Chapter 48: Thousand Extremes Potion
Chapter 48: Chapter 48: Thousand Extremes Potion
Shortly after, the cold tree hollow grew warm. Andre took out some food and a few Recovery Potions, had a quick bite, and fell asleep in the warmth provided by the Magic Energy Furnace.
In the morning, Andre opened his eyes to the call of the north wind.
"Time to go back to the academy!" Andre packed his things, then took out a Witchcraft Scroll from his Storage Ring.
This Witchcraft Scroll was inscribed with a one-way Teleportation Technique that could transport him from the Black and White Forest back to the White Sea Wizard Academy.
Andre took the Scroll from his Storage Ring and double-checked himself to make sure none of the mission targets were missing before tearing the Scroll.
The moment Andre tore the Scroll, streaks of golden light materialized before him. The light then formed a small Witch Array at his feet, enveloping him and teleporting him to the White Sea Wizard Academy.
An unknown amount of time passed before Andre came tumbling out of the golden light.
At that moment, Andre didn’t even have the strength to stand. Waves of nausea washed over him.
He retched dryly for a long time but couldn’t bring anything up.
He managed to push himself up from a prone position to a sitting one, continuously rubbing his brow and temples to alleviate the dizziness.
Just moments before, inside the golden light, his entire world had been turned upside down. He couldn’t tell north from south, east from west, or even up from down.
He felt like a log, spinning endlessly until he finally arrived back at the academy.
’He’s back? So soon?’
When Farrete sensed that the Teleportation Scroll he had given Andre had been torn, his figure vanished from the Law Enforcement Court and appeared before Andre.
But when he saw Andre, a flash of surprise crossed his eyes.
Andre, for his part, fought through the discomfort and dumped all the targets from the mission Farrete had given him out of his Storage Ring.
At first, Farrete wasn’t concerned. Most of the tasks he had assigned Andre were extremely easy to complete; only capturing the few Black Wizards was truly difficult.
But Farrete never actually expected Andre to bring these Black Wizards back.
His purpose in giving Andre this mission was to show him the gap between Wizards who had ascended different Ladders of Truth.
But when Farrete saw the six or seven corpses Andre had thrown out, his composure finally broke.
"How did you do this?"
Farrete’s eyes were fixed on the bodies of those Andre had taken down with poison.
Andre, however, was completely unconcerned. Among the Wizards he had killed, a few had initially only been incapacitated by the poison.
But when Andre realized he couldn’t bring the Wizards back to the academy alive, he decided to simply increase the dosage, poisoning them a second time and killing all the targets.
"I poisoned them. As a Wizard Apprentice, what could I do against Official Wizards? My best and most likely path to success was poison."
When Andre explained his method for dealing with the Black Wizards, Farrete felt his brow twitch violently.
"Isn’t your major Demon Pattern Study?"
Farrete had a massive headache. ’Just what kind of protégé has my master taken on?’
A High Level Wizard Apprentice had managed to poison several Black Wizards to death—and these were fugitives, extremely vigilant Black Wizards at that!
Even if he were to attempt such a thing himself, he couldn’t have done it with Andre’s level of success!
Besides, any Wizard who becomes an Official Wizard has already begun the transformation into a Half-Energy, Half-Flesh being.
Under such conditions, many poisons are ineffective against Official Wizards.
So what kind of poison had Andre concocted to kill these Black Wizards?
’If Andre were to put even a little of this poison in my food or drink, my fate would be no better than that of these corpses.’
"My major is Demon Pattern Study, with a minor in Magic Plants and Witch Medicine. Besides, it was a simple poison. The only issue was that the ingredients were hard to find. It’s winter in the Black and White Forest, so many of them hadn’t grown."
"I had to search for them one by one, digging the roots out of the ground. I managed to make eight doses of Thousand Extremes Potion!"
Facing Farrete’s questioning, Andre simply shrugged, as if it were a trivial matter.
"Thousand Extremes Potion? The one that’s said to be a mixture of a thousand different poisons?"
Hearing Andre’s words, Farrete quickly took two steps back, a look of apprehension on his face.
"Not quite. Only a few dozen!"
Andre shook his head and, looking at Farrete, took out the two remaining vials of Thousand Extremes Potion.
Seeing Andre take out the two vials, Farrete shot back, putting ten meters of distance between them.
"Put it away! Put it away, quickly! If that thing shatters on the ground, a fifth of the academy will be done for!"
Farrete watched Andre’s movements, urging him to put it away. Andre shook his head and returned the two remaining vials of Thousand Extremes Potion to his Storage Ring.
Once he saw Andre put the Potion away, Farrete wiped the cold sweat from his forehead. He had helped his master guide many junior disciples before, but none had ever been as monstrous as Andre.
Although the Thousand Extremes Potion was made from only a few dozen raw ingredients, each one was a deadly poison. When fused, their toxic properties would intermingle and generate an even more potent venom.
According to the Alchemist who first invented it, once the Thousand Extremes Potion is successfully concocted, the combination of raw materials produces over a thousand different toxic substances.
That’s why later Wizards, based on this characteristic, named it the Thousand Extremes Potion.
Besides its numerous toxins, which make it extremely difficult to counteract, it is also incredibly hard to brew.
Even the creator rarely succeeds in making an antidote. This is why the "Extremes" in the name also implies "absolute finality," meaning there is no chance of recovery.
A Potion so remarkably difficult to create had actually been concocted by Andre, who had then used it to poison six Black Wizards to death.
For a moment, Farrete looked at Andre, truly at a loss for words.
He had originally intended to show Andre the gap between Official Wizards and apprentices, hoping to dent the confidence Andre had built up from his Talent in Demon Pattern Study.
But he never expected Andre to take such an unconventional approach and poison the six Black Wizards to death.
This move left Farrete momentarily unsure of what he could possibly teach Andre.