Chapter 20: The Life School
“I’m sorry, we don’t have the brandy you want here.” The bartender said politely. “We have fruit brandy, but we don’t have brandy that contains 10 kinds of fruits at the same time, because different fruits have different sugar contents, and mixing them together will affect the taste of the brandy. If you don’t mind, I can make you a glass with the specified fruits and pure brandy.”
“That won’t do.” Asker said regretfully. The formula clearly stated that it was fruit brandy, and it would not work to mix it with fruits after it was brewed.
Nuo’s pretty face was also full of frustration. The two had already run to no less than twenty taverns in the city, and none of them had the so-called “10 kinds of fruits blended brandy” in the formula, and the reasons for not having it were exactly the same.
“Do we really have to go to the winery to brew it ourselves?” Nuo asked, messing up her hair frantically. “It would be convenient if it was my family’s winery, I could find a brewing expert to find a way. If we have a winery here to brew it, it will take at least a week according to the normal process, right?”
Asker ignored her unconscious flaunting of wealth such as “my family’s winery” and said:
“Well, a week is not too long. For normal extraordinary people, it is normal to spend two or three years searching for formula materials.”
Of course, the “normal” here referred to NPCs.
“I know.” Nuo said distressedly. She was just feeling a sense of urgency because Eleanor was the first to become a level 1 extraordinary.
“In that case, we can only use a more radical method.” Asker said.
“What method?” Nuo’s eyes lit up.
“Take this.” Asker tossed her the topaz ring he had taken from the corpse last night. “Let’s go find someone from the Life School.”
“Is this the identity token of the Life School?” Nuo took the ring and turned it over to examine it, only to see two sentences engraved on the bottom of the gemstone ring.
Beware, druids.
Many strokes through with a little axe, hew down and fell the hardest-timbered oak.
“Oh.” Asker also saw the sentence. “That’s the entry motto of the Life School: the oak tree is the sacred tree of the Life School, referring to the Life School itself; the little axe that is continuously swung refers to the seemingly insignificant but endless external dangers.”
“I understand.” Nuo felt that this sentence was very stylish, so she took out her precious notebook and copied the sentence on the title page of the notebook.
“What kind of people are in the Life School?” Reading the famous quote repeatedly, Nuo seemed to see an ancient and mysterious organization with a long history, going through wars, changes, and the vicissitudes of life. Countless extraordinary people sacrificed themselves one after another, just to keep the school standing in the long river of time.
“If I really have to label them.” Asker thought for a moment and said, “Farmers, poor, vegetarian, old-fashioned, a bunch of old men and women.”
“Uh.” Nuo felt that some kind of fantasy in her heart had been shattered.
After taking the Junburg subway for a few stops, the two soon arrived in front of a building. Nuo looked closely and saw that the sign hanging on the building read:
Constantinople Municipal Association of Landscape Architecture.
Passing through the porch, the two entered an open-air courtyard, where countless flower beds were separated by gravel roads, planted with a variety of exotic flowers.
There were researchers in white coats, gardeners in blue overalls, and some who were obviously nobles from their clothes, pointing at the flowers and talking about something.
Asker took Nuo and directly found the oldest lady at the scene, and took out the topaz ring to show her.
The old lady with a bewildered face: ???
“Sorry.” Asker said, then found an old man next to him and shook the ring in front of his eyes.
The old man with a puzzled look: ???
“Sorry.” Asker said, then turned to look for the next target. Finally, a middle-aged man in a gardener’s uniform couldn’t stand it anymore. He came out and pressed Asker’s shoulder, saying:
“Who are you, sir? Our association does not allow non-members to enter and exit at will.”
He dragged Asker to an empty corner. Nuo saw this and smiled bitterly and anxiously, but she could only follow quickly.
When they arrived at the corner, the middle-aged man lowered his voice and said:
“Who are you? How did you get this ring?”
“It’s like this.” Asker then told the story of how he spent 40 pounds at the extraordinary party to buy a note that pointed to 44 Doroc Road, then was attacked in the house, and finally killed the attacker in self-defense.
As for how he found this place, he lied that he found soil on the soles of the corpse’s boots in the house, so he suspected that it was someone in the imperial capital who was engaged in work related to flowers.
“So that’s how it is.” The middle-aged man took the Life I and Radiance I formulas and the topaz ring he handed over. “Thank you very much for bringing these things back, they are indeed from our Life School.”
He sighed faintly: “The deceased was also a member of our school. Recently, the Spirit School’s attacks on us have become more and more frequent, and we have had several conflicts in Constantinople.”
“Sir, are you not worried that we are spies from the Spirit School?” Nuo asked cautiously. She originally thought that the other party would be suspicious and defensive, and use various clever tests, just like in the legends. Unexpectedly, Asker just told the truth, and the other party immediately believed it.
“Not worried.” The middle-aged man said with a smile, “The Spirit School are all Spirit Sequence ability users, and the spirits all around are their eyes and ears, so they don’t need to hire spies at all.”
“You are here for the materials of Life I or Radiance I, right?” He looked at Asker again.
“That’s right.” Asker said frankly, “My companion here, she wants to obtain the potion materials for Life I, and currently lacks an auxiliary material, fruit brandy.”
“The main material comes from our deceased fellow member, right?” The middle-aged man asked solemnly. For a moment, Nuo thought that the other party was going to make a fuss, but then she saw Asker also ask seriously:
“That’s right, do you want to buy it back?”
“200 pounds.” The middle-aged man said, “Or the equivalent main material, 3 Flowers of the Eden Tree.”
“Deal, we choose the main material.” Asker nodded and said, then explained to the puzzled Nuo, “The extraordinary characteristics harvested from the corpse will retain the spiritual will of the deceased. If it is made into a potion and taken, the probability of losing control will be a little higher. For the Life School, they can obtain information from the remaining spiritual will and find clues about the murderer who killed the deceased, so this transaction is beneficial to both of us.”
“This young lady is still an ordinary person?” The middle-aged man looked at Nuo with interest.
“Yes, she is about to get started.” Asker said with a smile, “There is still a lot of esoteric knowledge that needs to be popularized to her.”
“I have a suggestion.” The middle-aged man said seriously, “I wonder if you would like to join our Life School?”
“Me?” Nuo asked in surprise.
“Yes.” The middle-aged man nodded. “Join our Life School, and you will have the opportunity to access more Life Sequence formulas, as well as exchange and purchase corresponding main materials. If you have enough merit, our ‘Shepherd of Trees’ bloodline path can also be given to you.”
“Why choose me?” Nuo looked at Asker blankly, then at the middle-aged man, feeling as if a huge pie had fallen on her head. For a moment, she even had an unreal feeling.
“Because the Life School is in urgent need of fresh blood.” The middle-aged man said with a smile, “Don’t tell me you think that joining our school is like in the legends, where we still implement strict and lengthy political review, cautious and cumbersome character assessment, and one-way contact to ensure the secrecy of the master-disciple system? It used to be like that, but that system has been proven to be outdated. At least in the past hundred years, the expansion of our Life School has lagged far behind that of the Spirit School.”
“The Spirit School released the low-level formulas of the Undead Sequence, using the gimmick of becoming an extraordinary being to attract newcomers. This method will certainly attract a lot of people with impure minds, but the rapidly expanding scale can make up for these shortcomings. However, our former council of elders used the old way of managing families to manage the school, and the final result could only be that the speed of development lagged far behind.” The middle-aged man took out his mobile phone from his trouser pocket. “You two, would you like to add me as a friend?”
Your school is too up-to-date! Asker thought to himself, how is this different from the Life School he knew in his previous life? The two had no choice but to take out their mobile phones and exchange CM friends with the middle-aged man.
(CM, short for Community, is a mobile social software in the world of “Iron and Fire,” similar to a combination of WeChat and Renren. CM company is located in Solomon City on the Italian peninsula and is an international Internet company.)
The other party’s nickname was directly his name “Kieran Bonat,” Asker’s nickname was only his name “Asker,” and Nuo’s CM nickname was “Princess.Norah.”
Kieran and Asker were stunned for half a second, then turned to look at Nuo. The latter immediately blushed, with an embarrassed expression of shame and humiliation, and waved her hands in a panic to explain:
“That! The nickname of the CM account was created when I was a child! Because the nickname cannot be changed once it is set, and there are too many friends in the address book and I don’t want to delete them, so I have been using it until now…”
She almost couldn’t go on, covering her face as if she was about to cry. Who would have thought that just to join a secret organization, they would have to exchange CM friends!
Asker said with a straight face: “It’s okay, Your Highness, I also had a secondary school syndrome.”
“That’s right, Your Highness.” Kieran also said seriously, “I often call my daughter ‘little princess,’ and she seems to be very happy.”
“Don’t call me Your Highness.” Nuo said weakly, with an expression of resignation, “Just call me whatever you want.”
“Ahem.” Kieran coughed, “I’ll send you a mini program first. After you click on the link, fill out the application form inside. After the application is approved, I will pull you into the group chat of our Life School.”
With a pale expression, Nuo took her mobile phone and started to fill out the form. Asker chatted with Kieran for a while, discussing and exchanging some esoteric knowledge, and then left with Nuo.
Kieran looked at the application form submitted by Nuo on his mobile phone. Her name was “Nuo Valennis Licinius,” which was a classical Solomon name, and not many people in the Italian city-states would use this kind of name now. It was within his expectation that she had no family background in any extraordinary family.
So he clicked the approval button.
About two hours later, while he was working diligently in the flower bed, he suddenly received a call from Elder Boreas.
“Where is the new applicant?” The elder said seriously.
Kieran hurried to the entrance of the association building: “She should have left.”
“Good, if she makes any requests, contact me as soon as possible.” The elder said.
“That young lady, is she really some kind of princess?” Kieran heard something wrong with the elder’s tone, a feeling of being overly serious. A strange thought suddenly popped into his mind.
“She is not “Your Highness”” the Grand Elder said in a strange tone. After a long pause, he added, “However, she far surpasses her.”
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