It was already eight o'clock when Xia De returned to Saint Delan Square with Mia. Mia was overjoyed to be back home, pacing excitedly, as she loved this place as much as Xia De did.
Xia De didn't rest. Instead, he took out the learning materials for the Miracle 【Raglai's Leap】 that he had obtained last week, and placed them on the study desk along with the bundle of weathervane bluegrass he had acquired from Coldwater Port City. There were a total of twelve stalks in the bundle.
Although weathervane bluegrass is a herbaceous plant, it looks more like a fern. The usable part for Xia De's Miracle only accounts for about one-fifth of the plant.
He simply processed two of the stalks with scissors, cutting off the useful parts, and then used a fine needle to engrave a long string of ancient incantations, whose meaning was to guide direction, onto the surface of the plant.
This process was very straining on the eyes; the quality of gas lamp light was far inferior to the lighting in his hometown.
After much effort, like embroidery, he finally finished processing the plant itself. Only then did he walk to the window and look out at the rainy night sky. After confirming that there were no special celestial phenomena tonight, he drew the curtains, left Mia outside the door, extinguished the gas lamp on the side wall of the study, and only kept the gas lamp on the desk lit.
Following the Miracle learning method provided by Garcia, he first ground obsidian into chips and mixed them with the bone powder of a Haas hound's leg bone. After fine grinding, he soaked the powder with a mixture of his own blood and water.
He waited for the powder's color to change from black to white, then placed the powder in a metal container and heated it from below with matches until the water completely evaporated.
After completing these troublesome steps, he ground the warm powder mixture again. Once it cooled to room temperature, he carefully covered the treated weathervane bluegrass surface with it.
The key was to cover the letters that had been pricked out with the needle.
Xia De took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and calmed his mind. He placed the tray with these items on the corner of the table, first softly chanted the incantation he had just engraved, then suddenly blew. As the powder diffused in the enclosed study, the corroded remnants of the bluegrass were revealed.
He steeled himself and ate the grass covered in powder. Before the dust in the air had completely settled, Xia De took out another stalk of bluegrass. The Miracle's casting required casting materials, which was a diluent of weathervane bluegrass extract.
He didn't have the tools to make the extract, so he could only squeeze out some juice by simply pinching it, and then dab it on the tip of his tongue.
To be honest, Xia De found it hard to compare whether the powder just now or the plant juice currently was more peculiar in taste, but it was definitely better than the taste of frog material.
Looking at the somewhat empty study, he took a step forward with excitement, then his figure disappeared from beside the desk and reappeared in front of the closed door.
The Miracle's range was 10 feet (approximately 3.14 meters), but Xia De could feel that his limit was definitely more than that. The effect of the “Divine Radiance” state on this Miracle was to increase the maximum distance of spatial movement. The multiplier was roughly two times, meaning Xia De's maximum movement range should be around 10 meters.
But more accurate experiments would have to wait an hour. Professor Garcia had warned that this Miracle could only be used once per hour at most, otherwise it was very easy to attract strange things.
Of course, this was just the professor's warning. If Xia De didn't care about safety issues and had enough spirit, he could absolutely use 【Raglai's Leap】 as a means of walking. But an hour's interval was indeed too long. If he could find a way to ensure the safety of spatial movement, he wouldn't have to worry, but if such a thing truly existed, Xia De would definitely not be able to afford it.
“But this Miracle is simpler than I thought.”
He turned to look behind him; the entire process just now was no different from an ordinary step.
Only at the moment his body abruptly appeared, there was a strange feeling of imbalance. But this feeling would not affect combat, and it would be fine after adapting a few times.
“What difficulties did you think you would encounter?”
She asked softly in his ear.
“For example… because of unfamiliarity, only a part of the body achieved spatial leap, thus causing the body to separate?”
Xia De guessed jokingly.
“If this Miracle were so dangerous, the professor of Saint Byron's would not have recommended you choose it.”
The casting material for the Miracle 【Raglai's Leap】 is a diluent of weathervane bluegrass extract, but it does not require material when used. Instead, after dabbing some standard concentration diluent on the tip of the tongue, the Miracle can be used at any time within twenty minutes.
This diluent is not something that can be made by simply adding water. It requires a Ring術士 specializing in preparing magical potions to make it, otherwise a lot of materials would be wasted.
So Xia De only tried a few times tonight, planning to ask Priest Augustus for help processing these grasses tomorrow.
Incidentally, he could also ask the Priest to help identify the other miscellaneous items he brought back from Coldwater Port. As for the origin of these items, he could simply claim that he met a Ring術士 in the black market who wanted to leave Tobesk soon, and so he bought a bunch of unknown items at a low price.
“Coldwater Port City truly lives up to its reputation as the most important trade transit hub between the New World and the Old Continent; even such precious materials can be found there.”
When he opened the door and quieted Mia, who had been constantly scratching at it, Xia De sighed with genuine emotion in his heart. However, he would not be going to Coldwater Port again in the near future. Although he hadn't left too many traces at Jason Delar's death scene, he still needed to lie low for a while.
“The most important thing is still breaking into the ruins three days later.”
He looked at the night view outside the window:
“To prevent the worst-case scenario, I must make multiple preparations. I should save Divine Radiance as much as possible, and the pounds I have should still be enough to buy some good things.”
Time was pressing, so after waking up on Tuesday morning, the first thing he did was eat, and the second was to wash yesterday's clothes to ensure he had clean clothes to wear when he went out.
Then he went out, took a carriage to the Tobesk Post Office, sent an urgent letter to Jialinna, asking if he could visit in the afternoon, and only then went to visit Priest Augustus, handing him the weathervane bluegrass to process.
“Where did you get these plants? The price of weathervane bluegrass in the local black market is 10 pounds per stalk, at least 10 pounds, and it's normal to not hear anything for several months after listing it.”
Since making plant extract was not troublesome, the Priest took Xia De directly to his rented underground studio. The plant itself was expensive, but after diluting the extract, each stalk could yield at least 100 drops of liquid.
These liquids were enough to support Xia De's usage for an entire year. This was not an estimate that Xia De would frequently use the Miracle, but rather because both the diluent and the plant itself would slowly deteriorate, which was unavoidable.