Letho’s condition suddenly took a turn for the worse. He was still recovering from the copious amounts of potions he took in the battle against the leshen, and the wounds he sustained were still healing. The tough battle earlier took a lot out of him, and coupling that with the nekkers’ venom made his condition turn from bad to worse. He leaned against the wall, looking more listless than ever. It took all he had just to stand up, so he had no choice but to sit down.

Roy felt guilty seeing Letho in that state. He wouldn’t have been in such a bad condition if Roy was a bit stronger.

“I can’t fight in this condition.” Letho sighed. He’d never felt so weak in years, and he was showing it to his disciple. For once, he looked crestfallen.

“Rest up and don’t push yourself. We just cleared a whole horde of nekkers. They need time to regroup too, so I don’t think they’ll attack anytime soon,” Roy said, consoling him. At the same time, he took out some food and water from his inventory space, sharing a meal with the witcher among the dead bodies. Then he tended to Letho’s wounds with alcohol and marigold potions.

Letho observed him in silence, feeling proud of his disciple. Roy might’ve thought he was improving at a snail’s pace, but Letho didn’t think so. It hadn’t been more than three months since they’d first met, but Roy had already grown from a village bumpkin to a fighter who’d faced off a few types of monsters. He could fight them face on, and even a leshen died by his hands. Sure, luck might have played a part, but that was still an astounding resumé.

Letho had never seen such blistering improvement before, not even from the best disciple in Letho’s time. The moment he had that thought, Letho had more hope about the Viper School’s resurrection. 

“That may be true, but that’s no reason to let our guard down. Look around and see if you can get any comfrey, wolfsbane, and longrube. These herbs can grow in caverns too. We don’t have any alchemy items with us, so we can’t make any potions or decoctions or bombs, but we can make some simple poison. One that can fuck these bastards up.”

“What kind of poison is that?” Roy peered at Letho curiously. “You never told me you could make poison.”

“I’m from the Viper School. Of course I’d know how to make poison.” Letho shook his head. “But most monsters are immune to poison, so it makes no difference. Just focus on alchemy for now.” Letho sounded reserved about poison, as if he didn’t want Roy to dabble in it.

Roy nodded, pretending to agree, but he had a different idea. Poison might be useless against monsters, but they’re great against humans. This knowledge could prove useful. He went around the cavern and managed to scavenge a lot of herbs. Wow, this cave has everything. Roy managed to get everything Letho asked an hour later, and he even found some rarer ones that couldn’t be found easily outside, like bloodmoss and moleyarrow. He took some of everything and kept it for future use.

“Paralyzing poison works well against them. First, crush the comfrey, then extract the juices of the longrube, and then…” The cavern was brightly lit by the torches, and Letho, with Roy’s assistance, brewed some paralyzing poison, the one that was the trademark of the Viper School.

Ingesting it or injecting it through an open wound could numb a monster’s limb and nerves, paralyzing them. It was much better than what the butcher’s powder could do. They worked together and quickly processed all the herbs. Then Roy took out a bowl from his inventory space and mixed the materials at a specific ratio, and then he stirred them. At the same time, Letho was teaching him the skills involved in the poison’s brewing.

Eventually, Roy felt accomplished about the poison he was making. It was a different high from the one he got from the monster killing. It took them a while, but eventually, they managed to make a bowl of dark green, foul-smelling paste. “It’s rough around the edges since we don’t have any tools, but it can work.” Letho checked the paste and put it beside him. “Now for the last step, the six-hour wait.” But they couldn’t waste six hours on nothing. “You got more space in that dimensional pocket of yours?”

“It’s not a dimensional pocket, but whatever you say.” Roy stopped correcting him. “Yeah, it’s got loads of space.” His inventory space doubled after his job change. His space was packed before that, but half of it was still empty at that moment.

“Good. These corpses might be ugly, but they aren’t trash, I guarantee that.” Letho scanned the corpses and handed Gwyhyr to Roy so he could cut off a nekker’s head. Then Letho calmly split the head apart with his short sword and rummaged within the sticky insides. Roy felt disgusted. Is this some kind of high-end brain massage?

A short while later, Letho took out a green, hairy elliptical item that was the size of a thumb. “Lucky.” He observed the item closely, his eyes gleaming. “First body, and we already got a mutagen.”

“Is that a green mutagen?” Roy was surprised to see something he was familiar with appearing before him.

“Yes. A lesser one, but it’s indispensable in the Trial of the Grasses. It can slightly increase a witcher’s life force and toxicity resistance. Less than one in ten normal nekkers have a mutagen within them,” Letho explained. “Now that we’re touching this subject, you ought to know that mutagens are split into three types: green, blue, and red. And they’re further split into lesser, normal, and greater. The stronger a monster is, the higher the probability of us getting a good mutagen. The green mutagen that’s necessary for the Trial of the Grasses increases your life force and toxicity resistance. Blue mutagens buff the signs, while red mutagens make you more agile. Of course, the better the mutagen, the stronger the buff.”

Ah, so the mutagens strengthen Constitution, Spirit, Strength, and Dexterity. He stared down in ponderance. “How many kinds of mutagens does our school use in the trial?”

“All of them, but in different ratios.” Letho explained, “One to one for red and green. Blue’s the least.” In other words, Viper School’s Trial of the Grasses would lean their increment toward Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, and toxicity resistance, and at almost the same rate. Spirit saw a lesser increment compared to the first few, while the others showed little to no improvement. To put it simply, Viper School witchers leaned more toward close quarter combat and alchemy tools in battles.

I see. No wonder Letho’s Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution are all over twenty. No wonder I couldn’t see through the stats. Roy was then reminded of a relatively villainous school, the Cat School. Cat School witchers were renowned for their phantom-like reflexes and extraordinary swordsmanship. They probably only have red mutagens in their trial so they can put everything in strength and dexterity. Glass cannon mêlée, huh?

“What about the leshen’s mutagen then?” Roy knew Letho managed to extract a blue one from the leshen’s corpse, but he didn’t ask.

Letho knew what he was thinking about though. “Probably using it to make a leshen decoction, or turn it into a greater mutagen for the trial. Helps with the mana, see. I’ll give it to you if your will and constitution make the cut before the trial.”

Roy was delighted to hear that. “Wait, does that mean different witchers of the same school will show different levels of changes after the trial? Is it because of the quality of mutagens used in the decoction?”

“Yes.” Letho noticed Roy’s excitement, so he calmed him down. “But the greater the reward, the greater the risk. Greedily chasing for more power is just going to make the trial all the more lethal for you. Stay calm.”

Roy thought about his Full Recovery passive. I wonder… 

“That’s it for the trial for now.” Letho pointed at the sea of corpses around them. “See if you can get some green mutagen from them. It’s fine even if they’re lesser ones, since they can be merged and strengthened anyway for your trial.”

Roy went back to his roots in this case. He imitated Letho and split open the skulls of the nekkers, rummaging through their mushy insides. The grey matter, blood, and flesh squelched as he moved around. He felt disgusted, for monsters smelled fouler than the livestock he’d had to deal with back in Kaer.

However, he managed to keep his composure and swept through the corpses thanks to his will. After going through thirty something corpses, Roy only managed to get three lesser green mutagens. He put them in his inventory, but before he could even catch a break, Letho was already pushing him to another round of dissection.

“Nekkers are really valuable. Their hearts are indispensable in many decoction recipes. Cut them out and let them dry. Their lungs, liver, pancreas, and kidneys can be used in alchemy and some weapons forging. Those parts can add additional effects to some of the stronger weapons. Of course, the best of them will come from the leader of the nekkers.”

Letho stopped for a moment. “Sorcerers use their eyes, ears, and tongues in their experiments. You can make a tidy profit by selling those. Don’t forget about their claws and teeth. Once we get out of Smiack, we’ll get a decent blacksmith to make arrows out of those. You’ll find them to be better bolts than the ones you usually use. Oh, and their skin too — ”

Roy suddenly turned around to stare at Letho, his face plastered with blood. Letho felt a chill running down his spine, and he told Roy, “I can see your pocket’s full. Right, we can forget about the skin.”