Chapter 18: Alchemy and the Bargaining Chip

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Chapter 18: Alchemy and the Bargaining Chip

“Meow.”

The visitor from another world was peering through the window again.

He watched the cat, tail held high, leap down from the windowsill, nimbly cross the rooftops, and disappear into the distance with elegant steps. He watched white doves fly past in the distance. When he pushed open the window, the gentle sound of music drifted in on the wind.

It seemed a wandering bard had arrived at the Oak Tavern, trading music for drinks. He had a magic lute that could play the ballads of heroes.

Looking down, he saw several children by the roadside playing with stones. The black stones represented demons, while the white stones represented angels. A circle drawn on the ground served as a demon-banishing circle.

The angels and demons battled inside the circle as the children threw stones and shouted about justice.

Once again, Gray Hat Street was having a day that was peaceful and yet not peaceful.

Charlie always had the feeling that someone was watching him, and there also seemed to be something secret flowing beneath the calm of Gray Hat Street. Sometimes the feeling made his skin crawl, but at other times, it brought a faint thrill, like an electric current running beneath his skin.

Excited about what, exactly? Charlie had never considered himself someone who loved adventure that much.

What qualities should an adventurer possess?

First of all, he needed a potion.

When venturing out, getting injured was inevitable. High-tier potions were difficult to come by, but a basic Life Potion was something every adventurer should at least have on hand. Charlie gathered himself and went back to continue his alchemy experiments.

He already had all the materials needed to make a Life Potion, and he had multiple sets—enough to allow for several failures.

So it was time to put the alchemy table to use and make a genuine alchemical potion.

The process itself wasn’t complicated. According to The Alchemy Notes , all he had to do was place each material in its designated position on the alchemy table, use his magic power to activate the alchemical array, and wait for the transformation to finish.

But once he actually started, Charlie realized just how difficult it was. It was like asking Zhang Fei to do embroidery.

Alchemy and traditional Chinese elixir-making had a remarkably similar approach.

The alchemists of Totolando threw all sorts of things into their formulas, and those old Daoist priests were no different. Keep adding things, and sooner or later the furnace would explode—and gunpowder would be born.

The true essence of art lay in explosions.

“Bang!” Arcs of light and sparks of lightning flashed across the alchemical array. His magic power wasn’t flowing smoothly, and the array markings seemed to short-circuit. In an instant, the whole thing looked ready to teach Charlie a lesson.

The only thing worth being thankful for was that this was a genuine mage tower. Any sounds produced inside the alchemy laboratory would be completely isolated.

“It’s—it’s giving off black smoke.” The noise startled Ben out of his self-isolation, and he let out a startled gasp.

“It’s nothing.” Charlie calmly tossed the ruined materials into the trash bin beside him. As he tidied the table, he asked, “Do you think I have a talent for alchemy, Ben?”

“Huh? I—you… uh…”

“I think I do.”

It had to be said that Charlie liked explosions. His earlier failure hadn’t cast a shadow over his mood. Instead, it had helped him figure out a few tricks, and he tried again.

Sure enough, he succeeded on his second attempt. He took out a transparent glass potion bottle and filled it with the potion floating above the alchemy table, enveloped in light. A basic Life Potion was complete.

Ben stared at the faint smile on Charlie’s face, his thoughts momentarily grinding to a halt. He stood there blankly for a long while without saying anything. He had actually forgotten what counted as talent. How many failures did it take? How many successes?

But when Charlie casually said that he thought he had the talent, and then actually proved it, Ben suddenly felt that none of those things mattered.

“You’re amazing.” Ben was a little happy.

“Thank you for the compliment.” Charlie held the potion bottle up to the light and examined it. The transparent potion contained almost no impurities. He couldn’t assess its level himself, but he thought the quality of this potion should be quite good.

At that thought, a dark glint flashed through Charlie’s eyes. Without much hesitation, he downed the potion in one go.

Ben was dumbfounded. “You—you, you—”

Charlie calmly set down the empty potion bottle and asked, “What’s wrong with me?”

“Aren’t you afraid there might be something wrong with the potion? Master said that a beginner’s potions either aren’t pure enough and have poor effects, or they have side effects. Really scary ones, too, like growing green hair on your arms!”

Charlie was amused by the side effect Ben had described, and at that moment, the potion began to take effect. Charlie felt a warm power flowing through his blood, making his body feel lighter than it ever had before.

He went downstairs, returned to his bedroom, and stood in front of the mirror. He noticed that his complexion had become much rosier.

“How do I look?” he asked.

Ben’s ribs had been hiding under the bed in self-isolation the whole time. At this, he couldn’t help but roll out and quietly answer, “Very good.”

That answer put Charlie in a fairly good mood.

He glanced at the twilight outside the window, then headed downstairs in light spirits to take out the trash and make dinner.

Even Ben’s skeletal frame could tell that he was in a good mood, let alone the neighbors passing by on the street as they made their way home beneath the setting sun.

“Charlie, you look great today.” The middle-aged man passing by was a regular at the market and had run into Charlie many times before. Seeing Charlie with such a healthy complexion was a little strange for him.

“I successfully made an alchemical potion.” Charlie’s eyes lit up as he mentioned it. “Just now.”

The man froze when he heard that, then couldn’t help bursting out laughing. His hearty laughter drew the attention of passersby. “Is that true? Charlie, you really made an alchemical potion?”

Charlie looked him straight in the eye. Anyone could see the determination and conviction in his gaze. “I tried it myself. It’s true.”

The man scratched his head, momentarily unable to tell whether Charlie was serious. Charlie said he’d made an alchemical potion? And he’d even tried it himself? Was this the same Charlie, the daydreamer? The Charlie who had been turned away by the Higher Academy of Magic and every mage tower?

Was he really not dreaming?

“Oh, Sun above, is this really true?” Another passerby happened to come over, looking first at the man and then at Charlie. The change was simply too great.

Only yesterday, some busybodies had jokingly been betting on when little Charlie from the strange tower would go bankrupt because of alchemy. And today he’d already succeeded?

“Oh, heavens…”

Remarkable rumors always spread at astonishing speed.

By the time the smell of food drifted out from Pinecone Tower, the news that Charlie the daydreamer had apparently become an alchemist had already spread through more than half of Gray Hat Street.

People passed the news from one to another. Some were amazed, while others remained skeptical, thinking Charlie had lost his mind and started hallucinating.

The little daisies in the corner swayed gently, as though they had opinions of their own.

“Charlie, Charlie!” Jeffrey once again arrived at Pinecone Tower beneath the setting sun and knocked on the door. As soon as it opened, he hurriedly grabbed Charlie by the arm and looked him up and down. “What happened? Why did I hear on my way back that you’d gone crazy?!”

Charlie was a little stunned, too. “I’ve gone crazy?”

He had known that rumors took on lives of their own and could become all sorts of strange things, but he hadn’t expected them to evolve this quickly. Was this what they meant by saying there was only a fine line between genius and madness?

“Jeffrey, don’t worry. I’m fine.” Charlie had lost count of how many times he’d said those words to Jeffrey, and Jeffrey had probably lost count of how many times he’d heard them.

Even so, Jeffrey still breathed a sigh of relief. “As long as you’re fine.”

Charlie smiled and told him that he’d really succeeded in making an alchemical potion.

Jeffrey was genuinely happy for him when he heard that. “That’s wonderful. Oh, right, there’s something else I forgot to tell you. The shoemaker’s shop got another new order a couple of days ago. Guess whose?”

Charlie’s thoughts shifted, and he suddenly thought of a possibility. “Mine?”

“That’s right!” Jeffrey’s whole face lit up. “That jeweler sent someone to order a pair of custom boots for you. The moment I saw the order, I guessed they were for you. I haven’t even finished my apprenticeship yet, and for orders with such a large deposit, the old shoemaker normally wouldn’t let me touch them. But I really wanted to give it a try, so I begged him—and I couldn’t believe it when he agreed!”

Charlie was silent for a moment because something else had suddenly occurred to him.

Seeing his expression, Jeffrey thought he was worried about the quality of the boots and hurriedly explained, “But I’m only helping the old shoemaker. There definitely won’t be any problems with the boots!”

“Jeffrey, that’s not what I meant. You know me better than the old shoemaker does, so you must know what kind of boots suit me best.” Charlie came back to himself and quickly reassured him.

Then he casually asked, “The shoemaker’s shop must be pretty busy lately, right? You said last time that you also had a large order from the royal capital. Will you be able to finish everything on time?”

Jeffrey scratched his head. “Hehe, we are a little busy, but the expected delivery date was pushed back, so we’ll still make it.”

“It was pushed back?” Charlie considered this inwardly but showed nothing on his face. “What a coincidence. If it hadn’t been pushed back, you might not have had time to take the jeweler’s order. Has he placed orders with you before?”

Jeffrey nodded, then shook his head. “He was referred by a regular customer. But this jeweler hasn’t been in Magipo for very long, so he hasn’t placed many orders.”

Hearing that, Charlie didn’t ask anything else.

After Jeffrey waved goodbye and left, Charlie closed the door and returned to the kitchen. The soup in the pot had just come to a boil. Steam pushed against the lid, making it rattle with a low “woowoo” sound.

Charlie walked over, lifted the lid, and stirred the soup with a long-handled wooden spoon, deep in thought.

The old shoemaker, huh…

Ben’s skull rolled out of the fireplace. Looking at Charlie, he finally voiced the question on his mind. “What are you doing now?”

Charlie answered casually, “Making soup.”

“Not that. Why did you tell everyone about the alchemical potion? Now everyone knows.”

“Because I was happy and wanted to share my joy with everyone.”

“But before, you clearly didn’t want anyone to know you’d learned magic!”

“Did I?”

Ben stared at Charlie’s calm expression and felt that he looked like a liar at that moment. A big liar, just like Aye.

Charlie caught his accusatory gaze and smiled. “All right. It’s actually just a bargaining chip—a way of proving my worth, something I can put on the table at the right moment for a perfectly reasonable purpose.”

A universally known good-for-nothing who had been turned away by the magic academy and every major mage tower had somehow become involved in a theft case, only to be noticed by a jeweler because of his appearance.

His bad luck and his “good fortune” were both nothing unusual in this holy city of magic. Just like the concern in George’s eyes, what people saw in him was not merely Charlie, but a reflection of countless others.

But what if he suddenly transformed into a rather talented alchemist?

How would the story continue then?

Charlie walked to the window and looked outside once more.

He didn’t know how many undercurrents were swirling beneath mysterious Gray Hat Street. But his instincts told him that compared with the turmoil on the surface, the hidden currents were far more frightening.

“The water here is too murky. I can’t see through it.” Charlie drew the curtains. “So this is a bargaining chip, bait, and also a stone thrown into the water.”

Ben was confused again. His empty head couldn’t handle anything too complicated. What Charlie said next only left him even more bewildered.

“There are many different versions of the story surrounding Pinecone Tower circulating around Gray Hat Street. Of all those versions, I once heard Jeffrey mention that he’d heard the old shoemaker say the strange tower was a witch’s tower. That’s the version closest to the truth.”

Charlie ladled the finished soup into pretty white bowls as he continued:

“For now, it seems the Black-Armored Knights don’t know Pinecone Tower’s secret, and Vic, an outsider like me, doesn’t know either. But Gray Hat Street—”

“If there really is someone who knows the truth about Pinecone Tower, could they figure out that before becoming an alchemist, I’d already learned magic and opened the door to the fourth floor?”

“Was it really a coincidence that Vic sent the boot order to the old shoemaker?”

The skull hung open-mouthed, completely at a loss for words.

Charlie placed the bowls on the dining table. Seeing the slightly dazed skull, he couldn’t help patting his smooth, rounded head. “Of course, this is just a somewhat immature guess of mine.”

Ben felt the warmth on top of his head and suddenly became melancholy. “If only I could remember.”

Charlie comforted him. “If you can’t remember, then don’t force yourself to, Ben. A head isn’t only for thinking. It can also—”

“Also what?”

“Be used as a battering ram.”

Ben was shocked. “What?”

Charlie smiled. “So you’d better keep yourself hidden. If some bad guys come looking for trouble again, Your Excellency, loyal retainer of the great necromancer, you’ll have to protect me.”

Ben hadn’t expected Charlie’s jinxing to actually make his words come true.

That very night, as the followers of the Moon awoke at midnight and began the most devout prayer of the day, another sound appeared on the quiet streets of Gray Hat Street.

No one would pay attention to this sound, nor to the tiny disturbance hidden within it.

Until the person in the bed opened their eyes.

A soft rustling came from beside the bedroom window. Beneath the bright moonlight, a small black shadow wriggled.

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