Chapter 60: Pierre's Guess

Flower Flame Month, 15th day.

A bright magical aura flashed through the medicinal liquid.

Gao De gloomily bottled the successful Primary Stamina Potion into small bottles, showing no joy at all.

After putting the potion away, Gao De felt restless and couldn't calm down at all.

Since the day Oliver visited, the Phil Potion Shop stopped purchasing the Primary Spider Venom Potion produced by their medicinal garden.

According to the reason they gave: because the sales of Primary Spider Venom Potion have risen during this period, potion makers in the city who have mastered this potion have also started to focus on preparing Primary Spider Venom Potion.

Plus the potion shop has been purchasing Primary Spider Venom Potion in large quantities, and now the shop's inventory of Primary Spider Venom Potion is saturated, so they have suspended purchases.

Although Gao De was half-believing and half-doubting, this explanation was plausible, so he let it go.

It just so happened that he had already mastered the preparation of Primary Stamina Potion, so he simply gave up on Primary Spider Venom Potion, bought another twenty portions of Wild Wolf gland fluid, and turned to preparing Primary Stamina Potion.

But he didn't expect that when he brought the prepared Primary Stamina Potion to the door, it was still refused by the Phil Potion Shop.

The reason given this time was "From today on, this shop only sells potions made by our own potion makers and no longer cooperates with potion makers not belonging to this shop."

When it reached this point, how could Gao De not understand? The saturated inventory was all bullshit.

The essence was to force him to let out the medicinal garden, and also to force himself to join their Phil Potion Shop to prepare potions for them.

This was not all.

After this unpleasant breakup, Gao De found that there were more idlers wandering around the medicinal garden.

The Seda Medicinal Garden is located in the suburbs of Hogen City, a single-door, single-courtyard.

There are no living facilities or shops nearby.

The apprentices in the medicinal garden have to travel for more than half an hour to the market and commercial district in the center of the city to buy food.

Under normal circumstances, where would idlers come from in such a place?

Clearly, these "idlers" were people from the Phil Potion Shop.

The intention was also very obvious; wasn't it to monitor and "intimidate" Gao De?

This was a combination of coercion and inducement.

The problem was that Oliver's methods were indeed effective.

Although Gao De still had some savings, if there was no income from potions, and he sat and ate, the medicinal garden would sooner or later "go bankrupt."

By then, besides joining the Phil Potion Shop, what other way could he have? As for resistance?

A First-Rank Mage Apprentice, what can he resist with? Gao De even secretly rejoiced that he had left an extra eye at the time and timely revealed his own value.

Otherwise, what he was facing now would not be coercion and inducement.

But what should he do now?

Gao De felt more and more restless the more he thought about it.

Swallow this breath and let the medicinal garden out to them?

This seems to be the best decision at the moment.

Not to mention anything else, the other party also offered an acquisition price of 200 gold, and also valued his potential very much.

If he really joined the Phil Potion Shop, the Phil Potion Shop would most likely focus on cultivating him.

Although there would definitely be many restrictions, with Feng Ling Yue Ying, as long as he endured for a few years, he should have the ability to get rid of these restrictions.

Looking at it this way, it is indeed a good choice.

It's just that Gao De had never considered this choice.

Nothing else, just unwilling to suffer this anger!

If the heart cannot be smooth, no matter how many other reasons are correct, it won't work.

Gao De thought while counting his money bag, and got his current cash balance: 12 gold, 2 silver, 5 copper.

"Must make a decision as soon as possible..."

The next day.

Gao De left the medicinal garden with a package. "Do you want to follow?"

"No need, they just told us to watch the medicinal garden."

Seeing Gao De heading toward the city, the two people monitoring near the medicinal garden glanced at him and then withdrew their eyes without any other action.

Although they were close to blatantly monitoring, they hadn't gone so far as to follow him directly, retaining the last bit of face.

Commercial district.

Pierre's grocery store.

Gao De brought the potions he had hoarded for many days, and before he even stepped into the shop, he found that the content on the simple wooden sign at the door had actually changed.

"This shop will be closed soon, and all items in the shop will be sold at low prices."

It had only been a week since he last came, and Pierre was actually planning to close the grocery store and stop doing it?!

Gao De was stunned, and couldn't care about the purpose of "selling medicine" on this trip, and hurriedly entered the shop.

Visible to the naked eye, the shelves in the shop were much emptier.

"Are you leaving?" Gao De asked directly as soon as he entered the shop, looking at Pierre who was leisurely drinking tea behind the counter: "To Bremen City?"

"Yes, I'm already looking for a buyer for the shop. Once I find a buyer, I'll leave and go to Bremen City to enjoy my old age." Pierre drank a mouthful of tea leisurely, put down the cup, and answered.

"What happened?" Gao De frowned, and a bad premonition arose in his heart.

"The strange things about population disappearance in the city haven't been solved." Pierre first released a piece of news.

"Didn't you say the murderer has already..." Gao De replied subconsciously, and then reacted with a start, "That was just a scapegoat?"

"Hmm, just a scapegoat; the strange things about population disappearance were suppressed, not solved." Pierre nodded, giving an affirmative answer.

"In the city, people are still disappearing."

He paused, "Three days ago, a family on the same street as me disappeared inexplicably, exactly the same as the previous situation; they were all sleeping at home, and when they woke up the next day, they disappeared from home."

"This matter was first discovered by their neighbors. Everyone gathered to watch the excitement, and before the city guards arrived, I also took a look at the scene."

"Besides some strange mucus, nothing was left in the room."

"Furthermore, the items in the room are very tidy; this is definitely not a case of murder for money."

"I suspect this matter is not man-made, but the work of a subterranean creature that has never appeared in the Bremen region before, which is why even a second-circle magic user couldn't resolve it."

"In the city center, there are subterranean creatures lurking in the shadows, constantly committing crimes—this is too terrifying."

After a moment of silence, Gao De spoke again.

"Just because of this reason?"

"Not entirely. The main reason..." Pierre sighed, then changed the subject: "Didn't I go to Bremen City last month to arrange a backup plan? Besides that, I also looked up some information through my friends in the Feicuitong Alliance."

"Under normal circumstances, every region has an upper limit for subterranean creatures based on the concentration of magic power."

"But during this period, the number of subterranean creatures appearing outside the city has already exceeded the total amount that should exist in this area."

"Do you know what this means?"

Before Gao De could reply, Pierre answered his own question: "It means that the frequent appearance of subterranean creatures outside the city is not caused by simple gathering, but by the emergence of a new source of subterranean creatures."

"And subterranean creatures only come from the ley lines."

Pierre finally said something that seemed inexplicable, but Gao De understood instantly, his expression changing drastically: "You mean the anomaly outside the city is caused by the generation of new ley lines?!"

He clearly remembered a sentence in the "Bremen Gazetteer" he had bought:

"After the planes converged, ley lines appeared frequently, their numbers increasing day by day, and subterranean creatures surged forth. The Bremen region, however, has not had a new ley line emerge for two hundred years. The twelfth Emperor Jieluos once praised Bremen as a blessed land."

A blessed land, no longer blessed? "I'm not sure, but I think it's very likely."

"At the very least, there is a high probability that a new species of subterranean creature has already invaded Hogen City. Doesn't this perfectly match my speculation?"

"The generation of new ley lines has brought new subterranean creatures," Gao De muttered, understanding what Pierre meant.

(End of Chapter)