Chapter 68: John's Opinion

After having a long and hard think John spoke again.

"It can be done, but I don't know if you should be going out yet, Asher." John said and saw that Asher was about to speak.

"But… if you take more guards with you and stay away from the site, it would be fine… Hopefully." John added.

"Of course, lieutenant John. I am not reckless enough to go unprepared. There is something I would like to show you tomorrow that I think should be enough to confirm your doubts." Lucius replied.

"Hmmm, if you say so. We shall see." John replied.

He then went back to his house, and Lucius went to take a bath as well. He soaked his tired body in the pool of hot water and felt at ease.

"The recovery of Aether has certainly gotten a few percent faster." Lucius realized. 

He closed his eyes and sensed that he probably had enough Aether right now to use it once on an uncommon gift and reveal its name, or once on a common gift and reveal more bits of information.

Lucius got up from the pool and dried his body before changing into fresh clothes that were brought to him by the servants. He walked out of the bath and directly went to the dining hall.

Lucius didn't want to let Lita and Gabriel know about this yet and wanted to do figure out everything before proceeding. That way he would have lesser chances of getting rejected and making a mistake.

The rest of the night went by quickly and Lucius returned to his room for his nightly practice of forming a hell imprint. 

"What coordinates would be more appropriate for this world. I've been able to narrow down a few that can form incomplete hell imprints and they are all collapsed worlds. There's got to be some connection between them and this world." Lucius muttered to himself.

He closed his eyes and appeared in the empty space where his soul was. Taking a look at his soul and ensuring that everything was fine, Lucius got to work and spent a few hours attempting to make a hell imprint.

With yet another unsuccessful night, Lucius went to sleep. 

The morning was rather hectic as Lucius had a lot of things he needed to do today. He first went to his lab and checked up on his brewing project, ensuring that everything was going well. He tasted the wine as well, finding it to be slightly better than before.

"Hmm… I should set up the new batch as well." Lucius spoke to himself before getting to work.

He opened a barrel that was kept to the side and took out a few tens of Caron fruits from it. He then put them all in a metal pot before mashing them all with a large pestle. Caron fruits were not that hard and thus it was easy for Lucius to do this.

Then he put the metal pot on a stove that had been prepared for him and let it heat up. He did this to reduce the bitterness of the Caron fruit.

"This should help in sterilizing it too. The other bacteria should be gone too… if they exist here." Lucius spoke to himself.

Lucius was still a bit confused about the diseases in this world as he had not seen any information about viruses, bacterias and other pathogens. There was information about the diseases themselves, but not their direct cause.

Most of them showed causes as generalized terms like cold, getting cut by rusted weapons, claws of beast, things like these. But the actual concrete cause was not shown, except for poisons. For some reason, there was a lot of information on poisons which greatly piqued Lucius's interest.

Lucius looked over the authors of the book and found out that they were all Gifted who had poison related gifts. There were also books written by some priests of Alana which showed the effects and cures of some complex poisons.

Lucius let the pot boil for about thirty minutes, after which he removed it and set it to ferment in a different container. He added water and yeast to it before closing it tightly and attaching an air lock.

Lucius had made a better air lock than the ones they used in this world, which would provide a better seal. He fashioned the airlock out of a metal tube that was bent and some vinegar that he got.

He would have proffered some pure alcohol as the fluid for it, but there was none available. Thus the vinegar was the second best thing he could think of. Lucius would have used water too, but there was still a slight chance of it contaminating the batch.

With all that done, Lucius left the room to go to the library. Quickly finishing up his lessons with master Kain, Lucius waited for Kiana in the dining hall.

'Strange, haven't seen Kiana since yesterday. Did she go somewhere perhaps?' Lucius wondered.

Usually, Kiana would be there to greet him in the morning but he didn't see her today which made him feel weird.

"Have you seen Kiana anywhere today?" Lucius asked a servant who was standing nearby.

"Miss Kiana has been out since morning. She went to the city to do certain tasks but we do not know what exactly." The servant answered.

"I see… did she say when she's gonna come back?" Lucius questioned.

"She should be here in a few minutes. She said she would return by lunch at the latest." The servant answered.

~creek~

And just as Lucius asked this, the door of the dining hall opened before Lita walked in with Kiana.

"Where did you go?" Lucius questioned.

~Sigh~

"Had some things madam needed help with. So I went to the city to do them and madam joined me there a little while after." Kiana answered.

"And what kind of tasks were these?" Lucius asked, feeling curious.

"Well… since the trade will be slowing down soon enough, we need to ensure the people know about it and are calmed down. If they are warned beforehand, they will be better equipped to act and won't be as much of a problem." Lita was the one who answered this time.