Preoccupied with his new place, Emery decided to delay his training for a while. He chose one room in the estate that faced the garden and decided to turn it into an apothecary room.

He then went to town, checking the shops for apothecary utensils. The ones he had now were standard clay ones. He was hoping to find better quality materials appropriate for his new, lavish home.

Unfortunately, even in a town as big as Venta, the stores also only sold standard-grade tools. Therefore, he decided to cast his [Spatial Gate] spell to a more metropolitan area, where there were ports that shipped items from outside the island. When the spell was complete, the soles of his shoes clacked against the cobblestone roads of Lionarch City.

Walking through the bustling streets, Emery passed through various storefronts in search of the right supplies. Once more, he went to speak with the Alistairs in the apothecary shop about his needs. With their recent trade, they were more than happy to help.

The most crucial items for apothecary included a cauldron, as well as a mortar and pestle. But there were also other appliances he had to account for, such as jars, sieves, strainers and weight measuring instruments.

The cauldron, mortar, and pestles were available in materials of three varying qualities. The cheapest ones were clay, then bronze and the best were made out of black marble.

"Yes, the best ones, please. I'll take five sets."

With five sets, Emery could concoct multiple potions at the same time. This would definitely increase his productivity, as well as the progress of his experimentation.

The black marble sets were imported from Greece, however, so it would take quite long for them to arrive. There was an estimated time of about six to eight weeks before his order would reach Lionarch and that was assuming the delivery process went smoothly.

It appeared Emery needed to be patient before he could start his experiments. While he was there, he also decided to buy a bulk amount of potion ingredients and seeds from the large selection the store had on hand.

As the Alistairs were picking out sacks of herbs from the wide expanse of shelves, they revealed they were hoping to stock up on more cleansing potions. Hence, they agreed on a new transaction: a hundred cleansing potions as payment for 5 sets of top quality apothecary equipment.

Handing Emery's purchases, the two men behind the counter grinned from ear to ear. It appeared they had profited more than they were telling, but Emery did not really care. The father and son duo wished him well, as they hoped to trade more special products with Merlin in the future.

When Emery returned to the estate, he did two things. First, he began to prepare his batch of a hundred cleansing potions and second, he started to transform the spacious yard into a herb garden.

Unlike before, he now had assistants to help him tend to it. He simply had to make sure the plants were prepared accordingly, in the best possible conditions.

Two dozen different types of seeds were planted all over the estate garden. This would serve as a good experiment for him to understand the way the soil interacted with the seeds. As the estate's staff watered the ground outside, he watched them from the apothecary room window, feeling a pang of gratitude towards Luna for providing him with such abundant luxuries.

Within two days, all his required arrangements were completed and all he needed to do was wait. While Emery had been busying himself with his personal projects, Luna and Morgana also had business to attend to.

As requested by Emery, Luna had provided Morgana with tutors to teach her more about the language of Briton, along with basic knowledge such as mathematics, history and geography. Her days were therefore mostly spent in the mansion's study, hard at work memorizing a dizzying amount of names, places, dates and words.

On the third day, however, things became more rowdy. The first batch of Fey warriors had arrived in Venta to follow up on the agreement Luna had with Chief Brennus. Ten warriors had come to join the tutoring session and among them there was Cavvi.

The Logress knights' last visit and Morgana's situation had forced even the strongest Akavi warrior out of the forest to learn more about the outside world. With them having zero knowledge of the language and a minimum understanding of the culture, Morgana was forced to assist.

With Morgana now preoccupied, as well as his tools and garden not yet ready, it seemed Emery was finally free from distractions. It was a good chance for him to return to his training; he no longer had any excuse to slack off.

Training also served as an opportunity for him to push back the uneasy thoughts he was having about Gwen. He hated to admit it, but he still found himself subconsciously replaying their last conversation together whenever his mind went blank.

Pushing his emotions to the side, he forced himself to focus. He refused to dwell on arbitrary matters when there were far more important tasks at hand. The first thing he decided to learn was the new spell he had just learned from the high priestess; [Nature Grasp], a Tier 4 plant element spell.

Although he could learn it, he was currently unable to use it. He had yet to cross the spirit force requirement to cast Tier 4 spells because of the restriction.

[Spirit Force: 217 (142)]

He only needed 8 more points to cross that threshold and finally fulfill the requirement.

Give or take, he could reach that target within two or three weeks of training in the Khaos space…

Finally, it was time to see Killgragah again. It had been a while since Emery had last been there.

He wondered how the dragon would react, as he had been postponing his training all this time.

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Written by Avans, Published exclusively by W.e.b.n.o.v.e.l,