Christopher and Tris were sitting in a small living room, there was wine on the table and two dwarf bodyguards guarding the door. The scene was similar of how a godfather of the underworld was hearing a ply for mercy from a person whom couldn't pay for protection.
Kurlidandr was kneeling on the floor in front of the table where they sat, his condition was rather disastrous, of course it was his own fault to begin with, he didn't care about the store and withdrew the money for its management to buy rare ingredients, wasting them as if they were cabages grown in his back yard.
In truth Christopher knew that something like that would happen, in truth their earnings were already cut in half, he even gave up a 10% of his own 50% in order for Kurlidandr to use it to manage the shop, after all it wasn't exactly fair for him to take 50% while Kurlidandr could only really enjoy 30% of it, thus he made that difference into a 40/40 while the 20% went for the shop's management, although the shop was under Kurlidandr's name and he only took gains from the Altelixirs like they had agreed long ago, of course how could the greedy dwarf care about the meager profit the shop made, which wasn't even enough to support the store to begin with.
So due to bad management Kurlidandr was now back in debt, with no ingredients to make Altelixirs and still bound by an oath that half of the money he made from them would go to Christopher's pocket, with those conditions he could of course find another sponsor, but would the sponsor be happy to pay his debts for a 25% or the profits, of course he would even with 20% they would still agree, but would the greedy dwarf be satisfied with just 30% of the total earnings, even before it became 40% he was still stealing from both Christopher's share and the shop's working funds, so what is there to say about now.
Crocodile tears could be seen on Kurlidandr's face, making Christopher feel bad, but Tris seemed to enjoy this. Of course Christopher had long left all business matters to Tris and an old Gnome whom introduced himself as a financial advisor, whom instantly brought together a group of all known races, calling themselves the investment advisors.
"Master Kurlidandr, we have inspected your financial management and came to the decision that if we loan you enough money to float, we will gain no further profit from it at all, since the majority of our profits come only from your concotions and not your store's lifeline, but there are still a few ways to come to an agreement"
The elderly Gnome financial advisor said, His face well shaved and his hair and his sideburns well combed like an old lion looking at a young child.
"I'm so sorry, please help me, I only need a few more millions and my finest creation will be complete!"
Kurlidandr didn't seem to be on the same page as them, truth was that if he had hired the same gnome and only used the clear profit to experiment he wouldn't have been in such a deep mess.
Of course another problem were the people he had hired, of course they were family and all, but they were completely inept in managing the counter and store, even worse they couldn't even concote the most basic of potions, they were completely useless in his large potion selling store, like maggots sucking the juice from a well made delicious dish or flies flying around a chocolate cake, as delicious as it might seem and taste, the flies will always make your appetite drop.
Of course by the end of the day no agreement was reached, in truth Christopher had already loaned Kurlidandr money once before, that's also the reason why he came for more, that time Christopher had felt somewhat bad for him, since after all it was him whom was creating and selling the elixirs, but by the end of the day nothing changed.
Kurlidandr simply didn't understand how to balance his earnings, well in truth Christopher didn't need Kurlidandr anymore due to simply investing in other better managed businesses, he was now considered a big investor in the Dwarven City of Doldri, if he was a dwarf he would even have been appointed as a noble, but as human he wasn't eligible to such a title.
Of course Christopher considered the money he loaned him before as a gift rather than a loan, there didn't ask for it, but he wasn't an idiot, he still had plans of his own, of course forgetting about the altelixirs which he couldn't even stomach, he even sold the complete twelve he was gifted for a humongous price to the dwarves, of course he was sure that Kurlidandr had more such potions stored somewhere, but why should he care, that dwarf was simply becoming too much of a pain in the ass.
Christopher even heard rumors from a reliable source that he had gone to meet some nobles and asked them to to kill "him"(Christopher), in exchange for some perfected Altelixirs, of course no noble was stupid enough as to go target someone whose wealth is enough to crush them and their businesses, of course one noble whom agreed to do it, will regret it for a long time, since the next day half of his assets suffered terrible loses due to artificial devaluation of goods, after that matter non dared to try the iron fist of the financial advisor.
In the end Kurlidandr gave up, he became timid and lifeless like a corpse, he only created the already finished altelixirs and was really happy when he gathered enough funds to buy materials, it was a boring daily routine that reminded him that small dusty laboratory in the swampy mines.
Looking around him now he could luxurious tools, reinforced Glass tube, crystal bottles and golden kettles, but he himself felt as if that small stuffy laboratory where he came up with those same altelixirs was a paradise in front of this golden cage, where he was forced to produce the same concotions again and again.
Kurlidandr that day discovered his first white hair, of course to a dwarf white hair were a sign of wisdom, but most importantly he was growing old.
He had still dozens of wives and a handful of children, but non of them sees Alchemy in the same light as himself, they even curse at him when he spends enormous sums on expensive materials or experiments freely.
He remembered back to the small store in the back alley, where he used ass cheap materials to create those minor healing potions, how come he felt more happy then, than he was now.
Tears flowed from his eyes and fell inside the kettle he was using to concote his final experimental potion, it would be the last time he would be able to use such extravagant materials, he had given an oath to his wives and children, he even borrowed money from Christopher for one final concotion, the ultimate elixir, the creation of a lifetime.
Of course the financial advisor was against it, buy hearing his story Christopher couldn't let this once brilliant alchemist's final concotion to lack the finest of ingredients.
"if you have decided this to be your final expriment, then I hope that you will not regret it, make something that will leave your legacy throughout the ages"
These were Christopher's words, Kurlidandr of course was inspired by the words, but he was more moved by the millions that he was given simply for this final concotion, even the financial advisor and Tris begun calling Christopher crazy, only then Kurlidandr discovered that he and the young man had something similar, they both had dreams, his dream was to create the Best Elixir, a true elixir, but he had never stopped to ask about Christopher's dreams, a person whom each time he came to visit sat silently on a desk writing something in a notebook, while magical books and theories were all over the study room.
In a way he saw himself inside of him, but he couldn't understand what the man in front of him was searching for in that pile of books, he even learned that the potions he had gifted him had long been sold in an auction and had done the same, but all the earnings on his parts were spent on materials.
The kettle begun boiling hot as bubbles begun to rise, Kurlidandr begun vigorously mixing the concotion, he had spent so much effort on it, letting it to burn would be the greatest tragedy of his life.
The smoke from the kettle was collected and sucked into a strange magic contraption on the ceiling, filling up a glass vial on the working table.
Kurlidandr was now mixing the kettle, as he thought of the time he had tried to let Christopher die, he was desperate thinking that he would have to stop experimenting and killing Christopher would help him take ownership of the store while erasing all of Christopher's debts.
He could only spit as he thought of that time, how brind and stupid he was, was it really worthy to lose the only person whom he could call friend, even his relatives turned their backs to him when they learned that he had gone in debt again.
He spit three times as he lowered the fire and begun to fill the vials with the mixture in the kettle, he even scrapped the bottom of the burned remnants to use them as ingredients, he wouldn't leave even the slightest waste to go unused.
"This is my final experiment, so I might as well enjoy myself"
He said to himself as he laughed like a madman, tears falling into the vial he was holding, he collected them all while laughing at himself.
Many people now called him Master Alchemist, but he himself knew full well that he was no master, that one kettle he brew would at more create a single successful potion, he was probably the disgrace of all alchemists, others would create 100 healing potions with a single kettle, he would create 100 random potions, that was his mutated skill, he gambled on the result, even with the right ingredients whether he got the best result was still a 50%, meaning that in 100 healing potions there could be a chance that not even one of them would be a healing potion.
That was also why he only created a few Altelixirs, they were simply too wasteful, if a proper master alchemist was given the same materials, well other than he wouldn't know what to do with them, he could still create hundreds or thousands of orthodox concotions, thereas he could only create a dozen or so, the rest were all wastes and poisons, which he would mix once more to get some even more useless junk.
Memories passed his mind as he took the first two vials, he put one into the distiller and another to the electrolysis tube.
He didn't mendle much as he begun distributing the vials one to each of the laboratory's tools.
At times some of themsimply exploded, others turned into a muckus substance, there were even some that disappeared altogether.
Of course he wasn't discouraged, he had many more vials, he did the same once more as he replaced the vials and cleaned the tools from wastes.
He always did the same thing twice, some times they gave him strange effects the second time, of course he had to replace the destroyed vials and tools, but he now had a gigantic laboratory, there were dozens of replicas of the same tool.
The second time he narrowed his tools to the ones that gave some useful result. Replacing the vials for the third time, he of course made sure to hold some of the original liquid as well, repetition and observation, a routine he never got bored of, especialy since he didn't know what the result would be.
This was the final repetition before the final mix. He returned to the present and the past, his own tears were put into vials and now decorated all the tools, he could only laugh out louder and louder, since it was pure madness to use his own tears as an ingredient, but he didn't care, this wasn't the first time he did so.
He remembered long ago when he was still a young alchemist and had gotten his first alchemic laboratory, it was a small table with only a few test tubes, a mortal and pestle and a small space to light a fire.
At that time his parents wouldn't agree to buy him ingredients and he begun heating his own tears in the small testing tube.
He didn't know how pathetic he looked, his face was all swollen from all those tears, he didn't even wear his goggles or other protective gear since he had the ultra expensive protective runes, but deep inside he felt somewhat emotional about them, he had stuffed them inside a small box he held under his bed as a kind of legacy.
He looked at a small red elixir that he was given back by Christopher, it was the dragon mutation elixir with which he had tried to get rid of him, he put it next to all the concotions and then begun one by one mixing the concotions together, a drop at a time.
This process took hours, but he wasn't tired at all, he looked at all the failed mixtures and sighed, there was only one concotion he hadn't added to the mix, the dragon mutation potion.
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Of course in his opinion it was already a complete elixir, it needed no mixing to begin with.
Moment later he laughted at his own comment, "Complete Elixir", so complete that not even himself would dare to drink it.
If it was the him from before he would have just taken his own life, he would without a though drunk the elixir down, but now he had family, a bunch of ungrateful bastards, but still family nonetheless.
He now begun the final stage of mixing all the failures together leaving everything to chance, this was his most hated part, since it was like a desperate cry for a miracle from the bottom of the abyss of failure.
The 256 failures became 128, the 128 became 64 failure, the 64 became 32, 16, 8, 4, 2 and lastly remaining his final failure, a potion so horrible that its only equal could be said the dragon mutation elixir next to it.
Both had the same radiant red glint, both offering death to their consumer, one physical and the other mental.
Kurlidandr of course didn't give up, he took the last two remaining vials and mixed them together only come with another deathly failure.
He laughed, he cried and he dropped his own tears into the now black poisonous mixture, each tear returning its color back into the crimson red colour of blood.
A divine light shined over his concotion and a small drop fell from the sky right into his concotion.
The shocked dwarf identified his own concotion and then fell on his knees thanking the heavens for their mercy.
Non was told that they concotion succeeded, all that they knew was that all the materials were now gone.
Later that week Kurlidandr came to visit, he boasted about his final legacy, but the thing that he brought out was no potion at all, it was a fine blue jewel that gave off a radiant light as if it was the sun itself.
"This is my final creation the legacy will live to my descendants"
He said, of course the dwarven love for gemstones was something innate a trait of their race, thus it was natural that he was happy about it.
Christopher however looked at him with fisheyes as if he looked at an idiot, he had heard so much from this dwarf about the elixir he wanted to make and in the end he happy with a single gemstone. He was plainly disappointed, of course he had no idea about the stone's effects and neither did he care about them, after all it wasn't his own, of course it wouldn't be funny if he was killed by it, but in a way he wasn't the weak mage he was months ago he was now level 50 and he had eaten a lot of stat food at those last few days.
In truth all of his food raised his stats even the wine he was now drinking, he no longer needed the altelixirs or elixirs Kurlidandr made, that was the power of wealth.
Although the skillpoint potions would sound sweet to some, but their defects were too grave to make them worth consuming, after all dying wasn't a price people would accept to pay, well there was of course Ecclesia whom bought them as if they were divine goods, but other than them no one.
There was silence in the room for awhile, Kurlidandr didn't understand why but he felt that he was defeated.
He couldn't understand why even after the blessing of the gods and the creation of the world famous philosopher's stone he still felt as if he was holding a piece of shit.
"Oh, is that an Eala Crystal?"
Suddenly Tris entered unannounced, with eyes full of disdain and hate for Kurlidandr.
Of course hearing the name of an elven creation to decorate his ultimate creation left a bitter aftertaste in his mouth, of course he had no idea that she was right, after all he had never seen an eala crystal in his life, you have to understand that it's not an alchemic ingredient to begin with, and neither Tris had seen a crystal this big before, but it seemed similar so she asked.
You can only imagine Kurlidandr's pain, he had boasted in front of Christopher holding a crystal which Tris mistaked for an elven creation, he would sooner die of shame than admit that it was an eala crystal.
"Where did you find one so big, all I got was these small fingernail crystals"
Tris said while taking out a few small pieces of blue light radiating jewels, almost identical to the dwarf's of course their light was dim and their usefulness in Tris' hands was zero to begin with, she had just come to deliver them to Christopher to show him how the high elven currency looks like.
Of course if a High elf saw the Jewel in the dwarf's hand it would prostrate on its knees begging for him to sell it to it, since the thing in this hands could only be called a Legendary eala Crystal, a thing of legends, very few of them being in existence.
To the dwarves however whom had an ancient grudge with the dwarves, this Jewel was akin to a piece of crap, the most important reason being that it could not hold their soul after death, this was the main reason why dwarves collected gemstones.
Now holding a useless stone to him, Kurlidandr let it fall to the floor and went out while laughing, running around like a madman attracting the attention of all the population.
The final Altelixirs were sold for terrifying prices in the auction houses as Kurlidandr was no longer in his right mind.
His hair had grown white from the shock and he laughed all of the time, but when he was shown the Giant eala stone that was his own legacy, he begun to jump around, while trying to pull his own beard out.
Through identification, the stone was called "Kurlidandr's Legacy", but neither the dwarves nor the High elves wanted it, even the family decided to sell it off at the auction.
The buyer of course was Christopher, he had two reasons to buy the crystal.
One he was rather interested in the magical crystal and secondly because he wanted to help Kurlidandr's family before leaving Doldri mountain.
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Deep in the Neassa woods inside a huge tree known as the tree of life, four heroines were turned into elves, they were of course not forced to go the full trasformation, just the elven blood and pointy ears were enough for them to be taken for elves in the Neassa forest.
Unlike the Eolia coutnry, Neassa didn't discriminate between full-blood elves and mixbloods, at least not actively.
Of course the four girls were too into the whole evolution staff, other than Flora whom decided on a half-elf, the other three whom weren't exactly beauties to begin with were overjoyed with the full makeover.
Joanna and Markella whom were plumpy to begin with became two world class beauties as they fully edited their own appearances to become so.
Effie whom was a little better than average but short, also did the same, of course she kept more parts of her former self than the others.
Flora whom was pretty to begin with selected to become a half elf of course with her pointy ears and elven eyes she looked no different than an elf, only with a slightly bigger bossom.
Elven eyes have a small starlike shape floating in the Iris of their eyes, which allows them to see further, have better kinetic vision and even see in the dark as if it there was a faint source of light, of course their dark vision was rather limited but still better than that of the dwarves, of course the dwarves had a huge advantage in a way that if there was a source of light they could see as well as if it was daytime, while elves only saw the same, you can say that they had the had better eyesight when there was no light at all, but when there was a source of light the dwarves could see further.
Of course in contrast to the High elves, regular elves didn't have fey blood and spirit, instead however they had the nature's spirit and Green touch which enabled them to communicate with the trees and plants.
In reality however the forest elves were like the non magic version of the high elves, in other words they held the same physique bonuses, but lacked all the magic bonuses the High elves had.
The funny stuff however was their currency and magic, they of course used the four elements to cast spells, but their most usual magic was plants, the threw seeds and they grew in seconds into trees,vines,bushes and other plantan forms, of course don't expect them to summon trents and dryads, that was the field of the forest Ogres, another race that specialized in darker sort of forest magic, like mutating plants and planting symbiotic plants inside their own bodies.
The four were each given a teacher, an elven elder with a beard on his face or an elven granny whose hair were white, but small hints of aging could be seen on her face.
Unlike High elves whom were practicaly untouched by age, forest elves aged really slowly, it would take a thousand years for them to become an elder, of course when they are children they still undergo the knew growing spree, like humans do, somewhat slower but it still exists, it takes 140 years for a child to become an adult, you can tell that they will be akin to a 14-18 years old youth by that time.
The four girls were given their own huts, a small house next to each others and next to them lived other elf commoners.
They weren't even seen as heroes in the first place which made them feel somewhat strange, but it wasn't bad, the elven folk were friendly and they shared both food and wine as they all sat on a table that was set in the middle of all the huts.
It was like being one big family, making the girls somewhat emotional as they remembered their own families.
"Big sister, don't cry you will get back home without a problem, just wait until I get older and I'll kill the demon king for you"
A small elven boy with pointy ears and no hair on his head said. It was funny how the handsome elven race's children weren't really as handsome or cute, you could call them human ricecakes, they were like little fatties without hair, both males and females, but that's how biology works, whom could tell that a caterpillar would turn into a butterfly, it was like the story of the ugly duckling.
Of course the child that spoke wasn't a nobody, he was a "talent Ranger" class, meaning that he was at least eligible to enter the dungeon pillar.
Even son however his speech was the naive words of a child, wanton words of pride.
Elves had a different laws in whom could enter the dungeon pillar, for instance even adventurers whom were of the common class weren't allowed into their dungeon pillar, only talented and heroic classes were allowed inside, of course there were exceptions, like common adventurers whom had accomplished the impossible task of reaching level 200 of course only heroic and legendary classes were allowed to go deeper into the dungeon pillar, meaning that to descend further down unless you were a hero you were banned from entry.
Elves or forest elves as they were called all learned how to survive by themselves, meaning that every one of them could easily live alone in a forest for ages to come until he dies, and finding forest wasn't something difficult since they had spells that could turn even a volcanic region into a forest overnight, they could even grow underground forests and the most shocking fact was the underwater forest.
After having diner all elves went home to sleep some of course had guard duty, others had their own personal stuff to do.
At that time the four girls had a pajamas party in Joanna's hut, they simply slept over as they begun to goship about stuff, like what boy from class they liked, how they would like their perfect boyfriend to be, what they understood and lastly about their class,stats and powers.
Joanna,Markella and Flora were mages, while Effie was a warrior.
Joanna's power was called Water of life, healing anyone whom drunk it and it could be preserved, of course she only had 16% chance to create a drop of it, but it could be preserved like a healing potion, although its effects were rather weak.
Markela's power was a little strange, it was called Slow curse, she had 15% chance of casting it and it made the target to slow down a little, she even demonstrated it on an stone which she begun throwing upwards until the spell took effect, the effect wasn't something great, it was almost neglegible to the eyes of a human, but their elven kinetic vision could detect the subtle change in the stone's falling speed, of course the spell only lasted for a single second.
Flora's power was a simple one called Wind lash, from a prospective it could be seen as similar to controling a single gust of wind, making it move as you want it, of course she only had 18% chance to activate it, and lacked any offensive power it was rather pretty when used to form a tiny twister lasting for around 2seconds.
The most however pretty skill was Effie's, she could summon a strange metallic umbrella like weapon, which could be used like a shield to protect them from missiles, of course its defense was a lowly 2points, making it incomperably weak, but the golden strings and shiny surface made it appear rather beautiful, it could be closed and the thin metalic material was folded as she closed it, it was of course not exactly waterproof and its usage was to be discovered yet, but even if destroyed, she could simply summon it again, making a complete one appear, Of course there was no such weapon in the Axis world, but she would discover its uses later in her life.
Their days passed rather boring but safe as if they were in summer camp or something, there weren't any strict rules and the way of teaching was rather lenient and not rush at all, after all they had 100years in front of them to learn as spellbooks, skills and incantations were to be given to them for free, of course that wasn't some special threatment, any elf or mixblood elf citizen could enter and learn skills and spells, of course the books were a property of the library and could not be loaned or borrowed.
The titles,guardian and blessings were something that they would be eventualy given when they were ready to go out adventuring, their elderly teachers were rather timid and didn't rush them at all, they were even told that if other heroes reached the demon King of the 100th floor before them, all they had to do was ask them for a life, there was no way to risk their own lives, even their classmates probably will be happy knowing that they are safe something that they girls could not deny since even before they were more of a baggage rather than a support.
Of course hearing that they would have to wait for 100 years to be able to enter the dungeon pillar did sound rather farfetched, they didn't care since the others would probably only take a few years to make it, or so they naively thought.
Each day passed like the day before, forgetting their purpose, little by little, as if becoming more and more like the elves living next to them, their memories from their own world becoming more and more distant as months passed, their knowledge of this world becoming more solid and their level rising as if it was meant to happen, of course they were still training alongside with small kids, but they wouldn't care something so trivial, after all most of those kids were older than themselves, the youngest being 40years old.