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Monarch of Profound Toxin - Chapter 65
🕑 Added 2024-11-11 16:00:10 +0000 UTC“And how does it do that?”
The plant breeder, who was an older man with gray hair falling lightly around his shoulders, tapped his gloved fingers on the fleshy leaves of the plant Eik had asked about. “Do you see these tiny black dots here, sir?” he asked Eik.
“Yeah.”
“These self-regenerating pods are capable of exploding to spread spores which, when coming into contact with the olfactory senses, trigger a reaction in the brain that tricks it into thinking that it’s smelling the most delicious and decadent of foods.”
“That’s crazy! Heath, isn’t that just crazy?” he said and turned to the tank who looked about ready to collapse from boredom as he sniffed the same flower for the twentieth time.
“Yeah, bro, it’s so cool that it smells,” Heath said and rolled his eyes.
Eik looked back to the plant breeder with an apologetic expression. “Sorry about that, boss. The big guy doesn’t know what he’s talking about. No sense for the beauty of nature whatsoever.”
The man laughed good-naturedly. “That’s alright, lad. It’s not something everyone can appreciate.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Eik said. “but it’s true that I can’t just hang around here all day like this. I promise I’ll be back though! I’m looking for ingredients for new recipes for my shop back home.”
“Oho?” the breeder said with surprise. “Then perhaps you’d like to sign up for store membership?”
“What does that entail?”
“It’s free, but members are offered the occasional discount. There is also a stamp card.”
“Where do I sign up?”
The man pulled out a slip of paper and started the process. He started taking down Eik’s information but when he told the man his full name, a girl ran up to him.
“Eik Magnasen? I remember your name! You’re the new rank one in the F-rank damage output test!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m not him,” Eik tried.
“Yes, you are!” she said with conviction. “A score of more than 70000! You look exactly how people described you — well, maybe not quite as tall, but otherwise…” She appeared to be in her mid teens — probably an F-ranker herself. Her ears were pointed like the cult leader they had killed during the rescue mission.
Eik glanced at Mikla but the man seemed unsure about how to react. It’s not like a high score in an F-rank test would mean he was a Worldbreaker, but the score had still made him much more visible in the alliance. It was dangerous.
But Eik needed to show the alliance that he was worth their time. He needed to show that he was an individual worth investing in. That he could become important to them — and that, by extension, Earth could become an important ally. Even if his early strength was exposed to the wrong people, he had to do anything he could to make sure that humanity wasn’t left to go extinct.
“What clan are you from? Main family? Are you from one of the Prime Worlds? I can’t believe you beat out Masakir Hahakan’s score,” she rambled. She just wouldn’t stop talking. “He’s an S-ranker now! Did you know? I wonder what he’s going to say when he finds out that his score was destroyed so completely.”
That sent a shiver down Eik’ spine.
Even just this short time they had spent in town this morning had shown that most of the residents here really just were normal people going about normal lives. They smiled when smiled to and greeted friends and acquaintances on the street.
What he had seen from the people with power from the alliance might have been a skewed view of the society here. The Earth team had been thrown in among the warrior class and the warrior class had a different way of thinking than these commoners.
“I’m not from—”
“Saklo!” a voice called from the door. It was a man with two thick, tight braids coming around each side of his head and merging into one down his chest. A great, bushy beard concealed most of his facial features but his eyes was the dead giveaway that revealed their familial relation.
“Stop bothering that man, Saklo! He doesn’t want to hear all that,” he said and pushed her toward the door with an arm while he extended the other in a gesture of apology. “I’m sorry, sir. Her mother always says she talks too much, and I’m starting to see it too if I’m honest. Then again, she also says I talk too much so maybe it’s just that my daughter gets it from me.”
“She wasn’t a bother,” Eik said with a smile. “In fact, we’re new here,” — He nodded toward his friends — “so it’s really very nice to be greeted so kindly and energetically.” He flashed her a smile as well to which she waved from the door.
“I see! Well, in that case, welcome to Gimleh, proud host city of the headquarters of the Nidafjeld Alliance!” Eik could tell that that pride was real. The towering palace grounds was a very impressive sight.
His friends, including Mikla, joined them in introduction and went in for hand shakes which the bearded man accepted with initial confusion. “My name is Michael. Is this your home world?”
The man noticed an expression of slight embarrassment on Mikla’s face and offered him an eyebrow arched in amusement. “The name’s Mogu and that’s how I see it, yeah. My family has been here for over ten generations, I believe. So I take it that you guys are from a new world then?”
“That’s right,” Michael confirmed before Mikla could stop him. In the end the fracture specialist just shrugged and let the conversation continue.
“That’s not something you see every day,” the man said, seemingly surprised that his guess had actually been correct. “If you want a bite to eat you can come by later. I’m still doing the morning shopping, but we’re going to be open later. I swear it’s good!” he said as he slapped his round belly that spilled out over his belt. That did speak volumes.
“Do you have a restaurant?” Heath asked.
“I do indeed,” Mogu said. “Family owned and everything. My wife and I are a real star team, I can tell you! And Saklo even helps us out as a waitress in the front room sometimes. Real good kid, she is!”
“Of course we’ll come by sometime,” Eik said. “Do you serve dirt duck?”
“I- I’m sorry, I’m not quite sure what it is that you’re…”
“He’s talking about brisik,” Mikla clarified with a roll of his eyes.
“Ahaa,” the man drawled. “Brisik! Of course! Any establishment with respect for their own menu has brisik on the first page!”
“That’s sounds pretty good to me right about now,” Michael said, catching the eyes of Heath and Eik whose eyes reflected the same enthusiasm as the young healer.
Sonja made a face. “Guys, we just had desserts for breakfast. And sandwiches earlier. Let’s go for lunch later instead.”
They finished their conversation with Mogu and his daughter Saklo before heading back out onto the shopping which had grown even more crowded than it had already been. On the way out, Eik was handed a stamp card with his name and customer number written by hand on the front.
There was room for fifteen stamps and as a courtesy and as, quote, “a thank you for an interesting first meeting that allowed me to regain some of the passion of my youth”, the plant breeder had given him two stamps to get started on. He hadn’t even bought anything yet but he would most certainly be back.
They wandered the streets and window shopped. The homey, simple architecture and design of the town reminded him of all the old fairy tales but the magical items, alien-looking gadgets, and other strange diggidydoos adorning numerous shop windows put a completely different spin on it.
A store had full suits of plate armor standing in the window, looking like a squad of eerie automatons. Here it was Heath’s turn to nerd out and pull them into the showroom, citing a need to assess the best possible use of his new credits.
It was then and there that Eik learned for the first time that Heath had been walking around with a dream of becoming a smith and forging his own weapons and armor. Sonja even said that the man’s fascination with the art was part of the reason he had chosen to specialize in a combat style that relied heavily on equipment.
Eik loved the idea. It was always a good idea to have something else you could do besides fighting.
The tank was practically drooling as he browsed the immaculately polished gear, each piece tagged with little signs that described their magical properties and effects. As the prices of the pieces increased, so did the potency of their magical properties strengthen, the power of some of the most expensive equipment astoundingly great.
“What stops all the big families and high-rankers from buying their kids into strength from the moment they awaken?” Sonja asked as she read the tag on a golden breastplate mounted on a stand. “It seems like you could power even a new F-ranker up far beyond natural limits.”
“Good question, actually,” Mikla nodded. “Do you remember how your world is still so new and not yet saturated enough by energy to support existences beyond A-rank?”
“Yeah,” she answered.
“Well, armor and weapons kind of behave in the same way. Or, not really, but to make a point let’s say that it does. A body simply isn’t capable of being affected by the effects of the equipment if the power difference is too large. In fact, depending on the type of enchantment, it can even have a negative impact on a wearer who is too weak.”
“Like how stronger healing potions could be detrimental rather than a positive?” Michael asked.
“Exactly! Rest assured that one can’t simply put on overpowered equipment and rise to S-rank on the day of Awakening. The only true shortcut to fast power is risk,” Mikla said and gestured to the pieces lined up along the walls and on several display tables around the front room.
“What you see here just isn’t that good, even for the power levels they’re meant for.” — He ducked his head when the shop keeper sent him a death stare and the rest of his explanation was given in a muttered whisper — “Any item here would certainly be a boon to have, but for any single item to have an overwhelming impact on your strength you couldn’t buy even a single E-rank piece if you had all of your credits ten times over. Money does buy power, but not to such a degree that you stand no chance.”
They found an academic book store where Eik found the encyclopedia of plants he’d been hoping for as well as a book of simple recipes that even amateurs could make, allegedly.
Before buying the recipe book, he had skimmed through the introduction and the first few entries. The instructions included what could best be described as ‘esoteric’ techniques and processes which, in a book store from before the magical monster apocalypse had hit, would have rightfully been placed in the section for fantasy books.
They spent the next few hours walking from store to store. Eik bought a small supply of vials for potions and some kind of non-toxic clay-like material that could be used to make pills.
He couldn’t wait to get back and start looking through both books. Next time they went into town he would have a list prepared for his trip to the plant breeder — Leafy Sundries.
If he could successfully create even some of the, as far as Earth was concerned, new alchemical concoctions mentioned in the recipe book, he’d be on track to dominating the market back home — once everything had settled down a little bit, of course.
But before any of that could be put into practice Eik would first have to figure how to actually brew the product.
