...
Somewhere in the City of Ironmountain…
In a dirty street where rats fought for food..
A thin, malnourished boy walked across said street as he supported himself using his right hand. He leaned on the wall but he kept walking.
His name is Meiros.
Meiros was starving. He hasn't eaten anything for a week now and he was feeling weaker and weaker. His breathing was ragged and he couldn't exert enough energy through his body.
He walked and walked on the dirty stone road barefoot until the darkness around him was slowly replaced by sunlight.
Shielding his eyes from the momentary blindness caused by sunlight, Meiros saw a woman and a man eating together in the Lixoar Park when his vision cleared up.
Growl....
Looking at where the sound came from, Meiros knew that he couldn't bear the hunger any longer.
He stretched out his hand with his index and middle finger to cast an ability. A purplish blue magic circle filled with strange symbols and lines appeared in front of his hand.
His mind connected to both of them and suddenly, they froze.
Just like statues, they held their position with a blank expression.
Meiros walked towards them and took their food. He ran away just in case anyone caught him.
...
"Nrrghh..." Meiros munched ravenously on the couple's lunch.
What he used earlier was corrupted Divinious.
When he got his Divine Path awakened was when he was going to die because of hunger a long time ago, a hooded man in a mask marked his forehead and suddenly, he got this ability to connect to human minds.
However, he has basic knowledge about the difference between Heroic and Corrupted Divinious. Heroic Divinious comes from positive emotions and energy, while Corrupted Divinious comes from negative energy like anger, resentment, lust, greed and many more.
Meiros has been hiding from the patrols of Ironmountain because he doesn't want to get killed. He knew what happens to those corrupted ones who get caught by the city guards and patrolmen. In fact, he watched his own mother get hanged after the city lord found out about her use of corrupted Divinious.
He didn't want to die as well. He wanted to live and fulfill his own dreams.
...
Meiros sat on the ground. His breathing was still quite fast. He hid on this dark alleyway to rest and to remain hidden from any of Ironmountain's patrolling men wandering around. Knowing this, he slept on the cold stone path.
...
In Vorqpol market…
A valuable Crimson Tusked Blood Elephant was being bid on by many people. Including Chrysos.
"It's mine! You can't take it from me!" Chrysos yelled at everyone. "100 gold coins!"
"Bull$#!+! It's mine! Back off!" Another man shouted. "110 gold coins!"
"You dare try and take it from me!? 200 gold coins!"
Everyone was getting heated up. They really wanted the Crimson Tusked Blood Elephant's body.
"Silence.. I bid 400 gold coins." A man in white clothing coldly spoke.
Everyone was speechless. How could they bring out that much money? Even though the Crimson Tusked Blood Elephant was good, it wasn't too good that they will pay 400 gold coins.
"400 going once… going twice…" A man holding a mallet looked around for anyone who had the intention to bid.
Since there was no one, the man brought the mallet down.
"And sold!"
The elephant was sold to the man in white.
"Hahaha." Chrysos laughed. "Good sir, why don't you sell that elephant to me?" Chrysos got out of his seat and approached the man in white.
The man turned around and looked at him. "Why should I?" His crystalline purple eyes stared at Chrysos.
"I'll give you 120 Rare tier, high grade Healing potions, 80 Rare tier, high grade Strength potions, 50 Rare tier, high grade Divinious Recovery potions, 30 Rare tier, high grade poison cure potions, 19 Rare tier, high grade Eagle Sight potions, and one Rare tier, medium grade Corruption Reversal Cure." Chrysos stated each of his offers one by one.
"After all, I heard that Corruption Reversal Cures are rare, aren't they?" Chrysos looked at the man.
The man in the white coat didn't think twice. "Deal."
Everyone around the shop was shocked.
"That many potions for an elephant?!"
"Impossible! I bet he's just lying!"
"Yeah! Who can get that many potions in Ironmountain at once? This isn't Iqualius City!"
Everyone raised their doubts at Chrysos' offer.
"If you don't believe me, I'm an alchemist." Chrysos smiled. His potion brewing proficiency increased during the past few weeks. He also improved his recipes by a lot. So even if this will leave a hole in his pocket, it will be gone soon enough if he wasn't lazy.
"Where can I get them?" The man asked Chrysos.
"Eh, you can go to my house to pick them up. We can exchange it now if you want to." Chrysos suggested.
"Sure." The man looked at his men and they carried it on his horse carriage. "Go ahead, take us there." The man left a spot in the carriage for Chrysos to sit on.
Chrysos nodded and got on.
Looking around the carriage, he thought to himself. "Fancy.. So this is what carriages look like if you're rich.."
"So, where are we going?" The man turned to Chrysos and asked.
"It's right there..." He told them the way to his house and they reached it after a five minute journey.
Once they arrived, Chrysos went to his house and grabbed all of the potions he mentioned.
These were supposed to be his products that he was planning to sell, but he didn't hesitate since he could recover his expenses pretty quickly after a week of non stop work.
The man received the potions and gave Chrysos the elephant body.
"What's your name?" The man looked at Chrysos.
"My name is Gerald Greenwood but you can just call me Gerald.. I'm a lone alchemist who just lives around here." Chrysos brought the elephant body using a wagon next to his house.
"My name is Rienan Nelton. I'm the son of Viscount Agarius in Iqalius City. It's a pleasure to meet you, Gerald Greenwood.." Rienan expressed his thanks and got in his carriage.
Chrysos nodded. "I hope whoever is going through a corruptive infection in your family or friends gets cured by my potion." Chrysos turned around and walked away.
"How did you know?" Rienan paused and looked at Chrysos. He raised an eyebrow with interest.
"You're buying the elephant for an inferior cure. I know because I'm an alchemist. You surely aren't going to use it for body tempering by eating the flesh since as a sorcerer, you won't get as many benefits by using it yourself so it'll end up as a waste." Chrysos shrugged.
"Don't worry though, I have an improved Corruption reversal potion so you don't have to worry about anyone suffering anymore."
Rienan nodded. "You're right.. For an alchemist you have a keen eye."
"As an alchemist, it is necessary." Chrysos laughed and entered his house.
Seeing the alchemist's door close, Rienan left with his men after that.
...
"Master Rienan, are you sure you can trust that alchemist from Ironmountain?" Rienan's butler, Alser asked with a bit of uncertainty.
Rienan took out the potion. "This vial is insignificant, but the potion inside it is very rich in heroic Divinious.. it is more concentrated even from our own alchemist's standards of brewing."
"Even better than our own alchemists? Master Rienan, not to disrespect but is it really necessary to call their work inferior? They have been loyal to the Nelton family for years, I don't want to believe that a lone alchemist is better than them." Alser exclaimed.
"Just because they are loyal does not mean they are skilled enough. Just a lone alchemist? Can our alchemists brew this much high quality potions?" Rienan looked at the sack of potions he received from Chrysos. The overwhelming Divinious aura collected within those potions would be enough to make many people drool.
"Of course!" Alser was confident. "They can do that if they're given enough time and resources. In fact, I believe that if an alchemist is given enough time, they would be able to make as much potions as they want."
"But can our alchemists make these within two weeks?" Rienan suddenly asked.
"Eh? Of course not, these will take time to make. They would need to make them for a few months at least." Alser answered respectfully. "Wait, Master Rienan, do you mean that-?" Alser realized why Rienan asked him that question.
"Yes that's right. That alchemist named Gerald made these in two weeks." Rienan took a random potion. "See this? The quality of these potions hasn't degraded for a bit. If they were stored for two months, we would've been seeing signs of spoilage that indicates their decreasing effectivity." Rienan put the vial back in the pile. "He has a lot of experience and talent, that's why I'm interested in hiring him." Rienan said confidently.
"And if you're thinking that he might have gotten help to brew this much potions just to trick me, first of all, the Divinious should be different in each potions. Seeing that it's all similar, it means that only one person made it. Second of all, if he and whoever is behind him was truly willing to spend 1200 gold to scam me from the crimson elephant, that would've been pointless since this isn't the only crimson elephant in Ironmountain."
"I- I see.." Alser coughed. "Forgive me for my short-sightedness."
...
Chrysos happily brewed the Muscle Hardening Potion using the Crimson Tusked Blood Elephant's flesh, bones and blood.
After that, he did the same process of pouring the hypertraining fluid into the potion vat that has the elephant's essence. After the hypertraining fluid consumed the vat and converted it into a ruby like liquid, he used purification to increase its tier, creating another Potion of Evolution with the elephant's essence.
Bam!
From the Divinious it received, the hypertraining potion inside the huge barrel made a small explosion as it shook.
Chrysos peeked inside the barrel and examined it.
"It became rare tier as expected.." Chrysos took out a small vial with light, clear blue frog poison inside and drank it. After doing so, his muscles were slowly getting numbed and paralyzed. So to avoid not wasting it, he drank the hypertraining potion before he lost control over his body.
And sure enough, he fell down and his body convulsed erratically. The weird thing is that he could only feel a slight pain.
"Wow, if I didn't drink the numbing frog's poison, I wouldn't want to imagine the pain.." Chrysos thought to himself. He really should find an alternative to his evolutionary potions. The painful side effect was not only deadly, it was very inconvenient.
He stayed like that for a long time. And because of the painless procedure, he fell asleep like last time.
...
Next day...
Chrysos woke up from the floor and checked his body. His arms were more flexible and he was full of energy like last time.
He drank some water and a vial of inferior hypertraining fluid.
He sat down on a chair and felt that his muscles were being massaged. Chrysos used this way to skip the training to achieve great strength. He just needed to drink hypertraining fluids so that he can get the strength from the potion of evolution that he consumed.
And as miraculous as it sounds, the effects were the same as him exercising for weeks.
While being "massaged" Chrysos thought to himself. "Are these technically steroids? But steroids don't increase your evolution.. so they couldn't be considered as such, right?" Chrysos laughed at this thought.
He spent an hour doing this 'massage.'
After that lengthy process, he stretched his arms and legs after all of it was done.
When he felt how much he had grown, he felt thankful that he planned so much for the auction even though he lost quite a bit.
When he heard about the upcoming auction, he worked extra hard to get enough gold coins to increase his chances of winning.
He also researched those who would likely win the auction and found out about a rich viscount who was also interested in the elephant's body. When he got more information about who this viscount was, he found out that he was a sorcerer.
From that alone, he knew that this person wanted this for alchemy related matters. The most likely one being the Corruption Reversal Potion. The Crimson Tusked Blood Elephant is necessary for this potion to be brewed.
But that potion recipe was outdated.
Chrysos knew more about chemical reactions and modern knowledge than any alchemists in this world. So with this advantage, he managed to improve not one, not two, but 95% of all of his potion recipes thanks to his past's memories and his knowledge about modern chemistry.
It went well for him.
So, he brewed a better Corruption Reversal Potion with a higher success rate and higher effectiveness.
Of course he brewed more potions just to make sure Rienan gives the elephant to him and only him.
And after all of this much preparation, he got what he wanted in the end.
"So now, I just need to earn back... 1200 gold coins.. And that will take 365 Intermediate quests..." Chrysos smiled bitterly. "Well at least I'm stronger now.." He drank another vial of the hypertraining fluid.
He was on a stressful streak of work and decided that he might as well just laze off for now.
Plus, the hypertraining fluids are a great source of sustenance. However, food is cheaper, so this is the type of luxury he gets to enjoy from time to time.