Chapter 196 – Shadows and rainbows

The fields shone in all sorts of vibrant colours beneath the bright sunlight. It wasn’t wheat nor any other mundane crop that was planted here, however. Instead, it was a strange magical fern, glittering in a faint Red within one’s Mana Sense. Its leaves ranged from pale blues to fiery reds, to piercing yellows and exotic pinks in one’s regular vision.

And, completing the magical scenery, the rhythmic chirps of crickets added a soothing melody to this tapestry of natural beauty. It was almost enough to cover the occasional grunts of the farmers and the dull thuds of their rakes stabbing into the moist dirt. Though there was little it could do to mask the acrid blend of sweat and fertilized soil assaulting the nose.

Either way, Jason wasn’t in the mood to appreciate any of this. He’d spent weeks travelling to this latest destination, praying to Phoebe it wouldn’t be another dead-end. Yet, it wasn’t until the last day or so – when he had already approached enough to determine what sort of place this was – that his hopes were dashed once again.

“Fucking waste of time!” he spat, his clenched fists drained of all colour.

He was tempted to toss the objects against the ground to quell his anger, but he held himself back. The last thing he needed was to add more misleading karma threads to the items. Both the Aurora Dew and Nesha’s clothes had pointed him to this location – among many others, each more useless than the last. This time, the trails had already split up, leading to multiple people, many of them among the farmers working here. But it didn’t take a genius to figure out that none of them were his targets.

“Hey! You there!” he yelled at the nearest person to whom both sets of threads were attached.

“M-My lord?” the farmhand stuttered, taken aback.

He dropped the rake in his panic, hurrying towards Jason. Though he didn’t say anything upon reaching him, seemingly struggling to find the right words. Luckily for him, Jason had plenty of questions for him.

“What do you people grow in this place?” he asked.

“My lord, our humble town lives off the production of Rainbow Grass and Coloured Silk.”

Jason already had a few guesses, but he wasn’t as quick to voice them. He waited patiently instead, prompting the commoner to elaborate.

“Rainbow Grass is the colourful plant you see all around you. Each batch takes a few months to grow. We harvest them three times a year.”

Jason clicked his tongue.

“That doesn’t explain anything. Do you have any idea what connection these objects might have to you?”

Next, he showed him the gemstone vial, a turquoise liquid shimmering within, as well as a set of yellow robes. The man tilted his head as he gazed at the two items, his shock slowly replaced by confusion. It wasn’t until a few moments later that he replied.

“Sorry, my lord… I don’t know much about the Rainbow Grass itself – just how to tend to it, like my father taught me, and his father taught him. Others are responsible for exporting our produce. Perhaps, one of them might know more.”

Jason was about to snap. Noticing that, the man hurriedly spoke again.

“That said, I think I know about the clothes!”

“Go on.”

“Well… if you look closely at the plants, you will notice lots of tiny silkworms crawling on their leaves. Each individual insect only eats a single colour of leaves its whole life. It then produces a cocoon of the same colour, from which we extract the silk. From what I’ve been told, it’s great for weaving enchanted clothes.”

Jason nodded. He’d heard of this material before. It wasn’t just the Alchemists’ Guild that crafted their robes out of this silk. Many noble Houses did the same, including the Divine Root. But it wasn’t the fabric of Nesha’s clothes he was trying to determine.

At least he wasn’t without clues. The peasant’s useless input aside, he could already harbour a guess as to how the Rainbow Grass was related to the objects.

‘It should be a magical reagent. Judging from its lower grade, it’s probably a secondary ingredient of the Aurora Dew.’

Back when they had first arrived at the Alchemists’ Guild, neither he nor Deimos had been very familiar with alchemy. For better or for worse, their mission had forced them to pick a couple of things here and there, however.

From what he understood, most reagents on Remior fell into one of two categories. The Orange ones were barely potent enough to serve as the primary ingredients for some subpar potions that the low-borns sometimes used.

As for the Red materials, they were too inert to brew into any potion worth a damn, though that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. It allowed them to be used as secondary ingredients, to modify the effects of both elixirs and potions – assuming they had a suitable property, of course.

“This should buy me some more time at least.” he sighed in relief.

Naturally, Deimos’s patience was already wearing thin after Jason’s repeated failures. Sadly, no matter how much the man berated him or pressured him, it wasn’t like Jason could magically turn himself luckier. All he could do was to follow all the disparate trails one by one, until he located their targets.

The good news was that he hadn’t come up entirely empty-handed this time.

Taking a strange device vaguely reminiscent of a pocket watch out of his robes, he pressed a button on its side to unlatch its lid. It was made of a silvery metal, its surface adorned with runes inside-out. Pouring some of his karma mana into the object, he watched as many of the symbols lit up in a multitude of colours. Though a few of them remained dim.

This artifact was just one half of a pair. The two objects had been designed specifically for him and Deimos to use. After all, one side had to pour karma mana into their watch for this to work, the other side fuelling theirs with sound mana. Suffice to say, this wasn’t a pair of affinities that could easily be found elsewhere.

In any case, Jason stared at the object with bated breath, waiting for his superior to pick up the call. It wasn’t until about a minute later that the rest of the symbols lit up, shimmering in a dull grey colour.

“Jason? Any news from your end?” Deimos asked.

“I haven’t found them yet, if that’s what you’re asking.” Jason replied.

He could already feel the bubbling volcano on the other side of the line about to erupt, but he hurriedly spoke again, not giving it a chance.

“I think I may have discovered another ingredient though.”

That seemed to do the trick, dousing Deimos’s fury with some cold water. The man hadn’t stopped pressuring the Guild’s alchemists into deciphering the recipe over the last two years, clearly unwilling to put all his eggs in one basket.

Of course, the results left much to be desired. The old coots hadn’t managed to work out the recipe just yet, but that didn’t mean they hadn’t made any progress. At the very least, they had determined that regular elixirs formed the base of the Aurora Dew. After all, their effect was nearly identical, and there were many other tell-tale signs that they were brewed in a similar manner.

However, they had yet to figure out what Nesha’s partner had done to the elixirs to elevate them to the next stage, allowing them to be consumed more frequently. With any luck, Jason’s latest discovery would help with that.

“Well?” Deimos asked.

“The dose you gave me is connected to a plant called Rainbow Grass. Wasted two months getting here too, so I hope it’s worth it.” Jason said.

Next, he snapped the device shut, ending the call before Deimos had the chance to lash out at him again.

‘This should keep him off my back for a few more weeks...’

Taking his top off, Jason laid it on the ground in front of him, before placing Nesha’s folded robes and the vial on top of it. He had to do this every time, to avoid adding any additional threads to the objects.

Gathering some mana to his eyes again, he reactivated his Karmic Vision, carefully adjusting it until only the most prominent threads remained in focus. Next, he scrutinized them one by one, ignoring those that weren’t shared, or those he had already investigated.

‘These two… They seem to extend somewhere southwest of the Guild…’

Obviously, Jason had no idea how far these threads reached. The other ends could be as close as twenty miles away, or as far as the other side of Remior. Shrugging, he picked the objects up before wearing his robe again. Either way, he had to investigate all the trails.

‘If memory serves, the nearest populated areas in that direction are the Sentin and Camelot provinces… That’s not too bad. They’re only a few weeks away…’