Seeing him place a tightly packed round bag on the table, Ivan mused that his second brother was too careless—surely squeezing the herbs inside until they were ruined.
“Look.”
Beaman opened the cloth bag with both hands, revealing a stack of beast hide scrolls.
Ivan flipped through them, astonished, “Are these all Breathing Methods? You didn’t rob that noble in the city, did you?”
He looked at Beaman with a face full of suspicion.
“What are you thinking?” Beaman finally found an opportunity for revenge, and, ungraciously, slapped him hard on the shoulder. “But there’s something I have to tell you—I discussed your matter with our father because I felt it shouldn’t be hidden from him.”
Ivan said, “I planned to talk about it in a few days. So, father found these?”
Beaman nodded emphatically, “You shouldn’t underestimate our Marichadon family. We might not have advanced Breathing Methods, but we’re certainly not short of elementary or incomplete ones. Many in the Mercenary Group practice Breathing Methods provided by us, or else we wouldn’t have such support.”
“I see.”
Ivan remembered his father mentioning that the family had tried many methods to repair the Goliath Frog Breathing Method and the secret medicine, probably that was when they exerted great effort. He glanced through the scrolls briefly; all were elementary Breathing Methods, about eleven or twelve in total.
Beaman joked, “It’s only because you came up with the Ocean Blue Potion. Had it been earlier, can you imagine our father tying you to that heavy shield and then whipping you hard enough to break a whip?”
Yesterday, hoping for the best, he approached their father for help. After a moment’s consideration, their father found all the stored Breathing Methods and agreed to exchange the Ocean Blue Potion for more Breathing Methods through his own contacts.
He suddenly realized that in their father’s heart, his younger brother’s status had become somewhat higher than his own.
After saying that, he noticed Ivan looking at him with a strange expression.
Ivan said, “I didn’t see that coming. You actually went through that—you were not tied to a column in the assembly hall, were you?”
“Who said that!” Beaman reflexively retorted, then quickly denied: “No, I mean you—it’s a metaphor, understand?”
Ivan nodded slightly, “I understand.”
Seeing that he clearly did not believe him, Beaman wisely changed the subject, “You’ve collected so many Breathing Methods, are you thinking of creating a new one, or perhaps perfecting the Goliath Frog Breathing Method?”
Ivan replied vaguely, “Why do you care so much about it? You’ll know in time. I have my reasons. Would you please get on with what I asked you to do?”
“I’m still the elder brother,” Beaman slapped him again and left the room, then looked back and said one more thing before closing the door softly. “The herbs will arrive tomorrow. Just wait patiently.”
The next afternoon, true to his word, Beaman gradually brought back the needed herbs and urged him to hurry and make the potions.
Ivan started by making glorybower hemostatic powder, healing potions, and detoxification potions, then began producing the Ocean Blue Potion, crafting it in small batches, succeeding twice.
[Apothecary Skill Experience Point +1+1]
[Apothecary Skill: lv2 (195/200)]
On the third day, Ivan mulled over Breathing Methods, practiced, and produced Ocean Blue Potion, constantly increasing his experience points on the membrane of light.
On the fourth day, his Apothecary Skill rose to level 3, yielding one Small Light of Wisdom and one 3rd level Light of Wisdom.
Under the influence of the Small Light of Wisdom, Ivan’s apothecary knowledge was adjusted and optimized, he felt his skills greatly improved, allowing him to switch to larger glass vessels to craft multiple portions of the Ocean Blue Potion at once.
However, after reaching level 3 in Apothecary Skill, the difficulty in gaining experience points increased: previously, producing a small batch of Ocean Blue Potion garnered one point, but now it required three to four batches.
These days, Ivan rediscovered the feeling from his earlier days of learning; his days were exceptionally busy and fulfilling, gradually bringing him to the fifth day.
[Apothecary Skill: lv3 (3/300)]
[Knight Breathing Skill: lv2 (105/200)]
[Linguistics Skill: lv1 (14/100)]
Busyness brought harvests, and the Academic Prodigy panel on the membrane of light revealed a new atmosphere.
Not to mention the Apothecary Skill.
In terms of the Knight Breathing Skill, Beaman had brought ten scrolls of the Elementary Breathing Method, each bringing in an average of 5 Experience Points, and two incomplete versions of the Elementary Breathing Method, bringing in 12 and 14 Experience Points respectively.
In total, that was 76 Experience Points, even after the difficulty of acquiring experience had increased with the advancement to level 2 of the Breathing Skill.
Ivan was quite satisfied with this, hopeful for reaching level 3 in Breathing Skill.
As for Linguistics Skill, it was an opportunity for him to occasionally shift his mindset and relax his mind; flipping through the dictionary also added one Experience Point to his tally.
These days, he had not gone to see Mrs. Harayer due to lack of time and being too busy to go see her. Moreover, he was somewhat annoyed with Mrs. Harayer; the last measurement turned out to be a swindle, proving that one should not judge a person by one facet alone.
After dinner that day, Leider went to Ivan’s room door; he wanted to have a serious talk with his son.
“Let’s talk,”
“Please come in.”
Ivan welcomed his father into the room and sat him down, instinctively thinking of pouring a cup of water, but then he remembered there was no hot water in the room nor a second cup.
Leider scanned the dictionary on the table, the notes, and the Breathing Method beast hide scrolls, feeling that he had neglected his son a lot lately. But he had no choice, having to provide for five children and a multitude of issues with the Mercenary Group keeping him busy from dawn till dusk.
“Have you made your decision?”
“I have.”
In response to his father’s inquiry, Ivan nodded.
Leider was silent for a moment, then said, “You needn’t worry about the knighthood, lost so many years ago, we can afford to wait a few more generations.”
Ivan had truly never considered the matter of the knighthood. After thinking it over, he said, “I have my own ideas, my own path I want to pursue.”
That was the truth in his heart; lacking sorcerer qualifications was one thing, but having tested positive meant he would inevitably take that path, whether it involved traveling abroad by merchant ship in search of it, or finding another way.
Only, he had not expected the nobility of Flying Fish Port to so abruptly thrust him onto this path.
The Marichadon family had always lived in Flying Fish Port, so he naturally had no need to share that he had been coerced into compromise, as knowing this could create unpredictable troubles for his family.
Seeing the determination on his son’s face, Leider did not know what to say.
Leider spotted a sign across: “Is that the Old Orio Medical Hall’s sign?”
Ivan said, “Yes, I found it fallen on the ground and just picked it up.”
“It’s dirty. Remember to clean it.”
“Uh—I forgot.”
The conversation between father and son was sparse, and after exchanging a few awkward sentences, Leider handed him two Breathing Method beast hide scrolls and quickly ended the conversation.
One was an upper class Breathing Method, and the other was an intermediate Breathing Method, both incomplete.
The Intermediate Breathing Secret Medicine was indeed, as Glowe had said, a solid currency; both Breathing Methods had been exchanged for an Ocean Blue Potion.
After Leider left, Ivan didn’t forget the earlier conversation. He fetched a cloth and a bucket to clean the medical hall’s sign a few times.
After cleaning off a layer of dust, the sign looked like new.
“Pity it’s almost split in two, this is—”
Ivan carefully straightened the sign, and unexpectedly discovered traces of a medicine that had been applied on the back of the sign; he almost thought he was seeing things.