Chapter 213: Youth Eternal Potion

As Orlena arrived at the top floor of the White Tower, Tang Luo watched her chant an incantation, turning a wall into a doorway.

Pushing the door open and entering, the inside was a place worlds apart from a magnificent "walk-in closet."

Dim, gloomy, only two candles burning to maintain a certain level of brightness.

A large black cauldron sat in the room's interior; no firewood burned beneath it, yet white mist rose from its top.

Somewhat pungent; Tang Luo stepped closer for a look — no twist, inside was an unknown emerald-green liquid.

"Just this thing, and you still say you're not a witch?" Tang Luo pointed at Orlena, feeling deceived. "Where's your broom? Take out your broom."

Every corner of this room exuded an aura belonging to a witch.

"I am a sorceress." Orlena had to emphasize. What was a witch? It sounded like a terrible feeling; moreover, what the hell was a broom.

"What is this? A witchcraft concoction?" Tang Luo pointed at the pot of strangely green potion and asked.

"... This is the reward I prepared for you, Master." Orlena felt a bit heartsick.

She suddenly missed that old lickspittle Magic Mirror who only knew how to say "The most beautiful woman in the world is you, Queen."

Just what kind of "thing" is this current "evolved" Mirror Master?

"Just this stuff?" Tang Luo looked at the eerily "boiling" green water in the crucible. "Although this Master Xuanzang ate his way through a 'Classic of Mountains and Seas,' it doesn't mean I'll stuff just anything into my mouth."

As a man of taste, eating also requires selection.

Some things look good but don't taste good; some taste good but don't look good.

Things that taste bad and look bad but have an effect, Tang Luo can accept; but things that taste bad and look bad and might not even have an effect, Tang Luo has to consider.

Mm, at the very least he has to watch someone else eat it first.

Orlena couldn't understand Tang Luo's words, but she at least understood.

So she explained: "This is a sorceress's... standing item, the Youth Eternal Potion, which allows a sorceress to maintain her youthful appearance for a long time."

"Oh, really?" Tang Luo expressed neither agreement nor disagreement.

"But there are side effects too; those who drink it and can't endure it will die." Orlena spoke frankly. "But I think with the Mirror Master's strength, it shouldn't be a problem; you can completely ignore such a minor side effect, right?"

"How does it taste?" Tang Luo asked.

Looks bad, has side effects; then one must ask if it tastes good or bad.

"Taste?" Orlena froze for a moment. She had clearly stated the side effect was death, yet the other party was asking about the taste.

Come to think of it, Orlena mentioning strength was also a kind of veiled probe.

Strength and whether one can ignore the "Youth Eternal Potion's" side effects aren't really the same thing.

"... Passable, I guess." Orlena said. As for the taste, she actually had no idea.

The Youth Eternal Potion is also the "enlightenment potion" for becoming a sorceress; it's just that the dedicated enlightenment potion is even more potent.

The mortality rate is as high as 90%; additionally, drinking the potion is incomparably painful.

The first formal dose brands a seal of pain deep in the soul; every subsequent dose makes that brand "light up."

All senses capable of feeling perceive only pain.

The tongue, at that time, has already lost its sense of taste.

Orlena never knew whether this Youth Eternal Potion, made from many herbs, special techniques, and a sorceress's blood, tasted good or bad.

"Then you drink some first; what if it's awful and you're deliberately setting me up?" Tang Luo said.

"... Then you can just kill me." Orlena said irritably, picking up the spoon nearby, carefully ladling a sip, and downing it in one gulp.

One could see that the moment she drank, her body trembled.

Besides pain, the Youth Eternal Potion's greatest side effect is that it cannot be interrupted; the only outcome after interruption is death.

After drinking, every month one must drink some again; otherwise one will die in extreme pain.

New sorceresses are all guided by their masters; generally after three to five years, once the sorceress learns to brew the Youth Eternal Potion, she can graduate.

The two sides have almost no relationship afterward — if there is, it's mostly hatred.

Sorceresses cannot bear children; they all use various means to obtain young girls, letting them become the next batch of sorceresses to sustain the entire "professional group's" continuation.

The experience of becoming a sorceress is painful; truly "only by enduring the bitterest suffering can one become a superior person."

After the pain, Orlena quickly regained her composure and said: "I can't taste the flavor; drinking this potion is very painful, but the benefits are also great."

Orlena concealed two pieces of information.

One, only women can drink this potion and not die; two, it is addictive.

Orlena certainly believed the Youth Eternal Potion wasn't enough to kill this Mirror Master, but it would weaken his strength.

If it could produce an "addiction" effect, letting her seize the initiative from then on, nothing could be better.

Even if it couldn't, at least it would make the cooperative transaction between the two relatively more equal, not her having to follow the other party's pace from start to finish.

"Then I'll give it a try." Tang Luo walked over, glanced at the cauldron, then reached out, grabbed the rim, and lifted the whole thing up in one go.

"Hey!"

Under Orlena's horrified gaze and before she could move to stop him, Tang Luo tilted his head back and drank the entire Youth Eternal Potion from the cauldron in one gulp.

This was the legendary "give it a try."

Orlena felt she had never truly understood this vocabulary before.

"Not bad, slightly sweet." Tang Luo said. "Also a bit bitter, like cold medicine."

"..." Orlena gaped, unable to speak.

Finished drinking; the other party had finished all her potion.

This has to be a joke!

This was Orlena's entire stockpile to date, painstakingly collected over ten years, achieved only using the Queen's status and position.

This cauldron of potion guaranteed Orlena wouldn't have to worry about the Youth Eternal Potion for at least ten more years.

But now, in the span of a few blinks, the other party had downed it all in one gulp.

After finishing it, he even gave a tasting review.

Resolving the doubt that had plagued Olyana for years, a weight off her mind — my ass!

Olyana looked at the pot, now scraped clean with only a tiny bit left, just enough to coat the bottom, then looked at Tang Luo, and asked somewhat dazedly: "Does it work?"

Please, put on some show of pain.

"Not bad," Tang Luo said. "For you lot, it counts as a tiger-wolf medicine."

This pot of potion increased Tang Luo's uninjured exertion limit by 1.2 tenths.

Tang Luo himself also clearly felt that his recovery speed was quite a bit faster than before.

In the past, these potions would at most raise Tang Luo's uninjured exertion limit by 0.1 tenths.

"Tell me the formula," Tang Luo said.

"Hah?" Olyana looked at Tang Luo, frozen in place — or rather, ever since Tang Luo downed it in one gulp, her state had been one of dumbfounded shock.

"Tell me the formula, and I'll help you solve the stumbling block that is Snow White," Tang Luo said. "Let you be your queen in peace, and control this country."

"Impossible." Olyana gradually recovered. "It's not that I'm unwilling; even if I told you the formula, you couldn't brew the Youth Eternal Potion."

Next, Olyana straightforwardly finished explaining the special aspects of this medicine.

Seeing Mirror Master down over a decade's dosage of Youth Eternal Potion in one go, Olyana "sobered up" from her shock and knew the gap between herself and Xuanzang was like one on a mountain peak, one underground.

"I see." Tang Luo nodded.

He now understood roughly what the Youth Eternal Potion situation was.

Using an example everyone is relatively familiar with — "organ transplant" — the Youth Eternal Potion alters the body's properties, granting the user extraordinary power.

The surgical process is undoubtedly painful, and post-op requires continuous medication to mitigate and eliminate rejection reactions.

"The most important primer is fresh blood?" Tang Luo murmured.

Olyana instantly felt her hair stand on end and retreated several steps; this Mirror Master wouldn't lock her up as a "primer source," would he?

In fact, female sorcerers have done this before, because using one's own blood as primer yields slightly worse effects than using another female sorcerer's.

This has also given rise to some rather cruel incidents.

For female sorcerers, cruelty is nothing, but this kind of cruelty affects the foundation of female sorcerers' survival.

Therefore later everyone formed a mutually observed agreement not to cultivate female sorcerers specifically as "fresh blood providers," or to confine other female sorcerers as providers.

Of course, rules are just rules; there are still female sorcerers who don't abide by them.

Later still, a female sorcerer researched a "self-detonation art," allowing a choice of mutual destruction and death when facing such situations.

Olyana knows this art.

Death is her final stubbornness.

"Don't be nervous," Tang Luo smiled. "I'm a good person, I won't do what you're thinking. Even if I wanted to... I wouldn't pick you. First tell me the formula, and also tell me about the history of you female sorcerers. Since female sorcerers pass down through 'bloodline inheritance,' how did the first female sorcerer in history appear?"

Where is the source of female sorcerers?

Tang Luo was very interested; as he said, even if he looked, he wouldn't look for Olyana.

Naturally he'd look for the bloodline inheritance, the source blood with better effects.

Half an hour later, Tang Luo recorded the formula Olyana spoke of; as for the origin of female sorcerers, it was too ancient.

Anyway, Olyana wasn't clear on it; wanting to excavate the source's location is not easy.

Tang Luo wasn't in a rush either.

After extracting sufficient price, Olyana turned the topic back to Snow White Wei Wei: "Master, how do you plan to deal with that little girl?"

"What do you think?" Tang Luo said. "Speak your plan, I'll see if it's suitable to execute."

"My plan is simple: you take her away, Master, and then... Master can do whatever you want," Olyana said.

Best if Tang Luo takes Snow White and flies far away.

Never having to see these two people again would be the most perfect ending.

Olyana felt she should find that merchant and confiscate all his assets to compensate for her spiritual loss.