The Loud Sun, a noisy bar just like any other. I was currently hiding in a shadow. Why you might ask? Well, Io is looking for me and I don't feel like dealing with her.

I returned from Gittrian just yesterday and she wants to hang out. Give me a break.

Esher got through with the documents and every trace of the research got wiped out. Surgically removed from society. The Silent Night was quiet, most assassins were on missions so that’s why I’m hanging around in the Loud Sun, the only one who doesn't seem to be occupied is Io. I still have to ask Esher how she even got accepted. I am a week into my second year of training and I have done absolutely nothing. I guess that means I’m also not getting into trouble. I also need to remember that the other assassins don't have the luxury of moving around as fast as I can so Esher, who left for a mission today, might not be back for several months. I sighed and moved to a different shadow.

I decided to spend more time using shadow skills. There might be some secrets about shadow magic laying around here that Greg can’t teach me.

This place didn't have a mission board or something similar to the Adventurer’s Association. The missions got handed to me by Esher, a guy named Shade or Willow and they were all gone.

I suppose Io is bored because she had the same problem as I have and has no assignments. Jimmy was here too but he wasn't very sociable. Bernie was here but he was too busy dealing with the normal customers that have no idea that there's an assassin headquarters below their feet. He seemed to be wary of me staying [Shadow Melded] here at the beginning, afraid that a sharp customer might detect me but he noticed that my [Shadow meld] was good enough that only assassins might pick up on my presence.

I decided to [Silent Meld] to Silent Night. Io can’t [Silent Meld] so I will be safe here.

I walked around in the empty base. Shade used some form of shadow magic to create shades. I think that's why they call him Shade. The shades were like guards in case someone unwanted ended up here somehow. They were quite creepy but harmless if you have an umbral pendant. I found a workshop.

I made sure to check if this was one meant for everyone or if this was a personal workshop. Bernie explained some of this stuff to me after I returned. Since I was bored I might as well research some poisons. I had the ingredients to make some because I’m Greg’s storage but I have no idea how to make some or how they work. I had only some slight experience watching and Greg explaining things to me.

I recognized most of the equipment and looked through my archive to find some books I flipped through when in Boshi town. Some were focused on poisons and medicine. What stood out was that the book advised to gain poison resistance first before messing around too much with them.

Ingest a small dose of the poison you want to mess around with your food every day for 30 days before attempting anything more advanced with it, only do this with 1 poison at a time. Each poison recipe will state the safe dose to ingest. Also, after having completed this time period, I will need to use my own blood to create an antidote for it.

Ahh, I see now this makes sense! It will have a reduced effect on other individuals but it will work perfectly for me. I’ll take it. Ugh, this shit takes long but I will abide by these rules.

Poison is one of the few things that don't care about how many lives a mythical or legendary being has so I needed to tread very carefully here. Poison is one of the few branches of alchemy that still get widely used. Most other forms besides 'potion making' were quite endangered. There are 3 types of poisons. Those that corrode, those that actually poison and those that are mutagens. The last type often also had properties that were mostly quite difficult to link to something called a 'poison'. The first and last category scared me so I would only synthesize and use conventional poisons.

I started with the most basic of poisons; only need to ingest this for 2 weeks before I can mess around with it.

I augmented my hands with mana to make sure any toxic compounds won't get through my skin. This was what Greg always did so I was just copying him here. I moved the leyline energy around a bit to move the air and ventilate the workshop before I began.

The next step was to start mixing and grinding substances to make this simple poison. It was fun and therapeutic. I could understand now why Greg loved to do this.

I finished a batch of 50 ml after an hour. I was done but there was one last step. I needed to test it on some creatures. It was known for its weakness to poison and its reaction to the poison and how long for it to die indicated how well made the poison was.

'The Clear Frog will show no reaction and should die in a maximum of 2 minutes and 16 seconds for the poison to be successful. No application should exceed 1 drop.' That is pretty clear, no room for misunderstanding.

I looked around in the workshop. No clear frogs. I looked through what I had archived from this book and nowhere was mentioned to find these frogs. I looked everywhere and found something in the small assassin library.

'Clear frogs live in clear and clean water. Mostly spotted in mountain lakes because these tend to be the cleanest.' I looked for close locations. Apparently, some of these frogs also appear in the jungle I call my home. The water there was indeed very clean but I didn't remember seeing any clear frogs there. Then again, I wasn't paying attention to any frogs besides the running frogs.

It was time to go back home! I made a spot in my dimensional pocket that could hold those clear frogs because I will probably need a lot of them. I didn't put in the water yet because I don't know if the water that I store and took from the Aurelia river is clean enough. I [Silent Melded] back to the normal world and avoided Io and headed back home.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Daggerfall wasn't actually that far from the jungle. In 4 days of walking a human could reach it but I was impatient so I ran there and arrived at my hideout on the same day. My tail reminded that I needed to do something, which was dropping an [Dimensional Anchor] here so that I could teleport back home whenever I wanted to. I should have dropped one in Gittrian but it’s too late now, maybe next time. Visiting Vinny would probably be pointless because he was probably doing his girlfriend so I will just rest here and go hunting for frogs tomorrow.

A loud noise woke me up. It sounded like jungle dragons patrolling. It was 9 in the morning; don’t they usually patrol during the night? Please I’m being a good fox, I’m trying to stay out of trouble!

I decided to ignore it because anything that has to do with dragons meant trouble. I used [waterfall] to climb the waterfall and went upstream. A lot of different kinds of frogs inhabited this area but not the ones I needed.

I spent 3 hours looking through the water and the mud. I tried to find these frogs like any human would but this didn't seem work. It was time for my Elgards eyes and located these clear frogs and giant jungle snake not far from here, it was snacking on frogs. Some of these frogs were clear frogs.

I can't find frogs in a peaceful situation, of course, they are getting snacked on by a giant jungle snake… I decided to approach this as an assassin and grabbed a handful of pebbles from the river and used [Turning Leaf] on every clear frog in sight, storing them in my dimensional pocket one by one. I remembered to also store some river water. The jungle snake was confused. It was sure it went after frogs. Why was its mouth filled with pebbles? Other types of frogs weren't as lucky and ended up as a snack.

I caught 123 clear frogs. There were still more than enough frogs left.

I can see why this snake came here; this is like frog heaven.

I made a mental note of this place in case I ever need frogs again. Another jungle snake appeared and also started to feast on frogs. These frogs sure have it rough. I wanted to teleport back to Daggerfall but I didn't drop a dimensional anchor there. I was about to start running but decided that I should pay Vinny a visit. Destination: the hollow tree!

Not many dragons were home. They didn't notice me sneak in. I was about to sneak into Vinny’s lair when I remembered what happened the last time. I sent a small burst of nature energy to notify him that someone was here.

“Hmm? Who’s there?” It is me.

“Oh Agnis!” Wait how did you know?

“Only you would answer like that come in.” I entered his lair and he was organizing some items in his collection. You are alone? Where is your girlfriend?

“Oh her… we broke up.” Oh, but you got along so well, maybe a bit too well.

“She found that I spent too much time doing stuff that didn't matter. I visited that place you told me about by the way. Mastering my human form was rough but I just had to hide my horns. Look.” He pointed and I saw a single blue ghost truffle. It was the one that looked very old the last time I saw it. It seemed quite healthy now. “The spores are doing fine but I’m afraid I can only grow 1 truffle out of it, it will take a long time before they grow in numbers where I can give you some, sorry.” No don’t apologize! This is good news!

“I also returned from the northeast elven forest 4 days ago, I met your friend Sylvana and had a productive chat, unfortunately, her elders refused to budge but she promised to visit here in the near future.” Wow, how much did you even do in the time I was away? You really are improving the image of dragons!

“Well unfortunately that drove my girlfriend away… she didn't seem to find those issues important. And that I should do more whatever I want. I tried to explain to her that I wanted to do this but she didn't believe me…” Oh... I’m sorry to hear that…

“Maybe you were right, maybe I’m a new race, after all those comments you made about dragons, I started to pay more attention to the dragons around me and you’re right, they are a difficult bunch. I might end up single the rest of my life…” Hey come on, there must be some dragon chick that accepts you, oh how about this? I met one, she is a bit weird but maybe you can hit it off with her! She is an assassin though…

“A dragon as an assassin? You must be joking.” I wish I was… she’s only an assassin in name.

“I guess that falls more in line with what most dragons would do. I guess it won’t hurt to meet her but I am also taking my role as a dragon seriously so that will have to wait. How about you have you found a girlfriend yet, more importantly…” He picked up a handful of red sky mangoes. “Tell me Agnis, how many lives do you have left?” Hey come on we don't need to do this every time I visit you!

“Well, this will be the last batch I can give you for a while so it’s important for you to know that you might not be able to get more lives for the foreseeable future. So, fess up!” So how was your experience on the time capsule?

“Don’t change the subject now!” Uhh, I might have only 21 lives left.

“I knew it!” Vinny changed into his human form pounced on me and shoved the sky mangoes through my throat.

Hey! Not so fast! I could finally breathe properly after Vinny made me eat the last red sky mango.

Ugh, you’re a monster.

“This is the only way. You should be at 42 lives now. This is all you will have for the next 5-6 years. The sky mangoes need to recover for this long, the truffles might be ready in about 2-3 years. You better not die before that!” Thank you, Mr. Botanist.

“Right, let me hear about your adventures but keep it short, I’m going to check out some forests tomorrow and might have to eat a lot of mana in case there is some mana corruption going on.” I will make sure to find someone suitable for you! We can't let this new kind of dragon die out!

“Stop making fun of me! Now tell me what could possibly get you killed this many times!” I told Vinny about my adventures and he told me about his time on the time capsule, how dealing with the Hurricane path had improved his ability to fly and that he went to the elven forest. “So, you self-destructed… can’t say I’m surprised.” I had no choice…

“We’ll be careful next time. I have a long flight in front of me so I have to get ready.” That’s fine, I was planning to head off soon.

“Also, be careful it seems that a lot of strange creatures have popped up lately.” Vinny went to the back of his lair to get ready. I left and thought about those words. Does he mean that demons are running loose? But I told him my story he surely must have then recognized them as demons, or do they all look different? Maybe something else is going on. This planet does seem in a poor state so it shouldn't be surprising that more and more weird shit is going to pop up. I went home. I wondered if I should spend one more night here or head to Daggerfall. I wasn't in any rush so I decided to spend another night here.