Chapter 216: Gwent Level: LV10

The Valley of Nine is located at a gorge on the Sansretour River that has already been submerged by the river water.

It is still early spring, and although the temperature in Toussaint is much higher than in the North, the water temperature remains quite cold.

Well, for a witcher like Geralt, the cold underwater is not worth mentioning.

With the help of the Amulet of Ekhidna, he dived into the river quite easily and soon reached the riverbed.

However, because this is the wilderness, a large number of wild drowners live underwater. When they saw someone enter the water, they immediately swarmed over, roaring and screeching like bees that had spotted nectar.

Yet, facing Geralt, who had over a dozen pre-strung heavy crossbows hidden in his space bracelet, they were soon shot through their vital points like dumplings being dropped into a pot, sinking to the riverbed.

It is a pity that the materials from these monsters are not valuable. Geralt once took materials like drowner brains to Vivian's loot acquisition station, only to find they weren't worth a single oren—even lower than the price he could get selling them to sorceresses.

Don't look at how lavishly Geralt spends money now; for ordinary loot, aside from the valuable items that can be recycled and kept, he sells everything else directly to Vivian. Every battle allows him to recoup a significant amount of funds.

This is called earning money when you should, and spending it when you should. A boy out on his own needs to treat himself well.

Thinking about such things, Geralt swam to the riverbed, picked up the dozen or so drowner corpses, sold them to Vivian, and deposited the seven or eight orens he received into his account.

Then, utilizing the night vision of the Cat potion, he searched for the ruins of Professor Moreau's laboratory in the pitch-black water.

Compared to the environment underwater, which was filled with weeds and loose stones, the huge stone pillars of the ruin's entrance were quite conspicuous. After searching for about ten minutes, he found the nearly ruined gate of the ruins on a riverbed near the bank.

After moving forward in the direction of the gate for about a few dozen meters and finishing off a few more drowners lurking in the dark corners, Geralt finally saw the portal that was still flickering with magical radiance.

Although both the game and Professor Moreau's notes confirmed that this was indeed the portal, Geralt still upheld the idea that safety comes first. He carefully inspected the area outside the portal several times and used his Elder Blood ability to confirm that this portal would not transport him too far away before cautiously entering it.

Accompanied by the unpleasant sensation of teleportation, he was soon transported into a pitch-black underground ruin.

What met his eyes were high ceilings, a spacious underground area, and some statues carved into the walls and architecture.

The turbid air and the smell of decay made Geralt's sensitive sense of smell quite uncomfortable.

However, what made him even more curious was how much money this professor had invested to build such a massive underground laboratory; this did not look like something that could be completed with a small sum.

Leaving such a secret and spacious space abandoned here was indeed a bit of a waste.

Just right—once he cleared out the monsters and traps here, he could arrange another portal and use this place as a secret base for witchers; that would be a good choice.

He had also already thought of the person responsible for guarding this place: he would let Gaetan handle it.

This guy is from the Cat School, and taking him to the North would easily affect the reputation of witchers. It would be perfect to place him here as the person in charge of this stronghold, responsible for protecting these ruins.

Because of the help from Professor Moreau's notes, exploring these laboratory ruins was not difficult for Geralt. Whether it was the initial floor spike traps or the later gargoyle puppets and leopard puppets, they could only cause him a tiny bit of obstruction and could not affect him in any way.

With the help of the Magic Flying Carpet, he could even fly directly over these obstacles without triggering the traps, entering Professor Moreau's true experimental site.

However, for the safety of those who might enter here later, Geralt still spent half a day eliminating all these traps and monsters.

By the way, he also called Vivian out. With the help of this Wealth Elf, he sold all the worthless, useless junk in the entire ruin to her loot acquisition center, exchanging it for about five hundred orens in gold coins.

Finally, after spending seven or eight hours, Geralt cleared out the entire laboratory ruin and found the experimental equipment and experimental notes left behind by Professor Moreau, as well as the clairvoyance mirror that functioned similarly to a video recording device.

As for the giant centipede monsters that Professor Moreau had been breeding in the cave, since they were important materials for witchers to undergo secondary mutations, Geralt did not kill them, nor did he disturb them; instead, he let them continue to breed in that cave.

Over the next two or three days, Geralt left the laboratory ruins once to return to Beauclair to prepare some supplies. He met with Letho and the others, who had found another set of Grandmaster-level equipment diagrams, told them the location of the shop and his new residence, and incidentally gave Syanna, who was working hard for him, a warning, telling the deep-thinking girl not to harbor any wild ideas.

For the rest of the time, Geralt stayed in the laboratory, studying the experimental notes left by Professor Moreau and incidentally making a copy of all these notes.

It is a pity that as a witcher, Geralt's strength might have already reached its peak; calling him the strongest witcher is not an exaggeration.

But as a sorcerer, as a spellcaster, whether it is spellcasting technique, magical knowledge, or research experience, Geralt is far too lacking. In this regard, he can barely be called an apprentice.

For a genius researcher like Professor Moreau, who had unique insights into research and even pioneered a brand-new path, Geralt could only read his research notes haltingly, barely understanding the meaning within, and could not even judge whether the content was right or wrong.

Whenever this happened, Geralt always longed for a sorcerer who truly belonged to the Wolf School to come out and help him.

Although Triss is his lover and the two are very close, Keira can barely be considered his mistress and can provide him with a lot of help, and the elven sorceress Francesca is his partner with whom he can trade many things—but setting aside the question of whether they can be trusted, these three sorceresses all have their own careers, and all are in the rising phase of their careers; it is impossible for them to abandon their own affairs and spend a massive amount of time helping a witcher.

As for cultivating a sorcerer, not to mention that Geralt does not have such ability or resources, and cannot even find talent with this kind of aptitude, even if he had the ability, he would not have that much time to cultivate one slowly.

The cultivation of a sorcerer often consumes time measured in decades; being able to become a sorcerer capable of handling things on their own within thirty or forty years is already considered a genius-level sorcerer.

Geralt had not failed to consider this problem; it was just that because there was truly no suitable method, it had been dragged out.

Now, the methods he could think of, besides being able to recruit spellcasters and researchers from other worlds to help witchers with their research, included one other plan: to take a risk and choose a male sorcerer from the North to help the witchers.

The former requires considering the differences in the magic systems of the two worlds and the problem of acclimatization.

The latter, however, is about how to find a candidate with solid character, who is trustworthy and capable.

One must know that for the sorcerer community, they do not want to see witchers rise.

It is already a blessing that they don't cause trouble; it is very difficult to get help from the Sorcerers Brotherhood.

There was no other way; this problem could only be shelved for the time being. Geralt prepared to return to Kaer Morhen after returning to the North and discuss it with Vesemir, who had the most experience in the Wolf School. Before the system of secondary mutations was fully understood, he could not be like Geralt of Rivia and use his own body to conduct experiments directly.

The famous White Wolf is the protagonist, favored by destiny, so of course he could succeed on the first try, not only greatly increasing his strength but also having no side effects. As for others, that is hard to say.

And what Geralt hoped for was to popularize secondary mutations to all witchers, and even use the power of secondary mutations to repair the defects caused by the first mutations in various schools.

This is not a simple project and is currently just an idea; realizing it is very difficult. Fortunately, time is not urgent yet, and there is still plenty of time to prepare. When Geralt's strength is sufficiently powerful, there will certainly be people willing to work for him.

After staying in the laboratory ruins for another two days, Geralt, having made no progress, chose to shelve the matter for now and find a way when he returned to the North.

If it really didn't work, he would have to rely on his good looks to bribe Triss. After all, among the many sorceresses Geralt knew, only she had sufficient ability and was the most trustworthy.

It is a pity that this is not the time of the Northern Wars, and the Sorcerers Brotherhood has not been destroyed; otherwise, this matter would be much easier to handle.

Even when the time for witch hunting arrived, those sorceresses would be crying and begging for the protection of witchers.

After leaving the laboratory ruins, Geralt found that he had no urgent matters to attend to for the time being.

During the gaps when Syanna, his shop-front girl, was helping him watch the shop and sell pipe-weed, Geralt began a frantic Gwent competition throughout Beauclair and even the entire Kingdom of Toussaint.

Still at double the odds, without showing overly crushing strength, he changed locations every two days to hold public duels, attracting a large number of Gwent players to come and play games with him.

Such somewhat flamboyant behavior even spread the reputation of Joel, the tobacco merchant, to the court of Beauclair and even many wine estates around Beauclair.

Many people knew that a tobacco merchant had come from the Kingdom of Zerrikania; the pipe-weed he sold had a mellow taste and was a high-end luxury item. At the same time, this merchant was also a super Gwent player, handsome and rich. He had now become a popular figure in Beauclair, and many prominent figures knew him and liked to play Gwent with him.

Influenced by this trend, the business of Geralt's tobacco shop became even hotter. Coupled with the generous profits of pipe-weed, as well as Syanna's elegant temperament and increasingly mature sales techniques, the business of the entire shop could almost be described as making money every day.

This, however, made things bitter for Gaetan of the Cat School. Because of the booming business and the fact that there were only him and Syanna in the shop, he soon changed from a bodyguard to a porter and waiter, busy as a dog under Syanna's command.

And after Geralt discovered their predicament, he gave Syanna the authority to recruit a few employees, while he himself finally raised his Gwent level to level ten after playing over a thousand Gwent duels in a row.

Gwent LV10: Luck +10.

Lucky Curse: Because you have been favored by luck for a long time, you find that you have awakened a certain magical ability. You seem to possess the power to control luck, can roughly see other people's fortune, and can steal other people's luck for your own use, increasing your own luck while also making the other party unlucky. Effect: Steal someone's luck value for your own use; stealing effect 1-20; the effect is influenced by your own luck; duration: seven days; cooldown: half a month.

Lucky Blessing: Because you have been favored by luck for a long time, you find that you have awakened a certain magical ability. You seem to possess the power to control luck, can roughly see other people's fortune, and at the same time, you can bestow your own luck upon someone, changing that person's fortune for a period of time, making them very lucky, but during that time, you will also lose the favor of luck and will no longer be lucky. Effect: Bestow all your luck value upon someone; your luck value returns to zero, while the other party will become luckier; duration: one day; cooldown: three days.

Seeing that Gwent provided two skill specialties, Geralt fell into thought.

These two skill specialties: one is harming others to benefit oneself, stealing other people's luck for one's own use, and can even be used to deal with enemies.

And the other is self-sacrifice for the sake of others, sacrificing oneself to make others lucky, which can be used to help relatives and friends change their fate.

How should he choose?

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 217 =====