Velia found Jack lying against a wall that was once a proper house in this village.

“Why didn’t you answer?” She raised her eyebrows but was still delighted to see him.

Jack brought out the communication device, which had been damaged by the man’s aura, and shrugged.

“Broken!”

“So, did you find anything?”

“No, how about you?”

His companion took out a bag and gave it to Jack. He opened it, and his eyes quickly brightened up. Inside were crystal shards, blue and silver in color, from which he could tell they were Soul Essence.

“Are they still good?” Velia asked.

“This will do,” Jack answered with a smile. “I can recycle them later.”

Velia sighed in relief. She had thought this trip would be for nothing.

As for Jack, he put the whole bag into his inventory ring. These pieces of Essence might be useless now, but with an Essence Condenser, he would make it work.

Then, a strange feeling suddenly arose inside his body, making him frown. It was a vague creeping sensation, slowly chipping away at his endurance and focus. Being a Maester had made Jack extremely aware of his physical condition. The poison dose the man had given him had been kept track of ever since it entered his body. It had mostly coagulated itself at a certain spot, sometimes leaking out a bit through his bloodstreams but would remain relatively harmless until the designated date. The feeling right now was more like a slight illness.

He immediately put on his gas mask, then proceeded to regulate his inner mana flow to enhance his resistance and create a distance from Julia.

“What are you doing?” The adventurer said with a frown.

“It’s best that we keep our distance for now,” Jack said. “I may have caught some kind of disease.”

“Disease? Are you joking…?”

She instinctively leaped backward a bit without finishing the sentence, pressing her hand on the gas mask on her face. Heralds usually had better resistance against common sickness thanks to their superior physique. Therefore, should one show symptoms of health problems, it was indeed an alarming thing.

Jack bit his teeth and started wondering. The floating green crystal he had seen at the end must have had something to do with all of this. And there was only one person who knew how long it had been here. He would need to do a full body checkup as soon as possible to assess the situation.

“Let’s go back,” Jack said. “I will ask a Maester to help me.”

Velia nodded. She kept her distance all the way home.

Jack decided not to return to his parents but instead isolated himself in his lab. The space had already been equipped with sterilizers for production purposes. His first order of business was to list a few ingredients for Dean to collect. Then, Jack readjusted his gas mask so he may go outside if necessary.

An hour later, Dean returned with the stuff and was asked again to contact Julia to see if she could come and see him. His former teacher was a venerated member of not only the school but also the Medical Center. If someone could help him now, it would be her.

Jack spent the rest of the day analyzing samples of his blood and body fluid. After two days of intense work, he finally gave a sigh of relief, realizing the sickness he had caught was not too severe. With enough mana to suppress it and a few doses of resistance enhancer, everything would be back to normal. Should this infect someone else, that person would likely turn out much worse than him. Still, the core itself persisted. The substance that caused this was beyond his current knowledge. His limited Maester level stopped him from digging any deeper, no matter how hard he tried.

Julia wouldn’t come, according to Dean. The teacher was still too busy with the recruitment and training of the students returning from Mocester. In addition, Jack hadn’t earned that privilege yet.

Without any other option, Jack had to go to Rolerra and wait in front of Julia's office. As the sun rose to noon, Julia walked up to the stairs and caught sight of the boy.

“Any business here, Jack?” She asked, inserting the key into the door.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Jack noticed her hair was even messier than their previous encounter. The usual eyebags were still there on her face.

“Can I ask for five minutes of yours?”

“Make it quick; I don’t have much time.”

“I’m sick,” Jack said, pointing at the mask on his face.

That was all it took for the Maester teacher to signal him to enter. Sensing Jack’s Herald aura, she did find his condition interesting.

Her room was small, with books, notes, glassware, and containers all over the place. On the desk in the corner was a stack of paper, along with some sort of experimental device. The window on the other side shone with rays of flickering light on the dust floating in the air. A mixture of moldy pages, medicine, and chemical odor overwhelmed its visitor’s olfactory system.

Julia, still in her usual robe, went to her desk, flipped up a few things, then checked on the liquids flowing inside the mechanism before her. She murmured with it for a while, then returned to Jack.

“Take a seat,” she said.

Jack complied and chose the chair right next to his teacher’s working area.

“How are you feeling?” Julia put on her glass, staring at Jack, asking.

“A bit tired,” Jack answered.

“And how did you conclude you are sick rather than, say, having training fatigue?” She said with a frown on her face. “I was expecting something more distinctive.”

“I don’t think it was the exercising.”

“You think? So you think your thinking is always true?”

The prodigy of Rolerra as he was now, Julia couldn’t care less to give him any special treatment. After all, she thought, Maester was not his specialty.

Jack shrugged, took out a tube from his ring, and put it in a box, giving it to her.

“You can check it,” Jack suggested.

Holding back a long sigh, Julia grabbed the tube containing Jack’s blood and eye-tested it. A curious look soon appeared on her face.

“There seems to be something weird flowing inside,” Julia commented.

“Is that so? Does that mean I was right?” Jack pretended as if he had no idea about it.

“I can’t be certain yet,” Julia said, contemplating. “I need to take a closer look.”

Then, Julia put the box inside her own inventory ring. She then turned to Jack again with a pair of wary eyes.

“Have you made any contact with anyone ever since you felt sick?” She asked.

“I’ve been isolating myself. I also crafted this gas mask with a mana barrier.”

Julia bent forward to see it. Using her Maester examination skills and pair of specialized glasses, she could tell his breath didn’t contain that strange substance, not that she was aware of.

“Good, very good. You should continue to do so until I say otherwise. I don’t necessarily want to lock you up at the Medical Center. That would cause quite a ruckus.”

Jack nodded, writing down something on a piece of paper, and showed it to Julia.

“Are you familiar with any of this?” Jack asked.

Julia leaned her head, looking at the drawing of the green crystal. Unlike other shards, sharp spikes grew along its lengthy structure.

“I’m not sure about this one,” Julia said. “Why this?”

“I think I got sick after seeing this thing,” Jack answered.

The Maester teacher took a closer look at the picture, searching through her memory for clues, but she eventually gave up.

“I really don’t know what this is,” Julia said.

“Can you look into it?” A little unease, his voice was.

“Maybe, after I’m done with you first.”

“Please, prioritize this first!”

Julia lifted her eyes from the drawing and gave him an irritated look.

“You must know what the more urgent matter is, right? Should you turn out to be the source of a new plague, it’s my job to take any precautionary measures, not looking into trivial stuff like this.”

“I saw it at Wildewatch,” Jack said.

She gave him a startled look.

“How?” Julia questioned.

“It doesn’t matter. What matter is who knows how long that crystal has been there. All I did was take a glance at it from afar, then run for my life, and I got sick already. Can you imagine how it would affect the people and other life forms around it with extended exposure? I think its nature and origin is the more urgent matter.”

Julia bit her lips, thinking about the recent monster activity. In a sense, they are also sick. The Maester community hadn’t really gotten a firm grasp on what had been happening to the creatures, despite all the urging and financial support from the Adventurer Guild. Therefore, even though she had never considered Jack reliable, the clue he had just given her provoked her curiosity.

Jack placed another tube with a black goo inside it.

“I found this inside the skull of a berserk monster. I think you should do a cross-examination with my blood just to be sure,” Jack suggested, having already learned the connection between the two. He would need her capability and influence to prepare himself for whatever was to come. Maesters were always at the forefront of the war against diseases and plagues. Julia would serve well being the bridge and the catalyst for that.

Julia nodded, not really paying any attention to the black slimy substance, samples of which she had seen a lot. She also didn’t give Jack any more questions about how he had learned and gotten his hand on so many things. She could figure out all of this through her network without his consent.

“Alright, I’ll try my best.”

“Thank you,” Jack said.

He then left Julia to return to her work. Jack understood the risk of sharing such information, but he couldn’t spare any more time thinking about it. He feared the disease had already crept its way here, in Oxdale. Adventurers who had fought monsters and purged Wildewatch had already carried its seed. Without any recognition and early reactions, who knew what would the consequences be?