Well at least Sor Nelius is happy with my improvement in alchemy, Jayde thought, as she stored the last bottle away. Sor Dinia Nelius had been surprised by just how much his young disciple had improved over the past week.
Jayde felt a tiny bit guilty as Sor Nelius was convinced that Jayde was an alchemy prodigy. Jayde snorted, thinking back to how ecstatic the small man had been. He had been overflowing with compliments, only Jayde knew that the only reason her alchemy skills had improved drastically was that she had been brewing potions and refining pills for thirty days straight.
Luckily Jayde had already informed Isha weeks ago not to sell any more of their basic herbs on the inter-dimensional market, so at least they had sufficient amount of herbs for all the potions and pills she had needed to make. Unfortunately, Jayde had used all their stock, but it wasn't too much of a problem as Isha had informed Jayde earlier they had crops that would be ready to harvest in a few days.
The Hamadryad already had a tremendously positive effect in Jayde's herb garden. The herbs growing in her herb garden were of a much higher grade than any herbs found in the Lower Realm. Their vast amount of spiritual Qi that the herbs had absorbed made the herbs more potent, which meant Jayde could use a lot less to create her potions, and with the Hamadryad effect, the herbs were growing quicker.
Jayde only problem was now that she wasn't selling as many herbs on the inter-dimensional market as she had previously, nor could Jayde sell any of the potions she had just brewed, Isha business on the inter-dimensional market had died down quite a bit. Jayde had already informed Isha that with the next batch of herbs, she would brew more potions and refine bone cleansing pills which she will hand over to Isha to sell.
Jayde was desperate to buy the next upgrade for the herb garden. She really needed to increase the size of her herb garden, as the small garden just wasn't big enough to supply herbs for the potions she needed for Shaihshire and the inter-dimensional market. Nevermind if she wanted to sell potions in Maianna's shop.
That was also something she would have to look into soon—training young apprentices to brew potions. Unlike refining pills, potion making didn't require mental strength, just a little bit of magic. With patience and proper training, anyone could be taught how to brew basic potions. It was only when brewing intermediate or advanced potions that a mage needed mental strength, and that was just to purify and enhance the magical properties of the herbs.
But Jayde had already determined that the herbs from her garden didn't need to be purified or enhanced. Jayde figured that if her herbs were used then even someone with any a small amount of magic could brew an intermediate potion. But since she couldn't let it been known that she had a dimensional space where she could grow herbs, Jayde wanted to find a way to increase the potency on herbs grown in the Lower Realm.
Which is why she had taken all her Aura stones and crushed them. She wanted to bury the crush aura stones deep beneath the earth in the area she had allocated in Shaihshire to grow herbs. She had come up with the idea after she remembered that she when initially expanded her area for Yinxin the Proteus Artifact had charged her points as well as Aura stones, Jayde recalled Isha telling her at the time that the Proteus Artifact needed those stones to generate Qi.
Jayde figured that if the Proteus Artifact had to use Aura stones to generate Qi, then surely she could do something similar. Although she was taking a massive gamble by using her remaining Aura stones for her experiment, Jayde figured it was worth the risk if it worked out. Besides she had other ways to cultivate, she didn't think the loss of a few Aura stones would be detrimental to her cultivation.
Well, at least I now had enough potions and pills for Shaihshire for a couple of months, Jayde thought. She really needed to get back to training. Both White and Thorn had been giving her a hard time lately as she hadn't entered the Blood Tower in nearly a month. White because she wasn't training and Thorn because Jayde wasn't concentrating on upgrading him.
Jayde still hadn't tried to enter level five of the Blood Tower, up until now she had spent her time redoing level one to four with Reiko and Yinxin improving their coordination and teamwork. Since Jayde had to travel to Shaihshire again today, she wanted to take the next Restday to enter the fifth level.
Jayde calculated that if she entered her dimensional space just after her bout in the Combat arena that would give her nearly two days or twenty days inside. And since the Blood Tower time ran differently from the time inside her dimensional space Jayde was sure that she would have enough time to reach level ten within that time.
Since Jayde now had the amulet that protected her from aging, she was no longer worried about spending a year in the Blood Tower training. According to Jayde calculations, she would have just over eighteen months in the Blood Tower, which should be more than enough time to reach level ten.
Besides from leveling up Thorn, Jayde wanted the time to train to prepare for her six-month assessment, which was coming up soon. Besides having to survive in the Leiquet Forest on her own for three weeks, Jayde was sure that Alezander Dutelet and his friends had something planned for her.
Ever since Jayde had defeated Alezander Dutelet, she had noticed him and his friends observing her. But up until now, they hadn't made a move against her. Jayde had been sure that they would attack her when she visited Aeris on Restdays, but they hadn't bothered her at all. It was only after she found out that the third-year students were responsible for the safety of the first years during their six-month assessment that Jayde realized that they were waiting for her to enter the Leiquet Forest.
Every year the school lost a couple of students during their six-month assessment, so if anything happened to Jayde during this time, it wouldn't raise any suspicions. Initially, Jayde hadn't been too concerned about Alezander Dutelet and his friends, she had been sure she would be able to handle the six of them.
But while walking back from the Combat Arena yesterday, Jayde had noticed Alezander talking amicably with the thin young boy who had been one of the eight boys who had tried to blackmail Jayde, Raven, Ash, and Nova when they had tried to enter the school gate after making it up the mountain during their entry assessment.
If those eight boys teamed up with Alezander's group, then Jayde might have a problem dealing with all fourteen of them. Nova had already informed Jayde that two of the boys in Alezander's group were powerful duel class mages. Since both of those teenagers were also Knights of the 8th Class, Jayde wanted to level up. At least if she broke through to 9th class, she would have an advantage against them.
Jayde was hoping that with eighteen months of continuous training, she could even breakthrough to 10th class. If that happened, then Jayde would have no problems dealing with those boys. If those boys were so eager to court death, Jayde had no problem accommodating them.
Walking outside of her cottage Jayde found Ash, Nova, and Raven already waiting for her. Ever since they had returned from Shaihshire last week, the four had grown increasingly closer. Both Nova and Raven had fallen in love with Shaihshire, and couldn't wait to return. All three had volunteered to spend their three-month year-end vacation in Shaihshire training the villages.
It had been Ash's suggestion since most low, and common born citizens didn't have access to proper trainers, they had no idea how to fight. With this in mind, and knowing the danger Shaihshire will face in the future, Ash had suggested that Jayde start training camps for the villagers.
Jayde had been moved by their offer. Unfortunately, Jayde wouldn't be able to spend her year-end holiday with them, since she had already made plans with Isha to take another off-world assignment. She had considered changing her plans, but now that she knew Ash, Nova, and Raven were going to be in Shaihshire during that period she decided to follow her initial idea and accept an off-world mission.
When Jayde had informed Ash, Nova, and raven that she wouldn't be able to join them during their three-month vacation, they were initially disappointed, but when Jayde told them that she trusted them to look after her people in her stead, they were overjoyed that Jayde trusted them to that extent. Jayde had been amused as she listened to the three discuss and finalize who would be training which classes. After a heated discussion, the three came up with a solution that they all agreed to.
While Jayde was slightly disappointed that she would be able to join the three, especially after seeing such how enthusiastic they all were, Jayde was hoping to earn another upgrade for the Proteus Artifact, even though Isha had cautioned her that it would be nearly impossible as upgrades to the Proteus Artifact were incredibly rare. While Jayde took note of Isha's advice, she nevertheless couldn't help being hopeful that she would be lucky again.
The one thing Jayde had come to appreciate was that her luck had changed ever since she had arrived in Doha. In the Federation, Jayde had thought that she had been cursed as she had seemed to be the most unlucky person around. During her years in the Federation, Jayde had resigned herself to knowing that if anything could go wrong, it would. She had been a living example of Murphy's Law, but now it was like the universe was trying to make up for her past sixty years of bad luck.
Jayde knew it was quite foolish thinking such fanciful thoughts, but she had to admit that everything just seemed to work out for her lately. Whenever she stumbled upon an obstacle, somehow there as always a solution readily available. Just take the mine in Shaihshire as an example. Jayde had been racking her brains about how to get her hands on a sufficient quality of Dwarven Dark Gold.
She had even contemplated returning to the Dark Forest and mining some from the small cave where she had run into the fire spirit. But all of those plans had been for naught, as Braedyn ad already stumbled upon a vast mine.
On the way down the mountain, the four spoke about the upcoming assessment. Since the evaluation would be taking place in the next three weeks, it was the only thing the first years were talking about. Besides the risk of losing one's life in the Leiquet Forest, the most crucial factor was that all first-year students cultivation resources were reallocated based on their performance during this six-month assessment.
This meant that should a student perform poorly, their cultivation resources would be reduced, which would lead to them falling further behind their classmates. In all likelihood, most first-year students who had their cultivation resources decreased ended up being expelled from Damonia at the end of the year, mostly due to them failing to achieve sufficient improvement. Only students who were extremely lucky in the betting pools and managed to win cultivation resources had a slim chance of making it through to the second year.
✽✽✽
📌 Quote of the day
"A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves." -- Lao Tzu
✽✽✽
📢 Interesting in supporting this novel? Considering buying me a coffee at http://ko-fi.com/djrogue or you can donate via https://www.paypal.me/djrogue1.
© 2019 DJ Rogue. All rights reserved