Duke Carmine went to the castle to deliver the potions to Vans, since Vans would take too long to obtain authorization to present the gift directly to the King.
"What exactly is this?"
"It is a gift from Vans to Your Majesty," the Duke said as he bowed.
"We already have plenty of potions and our own alchemists, this gift is a waste," said Marquis Anderson.
"We have no way of producing these potions. The healing potions have a purity level of 92 percent, and the mana recovery potion reaches 95 percent."
"That is impossible, no one can make so many potions at that level," he said angrily.
"Are you saying I am lying?"
The Marquis reconsidered, even though he was a court mage and a noble, he was still below the Duke.
"That is not it, I am saying he may have deceived you."
"Then shall we make a bet?"
"What do you want with this, Lord Carmine?" the King asked.
"I apologize if I was rude, but I have full confidence that these potions are exactly what I said."
"If that is the case, I allow a wager between the two of you. Decide what each of you wants from the other."
"I want the Marquis to give me one of his mansions, I want one here in the Capital. Do you agree to that?"
The Marquis did not expect that, the King simply laughed.
"Very well, if you insist, then I want your mansion in the Capital. It is a fair bet."
"Very well."
"Now that you have decided this, how will we test it?"
"We can summon all the court alchemists to examine them, but we will not tell them the purity percentage, we will let them evaluate without any information."
"That works for me," the Marquis said.
Three alchemists were summoned, the castle had five. They went to a table where the potions were placed, the potions were lined up. The alchemists began their analysis, which consisted of using mana to determine purity and quality, along with the benefits. One of the alchemists was surprised by a vial and called the others. That made the Marquis break into a cold sweat.
"That is not possible," one of the alchemists said, the third repeated the same words.
After a few more minutes, they finished analyzing.
"Your Majesty, this potion, at first glance, appears to be 92 percent pure, but no..."
"I knew he had deceived you, Duke," the Marquis interrupted the alchemist.
"It is actually almost 93 percent."
The Duke laughed loudly.
"This one is not 95 percent, it is slightly purer than that. But the one that surprised me is this one, even though it is not above 95 percent, it can still fully restore the mana of the mage who drinks it. In fact, we would not be able to produce even a single cauldron with this level of purity, and we do not even have the materials for it, so these potions would cost at least two or three silver coins per vial."
"You would not be able to produce similar potions?"
"Exactly, the technique the alchemist used must be some kind of secret, and they must have a large number of alchemists."
"In fact, it was a single alchemist who made these potions, they made all of these in a single afternoon."
"That is impossible."
"Are you saying I am lying?"
"I apologize for my rude words, but that is impossible, no one has that much mana."
"I personally watched the entire process, I was curious about how the potions were made, they were relatively fast."
"Can you ask them to demonstrate?" the King asked.
"I can, but it would be impolite and rude to ask them to come here without offering anything in return, since they were kind enough to give all these potions as a gift to you."
"You are absolutely right, I will give them a reward, perhaps their weight in gold, if they can make more of these potions..."
"I know something cheaper than that, how about that dusty dagger no one uses anymore?"
"That thing? Even though it is made of mythril and dragon scale, it is still useless junk."
"They once showed interest in using that material to produce a crucible for preparing potions."
The King did not look very pleased.
"It is decided, I want them to come here. Prepare everything so they can produce at least ten thousand potions, so we can see and grant the reward."
The Duke was surprised by the request, but considering what he knew about Vans, it would not be a problem. Still, the reward might no longer be appropriate given the quantity the King requested, but he kept that thought to himself.
Vesta and Lyn were in a kitchen supply store, they needed to buy some utensils and a stove so Sandra could prepare meals for everyone. Victor had forgotten about it and left everything to the two of them, Vesta did not like that, but among all of them, she was the best at evaluating price versus labor, since that used to be her job. There was a problem though, a long time had passed and the standards she used were somewhat outdated. She could not use the same judgment criteria as before, so she had to be a bit less strict.
Still, she felt like she was being deceived, a stove costing three hundred gold coins seemed absurd, even considering the magic crystals used to heat the metal plates and everything else. But ice crystals were cheap, since they were easy to obtain. She wanted to hunt the monsters herself, but Victor had asked them to buy everything instead, since it was faster and he wanted the preservation room working as soon as possible, as it would make things easier for Sandra.
"I think he is showing some favoritism," Vesta said to Lyn.
"What do you mean?"
"These crystals, we could obtain them ourselves, but he prefers to buy them because it is faster and because Sandra needs them."
"Jealous?"
"Not at all, I just did not like the way he treats her."
"Then that is jealousy, and I do not think you should feel that way. I think it would be a waste for him to have only one wife."
"Considering his position, the ideal would be eight, but I am not sure how I would react to that."
Lyn just laughed.
"Someone is following us," Vesta said.
"They are weak, that is why I ignored them."
"Even so, it is better to deal with them, to avoid any future trouble."
"If you say so, then let us go to that alley."
"That is so cliché and still so effective," Vesta said with a smile, she missed beating up thugs.
They went into the alley, stood still, and two men appeared, they were laughing.
"Are these two cuties lost?" one of the men asked, his voice was very irritating.
Vesta's mask covered her entire face and had no openings, yet she could breathe and see perfectly. She observed them calmly.
"You are part of the city guard. If you want to intimidate people without being recognized, you should adjust your posture and improve the way you say those rude lines. You are trying too hard," Vesta said.
"Kill them both," one of the men said to the other.
Lyn used puppet magic and froze the man in place, the second man lost both legs very quickly, Vesta barely moved.
"Let us take these two to the guard and see what happens," Vesta said.
Before they left, Vesta asked Lyn to use fire magic to cauterize the wounds on the legs, then she handed the severed limbs to the man, and Lyn dragged him using puppet magic, while the other man could not move on his own, his movements were controlled by Lyn, who forced him to walk to the guard headquarters.
They entered and approached a receptionist.
"I want to report an attempted robbery, these two men tried to steal what we just bought, but fortunately, they were very weak."
The receptionist looked at the men and was startled.
"Captain Jack?"