188 Brewing Potions

Jayde snickered quietly at how quickly Braedyn rushed them out of the door, while Elder Terrakeep just looked at the closed door helplessly. Chuckling, he then turned around and led Jayde back to his house. Since time was growing short, Jayde made arrangements with Elder Terrakeep to return to Shaihshire the following Restday.

Jayde was sure that seven days would give Elder Terrakeep enough time to speak to the rest of the villagers and when Jayde returned she would then arrange for the villagers who wanted to stay to take their blood oaths, and those who elected to leave she would give their families a hundred gold pieces to relocate.

Jayde didn't want any villagers who hadn't taken the blood oath of loyalty left in Shaihshire when the first batch of slaves was bought over. After saying farewell to Elder Terrakeep and Taera, Jayde collected Raven, Ash, Nova, and Maianna and the group walked to the small glade they had initially arrived at.

Maianna removed the small whistle given to her by the Griffin Stablemaster. Raising it to her lips, she blew the whistle. Within in moments, the air was filled with five Griffins, the Griffins circled the glade a couple of times before finally landing. Jayde and her friends quickly mounted the Griffins, and within minutes the five were flying back to Aeris.

Jayde was impatient to arrive back at Damonia and teleport to her dimensional space. She had quite a few tasks that she needed to complete, the most important would be preparing a sufficient amount of potions and pills for Shaihshire. Elder Terrakeep had advised Jayde that she would need to bring many healing potions as he was sure that the slaves she and Maianna would purchase would most likely need them.

Jayde also wanted to prepare some bone marrow cleansing pills for all the villagers who chose to join the Centauri Clan, as well as for the newly bought slaves. These pills would not only clean out all the toxins built up over the years in the villagers' bodies, but it would additionally strengthen and widen the villagers' medians, which would benefit the villagers when they cultivated.

Without the accumulation of toxins and with stronger and broader medians, the villagers would be able to cultivate quicker when they took their allocated Qi Gathering potions. Jayde was determined to increase the strength of the villagers and the newly freed slaves as quickly as possible. Jayde also wanted to study the list of villagers Elder Terrakeep had handed over.

Before in Elder Terrakeep's study, Jayde had just quickly skimmed through the list, but during the upcoming week Jayde wanted to have a better idea of what each villagers skills were, so at least when she returned to Shaihshire, she would have some kind of sense of where to assign the villagers who elected to remain in Shaihshire.

By the time the group landed in Aeris, it was already late in the afternoon. Worried that they might be late in returning to the school, the four quickly bid Maianna goodbye and rushed out of the main gates. Swiftly they made their way to the school's Griffin stable, where they hired two Griffins to take them up the mountain to the school.

Tired and worn out the four immediately parted ways at Jayde's cottage. Jayde was happy that Lucia already had dinner ready when she entered the cottage. Sitting down at the dinner table, Jayde devoured her supper before helping Lucia clean up the kitchen. After Lucia left for the night, Jayde raised her wards before porting directly to her home. Before Jayde could enter her alchemy room, she had to prepare the barbecue she had promised Reiko earlier on in the day.

Since Reiko had been worried that Jayde might forget about her earlier promised, he had staked out her front door waiting for Jayde to arrive. The moment Jayde appeared in front of him, Reiko energetically bounced over.

"Jayde, you finally back," Reiko exclaimed. "I have been waiting for you for ages. I'm starved."

"See, I think you can see my ribs are showing," Reiko whined while turning to the side to show Jayde his side.

Jayde rolled her eyes. What ribs, all I see it a tubby tummy, she thought.

"Look," Reiko said while pointing to a dead carcass on a nearby table with his paw. "I already caught us a Crimson-Nosed Ursatuk, and Isha has already cleaned it for you."

Jayde leaned down and patted Reiko's head. "Thank you, you did real good."

While the young Shadowbeast might be a little glutton, he at least always helped out as much as he could. Jayde was grateful that Reiko had already hunted their dinner.

Reiko's bottom wiggled in pleasure at Jayde's compliment. He loved it when Jayde's voice soften like that, she usually sounded quite abrupt, but when she spoke to him, her voice was always soft and gentle. Well, she also sounds like that with the hatchlings, but then that's okay since they babies, he thought.

[Isha, thanks for cleaning the Ursatuk,] Jayde 'pathed to Isha, as she walked over to large barbecue grill that Jayde had set up.

[You welcome, Yinxin and I will be over shortly,] Isha 'pathed back.

Jayde chatted to Reiko as she cut and spiced the meat while waiting for the coals to reach the right temperature. Jayde had just put the meat on the grill when Yinxin and the hatchlings arrived. Isha was strolling just behind them.

[Mama Jayde!] three cute little voices cried out.

Wiping her hands on the cloth, Jayde hurried over to the hatchlings. The hatchlings were too big now for Jayde to pick up, so she kneeled down and gave each hatchling a cuddle.

"So how are my babies?" Jayde asked.

[Me good,] Shenxin declared.

[Me same,] Tianxin said not to be outdone by her brother.

[Me too,] Huaxin said softly, bobbing her head.

"Ah, that's good to hear, so what have you guys been up to lately?"

[POUNCING!] three voices chimed out at the same time.

"Pouncing, ah, really?" Jayde said, cocking her eyebrow at Yinxin.

Yinxin chuckled at Jayde's befuddled look. "I've been teaching the little one to hunt, at the moment we are learning to pounce. After that have master pouncing, it will be stalking."

"Oh, my babies are growing up so quickly," Jayde said while giving each of the hatchlings a hug.

Humph, what so great about pouncing, Reiko thought, rolling his eyes. I caught a Ursatuk all by myself.

Reiko snorted loudly, miffed about all the attention the hatchlings were getting. Jayde looked up at Reiko's snort. Sensing the young Shadowbeast was upset, Jayde gazed down at the three little hatchlings in front of her.

"Well since your mother is teaching you to hunt, you should speak to your Uncle Reiko, he is a great hunter, see what he caught all by himself," Jayde said pointing to the large Ursatuk carcass.

[Wow,] Shenxin said, and he eyes widened looking at the sizeable carcass on the table.

Shenxin and Tianxin immediately turned tail and rushed over to Reiko's side to question him about how he had hunted such a large animal. Reiko having overheard Jayde's comment, immediately tossed his head, his nose in the air, as he proudly strutted about, patiently answering all their questions.

Huaxin is the meanwhile, took the opportunity to snuggle up to Jayde. Unlike her brother and sister, Huaxin was a lot gentler, she didn't really enjoy all this hunting nonsense. She didn't understand why Mother was so insistent on them learning to hunt, they had Mother and Mama Jayde to look after them, so why must she get all messy. She would much rather stay with Mama Jayde and cuddle. Besides Mama Jayde smelled so much better than those stinky animals.

Jayde sat on the ground cuddling Huaxin while chatting to Isha, Yinxin, and Reiko about her day, getting up every now and then to tend to the meat. Once the meat was done, Jayde served everyone, even the small hatchlings who adored barbecue just as much as Reiko.

Jayde made sure to store some barbecue for Takara in her spatial ring before the bottomless pit known as Reiko got to it. After everyone had finished eating, Isha helped Jayde clean up before leaving. Yinxin and her three tired little hatchlings returned to their cave, while Jayde and Reiko entered her cottage.

While Reiko had his own place, he preferred to stay with Jayde. Jayde had made a soft bed for Reiko in her lounge. With his tummy full, Reiko bid Jayde a sleepy goodnight before climbing onto his soft blankets, within moments his soft snores filled the air.

While she was tired from her day and wanted nothing more than to climb into bed, she still had a lot to do before she returned to Shaihshire. Sighing Jayde entered her alchemy room to prepare some of the healing potions she would need, before retiring for the evening.

***

The next six days were hectic for Jayde. Over and above attending her classes, Jayde spent every evening in her dimensional space brewing potions and refining pills. Again Jayde was grateful for the time cheat that the Proteus Artifact gave her, as the six nights spent in the artifact gave her thirty days to prepare enough healing and Qi gathering potions to last the villagers of Shaihshire for a couple of months. Jayde also brewed more Qi replenishing potions for Charliye and his sons.

Since Jayde was unsure about what condition the slaves would be in, she decided to brew some blood replenishing potions, as well as refine a few bone mending pills. Jayde also brewed some common antidotes and burn healing potions just in case someone in the village was injured and might need them.

During the time Jayde also refined nearly two hundred bone marrow cleansing pills, as well as fifty intermediate healing pills which were more potent than the basic healing potion. At least all this alchemy has benefited me, Jayde thought, as she packed away all the porcelain bottles in her spatial ring.

While placing the standard white porcelain bottles into her spatial ring, Jayde had a great marketing idea. All potions and pills in the Lower Realm were sold in white porcelain bottles. While cheap to buy, it did make identifying the content confusing, as one needed to open the bottle to see what was inside.

But if Jayde could get small glass vials made, then Maianna could add these potions to her stores as well. The only problem is that Jayde had never seen or heard of anyone who could blow glass. While there were glassmakers and glaziers, but the glassmakers only made flat glass pieces while the glaziers cut these glass pieces to fit window frames.

Jayde paused, thinking about it she had never even see stained window glass anywhere, nor did she have any memories of it from the previous soul. Hmm, this could also be a lucrative trade to look into, Jayde thought. Decades ago, Jayde had fallen in love with the whole process of glassmaking when she had visited an ancient cathedral, the cathedral had been moved piece by piece from Old Earth to New Earth when the Federation had decided to move their headquarters.

It had taken Jayde a few years to track down an old man, who still practiced the ancient art of glassblowing, and Jayde spent a couple of years being taught by him. The old man had been pleased to pass on his skills, as only a few people were interested in the old way, and he had taught Jayde everything he knew. Since Jayde had been away on missions most her time, the old man had made many vids for Jayde, which she was able to secretly study.

While it had been years since Jayde had made anything from glass, she was sure it wouldn't take her long to brush up on her skills, and then she could find young apprentices to teach. How ironic, Jayde thought. I had to die and transfer to a different dimension to pass on that man's teachings. Storing the rest of the porcelain bottles into her spatial ring Jayde made a mental note to bring up her ideas with Maianna.

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📌 Quote of the day

"Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small. A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step." -- Lao Tzu

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