The room had fallen silent as Evee's face was distorted by a deep frown. It was not nice to hear about what had happened to Agra. The news of their enemy harnessing the power of this new disease was even worse. To top it off, they were also part of the barbaric drug trade that had ruined so many lives in Delta.

"Do you really think it's the best move to come to them?" Evee finally asked.

She admitted that their plan wasn't bad. If they built the Tree Route all the way to Y-City, they would not only have a place to fall back to but also instantly have a commercial connection to Y-City once they got rid of The Scene. However, she couldn't help but have doubts.

"Wouldn't they just set up a trap for us? They haven't made a move since then, right? It feels like they are just waiting for us to come to them."

"Sure, but do you really think anything they prepare will be able to stop us?" Lyxiss commented. Her opinion was along the lines of "Even if there was a trap, they could just break through it with brute force."

"I just don't like walking into an obvious trap."

Seth knew what she meant. The blacksmith also had his doubt, but they had to do something. Even less than walking into an open trap, he didn't want to become a sitting duck, or a tortoise hiding in its shell. It didn't mean they were going to run in blindly.

"Don't worry, that is just the rough plan. We are also waiting for one more person to truly come up with a detailed plan," Seth finally said.

"Who?" Evee asked surprised.

" The princess is on her way to join us," Seth revealed.

The blacksmith had gotten her letter the other day when he went to pick up the books Simon had organized for him, using the channels of the System Church. This wasn't really something special, as the System Church was a lot more like an inter-dimensional online shop than the Auction House.

The church just didn't have an interface, so one had to talk to a priest to order something. He had spoken to Simon for suggestions and it had not taken long for the books to arrive. He got the notice that a letter from Leana arrived a little earlier, so he had picked it up together with his books.

"Leana is coming back?!" Fin exclaimed happily. The other had similar reactions.

"Exactly. Simon gave me her letter yesterday. She will become our ambassador from Chrona."

It wasn't a long letter and it lacked a lot of details, but she made it clear, that Leana was going to join their district as their representative of Chrona. This entailed possible additional support from the empire, but they had to wait for her to arrive before they could speak about the details.

"I see. Alright, I will agree with the plan for now, under the condition we reevaluate it after our trip to the Holy Land," Evee agreed for now.

With that, it was decided that they would put their invasion of Ypsilon on ice for now and concentrate on harvesting the Holy Land for all it was worth.

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

…

While the preparations were made for their new expedition, Seth returned to the drawing board. Aside from Leana's Letter, he had also picked up several books that Simon had suggested to him. According to the priest, they were the gold standard of literature for most high-rated crafting professions.

The first of the massive tomes was the "Encyclopedia Metallum", written by Morrigan Hellblazer. It was a comprehensive catalog of metals and a detailed description of their properties.

The second was called "The Map of Mountains and Rivers", a catalog of precious gems, stones, and plants. The author was actually a demon with close ties to the demon prince Stolas, whose powers also played a part in the making of Seth's pendant.

The third was called "Occam's Encyclopedia of 5000 Monsters". Razor Occam was a famous dwarven blacksmith who specialized in dismantling and forging of monster materials. He was one of the few dwarfs who managed to reach the master tier while being restricted to only using monster materials.

There were only these three for now, because they were still extremely expensive, even when Simon gave him a little discount. Seth paid a whopping 50 gold for each book, they were a lot more expensive than many of the books he saw in the auction house.

When the blacksmith asked why he didn't find these in the auction house, despite the books being so expensive, the answer was as underwhelming as it was logical.

"The auction house doesn't have distribution rights for these books. Even if someone wants to sell their old book, the auction house is legally not allowed to accept them as auction items. I was able to pull a few strings since you are a lay member."

Simon hinted that there was actually more behind that restriction, than just lacking distribution rights, but he didn't go too deep into that topic. However, t was enough for Seth to guess, that Chrona wasn't as open to distributing this kind of fundamental and extensive knowledge.

The blacksmith didn't really mind. Chrona was a massive empire, and in the end, having some control over the share of information was expected. The important point was that these books were now in his hands. A quick look into them and Seth was able to tell that they were what he needed, for the most part.

Compared to the systems catalog of materials he had from appraising things, the entries in these books were much more detailed and compiled to quickly find something, if he was looking for a specific property.

Aside from all entries being roughly sorted by elements and alphabet, there were a bunch of indexes that helped find groups of materials with properties that were independent of elemental properties. Things like durability, conductivity, absorbance, and their affinity to different sub-elements or celestial bodies.

For Seth, the first and the third ones were the most interesting at the time. He had gotten the "Map of Mountains and Rivers" because of the information on precious stones and lent it to Alison. Personally, the blacksmith was still hesitant to dive into the subject of Alchemy himself. However, if he did so in the future, he was convinced this book would be a great help.

With the two encyclopedias and his personal experience, he now had the means to narrow down on materials that could work well together. Now he would not have to buy samples from all materials he found at the auction house and cross-test them.

He could get the scarce and expensive ones from the auction house and order the others from Simon. There was also always the option of the dimensional merchant, although the man had not shown up ever since they returned from the Holy Land.

Hubert McCarthy also wasn't among the applicants to join Minas Mar. Seth had not thought about the man recently. Maybe he had joined Delta, like the hero and the slavemancer? Or he had his own business to deal with, who knew? The blacksmith was sure the guy would show up if he needed something, or had something for him.

Otherwise, if Seth needed him for something, the Tower Master was sure he could find him if he really tried looking. At this point, Seth decided that the merchant had taken up enough of his time and started researching the books and writing down names of materials that could show the kinds of synergies he was looking for.

He was bent on spending some time on the alchemy of armor-making before they finished their preparation to enter the Holy Land.