Chapter 10 Selection of collection sites

Although in the two years in Storm City, every time he looked over towards the west side of the city he could see this mysterious tower standing tall, and sometimes he would see the purple color that rippled out from it or the pale white magical light at night, it was the first time that he had actually walked in front of the steps under the tower.

A mage in the doorway wore short robes and a wide-brimmed mage’s hat capable of shielding him from the sun, but carried a longsword at his waist.

The man was checking the emblems of people entering and exiting, supposedly a mage guard of the Wizard’s Sanctuary, a so-called battle mage.

It is said that in the early days of the war, many senior mages were killed because of their lack of experience in fighting the orcish warlocks, and that the power against the Horde spellcasters was severely weakened.

Dalaran united the magical organizations of the major kingdoms and began to learn from the Holy Light Church’s training of paladins, recruiting people with magical qualifications from ordinary soldiers and training them in a short period of time to become battle mages who are good at martial arts fighting and using magic to assist them.

These Battle Mages turned out to be a pretty battle-hardened new school by the end of the war.

However, Jace was expecting a little more bluffing detection, like an arcane film that would isolate all those without emblems, or those who faked them, or something like that.

Producing the ring, he crossed the border without incident, following the rotating steps upwards higher and higher around the giant tower that could lead straight to the top, and before long, he was over the canopy of the dense green forest in the mage’s quarter.

Looking into the distance, the only thing left in front of us were the purple tiles of the mage district and the blue tiles outside, the spires of the towering Cathedral of Light in the center of the city on the east side as well as the dwellings and skyscrapers stacked up one after another around it, and on the other side in the direction of the north, the Stormwind Fortress that sits on top of the dock and is built into a hillside, as well as the noble dwellings that are surrounded by them like a father holding his children, overlooking the sea.

Distributed like cracks in a white wall, the walks were lined with hordes of workers, merchants, and wagons carrying goods and building materials between the new city and the old, with traffic stretching to the avenues outside the city.

Looking further out, beyond the city walls are the endless plains of Aelwyn, crossed by the great river Nafriti, and forests stretching to the distant mountains, the Red Ridge Mountains.

The East Valley, which once took a small half-day to walk to, seems as if you can reach out and touch it.

The view here is completely different from the game, although the orientation is roughly the same, but this real style, light and shadow bring a sense of shock far beyond the color blocks and polygons in those games.

Instead, Jace didn’t feel so strong in Lordaeron because the game didn’t give him a pre-destruction Lordaeron, which made him lack a comparative experience.

But here, the impact of the real and the unreal is unmistakable.

Stepping through the doorway, you enter the upper section of the Wizard’s Sanctum, which also houses the library.

After being shown the way by one of the library’s caretakers, Jace went down the rotating staircase in the library two floors to the area of alchemy-related books.

Walking around he realized there was a question about clothing that he had overthought himself.

Apprentices and mages poring over books in the library probably don’t care what’s going on around them, and don’t think of those dressed in rags as thieves. It’s probably only the ones who have nothing better to do than hang around outside that like to point at other people’s clothing and appearance.

Thinking of this he calmed his mind and generously flipped through the relevant books.

Luckily, his mother was a farmer’s daughter who had received a proper education as a child and thus taught him to read and recognize words. Plus the education he once had in his previous life gave him a decent ability to accept new knowledge as well, in order to understand the specialized books here.

However, it is also necessary to rely on the aid of pictures in order to correspond the complex herbs here with their names in the game.

“Shadow Protection Potion …… Shadow Protection Potion ……”

He pressed a variety of indexes to find, can not find the relevant entries, once accustomed to the search engine is too convenient, search a keyword directly out of a large number of relevant and irrelevant things, and now return to use this classical means of finding things are a bit frazzled.

After searching for a while, he realized that he was in the wrong section, and that many things related to Shadow magic were actually in the bookcases of the Black Magic Protection, which also included many kinds of potions and spells against the Shadow.

In a much annotated copy of Laurel’s Shadow Protection Technique, he found a relatively easy to implement Shadow Protection Potion recipe and pharmaceutical process.

— “Laurel’s Secondary Shadow Protection Potion” has been improved by Master Laurel Haggai from the regular program’s Shadow Protection Potion for emergency situations.

Characterized by its simplicity in crafting, the ease of obtaining the materials, and the short time required for the crafting process, it still achieves the goal of helping the user with a certain degree of Shadow protection, mitigating the effects of Shadow damage suffered by the user.

Recipe:

1. Graveyard Moss, the basic material for Shadow Protection Potion, the fastest way to get Shadow Energy is through this horrible plant that sucks the power of the dead in the graveyard, with a certain degree of toxicity.

2. Royal Blood Grass, an important medium capable of transforming harmful effects into enhanced ones. Royal Blood Grass can transform the Shadow Energy of Graveyard Moss so that it becomes capable of absorbing Shadow damage in turn.

3. Evil claws, the claws of beasts that have attacked and killed humanoids, usually the claws of older beasts near humanoid settlements, can weaken the effects of the medicine while shortening the time it takes to make it.

4. Clear spring water away from any source of magic.

Production Steps:

1. Set up the crucible without firing and pour in the clear spring water.

2. Pour the graveyard moss into the water.

3. Turn on the heat and bring to a boil.

4. The water is lavender and smells fishy start stirring lightly for 20 minutes.

5. As the water gradually turns dark purple, pour a spoonful of sun-dried and ground royal blood herb powder into the pot.

6. Cease fire and wait until the cloudy Shadow Energy is translucent and in a stable state.

7. Turn on the heat again and bring to a boil.

8. Add Evil Claw grinding powder, the powder should preferably be as fine as dust, no particles larger than the size of gravel are allowed.

9. Stir gently for 10 minutes or more, then turn off the heat and let cool.

Note: A lead flask or special magical crystal flask must be used to contain the medicine, with the smaller flasks being consumed in two doses, with the effects lasting one hour at a time or expiring immediately after a sufficient level of Shadow damage is inflicted. The potency gradually diminishes over the 10 minutes it takes for the effects to pass.

Note 2: The finished product should have a reddish purple color and be more transparent than the normal formulation of Shadow Protection Potion. The taste is irritating and acidic, and it is normal to feel dizzy at the first taste, and to feel hot and tearful when the effect starts to fade.

After reading it, Jace only felt that it was really troublesome, in the game the regular Shadow Protection Potion could be made directly with only two ingredients plus a bottle purchased by a merchant, while here it was surprising that so many steps were required.

In fact, he’d already read the regular program’s method of making Shadow Protection Potion, and it was almost like reading the instructions in a pillbox, which was several times more cumbersome than this recipe.

In terms of gathering materials, graveyard moss, while it grows in most places where people are dead, it’s never likely to grow in a graveyard close to here in Stormwind, it must have been plucked up by herbalists and mages of all stripes.

And the cemeteries within Stormwind are regularly cleaned by specialized personnel; after all, the drug is poisonous, and the toxicity can even affect innocent grave sweepers who don’t find it.

And in order to have room for trial and error, all the ingredients had to be more than enough in case the crafting failed and everything had to start over, so he needed places where he could find graveyard moss in large quantities.

Then there is only one ideal collection point – the Twilight Forest.

At the mention of the Twilight Forest, Jace felt a chill on the back of his neck.

It was the time when he just came to Storm City, once he went with someone to a small dock on a tributary of the Nafriti River to help move goods, moving things to the evening, and saw that there was a person standing on the other side of the river, on the Twilight Forest side.

The man had stood there for almost an hour or so, not leaving until they were ready to head back to Stormwind, and hadn’t moved a muscle the entire time, except sometimes his body would wobble a bit from keeping his balance.

When I came back and asked some of the guards who regularly patrolled around the Nafriti River, they just said that it was zombies from South Irving running down the river to here, and that they’d seen it all before.

A few years ago a large explosion in the direction of the Valley of Thorns had a terrible effect on the entire southern part of the Aelwyn Forest, the immense shadow energy engulfed a large portion of the forest, shrouding it in darkness including the towns of Glen and Raven Ridge, and even spreading to a section of the western wilderness.

Many in Stormwind would still mention that incident, some who had fled from Glen Town and Raven’s Ridge to this side of Stormwind preferred to remain silent, and all in all, the incident cast a shadow over the entire population of the Elwyn region.

Some thought it was the dark energies brought in by the Dark Gate blowing in from the orc hometown of Draenor, and there was some basis for this speculation; after all, the Valley of Thorns was roughly in the same direction of the Dark Gate as opposed to Stormwind City, and the timing was right in the middle of a major orc invasion.

It’s just that the problem is that the orcs also try to avoid the Twilight Forest as much as possible when they march, so doesn’t it seem like a bit of a contradiction if this dark energy is coming from their old stomping grounds.

The real reason, which Jace knew all too well, was the evil tremors caused by Karazhan, an ancient magical tower that stood in the valley between the great swamp where the Dark Gate was located, and the Twilight Forest.

The master of Karazhan, the great mage Medivine as Amy called him, it was he who was taken over by Sargeras and guided the orcs to open the Dark Gate.

Several heroes, Lothar, the mage Khadgar, and the orc assassiness, Garona, plotted and succeeded in assassinating Madivan after learning the truth, and the terrifying power within Madivan’s body at the time of his death suddenly spiraled out of control, resulting in the explosive event that completely changed the landscape within nearly a hundred miles of the surrounding area, including Karazhan.

And that’s the main plot of the Warcraft movie.

Since then, South Irvine, which had been as sunny and warm as North Irvine, had become a horrible territory covered in evil thorns and black, monstrous trees, with only two human towns able to provide a slight refuge for the civilians who had once lived in them.

And now there were already many people in Stormwind calling that territory the Twilight Forest, and the town of Glen as Dark Town, or Night Town.

There is a large cemetery near Raven’s Ridge, which is the largest cemetery in the entire Stormwind Kingdom, where many nameless soldiers and nobles killed in the Jackal War and the Troll War are buried.

If one could enter it, one could certainly find the cemetery moss, but the question was how one could go in and come out alive.

Entering the Twilight Forest, the problem of the Evil Claw could be solved by the way, countless beasts there had gnawed on human corpses, and many had even gone mad from drawing too much necromantic energy, attacking all living things in a frenzy, what could be more evil than that?

As for the Royal Blood Grass, the Royal Blood Grass grows in flat areas, around the Lakeside Town of the Red Ridge Mountains, or in the Western Wilderness there are distributions, and there should be one in the Irving area as well, but this grass is more rare, so one can only hope to stumble upon it on the road.

Thinking of this, Jace even felt that it would be better to just go to the already slaughtered lamb and use his flesh to harden against the shadow spells, it was really hard to say which one was more dangerous, venturing to the Twilight Forest or hardening against warlock magic.

The important difference is that the consequences of hard countering warlock magic are impossible to avoid and difficult to estimate, whereas some risks can be avoided if you go out.

He briefly jotted down his rough travel plans and related materials on a scroll with a borrowed quill, feeling that he needed to ask Gridd’s opinion on the matter, after all, he was the professional Cintron survivalist.

However, he has to go to the “Alchemist’s Need” to ask the pharmacist in the mage area if they accept herbs, how to collect, and almost calculate a suitable price before going to discuss with Grid, so that at least there is an immediate gain, the dwarves will be more positive.

The alchemy store “Alchemist’s Need” is close to the Wizard’s Sanctuary, and many people think it is just an alchemy shop, but for most mages, it is a small store where they buy and sell herbs, appraise them, grind them, and research their effects.

Most senior mages had their own alchemy labs, or at least small apothecaries, and their apprentices would also use their teachers’ alchemy rooms. Therefore, the primary role of this alchemy store, which was initially intended to be a public alchemy room, was instead neglected, and instead, the business related to herbs was getting busier and busier.

Just as she walked into the alchemy room she smelled a strong odor of herbs, the blonde, middle-aged lady behind the counter looked back at Jace, who had just entered, and said, “New to the mage district young man? I’m Ruth Lumir, the owner of this store, if you need to buy herbs go inside, my daughter will help you, I have some work to do at this moment.”

“I’m not here to buy herbs, ma’am.” Jess asked, “Do you take herbs here, please?”

“Of course.” Ruth Lumire asked, “Are you an herbalist?”

“I …… am.” Jace said, “I’m from Lordaeron, I just got here a little while ago and don’t know the exact market prices yet, but I already have a team that can go out and gather herbs so I came here to see what the prices are for acquiring them.”

“For herbs that are common in the Elwyn area, the approximate prices are charged by the pound for the Nimbus Flower at 2 silver, the Silverleaf Grass at 2 silver and 50 copper, the Ground Root Grass at 1 silver a plant, and the Stonecrop Grass at 2 silver a plant.”

“Excuse me, does Alvin have any Royal Blood Herbs?”

“There are, if you count South Irvine, but they’re few and far between, and not easy to spot. Herbalists don’t go there anymore though, they call it the Twilight Forest and it’s bad luck for anyone who goes there. The supply of graveyard moss has been cut off because of that.”

“If I can pick graveyard moss, how much can you charge for it?”

“How about 7 silver a pound? There are other rarer herbs, such as stumbling grass, living root grass …… price we can still negotiate.”

After thanking him and walking out of the Alchemist’s Need, he began to wonder.

Sell the graveyard moss, or use it to make a Shadow Protection potion?

Should I find a way to learn magic, or make some money to live on first?

Standing under the tower of the Sorcerer’s Sanctuary, looking at the mages coming and going, Jace slowly felt that it would be better to master some mastery that could save his life, or even make a kill, as soon as possible.

After all, if one possessed stronger strength, the safety of going out to gather could be higher, and in the future, one might be able to gather harder-to-find herbs, or other rare things.

If you throw away the opportunity to grow just for the sake of this small profit in front of you, you are likely to be scared for the rest of your life when you leave the city.

7 silver, a fly in the ointment?

He let out a bitter laugh, not realizing he had such a big appetite.

I just don’t even know the difficulty factor of gathering graveyard moss yet, and I’m already thinking about it so much, and judging from that price of 7 silver, it’s definitely not an easy chore.

But you never know until you try.