Chapter 351: Cold Medicine

“I came here mainly for two things,” Brother Raymond pinched his nose, trying to block out the omnipresent stench, but its presence was too overwhelming.

The strong smell of alcohol, the sour bitterness of plants, and the smoky reek of oil and burning paper—mixed together, they made him feel as if he’d been submerged in some cursed medicinal wine, nearly pickled to perfection.

It was hard to imagine how any normal person could endure this for two days, and so far, there was no sign it would end anytime soon.

While he spoke, the culprit who had led the patrol around half the monastery last night was still busy, filtering pale green liquid soaked with swollen bark into another container.

“First, I want you to know that last night’s incident caused some negative repercussions. Normally, a monastery abbot would never absent himself from morning prayers for several consecutive days.”

“Nor should he run through the corridors in the dark, smashing newly repaired door latches. I must admit, that technique was… incredible—the precision, the force—I can’t fathom how you did it.”

“But compared to that, I’d rather understand why you hold such a personal grudge against those bookshelves that you resorted to ‘that method.’”

Though he’d witnessed it once before in Dunling, seeing the traces of that power up close was another experience entirely. The cleanly severed wood surfaces redefined the meaning of “smooth”—not a single splinter or mark of force, and touching the perfectly flawless cut sent a prickling chill down the spine.

If there had been any ill-timed intruders there at the time, the scene would have been terrifying.

“I’m very sorry—I’ll explain this later. The situation is complicated and can’t be clarified in a short time.” Kraft swirled the bottle, hesitated, then filtered the liquid again—this time, it became much clearer.

“In fact, I don’t even know exactly what I’ve encountered.”

“Can it be described as something extremely dangerous?”

“Hard to say. So far, it hasn’t shown any obvious aggression—at least, not any intention to come out and bite me.”

The liquid in the bottle seemed no less captivating than unnatural forces—at least, to Kraft’s eyes.

He skillfully divided the large reagent bottle into three equal portions, added them to the bark extract, and stirred thoroughly.

Then he began drawing a circular shape in the air before him; his well-coordinated bodily functions made the motion exceptionally precise. As if fearing one pass wasn’t enough, he traced several more circles, making the gesture look absurd.

But his sincerity was unmistakable—he must have been begging the Father for something.

“What are you doing?”

“Praying,” Kraft replied, glancing at Raymond with surprise, as if the strange one weren’t himself but the man asking the question. “May the Lord bless His faithful Knight Commander with smooth experiments and doubled yields.”

“…”

Raymond gave up. He realized he might never, in his entire life, correct Kraft’s attitude toward faith.

Some people aren’t lacking reverence for mainstream faith—they simply treat all forms of religious belief with equal disregard.

Since taking office, his only comfort had been that Kraft’s young disciple showed genuine interest in sacred stories—perhaps the next generation of the Knight Order still held hope, and could be guided onto the right path.

“Second, you’ve probably noticed too: managing a knight order isn’t easy. Neither you nor I can handle every task alone.” He emphasized the latter half.

“We need to divide labor—or rather, delegate authority—entrusting tasks to suitable people, granting them the freedom to decide how best to handle them with their own wisdom.”

“The Archbishop delegates church affairs in each city to local bishops, knowing only the general situation, not demanding reports every few days.”

“This is an inevitable trend. We’re destined not to stop at the foot of the mountain or the Prilier domain. The monastery has both the right and the duty to reconnect the entire ecclesiastical district, just as a lord naturally bears responsibility toward his land and the king.”

“Furthermore, this means we must establish communication with each church—they provide the monastery with information, connections, and resources, while the monastery offers them protection, legitimacy, and recommendations for advancement.”

Perhaps during this exchange we’ll learn more than by waiting here for Father Green to find something and reply. Honestly, I’ve rarely seen him go to the library.

“Advancement? Advancement in what?” Kraft caught the most sensitive word.

“Uh, well, we can set that aside for now.” The monastery clearly suited doctors more than monks for advancement, “but you really should consider my suggestion.”

Raymond finally found a chair not yet buried under clutter and sat down, bracing himself for a long wait without an answer.

Kraft’s mind wasn’t on the matter at hand—or perhaps his understanding of “the matter at hand” differed slightly from Raymond’s.

The hands-on work consumed so much mental space that he could only extract a few keywords from long speeches.

As the experiment reached its critical phase, his responses dwindled to occasional murmurs of “hmm” or “oh.”

Thick, oily droplets fell one by one into the yellow-green solution; Kraft’s expression finally stirred, rippling with a complex mix of anticipation and concern.

Those with sharp eyes could see the droplets’ translucent outlines, stretching thin threads and smoky trails through the liquid.

A long exhale could be heard, as if expelling years of accumulated dust from the lungs.

Only then did he notice the trails were traced by extremely fine white powder-like particles, slowly and steadily sinking.

Kraft’s already complex expression grew even more vivid—surprise, confusion, realization, disbelief—flashing back and forth.

“Thank you, you thing—I understand!”

“You’d better not tell me you had a sudden epiphany last night,” Raymond accepted without protest Kraft’s preference for thanking some unknown thing rather than the Father.

As long as his mind remained stable, it didn’t matter.

“If I must say, the key breakthrough was indeed completed last night.” Kraft’s first sentence nearly snapped Raymond’s taut nerves.

Fortunately, he immediately recognized the ambiguity and swiftly added: “I mean, thank you for wasting an entire night of my time.”

“God knows why I kept heating and concentrating the extraction before—this substance’s thermal stability must be terrifyingly poor.”

“Last night, I was so focused on finding it that I didn’t heat it at all—I just soaked it overnight.” Thick liquid dripped continuously from Kraft’s dropper; the swirling snowflakes in the bottle grew denser, forming a visible sediment at the bottom.

“It was that simple: heating during alcohol extraction destroys unstable compounds. The correct method is prolonged soaking at room temperature.”

“So what exactly are you making?” The monk, a complete outsider, felt none of the thrilling twists and turns.

“Hmm… cold medicine.”

“That sounds too broad—not your style.”

“It is indeed broad.”

(End of Chapter)