Chapter 35: Holy Essence

"Thank you, my lord. The demon that burned seven of my Bingcheng's planting areas has been killed by you. A thousand thanks. This is a small token from Bingcheng, I hope you like it." After speaking, Lan held up a helmet with both hands.

"Eh? What is this? Interesting. With magic steel as the base, sandwiched with soul iron, the shape is slender, without space reserved for earflaps. This is a helmet specially made for skeletons. Truly interesting, a skeleton-exclusive helmet?" Lord Nai Ge projected into Ang's soul and clicked his tongue in wonder.

Ang tilted his head and asked Lan: "What is this?"

Lan shook her head and said: "We don't know either, but this helmet can't be worn by normal people. We think it was specially made for skeletons. Perhaps it can only exert its true effect in your hands, my lord."

Ang knocked on the helmet and found that the inside was solid, and the soul couldn't penetrate it. Putting it on his head, it fit just right. Once worn, it would lock in place, and wouldn't shake even if he shook his head.

It was indeed specially made for skeletons. If it were a living person, because of hair, skin, flesh, and earflaps, the inside of the helmet would be completely different. This helmet protruded at the earflap part. After wearing it, it locked with the concave earflap part of the skull, and even without a chin strap, it could be very stable.

Wearing the helmet, he instantly felt that the whole world had become much quieter, with a feeling of entering a Silence Barrier.

Skeletons observe the world by relying on soul fluctuations, mainly radiating out from the eye socket plane. However, the skull would also be penetrated by soul fluctuations, only much weaker.

Therefore, the skeleton's perspective was 360 degrees, but only the front could be perceived clearly. Other angles couldn't see far and were blurry, which instead became a kind of interference.

After wearing the helmet, because the helmet couldn't be penetrated by soul fluctuations, all those blurry perceptions were gone, leaving only the area illuminated by the eye sockets in front, and the perception instantly became focused.

Quite fun. Ang took off the helmet and said: "I like it."

"Phew, that's great. It's great that you like it, my lord." Lan let out a long sigh, and the heart that had been hanging in her throat could finally be swallowed back.

Gifts were naturally not given casually. Even if my lord liked her gift, her own small request would naturally be easy to bring up.

"My lord, the customers are very satisfied with that batch of Holy Mushroom powder. However, the quantity of Holy Mushroom powder is too large, and the customers can't digest it. They hope you can process it into Holy Essence liquid, and they are willing to pay five times the price," Lan said respectfully.

Ang didn't know what it meant yet, but Lord Nai Ge was already cursing: "They're dreaming! Holy Essence liquid only for five times the price? They're dreaming! These treacherous merchants, those who offer this price are definitely goblin merchants, shameless treacherous merchants!"

Lord Nai Ge's angry appearance was as if he had been scammed by goblins before, gnashing his teeth and wishing he could pounce out of Ang's soul.

"What is Holy Essence liquid?" Ang asked in confusion.

"It's the liquid extracted from Holy Mushroom powder using purified holy water. The effect is magical. Holy Mushroom powder can dispel some minor negative effects, such as stopping bleeding, diarrhea, colds, and fevers, but it doesn't work for serious external injuries, such as broken limbs, large-area burns, allergies, poisoning, and aging. This requires Essence liquid."

"If you soak the wound of a broken limb in Essence liquid, a new limb can grow in three to five days. Although there is also limb restoration magic in Holy Light magic, that requires a priest above level eight to cast. If you don't have connections, how can you hire a level nine priest? On the contrary, Holy Essence liquid is easier."

"And for allergies, even magic is powerless, but Essence liquid can change skin quality and prolong aging. Sensitive skin can also use it. However, extracting the same weight of Holy Essence liquid requires more than five times the powder and even more holy water. They actually only offer five times the price? If they aren't treacherous merchants, what are they? Is magic power free? Is time free? Is technology free? No, must add money."

"When I was young, I was scammed miserably by those goblin treacherous merchants. They said they wanted Dragon Saliva Grass and offered a high price I couldn't refuse. They also said Dragon Saliva Grass could grow if a dragon spat on the ground, but they didn't say how long it would take to spit. It caused me to spit saliva for a full fifty years, treacherous merchants!"

After Lord Nai Ge finished explaining the situation of Holy Essence liquid, he couldn't help but curse. Who didn't have a young time? The omniscient God of Knowledge also had the experience of being scammed miserably when he was young and ignorant.

Ang summarized the pile of words Lord Nai Ge said and reached a key point: "Must add money."

"Ah? Add money? Add how much?" Lan was stunned for a moment. She wasn't surprised by 'adding money'. Business was business, and prices were meant to be negotiated. She was just putting on a show to avoid Ang asking for too high a price.

Ang had no concept of price. In the end, Lord Nai Ge set the price: "Ten times."

One jin of Holy Mushroom powder was thirty magic crystals, so one jin of Holy Essence liquid would require three hundred magic crystals.

This price was too high. Lan couldn't make the decision. She walked to the side, closed her eyes, and communicated with Anna of Bingcheng using her soul, then agreed to this price.

"My lord, this is the deposit. We need five jin of Holy Essence liquid. I wonder when it can be delivered?" Lan handed over a bag and asked.

"Ten days." Ang relayed Lord Nai Ge's words, and Lan left happily.

Looking at the bag of magic crystals Lan handed over, Lord Nai Ge said in Ang's soul: "So their customer is the Church of Light."

Ang tilted his head in confusion.

Lord Nai Ge explained: "Shroud material, just without runes printed on it. Besides the Church of Light, no one else can weave this kind of material."

"Don't they produce it?" Ang asked in confusion. Wasn't it said that the Church of Light also planted Holy Mushrooms?

Lord Nai Ge rolled his eyes: "Do you think everyone is as freakish as you? Just the purified holy water requires how many priests? Spending time and effort to grow Holy Mushrooms and then extract them, who knows how much the cost is? Now you only need three hundred magic crystals to buy one jin, it's cheap as hell, okay?"

"Oh." Ang responded, not knowing if he understood. Harvesting, drying, grinding into powder, extracting, ten days later, the Essence liquid extracted from thirty jin of Holy Mushroom powder was delivered.

Lan returned to Bingcheng at the fastest speed, contacted the customer who placed the order, and handed over the Essence liquid.

Human plane, the southernmost Saint Blade Fortress, the station of the Saint Blade Knights. God's Knight Lionard had just finished training, shirtless, and came out of the training ground steaming hot.

The maid serving on the side looked at Lionard's strong body with blurred eyes, blushing, and the sound of her heartbeat could be heard next door.

Lionard smiled slightly, the corners of his mouth curving into a perfect arc, and nodded gently to these maids.

The maids' legs went soft instantly, and they braced themselves to surround him, wiping his body, changing his clothes, and finally presenting a bottle of transparent liquid.

Lionard raised an eyebrow and said: "Eh, the Essence liquid has arrived?" After speaking, he poured a little into his palm, then rubbed it on his face, patting it while rubbing to let it absorb better.

If those disabled people with broken hands and feet knew that Lionard was actually using Holy Essence as skincare, they would probably be so angry they'd jump off their beds.

Feeling the effect was quite good, Lionard asked: "Where did it come from? As far as I know, the diocese didn't allocate Holy Essence to our Saint Blade Army."

"It was sent by the quartermaster," a maid said.

"Let the quartermaster come to see me," Lionard said.

Before long, the quartermaster came and saw the fully dressed Lionard.

"You mean, this Holy Essence was bought from an Abyss plane? How much did you buy? Where is the rest?" Lionard asked.

"Bought five jin, kept two bottles for you, my lord, and sent the rest to the military medical team for the disabled soldiers," the quartermaster reported.

Lionard waved his hand, and a burst of energy slapped the quartermaster's face: "Are you stupid? Do you know how much a bottle of Essence liquid can sell for in the Imperial City? One thousand magic crystals, and you actually took it to give to those idiots? Those who are disabled are idiots, are they worthy of using this kind of thing? Hurry and get it back for me."

The quartermaster covered his face and responded repeatedly: "Yes, yes, yes." But he felt aggrieved to death. Didn't the diocese allocate Holy Essence to disabled soldiers in the past? Now that they weren't allocating it, he tried to find a way to get some from elsewhere, why couldn't he give it to the soldiers?

After lecturing the quartermaster, Lionard remembered some things: "You mean this was bought from an Abyss plane? What level is the plane?"

"Level six. One of the conditions for them to sell this Essence liquid is to exchange it for grain, so it should be a grain-deficient plane. The population shouldn't be very large, and there is no plane teleportation array, because they want us to deliver it to a fixed point," the quartermaster reported.

Lionard nodded thoughtfully, waved his hand and said: "There have been no missions recently, don't feed those idiots too much, lest they cause trouble. By the way, how much did this Essence liquid cost?"

The quartermaster responded: "The original price was three thousand magic crystals, but only fifteen hundred were paid, and the rest was exchanged for one hundred tons of grain delivered to a fixed point."

"What?! Three thousand magic crystals? Per jin?" Lionard couldn't believe the number he heard.

"No, it's three thousand magic crystals for five jin."

Lionard couldn't help but take the Essence liquid and carefully inspect it. This price was too low, so low that he suspected whether this thing was fake.

After the inspection, it was real, and the effect seemed to be even better than what was allocated by the diocese. In fact, he also knew that the Essence liquid allocated by the diocese was definitely watered down. Everyone knew it, but didn't expose it. Anyway, only if you are good and I am good can everyone be good.

This bottle of Essence liquid was like concentrated essence that hadn't been watered down.

A bottle of Essence liquid was about one hundred milliliters and could sell for one thousand magic crystals. Five jin was twenty-five thousand magic crystals, and the quartermaster actually only spent three thousand magic crystals to buy it. This was a profit of nearly nine times.

After thinking for a while, Lionard asked: "Where did the intelligence on this plane come from?"

"This was probed by our people posing as goblin merchants."

"No one else knows? Transfer this intelligence over, then burn the backup, understand?" Lionard instructed. After the quartermaster left, a very sunny smile appeared on his face, and he muttered: "Nine times profit is still a bit low, let's try some methods that don't cost money." ===== CHAPTER 36 =====