"Here it is" Sir Fredrick said, as he put a myriad of different things on the floor.
"You don't expect me to see it from here, right?" Ezra asked.
His body was still aching and his bones were still screaming. If he was to rest till the condition waned, he would have to stay still for at least three days.
At least!
"So then what do you suggest I do?" Sir Fredrick asked.
"First, sit me up slowly, as slow as you can" Ezra replied.
"I'm not so good at it so I'll just do this" Sir Fredrick said with his hands reaching for Ezra's body.
"Hey, what are you doing? Listen to me, don't do that, you have to be really care-AHHHHHH!"
Ezra was still trying to stop Sir Fredrick from doing something stupid when he felt so much pain assaulting him he thought he would die.
Fortunately, Sir Fredrick put his hands on Ezra's mouth to stop his screams while quickly sitting him up.
For every bit of movement, a cracking sound was heard from multiple places throughout Ezra's body.
By the time he was seated (mind you only seconds had passed), his eyes were bloodshot as he looked at Sir Fredrick, trying with all his will not to let tears spill.
After one and half minutes, with his ragged breathing coming down to a suitable level, he swore to himself inwardly that he would have revenge some day.
Revenge is a dish best served cold after all.
He looked at Sir Fredrick with a piercing glare, which unfortunately did nothing.
He took another thirty seconds to calm himself, before calmly inspecting the magical herbs one after another.
He saw the High-grade mana recovery potion, a radiant blue potion in a white beaker.
The moon grains, these were grains that came from the petals of the moon flower, a flower that passively absorbs energy from the moon.
It hadn't been said, but Orion had one moon of ocean blue colour with a sun of ivory (reddish-yellow) colour.
The next was a small pile of tiny pieces of a snow-white substance, only that it was lightly shining. These were septic flakes.
After that were dark-green roots with small but numerous spikes on them. These were bristle roots.
Then we had a beaker with green-colored liquid, which was most like the rosewood venom.
Two crystalline leaves with one blue and the other green. These were sapphire leaves.
Behind it was what seemed like a pile of sand, only that it had a greenish yellow colour that looked disgusting enough to make one nauseous. This was moss powder.
Then he saw a small vial filled with a red liquid.
He didn't know what it was, and that meant it was what Sir Fredrick had mistook for what Ezra called special water.
Looking at all these ingredients laid bare to him, he asked Sir Fredrick for the use of the special water.
"It's called the Un-limiting Dew"
Unlike the others, I had never heard of such a thing in my previous life. And it seemed Sir Fredrick noticed it, because he explained its use soon after, and I couldn't help but be astonished.
"For every person, there is a limit to how much they can grow, when talent and effort no longer cut it. This dew is one of the few things that can raise the person's limit to an unprecedented level, or maybe even remove it entirely, allowing a person to go higher than the rank of Transcendent"
Yes, Transcendent!
It was a rank only ever achieved by a single human in all of oranian history in the year 600's to 800's. It was a very long time ago.
Yet up till now, no one had been able to accomplish the same feat.
And now, one of the few artifacts allowing someone to achieve such a rank, or with more luck maybe even surpass it, was in front of him.
No wonder he was cursed by a grandmaster.
No wonder he overreacted over the slightest suspicion.
After all, with enough resources, that grandmaster wouldn't have to worry about bottlenecks on his path to power to at least mythical rank.
The fact that they were still looking for him confirms that the grandmaster is never going to give up on it.
That was how powerful it was.
But…
'Why is he giving this to me?' was the first question that came to Ezra's mind, as his face remained impassive even in front of a diamond rank artifact.
This was because a tool of such use was given to every human in his past-life thirty-three years from now.
It was the tool that prevented oranians from going extinct, because those otherworld creatures were…too much.
The duration might seem long, but was extremely short in the eyes of real powerhouses.
Sir Fredrick saw the questioning glance in Ezra's eyes and proceeded to explain.
"I never used it because the curse would diminish its effectiveness by almost sixty percent, and that was as good as wasting it in my opinion"
"I wanted to use it to bargain for the cure of my curse, but I knew I would be killed without hesitation if word about it got out, so I couldn't do that either"
"I thought of returning it to the grandmaster that cursed me, but just like the first idea, I would be killed to make sure no word of its existence was found out"
"So now that I found someone who could cure me, while not wanting to get rid of me but rather make use of me, I decided to give it to you" he said calmly, then paused and looked at me.
I could see he was being sincere. It must have been regretful to say the least, for him to have risked his life for a priceless treasure, only for it to become an antique or ornament, something absolutely useless to your current plight.
He looked at me for a few seconds before killing intent came forth in all its glory and spoke once more.
"But should you be deceiving me right now, I swear on my soul to kill you, even at the cost of my death" he said while looking like a demon.
"Ok, alright I got it, can you stop now?" I wouldn't have said I could help him if I couldn't.
What about the killing intent?
It was child's play for me who had felt the killing intent of otherworld monsters.
"Now, let's get back to business. Do you have a flask, mortar or cauldron?" I asked as if I hadn't heard what he just said.
"I have a silver rank cauldron" he answered.
"That's even better, which means you know a little about alchemy, right?"
"Right"
"So here's what I need you to do"
"You take the septic flakes and spread it thin in the cauldron, put the sapphire leaves on it and then pour the moss powder on the leaves. Take those bristle roots and the moon grains and mash them both into powder, after which you will add it all on the others" I said, while he nodded.
Yet after I finished, he was looking at me as if waiting for something else.
"What about the rosewood venom?" Sir Fredrick asked.
"Oh, I'm going to drink that, what about it?" I asked, only to see him looking at me with his eyebrows raised, like he was looking at an exotic animal.
I laughed, immediately understanding the meaning of his look.
The potion naturally comes from the poison gland of a snake whose skin can completely match any tree it is climbing to stay hidden.
When it's found though, its scales immediately rise up as needle like thorns coated with lethal venom show itself, hence the name.
"Don't worry, Sir Fredrick, I know what I'm doing" I said, trying to give him some assurance, only to see him nod halfheartedly before releasing a depressing sigh before moving to do what he had been told.
He took the herbs and the reagents away, leaving only the High-grade mana recovery potion, the rosewood poison and the Un-limiting Dew.
--------------------
-Four hours later-
Sir Fredrick appeared in front of Ezra with a beaker filled with a transparent color fluid.
Ezra smiled as he saw this. It meant this man in front of him was also good at alchemy, even if not by much. The level of impurities in the vial couldn't be more than thirty percent.
Considering this was a silver rank potion, he should be a rank 2 alchemist.
'Hmm, seems I found a hidden gem as my first knight'
Ezra smiled brightly at the thought of it, for it made Ezra's future planning much easier.
"Alright, it seems you did a pretty good job, old man" Ezra teased, and sure enough, Sir Fredrick got furious.
"Good job, you call this a 'mere' good job?" he asked.
"Now you know how it feels" Ezra suddenly said, which made Fredrick's face turn ugly.
"Anyhow, thanks for the potion"
"What's the name, and how did you know how to make this?"
"It's called the Poison Dehydration Potion, and as for your second question, that's a secret"
Ezra couldn't possibly tell him that it was invented by a friend who loved alchemy, someone he met thirty years from now, and he had told him the ingredients in passing because it wasn't a big deal at the time, now could he?
Fredrick immediately understood that it was one of his secrets and got on to the next question.
"So what are you going to use it for?"
"To make an elixir that will enlarge my meridians while strengthening my physique"
"And how are you going to do that exactly?"