NOVEL SIMPLE Chapter-168 Ocean Song
“No one meant any disrespect, I’m sure. There’s no need for the unpleasantries,” a native Asheva said. “We’re all friends here.”
“Of course, we’re all friends,” Kiev said, his smile widening but laced with serrated sarcasm that shredded the façade. “We look out for each other and come forward to help when the other needs it.” He scanned the room. “We don’t sit back and just watch a friend’s family struggle against an enemy. We are friends alright.”
The tension thickened in the room, and they all edged on the velvet sofa as if sitting on nails.
“Now!” Kiev clapped, jolting the heavy atmosphere. “With that out of the way, let’s begin the trade.”
“I’ll go first,” Ewan said after silence reigned for a minute, knocking on the table, and standing up. “I want the Ocean-Song potion recipe, I’ll trade all my contribution points for it, it should be enough.” He looked at Kiev. His naked malice slid off Ewan’s disregard. It didn’t even break the skin—he couldn’t care less about Kiev’s condescending and scornful remarks. His decision to target the cave etched his conflict with Ensils in stone. Sooner or later, they would clash. And by then, the collision would bury the small friction between him and Kiev.
“You’re finally ready for Step-1?” Kiev asked, his brows raised. “Grandpa did tell me about it, but I almost didn’t believe it.”
“Yeah, I can make an attempt now,” Ewan said.
“With how long you took for preparations, you must have a hundred percent chance of breaking through.”
“How could that be?” Ewan smiled, brushing aside the taunt. “I’m scraping at the bottom of the barrel without any support, I was barely able to gather enough after so long to make one attempt.”
“I wish you success then,” Kiev said. “We can finally move forward with our deal now; I almost forgot it existed.”
“I wish you success too,” Ewan said. “Though I doubt you need it.”
“Your contribution points should barely be enough,” Kiev said. “But it would be wiped out clean if you buy the recipe. Are your sure you don’t just want the potion itself?”
“I’m a Potioneer too, I want to try my hand at it,” Ewan said. “I’ll take the recipe.” The exchange of potion, based on his relationship with the Ensils, brought the risk of tampering—he couldn’t afford it. Instead, a recipe was much more resistant to modification, and thus, could earn his trust. Especially if he brewed it himself, he would know its applications.
“Okay, I’ll have the scroll delivered to you after the meet.”
“Thank you.”
“Do you want to exchange for anything else you need?” Kiev asked.
“No, I’m good for now, I want to focus on the breakthrough.” Ewan smiled and sat down, burying his body into the silky backrest.
“Okay, then let’s move on to the next one.”
…..
The trade meet seeped into the sleeping hours of the night and ended when only the dogs scuttled on the streets, one of their howls triggering another. When Ewan returned to his villa, Kidd greeted him on the lawn, waking up from his meditation, Walyn’s shadow fading away from his face.
“How’s it working?” Ewan asked. “Any problem so far?”
“It’s much smoother than the last one Boss,” Kidd said. “I can easily take in the Dark-Anima now.”
“What about Stefan? Did you guys move all his things here?”
“Yeah, we put them all in his room,” Kidd said. “He wanted to stay awake and meet you when you come back but was too tired and fell asleep out here. So, I moved him to the room.”
“Meet me?”
“He wanted to give you this himself.” Kidd handed Ewan a thick coffee-colored hardcover book, its corners tattered, and the spine broken in places—time had done its wonder on it. “He said it’s his family’s legacy, his father told him to protect it well. He doesn’t know what it is though.”
The yellowed parchment pages inside wrote an unfamiliar language, even the strokes of the inscribed spell circuit ran a foreign trace. And the mystery triggered Ewan’s curiosity. Nevertheless, he put the book in his claw-ring and shoved the thought of exploring it to the back of his mind—reaching Step-1 was his top priority right now, a new language could join his arsenal later.
“Thank him for me,” Ewan said. “I’ll be in the potions room, call me when someone comes.”
He went down the basement, settled Frost, Orange, and Iris for their combat training, and sat down in the room with Toast snuggled in his arms to read about the Prairie-Fire potion and the rite. The journal described the spell circuit for the rite, and the remarks and the notes from his family expounded on the confusing sections—with them lighting up the road, it was a child’s play to carve the circuit on the floor and the walls.
But the cost of the ingredients needed to fuel it and to brew the complimentary potion was going to hurt him, he would lose a huge chunk of his savings for this. Not to mention the stabilizing potions would also bleed him.
The only thing he wished for was a successful rite on the first trial. Because a second attempt would empty him if not shove him into debt—and that too if he could survive and recover from the first failure.
Drarith simmered over the flickering flames of conflict from all sides. Before it boiled over, Ewan planned to deal with the cave and leave the city, away from all the unrelated issues.
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