Chương 147: Chapter 143

There was a quiet lull around the empty spray bottle. And its possible fate as a weapon of mass destruction. Right next to a Glock in terms of potential. Probably also going to be held on the same belt loops too. Leon looked between that and the glass vial on the folding table.

"It apply damage after five seconds, da? Could it not apply damage on bottle?" As in once this potion was out of the glass vial, anything it touched was in danger.

"That's the neat part." Wade said, "I know it won't. See, the description says 'Enemies' which as I've tested earlier, usually means anything with a health bar that the caster thinks of as an enemy. It's not a real chemistry potion, or an Azdrian one. It's a System potion, which means it follows the exact rules on the label." Medy had confirmed it herself too, all the ingredients required were nonsense to her, something about essences she could yank out of them would have ended up with a ruined solution.

Not to mention the steps to brew it were all weird and placed way too much focus on oddball preparation. The only thing that made somewhat sense to her was that the ingredients had to be put into the pot at specific intervals. But who was she to argue with a blue window of text appearing in front of her face that nobody else could see?

"Tools aren't affected," Wade said as he looked down at his empty bottle.

"And neither would containers. We don't have to keep that potion inside a glass vial."

"Well, uh, we kinda do?" Medy said in a timid voice. She could tell Wade was real excited about this and it felt like she was about to deflate him with bad news.

"Part of the instructions is to scoop up the potion inside the glass vial. I'm not sure replacing it with this weird bottle would work?" Wade held up one triumphant finger up, and then deflated.

"Shit. You're right." He could get hoisted by his own petard here. As in the potion being a System game item potion might also swing the other way - if it ever left the vial, it wasn't a complete item anymore. Or it could only be 'used' on one target. Video games had lots of potions show up in different flavors of use. Sometimes there wasn't even an animation involved in using a potion for the older games. The button would be pressed, the effect would be applied, and nothing else on screen would have happened.

Which game was the System trying to emulate with its Alchemy Crafting?

"Well, we won't know until we actually make the damn thing." Wade shrugged.

"And if it doesn't work with a spray bottle, I'll just find something else I can abuse it with." Medy looked over the table, then back to the cauldron now filled with water. Everything on in front of her was a combination of Zin home delivering himself special goods, while having delivery drivers equally show up to drop off other items to cut down on time. He had been oddly organized through the entire process. And he was currently away waiting at the front door for the next parcel to arrive.

"Okie dokie, I'll get started now!" Well, it might not be the Alchemy she was used to, but it was still fun and close enough in her senses. She started waggling her tail, as she went over the step by step directions from that blue window. There hadn't even been directions originally, just written out ingredients required.

It's only after she thought about those missing when she realized all the keywords on the panel could be looked at further and a tooltip of some kind would show up with a good enough text description she could follow. She put the fire on low heat first, took the pretty rose flower off the table and pulverized them in a mortar and pestle for ten seconds until the System showed her the action was complete. The ingredients only mentioned grinded flowers, and roses worked just fine.

Granite was supplied in the form of that very mortar and pestle, she'd be throwing in the pestle into the cauldron after. Ash was equally easily gotten from the fireplace in the home - which had been used a single time by the ex-owners according to Zin, and never cleaned out since. A handful of it was tossed in and she stirred the odd things together, mostly feeling the rocky lump of the granite pestle at the bottom.

Copper coins had an issue in that pennies were not copper, but a doorbell chime later, Zin came back with copper pipes ordered from a hardware store earlier. He proceeded to rip it apart into smaller sections by hand, then carved out two coin shapes using a bit of free magic heating. His hands were perfectly fine manipulating the metal. Once they had cooled down, only then did he put his white gloves back on with a satisfied nod at his workmanship.

Those went into the cauldron, and light started shining out of it now. Which was normal and something Medy called a 'quick time event' - the System's words for it, not her own. She just followed the beat for a moment, moving the spoon and turning the fire on high until she got all the movements, and was ready for the next step: The bird skull and the trophy of a defeated foe. One of the places Zin had personally stopped by had been the pet shop.

And only because Wade had plastered him with enough additional requests the Archdemon knew he couldn't trust a delivery boy to handle the job anymore. He reached into that bag, brought out a white styrofoam box, and pulled out a frozen mouse.

"One trophy of a defeated foe, unfairly plucked from some poor adorable reptile going hungry today." He said, handing it over to his peer. She tossed it into the cauldron with the bird skull. Then went to stir.

"Huh. The bird skull has a checkmark on the panel, but not the trophy?" She squinted ahead at the air, reading.

"Maybe it didn't count because someone else killed it?"

"You threw the whole mouse in, maybe you just needed a body part?" Wade suggested.

"For a trophy? Really?" She looked over to Zin.

"Why wouldn't the whole thing work?"

"Don't ask me, the entire mangled corpse of your dead foe seems like a perfectly reasonable trophy to me, but what do I know?" Zin shrugged, "You're the alchemist here."

"Well…" She thought about it, tail tip tapping her chin while she absentmindedly clacked the tongs.

"Smaller body parts would be easier to draw specific essences from? But it's not like we're losing anything by tossing in the entire thing." If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it. Zin gave her a what-can-you-do shrug, then turned to his bag of groceries, then brought out a small box with holes.

"You two are lucky I come prepared for every disappointment. Long list of experience taught me well." He said, shoving the box over to Wade.

"We need a dead mouse. I got a few live ones. Knock yourself out champ." Wade slowly opened the cardboard box and found a small tribe of adorable mice looking back at him. Unable to get out of the box. Killing and and insects was one thing, but his arbitrary mortal morals and mostly a life fully lived in the city, made Wade wholly unprepared for the task. Zin rolled his eyes, reached a hand in and brought out a mouse, and snapped it's neck.

Then handed the limp body off to Medy, who seemed equally non-plussed and tossed it into the cauldron.

"Hmm, not that either." She grabbed the rodent by the tongs again, lifted it up and cut off the tail with her own tail swiping through in a quick motion. It fell straight down. Medy frowned further, looking between the cauldron, and then to something invisible off to her side.

"I can't really understand this at all. What counts as a trophy?" Wade considered the term for a definition. But maybe there was a better way to think about it: What goal is the System after with this? If it would allow any dead creature to count as a slain foe, then anyone could prepare this potion pretty easily. For a rare-level potion it had to be somewhat harder. The rest of the ingredients seemed more like fluff to make it more alchemy-ish.

He came up with two options: Either it was a piece of a dead monster that triggered a challenge gauntlet, or it was a piece of a foe from Azdrial they'd had to fight that could have been a threat to their life. Both seemed more closer to the goal of a trophy. They didn't have any part of any challenge gauntlet mob, but Wade realized they did have a trophy. It never specified it needed to be a living part. Just a memento of the slain foe.

And one skeleton in specific had been collecting exactly those as hats this whole time: Eri and his broken Arcanaut helmet. Which was sitting back home, regally displayed next to his other collection of hats, including Jason's colander. Which Wade was almost certain Jason hadn't yet noticed and would at the worst possible time midway through cooking pasta. But that would be a problem for another day. Current problem: How to convince the skeleton to hand over his prize?

"This… might be a little harder than we think." He said, after he considered the possible options of what could happen. That was the most generous way of phrasing it, as it turned out. They found Eri outside in the lower terraces, hanging out with Bael. Both of them watching the LA skyline and the rising sunlight. Neither of them talked, although that was to be expected from one of them. The skeleton would point out something in the distance, and Bael would grunt a thanks, watching the distant bird fly off.

There were things that flew in Azdrial, and they were all very large, and very, very dangerous. Wyverns were considered the smallest flying animal and had Wade seen one in person, he would have considered them far too big to make sense. At least until he realized mana was an environmental data point to consider.

Tiny birds flying around on the other hand were a very welcome kind of animal and Bael was strongly considering what the word 'birdwatcher' meant, and how he could get started on that strange term the language blessing supplied him with.

"Hey Eri!" Wade waved, getting the attention of his best and more loyal employee. Eri turned, and enthusiastically waved a hand back. Then excitedly pointed out behind him where the pair had spotted a small migration of ducks flying off.

"Yeah, I'm more surprised L. A. even has lakes anywhere to be honest." Parking lots were the apex predator among the urban sprawl here, and the demand was never ending. Wade shook his head, then steeled himself for what came next: Haggling.

"Listen, I need a favor." Eri tilted his head.

"So Medy's making the potion and she needs a trophy from a slain enemy. And I was thinking, errrr, well, you've got that broken Arcanaut helmet back at the apartment. That would count for a trophy, we're mostly sure. Mostly." Eri stared at him. The flat unmoving mask somehow conveyed more suspicion than a normal glare could. It was oddly amazing how well that worked.

"I'm not keeping it!" Wade held some placating hands out.

"I just need to toss it in a cauldron for like thirty seconds, and then-" Eri clicked his jaws, shaking his head the entire time. Oh ho, funny joke my friend. Implying I would give up one of my hats.

"Come on, it's broken. Half the visor is cracked and gone! You can't even wear it properly, it's like a size bigger and rattles on your shoulders. You look like a funko pop with it on." Eri had no idea what that was, nor did he care what Market's blessing told him that was. In fact, if the helmet was too big to wear, all that did was make it better. The more useless a hat was, the more anti-Nathir it was to wear such a thing as a human. Tools did not get to wear or display power of any kind.

Anything that had no function carried heavy pain with it. Wearing even clothing that didn't serve a purpose was considered audacity among slaves, and they had to often find interesting ways to hide such decorations. Those hats were his. Eri crossed his arms into an X. Holding it like he would a cross against a vampire. Protection from evil.

"Eri. Buddy. Partner. My most valued employee-" Said evil started, wringing his hands together as he came up with a plan to seperate hat from head.

"Learning from the Archdemon?" Bael interjected, not even looking at the human.

"Poor choice." The skeleton pointed at Wade, then pointed at himself, then made a very clear gesture about their standing. I work here because I want to. It involved a lot of finger wagging. Also, you owe me a pope hat, a guitar, and a camera right now. That part involved a lot of counting down on his hands.

Well, if he wasn't already certain before, Wade could now firmly put down the question on if Eri was a System-compelled servant following him around with no real personal will, or if the System tossed him back into the world with the equivalent of a pat on the head, and a pointed finger on who he should attack. Speaking of attack vectors, Wade switched gears.

"What if I buy you a new hat? A better hat! We haven't even scratched the surface of the kinds of hats I could get you. There are cowboy hats. Those scottish beret ones, also the Russian fur ones with the flaps-" While it would look pretty sick on a skull, and Eri would appreciate mixing it to his aviator glasses, it was still the principle of the thing: That hat was his. The Arcanaut helmet wasn't ever going to go on anyone else's head but his own.

"It's going soup! You can fish it back out after!" Wade said flatly.

"I'm not asking you to donate a kidney or something here!" Eri looked down at his trenchcoat, then patted around a few times in surprise. Wade rolled his eyes, "Okay, I get it, you don't have a kidney. Har, har." Eri gave him a happy thumbs up, then grabbed both ends of his hat, pulled them down on his head snuggly, and held it there. Staring directly at Wade. With the same energy a dragon sitting on gold hoard would have. Or Wade lounging on a mattress filled with money. …

Yeah, this knock-off astronaut hat wasn't going in the pot anytime soon.

"Will it remain unbroken in your potion crafting techniques? Medy implied it was a strange art." The demon turned and narrowed his eyes, sniffing the air for a moment.

"… You don't know for certain, do you?" Of course, leave it to the demon to sniff out his emotions. That felt like a cheat. A bigger cheat than his market's blessing. Cheating should be only allowed when it benefited him.

"Aren't you supposed to be on my side here?" Wade hissed.

"Protection and favor are two different things mortal." Bael said.

"And if this hat could potentially save my life here in the next round?"

"Then I will be more persuasive for you, if that case comes to pass." He looked over to Eri, who shot him a betrayed look. Wade did make a few more attempt at bribery, appeals to emotion and one attempt at distraction, but Eri was basically part magpie and used to gleefully running at the largest threat in the room with a giant sword raised up high, so Wade wasn't particularly into pissing him off.

"All right, let's take a quick break and circle back to this later, I'll see if I can figure out a plan B and try from a few different angles." Wade said, getting back up after the unsuccessful round of haggling. He walked back to the kitchen, hearing the Skeleton clicking his jaws at him the entire way back. Yes, if it came down to his survival or Eri's hat, he'd need to pick the former and Bael would probably step in and help negotiate it with his emotion sensing.

It'll just cost quite a bit of things, and possibly promises to bring back more junk for Eri to display on a wall. Or on top of a skull. But halfway through the walk back, Wade realized he did have a plan B. And one staring him in the face this whole time: The very thing that started the entire questline. The mana-infused chitin fragment he'd gotten. Duh.