Chapter 98, A Potion Worth More Than a Life

Once the first deal was settled, War Freya realized that everyone spoke in clockwise order.

Which meant she had been placed dead last.

That was actually fine with her.

It gave War Freya a chance to see how the gathering worked first. If she had been forced to speak before anyone else and accidentally made some rookie mistake, that would have been embarrassing.

As one participant after another took their turn, War Freya gradually noticed something.

Whether it was the requests they made or the things they offered for sale...

Everything was surprisingly low-level.

One person, for example, was selling an extraordinary item shaped like a glove.

Its entire effect was simply to make the wearer a little stronger.

Someone else offered a potion that could slightly accelerate wound healing.

Another sold pills that temporarily sharpened the user’s eyesight and hearing.

For someone who had only just entered the extraordinary world, these might have been useful items.

To Freya now, however, they were almost completely worthless.

A glove that made someone stronger?

Life Freya could simply use [Lifeform Modification] and give almost anyone the physical abilities of a Rank Four [Warrior].

How could a glove compare to that?

As for healing potions, there was even less to say.

As long as someone did not die on the spot, Life Freya could save them.

Missing a heart?

Still salvageable.

By the time everyone had nearly finished their turns, War Freya realized something rather strange.

The most impressive transaction at the entire gathering was actually the assassination commission from the very first participant.

A job to kill a Rank Two practitioner.

Or perhaps...

This was simply what the extraordinary world normally looked like.

Most practitioners were only Rank One or Rank Two.

Advancing even once was extremely difficult.

First, they needed to find a way to digest their potion.

Worse, many of them could not even tell whether the potion had been fully digested.

And even after completing digestion, they still had to find the next potion.

Even if they managed to locate someone willing to sell it, they still needed enough money to buy it.

On top of all that, the authorities were fairly aggressive about cracking down on independent practitioners.

Surviving in that kind of environment was genuinely difficult.

At some point, getting a normal job might actually be easier and more comfortable.

Of course, this was still a world where extraordinary powers existed.

If someone chose an ordinary life, only for disaster to suddenly fall on their head one day...

Being completely powerless to resist would be just as miserable.

Eventually, almost everyone had spoken.

At last, it was War Freya and Euphemia’s turn.

Euphemia went first.

“I’d like to sell a scroll. Once it’s torn, the user will directly acquire [Microexpression Reading]. It allows you to judge whether someone is lying by observing subtle changes in their expression.”

Euphemia had technically only come along to accompany War Freya.

But naturally, she could not simply announce that she was just tagging along and had nothing to buy or sell.

So before leaving, she had made something herself.

Euphemia had already developed the occult array used for memory inheritance.

In theory, that method could also be used on other people.

So she had organized everything she knew about [Microexpression Reading], compressed the knowledge and memories together, and sealed them into the scroll.

Once someone used it, they would directly receive that knowledge and those memories.

In other words, they could master the skill almost immediately.

When Freya first learned Euphemia could do this, her immediate thought had been obvious.

Couldn’t Euphemia package all of her knowledge and instantly teach it to anyone she wanted?

Unfortunately, Euphemia had quickly crushed that dream.

A [Polymath]’s [Ability Learning] was itself an extraordinary ability.

Even if Euphemia learned extraordinary abilities from other Paths, she could not use memory inheritance to pass those abilities to someone else.

Unless the recipient was also a Rank Four [Polymath].

For now, this method could only transfer genuine mundane skills and knowledge about occult arrays.

That made it somewhat limited.

Take [Microexpression Reading], for example.

Mind Freya could already use [Mind Reading].

Why bother studying someone’s face when she could simply listen to their thoughts?

As for occult arrays, Freya could just leave those to Euphemia.

But to the people at this gathering, a scroll that could instantly grant someone a practical skill was incredibly novel.

Someone immediately asked, “How much?”

Euphemia thought about it.

“Thirty thousand Ducats?”

The scroll had barely cost her anything to make.

She had not come here to make money anyway, so she simply named a number off the top of her head.

Someone immediately called out, “Deal!”

Once that transaction was complete, it was finally War Freya’s turn.

“I’m looking for a Rank One Law Path potion.”

She paused.

“If anyone can get Rank Two and Rank Three as well, I’ll buy those too.”

The moment she said that, War Freya noticed several people turning toward the man who had posted the assassination commission earlier.

The one wearing the tongue-out mask.

He spoke after a moment.

“I can probably get you a Rank One potion, but I’ll need some time. I can bring it to the next gathering.”

As for Rank Two and Rank Three...

He acted as if he had not heard that part at all.

War Freya asked, “How much?”

“Fifty thousand Ducats.”

War Freya stared at him.

“Huh? That expensive?”

“You were offering only a hundred thousand earlier to have a Rank Two practitioner killed.”

“Those are two completely different things,” the tongue-mask man replied. “A Rank One potion may not be particularly valuable, but compared to a potion, human life is even cheaper.”

It was easy enough to understand.

A potion was at its most valuable while it was still inside the bottle.

Once someone drank it and the potion entered their body...

Its market value plummeted.

War Freya hesitated.

“...Fine.”

Looks like she would have to go borrow more money from Scarface later.

Once everyone had stated their requests, the organizer looked around the chamber.

“Does anyone have anything else?”

No one answered.

“Then we’ll leave in groups. Five-minute intervals.”

The organizer looked toward War Freya and Euphemia.

“You two can go first.”

He had probably realized this was War Freya’s first time attending.

From putting her last in the speaking order to letting her leave first, he seemed to be giving her a little extra consideration.

Though...

Given the average strength of the practitioners at this gathering, if War Freya suddenly decided to start a fight, everyone here combined probably would not be enough to stop her.

Still, goodwill was goodwill.

War Freya gave the organizer a small nod, then left with Euphemia the same way they had come.

On their way back up, Euphemia said, “The next gathering is in ten days.”

“So for now, all we can do is wait.”

She thought for a moment.

“The next problem is figuring out where to get the higher-Rank Law Path potions.”

For anyone else, that question would have been premature.

Normally, they would need to drink the Rank One potion and slowly digest it before even thinking about Rank Two.

But Euphemia knew Faye too well.

There was a very real chance that the potion would be practically digested the moment it went down.