Lucky?
He always felt that the other party came prepared.
Lind paid with a Gold Badge ticket and reached out to take the bag.
Inside was a dark, black crystalline substance, emitting an ominous aura.
"That's a scavenger's crystal," Mico explained, "It's rare to find one even among a hundred scavengers."
"One from a hundred scavengers," Lind thought. So the so-called Heart of Calamity was a material extracted from inside a monster.
He thought to himself, "Then I'll just issue a mission for the players to grind, and then buy it off them. Fundamentally, it isn't rare."
Others might worry, but Lind wouldn't.
As long as he could get players to grind it, there wouldn't be any issues, since grinding was exactly what players did best.
As for the scavengers being wiped out, that was impossible. If those guys were truly gone, the world would be at peace.
Lind asked, "Have you made similar magic potions before?"
"The Ring of Magic is shattered!" Mico said with a look of exasperation. "Many have reclaimed the power of the Ring of Magic from Calamity monsters; it's just that no one around Prey Town knows that. Ronin also wanted me to make a Magic Potion for him."
She pouted her lips, which could hang an oil pot, a look of dissatisfaction on her face: "But he was afraid I'd steal his Magic Potion formula. He was always hiding and hoarding it, yet he tried to learn from me how to make it. Making Magic Potions isn't just about learning! Only those chosen by Yuni and who hear her voice can do it."
After she said this, she proudly raised her chin a bit.
Lind didn't dwell on what she meant by "listening." What Ronin was up to had nothing to do with him; they didn't interfere with each other's waters.
Right now, he was only concerned about the Magic Potion.
Mico clapped her hands, snapping, "Considering you gave me a Magic Potion recipe for free and trusted me, give me another 100 Gold Badge tickets. I'll handle the rest of the ingredients and even make it for you directly. What do you think?"
Perhaps the Magic Potion formula really was precious, but it didn't matter. Lind's interests weren't with NPCs, but with the players.
"You happen to have some leftover ingredients, right?" Lind asked.
"Heehee," looking at the smiling beauty showing her bunny teeth, even though she said nothing, Lind got his answer.
He nodded, "Agreed!"
"Good, I've brought everything here."
Lind: …
Sure enough, she was a hoarding expert, storing everything on her.
As long as it could enhance strength, Gold Badge tickets or anything else, really didn't matter. Whatever.
Watching her carry a small bag, pulling out an entire set of tools, that small bag seemed to hold quite a lot.
She lit a fire, then stewed everything in a crucible.
From time to time, she added something dark or brightly colored; the liquid in the little crucible turned from white to yellow, then to black.
When she added the Heart of Calamity, the liquid started bubbling ominously and turned a more troubling shade of purple.
Mico held a spoon, gently stirring the crucible's liquid, muttering under her breath.
Ignoring her cute and delicate appearance, she was the spitting image of Smurfette's Gargamel.
Lind, not understanding, just quietly stood by.
The night wore on, Lind had traveled during the day and now another grueling night stood watch, exhausted to the core.
Suddenly, a strange scent wafted over, and he briskly looked toward Mico's crucible; the liquid had turned pale gold, exuding a powerful allure.
She poured the Magic Potion into a small bottle, extremely cautious during the entire process, and even purposefully opened the window to let the moonlight, like shattered glass, shine in.
The moonlight fell on the pale golden liquid through the Magic Potion Bottle.
Suddenly, a flurry of tiny bubbles stirred, and when the foam dissipated, only a faint orange-yellow remained in the liquid.
"Done!"
She handed a thumb-sized bottle of Magic Potion to Lind, saying tiredly, "The Magic Potion has been successfully refined, but you must drink it according to the rules: find the dawn that won't light up, then drink it."
Lind looked at the troubling-colored Magic Potion; if he hadn't watched her go through each step, he really would have thought this bottle was an iced tea picked up from under a tower crane.
"A dawn that can't light up must mean a cloudy morning,"
He thought it best to ask Aluna about this question, as she had personally experienced the scene where the church clerics collectively consumed the Magic Potion and all died. She must know what a dawn that can't light up means.
Mico quickly tidied up the crucible, waved her hand, and said goodbye to Lind. The magic potion refining had also taken its toll on her.
Lind didn't waste any time and hurried to the church.
"That refers to a mental stupor, an ambiguous state, a reversed consciousness," Aluna said in her unique, babbling way. "In confusion, one can hear the whispers of God, and presumptuous clarity renders people foolish and ignorant, perhaps one must consume some untouched herb? Who knows."
"I understand!" he grasped the intended meaning.
Lind walked out of the church, bending down to pull out several weeds from the cracks between the bricks.
Seeing this, Aluna led him to a room full of twisted corpses. If he failed, he would become one of the twisted bodies.
He stuffed the bitter, completely juiceless weeds that even scraped his tongue into his mouth, chewing them.
His mind soon slipped into a state of confusion.
Lind seemed to see many elves dancing in front of his eyes, unable to tell if he was standing on the ground or hanging from the ceiling. He wasn't sure if he was supporting himself with his hands on the ground or suspending his buttocks on the wall. Anything seemed possible, and he found it amusing.
It seemed that none of the rules mattered anymore.
From the book "Praise the Sun," words flew out like chains towards Lind, fastening onto his body, preventing him from running away.
It was time to drink the potion.
But Lind could no longer open the Magic Potion. Aluna came over, stuffing the Magic Potion into Li Qi's mouth, or was it his nose? He couldn't tell.
The tune of two tigers suddenly resonated again.
He felt an agonizing pain as his body seemed to tear apart, an energy surged into him, and his heart beat rapidly like a pile driver.
A roaring sound rang by his ears, but the more intense the sound, the more Lind felt he knew.
From "Praise the Sun," the words that had flown out burrowed into his body, forming a ring at the position of his heart.
And that madness was sealed at the location of his heart.
When Lind opened his eyes, all the commotion and agitation stopped.
Aluna held "Praise the Sun," quietly looking at him.
"Ugh! Wow!" Lind bent over and spat out the weeds mixed with phlegm and blood.
He felt his body was stronger than ever before, his vision clearer, and his nose could smell deeper scents, like that of jerky.
What he felt more clearly was his body's strength containing a sort of explosive expansiveness.
He could even hear Aluna's frail and weak heartbeat.
As he breathed, his sharp hearing and perception were suppressed, gradually returning to normal, shifting from passive to active.
"Have some food," she offered a piece of meat jerky with tiny claws, a long tail, and even grey fur near its pointed mouth to Lind, who immediately shook his head, "No thanks."
Rat was a rare meat, but Lind felt he could still hold on.
He shook as he stood up, grateful that his legs hadn't twisted into spirals and even feeling stronger. He was so hungry he could barely stand, yet Lind still felt that he could kill his previous self with one punch.
There was still a strange power inside him, which he attempted to guide out by following the methods recorded in Clore's diary.
Bang!
Explosive Flame burst out along his palm, the high temperature singeing his hair with a burnt smell.
His body was even pushed backward a few steps by the explosion, and the corpses covered by the Explosive Flame were instantly blasted open, some beginning to burn.
"Only about one-twentieth of the internal energy was lost,"
Clore's Explosive Flame was more powerful than he had imagined.
However, it seemed he couldn't throw it away.
"Thank you very much for your help, Aluna," Lind sincerely thanked the old nun.
He then asked, "There were others who succeeded before me, right?"