Eren resumed his conversation with Levine after he had that thought. This was the time for him to learn a few things about potioneering from the Master potioneer.
Both only had about a week before Levine wrapped up a few things and went into isolation. So Eren thought of making the best use of his time by halting everything else apart from his daily practise regime and focusing on the potioneering.
He would come to meet Levine every day and she would start teaching him from morning till late evening. The latter was focused on sharing all that she thought Eren could make use of on his current level.
He first asked about all the information Levine had about the elven ales. The latter only knew about some finer details but she explained to him all that she had on the subject.
Then Levine started explaining to her disciple about various things to consider when performing potioneering at his level. She gave him her take on his way of doing things in processing herbs, purifying ingredients, and the actual concoction process.
The Master ranker also shared a bunch of her old notes with her disciple, telling him not to share with anybody. He nodded and kept them aside before asking
"Teacher, are you going into isolation immediately?"
Levine massaged her head and made a face that said she was irritated before replying:
"I want to. But someone has spread the rumours in the academy that I'll be conducting a test to take a few students in as my apprentices. Now LA wants me to conduct a test.
They said I can reject everybody if I didn't like any of them. But I have to organize a test event at least. I swear if I find those idiots who think a Master ranker is free enough to run behind a bunch of teenagers, I'll skin them alive."
Eren maintained a blank face the whole time after hearing Levine's threat but his mana signature fluctuated a little. That was enough for Master ranker to look at him with a questioning guess
"Eren, you know something about the event?"
Eren scratched his chin and nodded his head before speaking up
"Um… yes. Kinda. I also had heard about the rumour so I thought of sending my friend here for a test. Will that be okay?"
Eren tried to use the bullshittry on Levine to hide his involvement in the case. It was him and his berserker goons that had spread the rumours to lure Sienna along with all the rich kids. Now that rumour was about to bite him in the arse.
Eren could have two more days to learn from Levin if she wasn't influenced by LA to conduct the test. But given the choice, Eren would still have spread the rumours. it was a crucial step in his plan after all.
Now he just needed to deal with the aftermath.
That's why he gave off the impression that his subtle mana fluctuation was due to him wanting his friend to get selected. Thankfully, it worked in his favour as Levine seemed to have found an answer to her time-consuming chores.
"That's fine, Eren. As my disciple, you can conduct a simple test on my behalf. The qualifiers would be those from my lectures
And select the ones that you want. Just ensure that they are decently talented in order not to make it obvious that the competition was rigged. Hehe!"
Levine didn't care about who was made her apprentice. It was the academy's tradition to send students into apprenticeships. But she didn't care about that tradition.
The Master ranker had only wanted her lab chores to be done by her apprentices. She didn't assign them any more assignments. So it was a nice gig for potioneer students as well.
Marie was selected as Levine's apprentice for the same reason. The potioneer didn't care much about Marla's sister.
This was another subtle difference between rankers and cultists. The cultists knew how to break the rules. But the rankers knew how to bend them to their advantage without breaking them. Levine and Eren were no different in that regard either.
"Alright, teacher. I'll conduct a test with the help of the lab-in-charge assigned to you. I'll select my friend Jake as your apprentice. He can maintain your lab and do lab chores for us just fine. If you are alright with it of course."
"Hehe! Why would I not be? We'll get to discuss some more topics that way in the next two days without me spending my time regulating a test that was created based on a false rumour."
Eren spent the next two days with Levine, discussing some more potion-related stuff. Levine had provided a lot of study material to him. Now that his brain was loaded with so much relevant information he hadn't heard in the past, he needed to spend a great deal of time practising the art.
Levine went into seclusion off LA grounds after those two days were over. She made the arrangements for Eren to organize a test and select Jake as her apprentice.
Eren wanted Jake with him so that the guy could help him in his potioneering as his go-to henchman. He was going to use Levine's lab in her place. So whenever he was busy in his potioneering session, Sullivan Jr. would be there to support him and his concoction.
Eren was sure Jake would be happy that he was going to get selected as a Master ranker's apprentice. His father would feel the same too, thinking that it was all Eren who must have put forward his son's name.
Eren was happy to give the man that impression even when he did it for his sake. He needed Jack's help for his plans after all. The happier the businessman was, the better it was for him to ask him for favours.
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AN: Hi. It's been only 4 four days since the regular chapter release was resumed and VEH is already at the 55th rank of the all-time monthly trending at the time of writing this chapter. We are also ranked 13th of win-win, gaining on rank 12 steadily.
Plus, VEH is staying in the top 15 of almost all the other categories in the bi-annual period.
Thanks to top contributors Daoist_3296, Greeko_suave, Venom30 and all the other contributors for their Golden Tickets contribution. And thanks to egt161 for the inspiration capsule.
Also, special thanks to dethrophes for pointing out ATDs and word choice errors in chapters while they are only available in the highest tier. The content quality of regular chapters has increased because of it.
VEH has also reached the milestone of 300K words with this chapter.. So we will celebrate this as well as all the other milestones with a new book cover and a bonus chapter. Cheers! ;)