Chapter 953 All Ingredients Acquired
Jenna's Hut.
Lith was back with Shi and everyone sat around a round table, discussing their future plans.
Shi's clothes were in tatters, and he was one step away from becoming the talk of the town.
He was sleeping and recovering on a chair beside Lith's. Nobody bothered him and actively ignored his unsightly state.
"So where to from here on, Your Highness?" Dennis sipped on tea and curiously asked.
"To the location of the last ingredient." Lith looked at a map and said. "We need to find the areas with high density of serpents, and not just any, but river serpents."
"Oh! I know of them!" Dennis put the teacup down and clapped his hand, his eyes twinkling. "In the memories of the church officials, there were locations of river serpents."
The group of church members roaming around Dennis's group were killed and their souls went through a thorough memory search.
Dennis was speaking from knowledge obtained through the search.
Lith nodded. "Then it's decided. We'll obtain that and finish this quest as quickly as possible."
Dennis, Miwa, Ralph, and Hyunsuk nodded their heads.
After doing some small talk with Jenna and her mother Yuma, Lith and his party left to get the final ingredient.
The last riddle was relatively simple and it did not take them long to find a group of river serpents.
The habitat of these creatures was peculiar. They made nests over a flowing river's strong currents and lay in them.
These nests were made from some earth that radiated warmth.
Lith and his party passed by many such nests and eventually found an earth vein in the middle of a jungle.
Guarding this earth vein was a giant white serpent with red eyes. It emitted a powerful aura and was sound asleep.
The riddle stated that they needed the tears of its laughter blended with something.
Lith didn't know what something it was, but given how there were a lot of rare herbs growing beside the earth vein, the only viable option was to blend the morning dew on these plants with the serpent's laughter.
The challenge Lith and the rest now faced was to make the serpent laugh. They had never done such a thing and it was really weird.
Nonetheless, everyone heaved a relieved sigh.
Without any problems, the last ingredient was obtained and they could finally make the stew and leave.
It was still a bit unbelievable how smoothly everything went.
Things were definitely suspicious and everyone put their guards up and meticulously moved towards performing the final few steps.
There wasn't anything that specified about the venue or time to make the stew, so Lith chose a random flatland and began preparing to make the stew.
Ralph seemed dejected throughout their journey and Lith could tell why was such the case.
The guy wasn't the best at expressing himself, but Lith could understand that his sadness stemmed from his uselessness.
Ralph wasn't useless, just really unlucky in this quest. He was captured at the start and also rescued at the last moment when the ingredients were almost gathered.
He couldn't help anyone and only helped cause more problems.
The sadness did not stem from out of nowhere and everyone could understand.
lightsΝοvεl ƈοm Thus, to cheer him up, Lith gave the stew making duty to Ralph.
From preparing the ingredients to cooking it fully, Ralph was the one who would do everything, the rest would simply sit down and watch him.
Ralph accepted the duties and began preparing to make the stew.
"Hey, if you mess up, me, Miwa, and His Highness will take turns to whoop your ass." Dennis heckled and laughed.
Ralph didn't even try to actively ignore Dennis's comment. It just happened naturally.
After so many years, Ralph's hearing was fine tuned to ignore everything Dennis blabbered. His brain only processed some useful information that may occasionally come out of his mouth, otherwise he was simply ignored everytime.
Dennis did not know about it and thought he was doing a good job motivating Ralph. He thus sipped on tea and continued to heckle.
Lith, Miwa, Hyunsuk, and the now conscious Shi patiently waited for Ralph to finish. They were very curious to see if the stew of the legends would actually be made or not.
Ralph put on his apron, chef's hat, lit up the fire below a big cauldron, and used the Ignisite for flames.
Once the setup was ready, he took a deep breath and sharply gazed at the cauldron.
"I'll start the cooking process now."