Chapter 170 - Asking For Extravagant Requirements
Just as he finished with them all, he felt quite relieved, as he was able to save them.
"Take this, it will help protect you from the poison," he handed one bottle to her, as she was for sure poisoned, but her high strength helped in sharing the toll of this toxin with her body.
"Me, poisoned?!!" she exclaimed in surprise, but his firm look made her sigh, before she took the bottle and drank its content.
The moment the fluid entered her body, she felt extreme heat in her heart, followed by some dizziness for a moment, before she regained her full control over her body.
"I was really poisoned!!" she stated the obvious, with some shock over her face already, "that means whoever released this toxin is still around," she added with her gaze looking outside the tent as her attention was directed toward somewhere else.
"Stay here, and don't leave," she said, before moving in extreme speed that rivaled instant teleportation, making him sigh helplessly, as she was a really impulsive mage.
Whoever had released the toxin must have disappeared long ago. This toxin had a very long half life in the air, making it hard to eliminate, except if a special technique was used, one he couldn't imitate right now.
"Master, may I tell you the request of the leader?" one of the five mages who delivered the herbs to him spoke up, finally saying what was loaming inside his heart.
"What is it?" Arthur asked, as he took five bottles and gave them to the mages in front of him as he added, "first take these and then speak freely."
The mages had seen their peers get better, so they had much trust in Arthur right now. they took the potions, and gulped them, before the mage who spoke first continued:
"This mysterious disease has already spread all over the other camps as well, infecting more of their mages. The leader asks you to prepare extra batches of this cure, as if an agreement is reached with the leader, he will trouble you for making more to cure them."
Arthur understood what was going on here, and he just smiled evilly when he heard that. no matter what these clans had to offer for the leader, he would ask for half at least, if not then there was no potion at all.
"Return to the leader, and tell him I will prepare more as long as you keep providing more herbs to me. also tell him that I have two thirds of what he would gain from these camps, so he should ask for a higher price then."
His words surprised the mages, but when they recalled his vital role in solving this disaster, they all got silenced and said nothing back. They just nodded as they excused themselves, returning to the leader, and telling him Arthur's reply.
As for Arthur, he started examining Rayan's state, to make sure everything was heading to the right direction, with no surprises at all.
Amidst his waiting for Rayan's condition to improve, he took one potion himself, as this toxin was quite deadly if not treated, and a very rare tonic when cured.
The moment he took the potion, he felt a slight tingling sensation all over his body, making him realize he was also poisoned and his body was just fighting off the toxin, but not able to kill it.
"That means every single one here will be infected with this toxin," he muttered to himself, as his mind started to play a very evil thought that greatly appealed to him.
At once he headed towards the cauldron, inspecting its current content of the potion. "I think it might be good for one to two hundred more potions," he muttered, then he took out empty bottles and started filling them with the antidote.
"Ron, come inside," he shouted on his right hand. Ron hurriedly entered the tent and when he did, he was astonished to see that big cauldron on the side of the tent.
"Take these and distribute them all on our mages," Arthur handed over the one hundred potions to him. Ron took them on multiple times, and when he finished, he noticed Arthur was making other potions as well.
"Do you want any help?" he asked.
"No thanks," Arthur simply replied, before adding, "keep these potions everyone took a secret, and later I will give you another potion, so you will take it like it's the first time to do so," he added, giving specific orders for him. Ron nodded, and headed to the outside with the last batch of potions, while he relayed his orders to everyone outside.
Arthur hurriedly emptied the content of his cauldron, before adding other ingredients to it. as for the bottles he had, he stored them all for later use.
This surprise attack came at the same time with the attack from the falcon and the shadow crows mages, which meant whoever did so must have some ties with Forij and his son.
To be safe in the future he needed to store these potions. As for the cauldron, he filled it with normal explosive oil, normal fire ore, and didn't put the blood of the bronzed giant, but the weaker blood of the scorpion from the days he was torturing her.
He lowered the quality of his ingredients, and with that he would be sure the potion would work in relieving symptoms, but not to fully cure them. He had to be tricky here, as this would help him later on in the upcoming challenge.
If the clans were ready to pay now, then they would be ready to pay later. This place would be poisoned for a long time, and so any mage coming here would be poisoned, giving him more sources of income, and more variety for gaining leverage and many advantages.
As he waited for the fluid to be mixed well together, he had another batch of resources delivered for him, with another message from the leader of this camp.
"The leader informs you, our esteemed guest, that he has already reached an agreement with other clans and guilds here. they will pay a certain amount of monsters' cores or anything equivalent to them, and you will have one half of this amount."
One of the mages who delivered the herbs told him about that deal. Arthur just nodded, as he expected the leader to play his own tricks. Despite he didn't know what monster core was in this world, it seemed quite a valuable thing.
He then took the ingredients and used them to make another amount of potion. In the middle of this, he secretly stored about one fourth of this amount into his storage ring, without any mage noticing his actions.
He had to lower the quality of this potion, and only lowering the basic fluid quality wasn't enough, so he also decreased the amount of the ingredients itself, and increased the size of the basic fluid.
The diluted, lowered graded new potion was ready, and he hurriedly asked the Nystic mages for empty bottles enough for everyone here, plus he asked for the approximate number of potions he had to make.
He showed his generous faked nature to them, and this attitude was delivered to the leader at the depth of the forest, making him very satisfied with his gains.
The real deal included not only monsters' cores, but also many weapons. For him, these weapons were much more important than cores, so he decided to give up half of the cores to Arthur, while he kept everything else.
One snake was scheming against a fox, and he was destined to lose! If the leader knew about the hidden intentions of Arthur, he would never have tried to trick him, and would have taken Arthur more seriously.
Arthur then started to make potions out of the bottles he had acquired from the Nystic clan mages. "The leader informs you to make ten thousand potions for the mages in this place," the mage suddenly spoke up after receiving a bird's wing from the leader.
When Arthur saw this bird's wing, his eyes shone brightly as he missed this godly tool in his arsenal. "Send to the leader, and inform him that half of my share of the monsters' cores will be replaced with pure bird's wings," he said to the mages behind his back, before adding, "and inform him that this amount requires a lot of materials that I currently don't have.
I want a mountain equal to the finest fire ore, ice ore, wind ore, and earth ore. Plus I want many fine woods equal to the size of the whole area here. I also want an explosive oil, the finest of it, enough to fill a tank covering this whole camp, in addition to the blood of the strongest monsters they can kill, at least ten monsters for each mage.
I want these things ready in two hours max or else my own reserves will be depleted and I wouldn't be able to make any more potions."