Chapter 2166: Clearing a Mission

It was called a pseudo-alchemy hall because it contained many of the territory’s alchemists, but the building itself was just a normal building with laboratories. It was closer to Alterra’s Research Center than a true Alchemy Hall, the kind that could be purchased via the system.

The real Alchemy Hall was a wonderful place that Althea absolutely wanted in Alterra, too, one way or another. It was a special building available at the City level, but not every City could have it.

Like the Barriers, the Alchemy Hall was a conditional building that had quite a few requirements before it could appear in the Lord’s Panel at all.

It was a building where alchemists could experiment and test out their formulas and set very specific environmental conditions. There seemed to be simulations accepted, though one had to register materials before it entered the database.

One could apparently try out the effects of each ingredient without actually using the ingredient, provided that the ingredients themselves were present and processed as if it were going to become a potion then and there.

The thing was, the requierement for it was to have a hundred home grown C-Class Alchemists. C-class alchemist class was like a gorge to cross already, and they had to be homegrown.

By definition, ’Homegrown’ meant that the alchemists had to awaken in the territory or were citizens of one when they upgraded. Either condition would suffice, but even that was very difficult, and it had to be a hundred of these.

Conditional buildings did not require a building slot, so the cities still had these as their goals.

These were very stringent requirements. Having a hundred alchemists was a given for a big territory, but many of them were migrants—awakening elsewhere and then moving up to get a better life.

For now, even Holt did not have it yet, but they were already on the way there, lacking just a few more. The existence of this building was something they found out through Zenno.

Pseudo Alchemist Hall was nothing like the real one. It was just a simple system building with mind clearing arrays, a building blueprint bought from another city decades ago.

Here, they met with Gamut, the alchemists who set out the mission for the Elysean Plant. His inheritance was not limb regeneration but related to it. His medicine’s effects were also related to healing, encouraging the body to recover even when a part of the meat had been taken off.

His mission was an open one and he would buy whatever they could bring. They also had uses for them so most remained in her space, but even the handful she sent out surprised him.

"I have never seen so many at a time!" he gasped. "How did you find so many?"

He immediately took out the hundred or so gold that he promised. Unexpectedly, the lady did not take his payment.

"A few copies of your potion would be ample."

"Oh?"

She smiled. "Is it alright?"

"O-Oh, sure," he said, taking out a couple of bottles from his space. "Most of these are reserved, but I can give you a bottle, making up for the balance with money."

Althea nodded, satisfied with another haul. "Nice doing business with you."

She checked the quality of the potion with the Eye and saw that it wasn’t bad at all. The energy contained was pretty good, which meant it was effective for whatever use it was meant for.

She lifted her head and looked at the old man. The old man seemed a bit shrewd, but her instincts hadn’t alerted her of evil, so he probably wasn’t a bad man.

She thought for a while before speaking. "Oh, by the way, are you familiar with Grandmaster Hoffen?"

The man flinched, nodding. "Yes! I heard he has moved houses?" he asked. For areas with post offices, as long as there was a relationship between two territories, news could actually travel relatively fast.

It so happened that Gamut had relatives in Bleulle, and they told him about this scandal.

And it was quite the juicy scandal. The kind that, once revealed, the people there would happily spend money on posts to spread, just because.

Althea looked at Gamut and how she heard he practically lived in this place. "The place they went to was set to be the future haven for intellectuals, including alchemists."

"Oh?"

"They’ve established guilds, a place where professionals can gather and safely share knowledge. It’s in Alterra, not too far, especially through Mercenary Halls."

"People can go there and leave as they want. Think of it as an intellectual field trip. There are no losses."

"Will they...accept a stranger like me?" he asked, more puzzled than anything. He was a foreigner, what could he be exposed to?

Althea smiled and told him with confidence: "I’m sure they’d love to have you."

...

They stayed for a meal and socialized. After all, this was a talent she was recruiting, so she had to give some time.

They left the place and headed to their villa, only to find out there were several unknown people surrounding it. Garan and Alteha looked at each other and then rushed over, stopping just at the right distance.

As they approached, they realized what it was about.

"Did you really see them? Dwarves?" one of the men asked his companion, his eyes fixed on the villa, and it was leaking with greed.

"Positive! I’ve seen quite a few inside the house! I live right there—" the other man said, pointing at an adjacent house. From certain angles, as long as one stared and had good eyesight, one could see what was behind the windows.

When they settled the dwarves and the orcs, Althea and Garan had told them specifically not to open the curtains, and she doubted they would risk their safety like that.

This likely meant that this witness was lying; he was likely following their group since they entered the courtyard. For them to figure out there were dwarves of all things meant they had been watching closely for a while.

Althea walked over and tried to reason things out first, though in her mind she’d have to prioritize their interests.

"Excuse me. This is my home. Please leave."

They saw a beautiful woman, and they felt even greedier, feeling more and more that this villa and its inhabitants were treasures to possess.

Seeing their lecherous looks, Garan did not even wait to speak with them. He immediately attacked.

With a wave of his hand, a large slab of ice floated above the men’s heads, abruptly dropping down before the men could even understand what was happening.

"WHAT!!"

"AHHH!"

It was naturally not enough to kill someone with a decent level. Garan wasn’t planning on killing either. That would be against the territory’s rule.

He did, however, continue hurting them to the bone. They were lucky that it was already late in the day, otherwise, he’d have a much bigger crowd watching them make a fool out of themselves.

After the two handled the enemy scouts, they just shook their heads and headed to the villa.

Althea sighed. They had a lot to prepare for.