Froggy left my cozy hole thinking about the proposition.
Looks like the people from here managed to warm their way into his comfort zone, which I had mixed feelings about.
On one hand, they do it because he has a connection with the Royal Family in the Stone Kingdom, so they try extra hard to be friendly towards him.
Fortunately, while Froggy is a little naive with certain social cues, he has great instincts to compensate.
Otherwise, he wouldn't have survived for so long in the desert while getting offers to join the Nobles.
But even if they have ulterior motives, that doesn't mean that witches are bad.
Quite the contrary, from what I read in the "Life of a Witch" book I can tell that they're quite forgiving and friendly towards the new witches that join them.
Even the grumpiest witch will be gentle with the new members.
They know what their capable of, and they also know how easy is to suffer from this mistreatment.
So even if they want to befriend Froggy at all costs, it's not all with ulterior motives. It's what they usually do when someone new comes, but just a little extra.
But enough about Froggy, I have my own challenges that I need to overcome.
I finished everything with this enchanted block. Soon I'll have to change my location to one of the corners of the walls since I can't break the enchanted lapiz books without lasting consequences.
After I finish on one corner, I'll quickly have to change it to the opposite corner to see one more hidden face.
The worst one would be when I'll have to be on top of the wall, risking myself with being found out by the guards.
But this enchantment it's too fascinating to leave it be, so everything will be worth it in the end.
By the end of the day, I finished everything that I could copy from this spot.
So I covered everything behind me, leaving no trace, and went back towards the houses.
Everyone here was living comfortably in their isolated lives. Some people recognized me and gave me a greeting, but I could tell that there was a barrier between us.
And I could understand the reason, only Froggy was more welcomed, but that doesn't mean they didn't treat me with respect, which I appreciate.
Back home, I sat down on the bed and opened one of the books that I borrowed from from Flora.
In my old world, I wasn't too interested in studying that much. It's not like I was a dumb kid, it's just I didn't want to go over and beyond.
The minimum grade was something that I was satisfied with. Even when I was stuck in the Sandstone Palace I didn't fully use the huge library, which now I kind of regret.
Sure, there wasn't a lot of secret information that I could find at the lower levels, but at least I could find out more about the difference between my knowledge of the game and the actual world.
But now, I started to enjoy learning, and that's why I want to fully use this opportunity to get more knowledge from Flora's collection.
So now I was reading " Monsters Encyclopedia " looking to see if there were any new mobs that I didn't know about.
This book was different than the others, it had hand-drawn pictures of the monsters, which was pretty impressive.
Under the drawing, it said the place you could find them, and what items the System recognized.
I went quickly through it without a problem, and I can safely say there's no new monster in this world that I didn't know about.
At least in the Overworld.
There wasn't a lot of information about the other's dimensions and their monsters.
The only mob from the Nether that I saw was the Zombified Pigman.
However, the author didn't know anything about how it came to be or why it was such a rare occurrence.
Of course, if this is like in the game, it appeared once lighting struck a poor pig.
There was also mentioned a legendary glowing creeper that brought massive destruction whenever it appeared.
Once again, there wasn't a lot of information about this monster, since it was so dangerous to be around.
"Maybe I should make an encyclopedia of my own? No, it's too much trouble for no reword at all, it's better if I study something else instead."
With that, I went back to the wall to study the enchanted blocks.
A few witches saw me, so I bought myself a few good hours.
For the next few days, I kept going like that, studying the wall, greeting some people, reading some books, and of course, I didn't forget to send a letter to Bobby to not break the ender pearl yet for another two weeks.
When I was getting ready to try and copy the last and hardest square to copy, Froggy came to my house and delivered a message.
"Trader, Flora wants to talk with us if you're free anytime soon."
"Did something happen?"
I hope I wasn't found out and now I'm in trouble.
"No, she wants to talk about the idea of the police force, and since you came up with the idea she wanted to ask you for more details."
Oh, it was only that?
There wasn't too much to talk about honestly, the idea was pretty straightforward, and I'm sure Flora knows about it as well.
So that means she wants to talk about something else instead.
The other witches already got comfortable with Froggy in the past few days, so I don't think well be talking about him.
Hope I won't get in any trouble now.
"Sure I can come with you now if you want to."
"Perfect, let's go then."
Froggy smiled as we both walked towards Flora's house.
A few minutes later I was once again in Flora's study room.
I was already looking over the books to see if anything else caught my attention until I heard a voice that interrupted me.
"Trader, I heard your proposition about a way to improve our image. While taking care of the criminals in Stone Kindome will give us a reputation, wouldn't that make us more scary for the common people than friendly?"
I guess that would be true, whenever they get to a town, everyone will be either hopeful or scared about the blood bath that's going to ensue.
But she didn't call me here, just to say that my idea was not good enough, she must have another reason.
"I guess that could happen, and I didn't think about that. Do you have another idea perhaps?"
"Yes, Froggy told us that you know a method to bring infected people back to their former selves, but he refused to tell us the details about it since it was your idea from the beginning, and didn't want to give it without permission."
I looked towards Froggy who seemed to really be interested in the books all of a sudden, but I could see some pink from embarrassment all over his face.
"I don't mind sharing with you the secret, but it won't be as effective as you think. The Sandstone kingdoms and the Stone Kindome already know about this method. The Stone Kindom invested heavily into this process after the attack from the Zombie Lord. "
"Froggy said the same thing, but I'm sure it would greatly help us if we tried then if we didn't."
"That can be true, I can tell you the method, but it won't be cheap to replicate at a mass scale. "
I then told her about the process, and her reaction was appropriate when she heard about the gold consumption.
"No wonder gold prices started to rise recently. But I think we can do a few of those."
"True, the miners that I talked with have some great advantage over other people. But if you want to do it on a larger scale, you'll have to find yourself a sponsor."
Suddenly I saw a smile appear on Flora's face, and I felt like I'd fallen into a trap.
"That is indeed true Trader, do you perhaps know any people who would be interested in sponsoring us?"
So this was her goal from the beginning, she knows that Froggy knows someone who will be willing to sponsor them.
Actually, there couldn't be a better time to look for important people than now.
With the Zombie Lord infecting more people, there's a rising need for weakness potions.
And who's better at brewing those than a witch who is a master at that skill already?
Froggy already left that spot open, and I'm sure that they'll accept another witch with open arms.
Well played Flora, well played.
"Yes, we do know a few people that would be interested in doing that, but what's in it for us?"
I know that everyone is going through tough times right now, and witches would greatly help with brewing the potions.
But it's not like they're not replaceable, recently Bobby made a deal with the piglings and they're not limited by the system, so they can brew potions as well.
The only reason they don't is because it's much more important to craft the apples now than make the potions.
Froggy already made a lot of them before he left.
Speaking of Froggy, he seems to be shocked by what I said, and I could understand why, I'm sure he'll be more the happy to help like this, but you have to set some boundaries otherwise people will step all over you.
I learned that the hard way.
Making the cure public for almost nothing, I had to spend a few months imprisoned.
And Froggy has some great instincts, but it's better to not rely only on them.
Flora didn't seem too surprised by this, instead, she took out another three books from her inventory and placed them on the desk.
"Albert's Enchantments"
"Monster research"
"Life of a Piliger"
Those titles caught my attention, and I really wanted them.
While I researched enchantment I discovered that Albert is one of the most important researchers whose name managed to survive the time.
He's to one who pioneered the man-made enchantments, and for sure it was locked in the higher levels of the Sandstone palace.
With this, I would make a lot of progress in my research.
If "Life of a Piliger" is anything similar to "Life of a Witch" it would greatly increase my knowledge of Piliger's habits and traditions in case I want to infiltrate their territory.
It would be hard, but the extra knowledge would greatly help me.
As for the "Monster Research" book, I could only guess that it was another experiment journal but this time on monsters.
I don't know what I can do with that knowledge but it's still valuable.
"I'll accept the deal, I'll write a message to my friend Bobby and he will be able to help you out. You in the meantime can choose whoever would represent you as a whole and work with them. I'm sure the discussion with the elders will take some time, so we'll see each other in another few days."
And in this time I'll hopefully be able to copy the last enchantments off the lapiz block in case anything happens.
Flore gave a sigh, already expecting a lot of debate, over who should be sent, but was overall happy about the deal.
With this, the witches will slowly get more accepted in the common world, and this was more progress than anything they ever managed to do over the past few hundred years since they split up with the Piligers.
And hopefully, their new friends will be able to shield them in case the Sandstone Kindome decides to start another crusade.
Froggy seems to have conflicted emotions as well, but in the end chooses to be happy, since everyone got what they wanted, including himself.
And there was no reason to leave Trader's side now.