Chapter 29: The Black Snake Medicine

“Master, you’re back,” Knight Fred said as he opened the city gate for Levi.

“Nothing bad happened, right?” Levi smiled as he saw Knight Fred.

“No. Did it go well?”

“Yup.”

Levi quickly returned to his room. During his trip, he had spent all of his gold coins, and overnight, he became a pauper once again.

However, he didn’t come back empty-handed.

Two bottles of ambergris, two blood-only breathing methods, a long-term partnership, and miscellaneous books and scrolls…

Levi’s trip has basically been fulfilled.

Now that everything is ready, only the secret medicine needs to be prepared.

Levi went to bed and had a soundless sleep.

The next day, the sun shone brightly over Blackwater Valley.

The preparation of medicine is not a technical job. All you need to do is mix it according to a fixed ratio and then knead it into small pills.

Levi successfully prepared two hundred pills.

If he makes any more, the effectiveness of the ambergris may be too diluted for it to be effective.

According to the formula, these two bottles of ambergris can be made into two hundred pills.

If he took one pill a day, it would be enough to last him the next six months.

Levi immediately swallowed a pill. While his food was being prepared, he couldn’t wait to start practising his breathing method.

His journey has delayed his training by two days.

An hour later, Levi completed a breathing exercise.

[Black Snake Breathing Method +10]

“My progression has increased by several times,” he exclaimed. “Too bad I can only take one pill a day.”

Once he swallowed the pill, he felt as if a cold current was coursing through his veins, filling him with a sense of calm. With this blessing, he maintained a high degree of concentration throughout his training.

White smoke began to emit from his body, and he found that some impurities were being purged from it through the smoke.

Levi took advantage of this condition and started to practise his Golden Slash.

[Golden Slash Proficiency +3]

He didn’t know if it was a placebo, but he felt stronger after taking the pill.

He practised the breathing method and Golden Slash several times and completed his training for today.

Then he took out the Frost Wolf’s and Giant Bear’s Breathing Method that he bought at the auction.

These breathing methods are both superficial and blood-only, so they are considered to have the lowest value of all the breathing methods.

Levi opened the inheritance scroll of the Giant Bear’s Breathing Method.

On the parchment, there is a pattern embedded in it, similar to his family’s emblem. It was a bear that stood proudly over the land posed in several prominent boxing poses.

This is the Stone Bear family emblem.

‘Their breathing method focuses on strength, which is complementary to mine.’

The Frost Wolf’s scroll was similar to the one before, embedded with the emblem of the Frost Wolf family.

‘And their breathing method focuses on agility. If I can learn both of these breathing methods, would I be unstoppable?’ he chuckled to himself.

“Let’s try integrating the Frost Wolf’s Breathing Method into my system,” he said to himself. “Agility is the most important thing in hand-to-hand combat, and I lack that.”

His proficiency panel may seem mediocre at first, but the most powerful part of it is how easy it was to integrate extremely difficult things into it.

All Levi had to do was play his cards right.

Every single effort will be rewarded in numerical terms.

Practise for him is now a linear, continuous road, not a blind, trial-and-error experience.

Of course, breathing methods cannot be mastered in a day or two.

Although the breathing methods were superficial, it would take a while for him to grasp the concepts behind them.

He didn’t want to spend all of his energy on this either; he had to begin studying the design sketches that the Knight had given him, and after three months, he had to deliver him a batch of goods.

Days passed, and Levi’s life was extremely fulfilling. In the castle’s yard, the three bear brothers grew up happily. With a huge amount of food being supplied to them, their bodies were expanding at a speed visible to the naked eye!

Soon, it was the third day of the Month of Flowers.

Levi learnt from Knight Fred that his two neighbours had sold their ancestral land in a successive manner, and the entire family moved to the Frozen City. It was said that the buyers of the land were the people running the Holy Church.

A church was to be built in the Land of the Silver Moon so that the Holy Light of the Loving Father could warm the hearts of this desolate place.

Levi cursed silently.

He always had a suspicion that the arrival of the Church would disrupt his peaceful life.