Chapter 217: Tricolored Flower
Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
“You can just choose not to buy from me. Why is there a need to hit me…” Shaun mumbled in a wronged tone as he got up from the ground. Frankly speaking, he was already used to being beaten up. When he was selling the young of magical beasts in the black market, he always got beaten up the very next day he sold one.
To him, that was nothing. Protection from his rough skin and thick flesh would allow him to fully recover after resting a few days.
But, the treatment today was too unfair…
It was his first time dealing as a honest businessman. This time, he neither conned nor lied. The herb he tried to sell was also carefully chosen—not even a strand of it was a weed. How could he expect to be beaten up when he had not even had the chance to say a few lines…
Of course, injustice was injustice.
Shaun clearly knew that he would not dare to seek justice even if he was given a hundred guts. After dragging himself up clumsily, he limped towards the crowd to find the next buyer after a soft mutter.
“Hold on.”
Little did Shaun expect to be held back the moment he turned away.
“Take your trash away,” said the young man as he pointed to the Tricolored Flower on the table.
“This is not trash!” Shaun exclaimed as his face turned red. He had used more than a month to pick this batch of Tricolored Flowers. Now that they were labeled as trash, he could not help but feel indignant.
“This is hilarious…” The young man glanced at Shaun with disdain. He rolled his sleeves up to brush the flower off the table. “See clearly next time, don’t bring a bunch of trash everywhere again. How would my mentor need them with his status?”
The few pharmacists beside him shook their heads after the young man spoke.
That fatso was really shameless to try to sell a Tricolored Flower to a pharmacist. It was as though he was insulting Amman to be a quack pharmacist in his face.
To pharmacists, the Tricolored Flower only had one function—to weaken any medicinal effects.
Generally, only the students of a pharmacist would use the Tricolored Flower. That was because they had not grasped the skill of prescribing medicine despite knowing the formula. They would always make mistakes while they dispensed medicine. Although those mistakes were unlikely to be huge, they would very likely result in some troubles.
In order to minimize the problems their students created, some mentors would suggest that they add the Tricolored Flower into their prescription. Although that would weaken the effect of the medicine, it could decrease the reaction between different ingredients and lighten the impact of potential failures.
Although Amman was not a Master of Pharmaceutics, as a person of status and a high position, it was weird enough for him to be patient with someone selling Tricolored Flowers to him. It would imply that he was not proficient in that field as he needed the Tricolored Flower to minimize errors.
Tricolored Flower was an insult to any esteemed pharmacist.
“Only you use the Tricolored Flower. Your entire family uses it!”
Of course, most of the pharmacists would believe that the fatso had no ill intention in trying to sell the Tricolored Flower to Amman.
The function of the Tricolored Flower was generally known among the pharmacists, but not always their students—not to mention a low-level bandit. No one knew where he got the invitation to the gathering, and how he knew there would be so many pharmacists present for him to promote the Tricolored Flowers. He just wanted to earn some money, but did not expect himself to make such a blunder…
Amman’s attitude was good enough. If he’d been a hot-tempered man, he would have thrown tha fatso out of the Pharmacists Guild long ago.
“Fatty, come over here.” While Shaun bent his back to put all the flowers into the herb sack, he heard someone calling out to him. After turning his head, he saw a young mage standing behind him. He frowned, feeling that he had met the young mage somewhere before…
“What’s the matter, Mr. Mage?”
“It’s not a great matter…” Lin Li smiled while picking up the Tricolored Flower from his feet. “I just wanted to ask, where did you keep the Thunder Eaglet you promised me the other time?”
“Thunder Eaglet?” Shaun was a little stunned.
“You’ve forgotten? Do you need me to find Elijah to talk to you…”
“Oh!” After hearing Lin Li mention Elijah, the fat bandit suddenly remembered the identity of the young mage before him. Wasn’t he the person who’d ordered a Thunder Eaglet from him in the black market a few days ago? From Elijah’s submissiveness and respect towards him, he knew Lin Li was not to be messed with.
Now that he met him again, Shaun knew he had not guessed it wrongly. He was indeed a big shot. If not, how would he appear at the Pharmacists Guild? He knew that unlike himself, everyone here held great influence.
“Erm…” The thought of the Thunder Eaglets changed the expression on Shaun’s face.
It was a fact that he had the Thunder Eaglet. Yet, would he dare to take it out?
He would at most get some beating for lying. What if that Thunder Eaglet were to injure that young mage after it grew up? Wouldn’t he lose his life for it? Not only that, one Elijah was enough for him to be fearful of.
No. He couldn’t let that happen…
“Mr. Mage, that Thunder Eaglet…” Shaun hesitated, and did not directly tell Lin Li he was not going to sell that eaglet. “They have run out of stock. Why don’t you give me some time, and I will pass it to you after I get one?”
“Out of stock?” Lin Li glanced at the fat bandit skeptically. He was definitely aware that the case was not only a hoax from the start, but also a lowly one. Anyone who had some experience in the black market would know of a conman who sold the secrets of taming the offspring of magical beasts.
After he got identified, the fat bandit could only deceive people who were patronizing the black market for the first time by themselves. Hence, how would anyone believe him when he said that the eaglets were out of stock in just a few days?
That fella must have hidden them…
Yet, Lin Li did not take his words to heart, since all he wanted was to use the Thunder Eaglets to test the credibility of a taming trick he learned in the Endless World. Even if Shaun was unwilling to sell it to him, his abilities as an archmage would allow him to capture any offspring of magical beasts.
What he was more concerned with was another thing.
Lin Li pointed to the Tricolored Flower, and asked, “Fatty, how much stock do you have with you?”
“I think there’s still a few hundreds…” Shaun was uncertain. After getting the invitation card to the Pharmacists Guild, he immediately went to the Nightmare Mountains for the herbs. Even he could not remember how much he had picked.
“Very good, give me a price. I’m buying everything from you.”
“What?”
His words not only caused Shaun to be flabbergasted, but also shocked the peanut gallery of pharmacists.
What did that young man say just now? Why was he so willing to buy a few hundred Tricolored Flowers? Even if he was a tycoon, those flowers were definitely not what anyone would splurge on.
Those flowers only cost a few million gold coins. It was nothing to him.
However, all medicine that contained Tricolored Flowers was regarded as wasted product. Although the flower could minimize undesired effects, it weakened the medicinal effects at the same time by a large extent.
For example, usually one bottle of Awakening Potion would suffice to replenish the mana of one Archmage. Yet, after the weakening effect by Tricolored Flowers, it could barely replenish the mana of one level-10 Magic Shooter.
One was level-10, while another level-15. How could the gap between the levels be explainable by words…?
A few hundred flowers would render a few hundred bottles of potion useless.
To everyone, Lin Li’s family had to own gold mines. How could he dare to waste those hundred bottles of potion otherwise?
Of course, what truly caused these pharmacists to be stupefied was the young mage’s lack of knowledge.
There were even a few older pharmacists who started to shake their heads quietly…
They felt disappointed that Lin Li’s good looks were just a facade of his foolishness.
The function of a Tricolored Flower was no doubt to reduce some of the errors. However, when the skills of their students got better gradually, they would not need it anymore.
When a person needed a hundred bottles of potion to practice and master the most fundamental skill, he should just kill himself by crashing against a piece of tofu. It was pointless to keep him alive anymore…
Even for a pig, it would have gained some knowledge from creating those few hundred bottles of potion.
Although Amman was sitting there quietly, he could not help but feel a little proud of his student. Although they were both mages learning pharmaceutics, his student, Milo, was much better than that fella.
Milo was indeed talented to become a low-level pharmacist even before he hit 25 years old. When he was at his age, he had not even figured out much about pharmacy himself. Now, Amman was convinced that it would not take Milo many years to attain the middle-level proficiency.
By then, it would be time for him to pass the Thunder City Guild of Magic to Milo…
While Amman was immersed in his imagination, Milo beside him was filled with disdain.
He even advised, “If you don’t want to regret it, don’t buy this trash.”