Chapter 29
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‘What should I tell him?’ Zairen murmured to himself.
Another day had passed quickly, and it was now afternoon once again: the scheduled time for his next meeting with Finn. Zairen stood in front of the central square’s entrance, unsure of what to do.
At this point, he did not doubt Finn’s authenticity. If that previously bratty boy had not truly changed, he would not have had the dedication to run for so long around the square.
However, despite being aware of Finn’s dedication, he was not willing to have him as a disciple.
This was because he was primarily interested in strengthening himself, and did not want to spend excess time training someone else that was not part of his family. He held this belief rather firmly, especially after getting attacked by the silver masked assassins and the governor.
He looked around at the bustling scene around him.
Many people were walking about, talking with each other, and trading goods.
Even through the bustle, he quickly spotted Finn, who was standing idly in the middle of that busy walkway, surrounded by a line of huge carts. With the way Finn was postured, he was clearly the owner of those carts.
Finn looked around and then spotted Zairen. His eyes lit up.
“Master!”
With an excited expression, he came running over to give a respectful bow.
Zairen nodded, and was about to say something in response, but was interrupted by Finn.
“I have the herbs I owe you!”
“......”
Zairen furrowed his brows, and wondered: ‘...herbs? ...what herbs?’
Rubbing his chin, he found he had no idea what Finn was talking about.
But then, a flash on remembrance flashed through his head.
On the day that he and Finn had fought in the clearing, they had made a bet: if Finn won the fight, Zairen would never go near Alivia again, and if Zairen won the fight, Finn would buy him all the herbs available in the central square.
Surprisingly, Finn had fulfilled his side of the bet!
“That day, when we fought in that clearing, it was clearly my loss.” Finn said. “If you hadn’t held back, I would have been crushed in a second! I was impetuous and naive.”
Saying that, he walked over to one of the big carts next to him, putting his hand on the tarp.
“It took quite a while... but after scouring the entire marketplace, my father and I finally managed to buy all these!”
He lifted the tarp, revealing what was underneath.
“...wha…!”
Zairen let out an audible gasp.
There was an enormous quantity of herbs in the cart.
Flowers… roots… mushrooms… leaves. All stacked neatly, and in the thousands!
Zairen was truly stunned.
Compared to the supply of herbs that he had bought from grandpa Dinran, this enormous cart tens of times larger!
Not only that, there was a whole caravan of carts!
“Finn… you didn’t have to do this.” Zairen said hesitantly.
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Truthfully, however, as he stared at the cargo inside of the carts, he was very impressed with that huge quantity of herbs. With such a huge selection, he could make many more different types of medicines and pills, and possibly Dragon Poison Antidote pills with a much greater potency!
“Of course I had to, master!” Finn immediately retorted. “A deal’s a deal. If I couldn’t fulfill my part of a bet and respect you, how could I call myself your disciple?” Glancing toward Zairen, he gave an honest smile.
Looking into Finn’s eyes, Zairen suddenly felt guilty. He and Finn had vastly contrasting motives in meeting in the central square today.
‘By the looks of it, Finn seems to have truly changed into a hard-working and straightforward person,’ Zairen couldn’t help but ponder, bringing his hand up to rub his chin.
“All right. Thank you. I'll be accepting these.”
That huge supply of herbs was really too enticing to refuse.
Finn laughed, and rubbed his head embarrassingly. “No... don’t thank me, master. Honestly… I really should have delivered them sooner. After all, almost a week has passed since that fight in the clearing!”
Zairen revealed a slight expression of mirth, his wariness leasened.
“Hold out your hand.”
“...huh?”
Although a bit confused, Finn obediently stuck out his hand.
Zairen grasped Finn’s hand and closed his eyes. Then, he carefully probed Finn’s veins with his spirit energy.
A moment later, his eyes widened and a surprised expression appeared on his face.
“Is there something wrong?” Upon seeing Zairen’s expression, Finn furrowed his brows.
“No…”
Zairen quickly reverted his expression.
Inwardly, however, his mind was reeling.
‘Finn has a natural affinity with earth type spirit energy! Although he is not as talented as Alivia, who has a stronger fire type affinity, he can definitely be considered a genius. What’s with all these random geniuses?’
“...master?” Finn asked. He was befuddled, and didn't know what Zairen was up to.
“You’re my disciple, right?” Zairen smirked. “Help me take all these carts back to the cabin.”
Although he was planning to store all of these herbs into the gray ring’s interdimensional space, he couldn't do it in public without attracting attention.
Finn and Zairen spent the next hour taking all of the carts back to Grandpa Dinran’s residence.
Before dismissing him, Zairen told Finn that he would call for him when it was time to teach him anything.
Finn bounced on his heels excitedly and bade him farewell as he ran off.
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A few hours later.
Zairen was sitting on the ground in his room, his hands extended over a ceramic bowl filled with swirling powder. Thin streams of milky-white spirit energy flowed into the mixture constantly, causing Zairen to sweat.
Eventually, the powder combined to form a small, ominous-looking, pitch black pill.
“Success!” Zairen exhaled. He picked up the black pill and couldn't help but smile.
The pill was a Dragon Poison Antidote. However, unlike before, in which the pills had only 2% efficacy, this pill had 20% the efficacy of the original of his previous life! With his now massive selection of herbs, Zairen had managed to switch in all the optimal herb types into the pill, and for this one in particular, had included some rare high-grade herbs!
This one was the tenth Dragon Poison Antidote he had concocted today. The past nine Dragon Poison Antidotes were made from only common ingredients, so for them, he only managed to reach 10% potency of the pill he had created in his previous life. However, for the last pill, he had used some of the rarest herbs in his newly large selection, which resulted in the pill having a quite large potency compared to the previous pills.
However, even 10% potency was much better than his previously concocted pills, which only had a pitiful 2% potency!
“Phew,” Zairen tried to regain his breath. Refining pills was very spirit energy intensive, and often left him completely spent. Luckily, his spirit energy capacity had greatly increased, or else he wouldn't be able to make many pills at all.
As he took up a meditative position, he glanced down at the gray ring on his finger. ‘I should check on the mysterious woman in the ring again… I wonder how she’s doing.’
After thinking for a moment, he sent his spirit energy into it, as the same nuanced layer as always, and peered into the interdimensional space. He looked around for a bit, and then locked his attention onto the mysterious black-haired woman.
Suddenly, his eyes widened.
Although the woman’s appearance hadn’t changed much… Was it just his imagination, or was the pressure coming from the mysterious woman weakening?
Zairen sucked in a breath. ‘Could it be… The mysterious woman is weakening? Her pressure had been stable until now. If this is the case… Then her body is giving in, and she likely won't last much longer!’
He noticed that the woman’s spotless face was contorted in agony, much more dramatically than it had been prior, which confirmed his suspicions.
He had just checked on the woman the day prior - in just one day, the poison suddenly seemed to have grown much more vicious!
Zairen’s eyes suddenly glazed with determination. ‘There’s no time to lose! I have to act, quick!’
Once Dragon Poison began to win over the body’s defenses and pushed through a stalemate, it would act quickly. Most likely, the woman wouldn't last much longer than a few days, and with each day that passed, she would get dramatically harder to cure!
She was truly lucky that Zairen happened to be present at this time.
He quickly pulled out some spirit energy regenerating pills and swallowed them, before furiously meditating.
Only half an hour later, Zairen was already back to full strength.
“Phew.” In the next moment, he preemptively took out and swallowed a few injury healing, stamina recovering, and spirit energy regenerating pills. They took a little bit of time to take effect, so it would be perfect to allow Zairen to last longer under immense pressure.
Finally, without a moment of hesitation, he sent himself into the gray ring!
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