn, to identify worthy, unaffiliated talent and to spy on the disciples of other sects. This was all pretty normal in the institute. However, the Heavenly Arts Medicinal Sect felt their disciples should only be placed in the Inner school, not the Outer school. Ordinarily, the institute would never place self-interest before talent, however, the Alchemist school was not that popular and it was not as if they couldn't spare the spaces. However, the institute would also not do this just to give face to the influential sect.

Something as crass as money was not exchanged, so it could not be considered a bribe, however the Heavenly Arts Medicinal Sect often sent gifts to the school. Usually, these were rare herbs that the school could not grow themselves, but there were often shipments of cauldrons (ones that had been rejected by the sect as being too low quality or just ugly), jade bottles (for the same reasons) and revised editions of Herb books (or rather, last year's books that were a bit worn and no longer looked pristine).

However, the Institute, much like many other places, had heard about the new pills which had mysterious origins that had recently come onto the market. Although they, themselves, had attempted to reverse engineer the pills, the results were baffling. Despite tests declaring that the Burning Energy variant pills would perform exactly as the sellers claimed, the ingredients appeared to be no different that normal Burning Energy Pills! When it came to knowledge and understanding of pills, the Heavenly Arts Medicinal Sect were far above others and it was also believed that they had been the ones to purchase the new pills and their stronger variants at the Auction that they had first appeared in. The Institute was hoping to pry the secrets of the pills from the Sect's fingers, for surely they have become aware of them... right?

How was the school to know that the one who was truly holding the secrets of the variant pills to his chest actually was at that moment spreading a medicinal potion over the cracked and dry shell of a Giant Tortoise within the Beast Taming Outer school?!

Once the three young men had finished their task, (it had taken all three of them to cover the beast's central circus sized shell in oil using brooms and brushes), Drue (the older twin brother of Hue) patted the beast's huge nose fondly, before guiding his brother and his brother's junior to the wash up in his dorm room, passing through the stable as they did. Instantly, a white furred face appeared, pressed against the protective barrier of its nest. It mewled and purred as the group of three passed it. It was particularly attracted to the smiling face of the smallest person, the scent of the body similar to the scent of the little wooden fish that was its treasure. It called out to the person, but the person walked away, not aware that he was wanted.

The larger, black body behind it, scratched at the loosening fur along the length of its hide; another scale was beginning to poke through, before yawning and urging the cub to settle down. The forlorn cub, looked at it then buried itself into its nest in a sulk.


CREATORS' THOUGHTS
Ebonsolaris Ebonsolaris

I’m sorry that I could not update on Tuesday, real life took precedence.

Chapter 187: Chapter One Hundred And Eighty Seven - My labels created a ‘paper trail?’

Amongst the regular students of the Ascending Mountain Institute, there are of course those favoured by Teachers and selected as their personal students in order to depart their worldly experiences to, beyond the usual (or unusual) curriculum, but there are also students that the school felt should be nurtured for the greater good of the school; core students. Potential core students might reside in the inner or outer school, they might be aware or unaware that they are being watched carefully by the mysterious Head Master and Vice Head Master, they might not even be aware of why they have been selected as potential core students. But eventually, they would be offered a place amongst these unknown elite students, offered a great deal of resources and access to secret levels of the library, in exchange for their loyalty to the school and their silence.

One such child under the careful eye of the Head Master was Delphi. When her twin roots became active, they turned out to be a light and water mutant combination that was so rare that it was almost unheard of. She had been offered a place at the school at the age of eight, although she was fourteen when she finally enrolled. She began as a mage, but her gifts truly lie in her healing abilities. These were in thanks to her special, complimenting roots. She was also gentle in nature, did not favour the combat arts, and when she was nineteen, she transferred to the Healers Hall in order to focus solely upon this path as a Healer Apprentice.

She'd not yet been approached about being a core student, but it was merely a matter of time.

At this moment, Delphi was checking the Hall's inventory. The Healers were good at saving lives, determining illnesses and injuries and prescribing pills and potions, but not so good as to ensure those pills and potions were in stock. Delphi happened to like to keep busy, therefore regularly took upon herself this task.

Still, although she had made herself responsible for inventory, did not mean that there was not a rota amongst the Healers for this sort of thing, just that they often forgot or convinced themselves it was someone else's turn to deal with it. Pharmacist Clawse' Healer Uncle had been reminded that he was meant to have checked the inventory this month, but he'd been delaying it almost the entire Moon and only happened to get around to it now as it was his superior's turn next month and he didn't want to face that woman's criticism. Not that she was say anything harsh, just that she would give him that look... one that indicated far more than a scolding lecture could, one that could cause a chill to run down even Teacher Corne shudder in discomfort.

Thus he felt nothing but sincere gratitude from the bottom of his heart to discover that Delphi had already taken stock for him and written a few requests of the alchemist schools.

Delphi simply smiled, waving away his thanks with a gentle gesture and continued to replace all of the jade bottles back in their wooden containers, ready to be placed away until one of the Healer's personal stocks of common pills needed restocking or until a rarer pill happened to be required. The Healer noticed that a pile of bamboo lengths had been placed upon the centre table, which also was covered with jade bottles.

"What are these for?" The Healer enquired.

"Oh," the girl replied with a shy smile. "I was labelling the jade bottles. Some of the jade bottles are quite dusty, becoming opaque with age. It's inconvenient to keep opening the bottles up to see what they contain, the pills will eventually spoil if this continues. It was be such a waste to lose some of the rarer and expensive pills due to continuous checking."

He noticed a bottle that she had already placed one of her bamboo tags upon, the calligraphy upon it in fresh ink. "I feel like I have seen something like this done before," he said aloud, before recalling that it was the delicate tag upon that jade bottle of excellent pills Corvus had in his collection and a rising excitement swelled within him.

The girl blushed and nodded; "Hmm, I did obtain the idea from elsewhere. But his labels were so much better crafted and the words carved upon them, meaning they were less prone to fading or smudges. Must have been created by a delicate hand." Her nose wrinkled as she cast a critical eye over her own bamboo tags and sighed. "Mine are so ungainly in comparison!"

He chuckled and offered words of encouragement; "That you would take the time to do all of this is already worthy of note. Don't be so hard upon yourself." He patted her shoulder. "Other Healers and Teachers, though, might remind you not to rely on labels to identify the pills in the end. Must also use one's knowledge to access the contents, thus not to select the wrong pill because the label told you otherwise." Delphi nodded, understanding the Healer's teachings.

Picking up the nearest pill bottle, he bitterly noticed that the label claimed that inside the bottle were One Heart Pills, before asking; "Do you happen to recall just where you saw the other labelled bottles?"

Delphi nodded and put the rest of the One Heart Pills into the wooden container. The Healer passed her the one in his hand so she could close the container. "There was a boy trading them at the Five School Market Festival. He was with others from the outer alchemist school. To be honest, all of his pills were of the common sort and quite average in quality. I assumed that he labelled them so to attract attention." She smiled as she recalled the groups of female students cooing over the cuteness of the labelled bottles. "It certainly worked."

The Healer grinned, excitedly; "the outer alchemist school, you say?"


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