Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Lily was the first person to respond to Hao Ren’s suggestion. “Arf! Arf! Mr. Landlord, that ‘s a good idea! I would like to go and see it too! I’ve been wondering about it.”
Seeing the husky’s overly-enthusiastic response, Hao Ren instinctively stepped back and looked at her scornfully. “Look at you! Have you not seen enough of the crimson moon? You died because of it. Have you forgotten?”
The crimson moon was Lily’s Achilles heel. The fact that Vivian used the crimson moon to kill Lily in the previous life was one of Lily’s three greatest humiliations. Her other two greatest embarrassments were her failure to catch a rabbit and Y’lisabet grabbing the last pork rib on the dining table. She did not really care how she died in her previous life. After all, she had forgotten about what happened back then. What she really minded was Vivian being the one who killed her. Plus, it happened instantly. Lily would become a bit depressed every time she thought about it.
So she pouted and appeared indignant. “I still remember how that thing killed me. So, I have to figure out what it is and write a ‘Lily was here’ message on its surface. This is called revenge. It’s revenge, do you know that?”
It was hard to fathom what the husky’s revenge was all about.
Lorissa, who listened on quietly all this while, became curious now. She poked a snake tail that was swaying beside her, and then quietly pointed at Lily and Vivian. “What happened between them? What is previous life all about?”
“No big deal. It was just about Vivian killed Lily in the previous life,” Nangong Wuyue replied in a low voice.
“That was no big deal?” Lorissa was wide-eyed.
These people who worked for God were indeed terrible. It was as if dying was no big deal for them.
Now, Vivian had figured what was in Hao Ren’s mind and became curious. “It is an interesting plan. But why are you interested in my crimson moon all of a sudden?”
Hao Ren looked at Lorissa and then explained to Vivian the information he heard last night. “I learned about the Ancient Magic Empire from Lorissa yesterday. She mentioned that a few years before the outbreak of the deicidal war, the priests saw a crimson moon in their prayers.”
Vivian could not believe her ears. “Exactly the same as my crimson moon?”
“They look almost the same, but I am not sure if they are the same,” Hao Ren said. “So I have to find out.”
Vivian lowered her head and scratched her chin as if in thought. Lily suddenly cried, “Oh Battie, why are you hesitating? Don’t you believe in Mr. Landlord’s ability? Don’t you want to find out what the crimson moon is all about?”
Vivian slowly looked up. There was a resolute look on her face. “Well, I want to find out about the crimson moon too. But I need some preparations. It is exhaustive to summon the crimson moon, which has a profound effect on the mind. I have done it before in the mysterious realm of Hercules not long ago. This time, I will prepare myself before doing it.”
“How long does it take?” Hao Ren asked, looking at Vivian.
“It won’t be long. If all goes well, seven or eight days,” Vivian laughed. “I am going to perform some magic ceremonies and preparing some ingredients to enhance my spirit and soul. But we have to do it in a quiet test site. If I summon the crimson moon here, everyone within hundreds of kilometers radius will see it. It is better not to do it on Earth unless you could get me a large alien dimension.”
“It is easy. The universe is vast. I could find a place for your summoning ceremony anytime. How about planet Aerym? I have a readily-available space station and lab in the planet’s orbit, from where we could observe the crimson moon. Incidentally, Lorissa is going home in a week. She could visit Aerym before she goes back.”
The Crimson Moon Exploration Program was thus decided. Vivian was filled with anticipation. It was not that she was not curious about her own secrets in the past, but she lacked the means to explore the subject for the past ten thousand years. Now, there was no more hindrance. Vivian suddenly had a new-found enthusiasm and excitement.
Vivian quickly cleaned up the dishes, after which she immediately worked on her spirit and soul enhancement and prepared the necessary ingredients. “Preparing the ingredients? Tell me what you need. I can help,” Hao Ren said.
Vivian thought for a moment, took out a piece of paper, and wrote something on it. “There are many ingredients. It was a magic potion that I created after 10,000 years of research. I will list down the things that you could help find. You can buy the ingredients in the market.”
Hao Ren took the list. “I am an inspector after all. You can count on me to find those things. –Wait a minute! Did you say the market?”
Hao Ren was baffled. Vivian nodded matter-of-factly. “Yes, the market. Get the easily available ingredients first.”
Hao Ren looked at the list and was wide-eyed seeing things like cucumber, green vegetables, and lamb bone. “Do you not want ingredients for the magic potion? Can this stuff make a magic potion?”
Vivian glanced at Hao Ren and said, “What should be the ingredients for a magic potion in your opinion?”
“The skin of the black goat, mushroom in the volcano, crystal in the glaciers, and eel in the cold spring and such,” Hao Ren said. “But you are asking me to look for them in the market!”
“You must have read too many novels and can’t think straight.” Vivian glanced at Hao Ren. “Who told you that the raw ingredients of the magic ceremony must be strange? Who told you that we can’t buy the magic ingredients from the market? However powerful the magic herbs are, they are still plants. Are vegetables not also plants? Humans have been living on Earth for so long and treating magic plants as food.”
“Really?” Hao Ren was struck dumb.
“Why not?” Vivian said with her arms crossed. “There are indeed many magic ingredients hidden in the remote places where humans have not discovered. Those ingredients are precious, and some are even in the brink of extinction. But more ingredients are not uncommon at all. It has been 10,000 years! 10,000 years!” Vivian said in an exaggerated tone of voice. “Humans eat everything under the sun. Thousands of years ago, a few primitive humans found the Evening Primrose in the forest. They tasted it and found that it was delicious. So they planted it in their backyard. There were also a few ancient people lost their way in the woods. To survive, they dug out some plant root from the ground and ate it. Upon returning to their homes, they called the plant ‘potato’ and began to farm it. The potions that the otherworldlings developed on Earth are flora and fauna-based, earthbound. Is there anything that has not become food for humans after ten thousand years?”
Hao Ren listened to Vivian’s long-winded story in awe. He felt as if the light had dawned on him—what Vivian, the living fossil, said made sense. But there was another question that bothered him. “In that case, most flora and fauna used in magic ceremonies during ancient times have become commonly available to humans in modern times?”
“Excluding those that have been extinct, most of the ingredients are commonly available,” Vivian said. “So, yeah, no. Those ingredients would not magically stay away from humans. Is there any place that humans has not explored? Humans have even begun to drill into the ice of Antarctica.”
“Then why humans have not cooked up stuff like lightning bolts in the kitchen since they have been using those raw ingredients as food?”
“The core material of most electronic gadgets are silicon and metal. So why did the miners and blacksmiths thousands of years ago have not hammered an iPhone 7 out of it?”
Hao Ren was speechless.
“The raw ingredients are simple, but the processing and catalytic methods are the keys. All the more so when it comes to magic ceremonies that require the exercise of mind power. Y’zaks could draw a magic circle with soy sauce, but others couldn’t,” Vivian said. “Of course, there are occasionally talented humans who could use these common things to produce some magic effects. How the alchemists in the history of humankind learn alchemy? Of course, they are self-taught. Unfortunately, except for those mages who studied magic from the otherworldlings, the self-taught mages were mostly half-baked. They were killed either by the things they summoned, or the emperor.”
“All right, I believe you,” Hao Ren said. “I will find these ingredients in the market. But what are the two bottles of laundry detergent for? Are they also a spell-casting prop?”
“Oh, there’s no more laundry detergent in the house. So I figure that since you’re going to the market, you might as well buy the detergent from the nearby supermarket.”
Hao Ren was dumbfounded.
