"Huh?"
"Do I not need to go back?"
Mary was momentarily stunned. The sorceress chuckled and stroked her smooth forehead before pulling Mary back from the portal: "Didn't you bring all these things to ask about the new potion brewing methods?"
"And now you're going back... Are you trying to trick me?"
The sorceress pretended to be angry, scaring Mary into taking two steps back, frantically waving her hands: "No, no!"
"I came to ask for advice... just to ask for advice..."
The sorceress tilted her head, looking at the young witcher with a gentle smile: "Allen, I'll leave Mary to you."
"Don't worry, Ms. Vera." Allen helped Mary take off the pack she was carrying and promised, "I'll protect her."
"Hmm~" The sorceress nodded.
She gazed into Allen's eyes for a few more seconds before turning and stepping into the portal.
Slam!
The portal vanished. Only Mary and Allen remained in the camp.
---------------
"Wow!"
Not long after the sorceress had left, Mary suddenly let out an excited squeal. Her big, bright eyes sparkled with joy and excitement.
"Are you that happy to leave Kaer Morhen?"
Allen gently placed the cauldron in his hand on the ground, looked at the elated girl, and asked with a smile.
"Hehe~" Mary shyly rubbed her forehead and explained, "The scenery at Kaer Morhen is, of course, beautiful, and the uncles of the Wolf School are really nice to me..."
"Oh..." Allen's tone lifted teasingly, "So it's not Kaer Morhen, and it's not the witchers..."
"Then, it seems leaving Ms. Vera made you quite happy..."
Before he could finish, Mary panicked and swiftly stretched out her right hand, covering Allen's mouth at lightning speed.
Her big eyes furtively scanned the surroundings, and with a face that said, "Are you trying to get me killed?" she gave the young witcher a fierce glare.
Even though the portal had long since disappeared, she hesitated for a moment before loudly defending herself: "How could leaving Ms. Vera make me happy?"
"I love being around Ms. Vera the most."
Mary spoke carefully, as if she were speaking to someone who wasn't even there.
"But being cooped up in one place all the time, either reading or brewing potions, is so boring... a little dull..."
"And now the beautiful, wise, and charming Ms. Vera finally let me out for some fresh air. Of course, I'm very happy!"
Seeing Mary's serious yet sycophantic expression, Allen couldn't help but ask curiously: "The portal's already gone. Can Ms. Vera still hear you?"
"Of course..." Mary glared at him again, rolling her pretty eyes, "She can't..."
Perhaps because of the teasing, Mary grew more and more frustrated. She punched the witcher on the shoulder with her delicate fist. Unfortunately, it didn't hurt. But Allen still played along, gritting his teeth and covering his shoulder.
---------------
After fooling around for a while, Mary finally remembered why she was there. She pulled Allen down to sit on the ground and set out the cauldron and tools.
"Allen, teach me how to make White Honey first!"
"Show me once, and if I don't understand, I'll ask you."
Allen felt a little helpless.
Who stays up in the middle of the night to learn how to brew potions?
And they were still out in the wilderness. Couldn't they wait until they got to a town?
"I've got Dwarven Spirit, but it's nighttime, so where are we going to find honeysuckle?"
The witcher was hoping to find some excuse to avoid the task. But Mary giggled and opened her leather satchel, which was packed full of long, slender golden and white flowers. There were at least twenty portions of honeysuckle here.
Digging a little deeper, there were also golden, butterfly-like flowers — about twenty portions of celandine, used for brewing the Swallow potion.
"I've got all the materials you need here. The drowner brains and ghoul hearts for the Swallow potion are in another bag..."
Mary proudly introduced everything she'd brought to the witcher, listing them off one by one. She had indeed brought all the materials needed for three potion recipes. Even the Dwarven Spirit, which Allen almost always had on hand for alchemical bases, was carried over in three or four bottles.
"Is this enough?" Mary stood with her hands on her hips, looking at Allen with a knowing smile.
She had prepared everything, so how could Allen refuse?
With no other choice, Allen shook his head, picked up a bottle of Dwarven Spirit, and poured the liquid into the cauldron. But it was fine.
Because they had hurried to leave Kaedwen, he hadn't had time to brew White Honey and Swallow, two very useful potions.
"How do you even come up with so many formulas..."
Mary glanced at his hands, which moved skillfully, with a strange rhythm. Then she looked up at Allen's forehead enviously, as if she wanted to swap brains with him.
She sighed softly and marveled: "How can you make even a simple flower like honeysuckle so fascinating?"
"White Honey... are you trying to turn honeysuckle pollen into honey like a bee?"
"Didn't I send you the entire brewing process?"
Allen didn't look up as he picked up a few pieces of wood and tossed them into the extinguished campfire. With a slight curl of his right index finger, he made a small gesture.
Whoosh~
A lively flame instantly illuminated the small campsite. Then, Allen hung the half-filled cauldron over the fire to heat. Mary crouched beside him, arms crossed, chuckling awkwardly: "Hehe~ I haven't had a chance to look at it yet."
Mary, furious at seeing her little apprentice brother being bullied by a male mage, hadn't bothered to sit through the long and tedious brewing process. Allen gave a quiet "Hmm" and didn't press further. He took the dried honeysuckle from the bag.
"Pay close attention. The treatment of honeysuckle is indeed the key to brewing 'White Honey'..."
"White Honey is an antidote. During the brewing process, it's crucial to activate the honeysuckle's properties to clear heat and detoxify, disperse wind and heat..."
"So, the stamen of the honeysuckle must be infused with fire-aligned magic in a specific pattern..."
---------------
Allen spoke slowly enough that Mary could understand clearly. However, due to the boost from his Alchemy LV4, his hands moved instinctively faster. And now, under the flickering light of the night fire, it was hard to see clearly.
Mary had no choice but to move closer... and closer...
Soon, her little head was almost resting on Allen's right shoulder. After all, Mary was still a young sorceress, not an energetic witcher.
She had waited deep into the night for Allen's letter at Kaer Morhen, then traveled a long way to get here. Now, with her excitement about reuniting with her friend slowly fading, sleepiness began to take over.
She squinted her eyes.
The young witcher's fingers danced skillfully, fluttering in the dim firelight like butterflies.
Why had she never noticed how long and elegant Allen's fingers were?
"Like the hands of a court painter..." she thought.
Though she had never seen what the court painter's hands looked like.
But without beautiful hands, how could one create beautiful paintings?
Mary had studied logic. So, she felt that her logic was sound. As her thoughts wandered, at some point, the content of Allen's speech became less important. The clear voice ringing in her ears slowly became blurred.
"His voice sounds pretty pleasant too..."
---------------
At some point.
Allen suddenly stopped what he was doing and sighed. He missed the timing. The honeysuckle infused with fire magic in his hands was now useless.
"Bubbling~ Bubbling~"
The dwarf's alcohol in the pot bubbled, releasing an intoxicating aroma. Steady breaths blew across his right neck. A faint scent of oranges mixed with the aroma of the alcohol... It smelled like freshly brewed orange wine.
Allen gently tossed the honeysuckle aside, then removed the cauldron from the campfire and set it on the sandy ground. Feeling the warmth and weight on his back and shoulders, he knew that the White Honey potion wouldn't be completed tonight. But that was alright. They still had plenty of time, a long, long time ahead of them.
---------------
Tir ná Lia
This was an elven palace, to be precise, it was the palace of the "People of the Alder" — the Aen Elle. Unlike their kin, the Aen Seidhe. The Aen Elle were fierce conquerors who ruled every world they arrived in. Then they drained these worlds of their wealth, creating this palace.
It was entirely white, and from a distance, it seemed not to be made of marble or alabaster, but of white lace. Standing above the emerald waters, shrouded in mist, it appeared faint and elusive.
It seemed that with a gust of wind, this palace could vanish along with the mist.
As though it wasn't a palace, but the very soul of the palace. And in one of the slender towers of this white palace, shaped like an asparagus stalk, A crystal ball, as dark as a black hole, captured the full attention of two long-haired elves.
"Have you found it, Avallac'h?"
An elf in rust-red armor turned his head, urging.
"Don't rush me, Eredin, I'm searching!"
The elf named Avallac'h, dressed in white robes, remained unaffected by Eredin's impatience. He closed his eyes, his hands slowly and methodically caressing the crystal ball, seemingly searching for something.
"How can I not be anxious? Haven't you heard the call of the Ard Gaeth gate?"
"Without the ability to freely travel through time and space, the long-lost Grand Gate is our only hope to escape the White Frost!"
"I heard it, I'm searching. We've lost the Ard Gaeth gate for nearly a thousand years, and predicting its time-space fluctuations isn't easy..." Avallac'h remained calm.
Despite Eredin's constant prodding, he patiently explained.
"But you've been searching for three days already! How much longer must I wait?"
"The White Frost is approaching! Every day, every hour, every minute is critical — we don't have much time left!"
Eredin's voice grew louder. His deep voice echoed through the tower, like the sound of a thousand soldiers in battle.
"If it weren't for you failing to watch over your fiancée, how could the plan involving the Elder Blood have failed?"
"The iron hooves of the Aen Elle would have already trampled a new world like they did centuries ago..."
Before he could finish, Eredin realized he had said the wrong thing.
"Sorry... I shouldn't have said that..."
The pain brought by Lara Dorren aep Shiadhal was something Avallac'h felt much more deeply than any of them.
"It's alright, Lara... Lara was indeed my responsibility. I can't shirk that."
The long-haired elf in white robes sighed softly, not blaming Eredin. They had known each other for centuries. This sharpest sword of the Aen Elle had always been so sharp, so direct.
Both outwardly and inwardly.
However.
That was Eredin's strength, and it was why the Alder King, Auberon, trusted him to lead the Red Riders into battle.
And besides...
Dorren...
He had indeed let down the Aen Elle who had placed their trust in him.
For a moment, the alabaster tower fell silent. Until the crystal ball, glowing with white light, suddenly became shrouded in thick grey fog.
"I found it!"
Avallac'h suddenly announced. But Eredin didn't need Avallac'h's reminder. Though he wasn't skilled in prophecy. As an Aen Saevherne, he understood what the changes in the crystal ball meant. So Eredin immediately widened his eyes, staring at the misty grey fog in the ball, as elusive as fate itself.
Avallac'h's hands wiped over the crystal ball, as if wiping away the fog of destiny. Beads of sweat formed on his forehead, and his hands trembled slightly before an image finally appeared in the ball.
Beneath a black sun.
Countless blue-skinned creatures rampaged through a human city.
As the view zoomed in.
Countless spired towers appeared, and amidst these towers, larger creatures, unlike the blue-skinned monsters, fought against humans.
But.
Before Eredin and Avallac'h could get a clear view, the scene in the crystal ball abruptly shifted to a snow-capped, majestic mountain. In front of the mountain, clear emerald waters rippled. This scene lasted even less time.
The two elves barely saw a flash of white light before it turned into darkness once again.
Then.
"Crack~"
The pitch-black screen vanished as the crystal ball suddenly cracked.
In the next moment.
"Boom~"
The gleaming sphere shattered with a loud bang. Countless sharp shards shot toward the two elves.
"Hmph~"
Eredin snorted, brushing his hand over the black gem at the end of his sword hilt. The shards hit an invisible ripple mid-air and then fell to the ground.
"Thank you."
A sweat-soaked Avallac'h rose and nodded slightly to Eredin. Eredin waved it off.
"If I'm not mistaken, those were three different places?" He looked at the now-empty table with some confusion.
"Yes, three places. These are where the Ard Gaeth gate has appeared in the prophecy..."
Avallac'h took out a white silk cloth and elegantly wiped the sweat from his forehead, confirming.
"But didn't the gate's fluctuations only appear once?"
Eredin frowned deeply.
"Forget it, I'll go look for that human city with the towers first."
Answering his own question, he slightly bowed to Avallac'h. Then, grabbing his skull-shaped helmet, he stormed out of the tower. Watching Eredin's back disappear at the door, Avallac'h knew...
The world that had taken Lara Dorren aep Shiadhal would soon be engulfed in flames again.
After a moment of silent contemplation. He looked down at the unfamiliar, exhausted man reflected on the smooth, mirror-like alabaster floor.
Closing his eyes, he let out a long, soft sigh: "Lara!"
"Lara..."
....…
📢20 advanced chapters on p@treaon📢
For advance chapters: p@treon.com/Uchiha_Itachi007 (replace @ with a)
220. Time to Take Off Your Leather Armor!
221. Quickly Take Off All Your Clothes, Let Me Measure Your Size!
222. Loyalty! Loyalty?
223. The Monster that Brings Doom.
224. The Staff Belongs to Allen.