The Lone Wanderer

Over the next hour or so, Percy brought Baldy up to speed on the mushrooms. Of course, he’d already briefed him on his plans previously, but it wasn’t until now that he’d come to understand his ingredients better.

At first, he didn’t expect his grandpa to be too interested. They already had a lot of healers at home, so the green mushrooms would only be useful for people heading out on missions – and only if they didn’t have a life user accompanying them. Naturally, this didn’t happen very often. It was generally a dumb idea for a group to not include a healer – doubly so given their abundance in House Avalon.

Even then, all their Yellow-borns reached Green by the time they were old enough to be allowed out, making potions essentially useless for them. Let alone their raw ingredients, which were even less potent. In theory, Red-borns might benefit more from the mushrooms. Sadly, they were rarely strong enough to risk going on missions. Not to mention how few of those the family even had left, ever since the massacre.

This all meant that the green mushrooms would only be used in some niche circumstances. Specifically, if and when a group of young Orange-borns decided to head out unaccompanied by a life user – for whatever reason.

“They wouldn’t be worth it if they were more troublesome to cultivate.” Archibald explained. “But things are different, given how easily I can replenish them.”

Percy nodded. The best thing about the mushrooms was that they didn’t need any dedicated infrastructure, nor personnel to grow. Archibald could easily maintain a stock in their warehouse by himself. He’d only need to give up a clone whenever they were close to running out.

Sure, they wouldn’t be too effective. Not without an alchemist to brew them into proper potions. Nor would they be needed often. Still, it would be handy to have a few around for an emergency. At the very least, it was easier than purchasing normal healing potions from the Guild. Additionally, Percy could brew his family their first batch before leaving.

“What about the red ones? Their effect is a little more exotic. I was hoping they might be useful when consumed by your clones.”

Baldy shook his head, however.

Hearing that, Percy deflated. He had certainly hoped his latest acquisitions would prove useful for his House, to curb his guilt over all the time and attention he was siphoning from his grandpa again.

“But that’s not to say they’re useless.” Archibald added a moment later, causing him to perk up. “I may not personally need them, but many of our younger people have yet to master our family’s Secret Arts. They’ll be more effective on their clones too, thanks to their lower grades.”

His words rekindled Percy’s enthusiasm somewhat. Yet there was still an issue to solve.

“Do you think they’re safe to use in a battle though?” Percy asked. “You saw what happened when I planted them into your clones.”

Baldy grimaced upon remembering that.

“Looking at my own mutilated body is something I’ll never get used to, no matter how many times I see it. Still, it’s not that big of a problem. It only happened because I wasn’t there to supervise the process. Withholding my mana from the mushrooms to slow their growth down would be trivial otherwise.”

The two spoke for a while longer, ironing out the details of their arrangement. Archibald agreed to give him a couple more clones, which Percy would exclusively use to grow green mushrooms. He didn’t need any more of the red ones – he already had plenty of those. Over the next few weeks, he would brew as many as he could into healing potions. That was both to extend his own stash, and to leave any excess he couldn’t fit into his amulet behind, for his family. Additionally, Baldy would allow him to take any secondary ingredients he wanted from the warehouse – assuming they even had any, of course.

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‘I’m definitely getting the better end of the deal here…’ he thought, a fuzzy feeling worming its way into his heart.

Clearly, his grandpa had heavily skewed the exchange in his favour, looking for any excuse to help him out. After all, the four clones he had received were easily worth 10000 contribution points. Probably more. Meanwhile, the potions Percy would be giving them in return barely cost a fraction of that. And that was without even mentioning the free training he and Nesha were getting.

“Thanks. I’ll make it up to you, when I can.” he said.

“Just focus on your own progress.” Archibald said, casually waving away his concerns. “You’ve done plenty for us too.”

Not arguing the point further, Percy bid the man farewell, before heading to the warehouse. There, he found his uncle Gareth on guard duty, along with another guy whose name he didn’t quite remember. A quick scan via Mana Sense revealed that this person was at Yellow – probably a relatively young Orange-born – though he wasn’t sure how distantly they were related.

Either way, it was already nearly midnight – way too late for new acquaintances. Explaining his reason for being there, he handed the two a written permit Baldy had given him, asking to be allowed inside. They complied of course, even offering to help him search due to his apparent blindness.

‘It’d be so much faster by myself…’ he couldn’t help but roll his eyes from behind the blindfold as he sifted through the place.

Even partially obstructed by the cloth, his enhanced vision had already picked up on a couple mana-rich spots that his regular Mana Sense had missed. Unfortunately, he still had to maintain the façade around others.

In the end, it took the three a couple hours to search the whole place up, with some mixed results. Percy was positively surprised to have found a couple crates of alchemical reagents – even recognizing a few pacification ingredients among them. Unfortunately, the boxes were positively ancient, covered in an inch-deep layer of dust.

And their contents weren’t much better. The overwhelming majority of the reagents had long gone inert, not a shred of mana left within them. And that was despite magical plants generally having a much longer shelf-life than mundane ones. In fact, several even crumbled to powder in his hands as he tried picking them up.

‘A few pale carrots… Some moonflower petals…’ he creased his brow as he tallied the surviving reagents.

There wasn’t much. Barely enough for him to brew a handful of doses – if everything went well. Granted, this was all he really needed, though it also meant he didn’t have much leeway for experimentation. He’d have to get the recipe down in the first couple of attempts, to avoid wasting his limited supplies. Which was made even more complicated by the fact that he’d have to use a different ingredient each time.

‘Alright. I guess I should probably test the other steps separately, to get more familiar with those, since I’ll only get a couple shots at pacification.’

It would inevitably cost him a few more mushrooms, but those were more disposable, given the circumstances.

Helping his relatives put everything else back, he thanked them before returning to his room. It wasn’t until he was alone that he finally took his blindfold off again. Well, Nesha was technically there too, but she was sleeping so heavily she hadn’t even noticed him enter. Tossing her a glance, he didn’t miss the traces of exhaustion still marring her pretty face, as she was sprawled over the bed like a starfish.

‘Baldy wasn’t kidding about her. She’s really giving it her all…’

Sighing, he pulled the curtain open, looking at the starlit sky blanketing the heavens. To his relief, it didn’t seem the sun was quite ready to rise just yet, though he knew he barely had a couple hours left. Taking off his clothes, he carefully pushed Nesha to one side, trying his best not to disturb her as he joined her.

‘Imagine the look on Galahad’s face if I sleep in.’ he thought, barely suppressing a chuckle.

It was tempting, really. Not just as payback for all the shit he’d given him in the past, but also because he really wasn’t in the mood for another one of those brutal training sessions. In the end, he shook his head, however. No sense in antagonizing the man now that their relationship had finally turned around. Besides, as tough as it was, Percy knew he had struck quite a bargain there.

Forcing all the stressful thoughts out of his mind, he allowed his head to sink into his soft, nostalgic pillow, a more positive note taking hold of him right before he fell asleep.

‘16 more days until the lotus blooms…’