The lord of life and death

Rain watches in anticipation as the light butterfly enters one of the vials filled with the agility potion he made from the second round. Rain did not remove his eyes from the vial, as commotion unfolded around him. Of people crying and people shouting with Joy. 

Rain watches as his vial turns green and smiles with relief. He turns to his mother and waves toward her. His mother waves back at him. He noticed that beside his mother another woman was seated. And from their behavior, he figures out they are not strangers. He did not think much of it as his mother used to live in Torian and moved to the village after he was born. No half-tree spirit is allowed to live inside the endless forest.

Rain turns his head from the stands to the participants around him. And after the second round of eliminations, only 37 people remain and he sticks like a sore thump. Among all the participants, he is alone in a half-tree spirit. They were half-tree spirits participants but none were able to pass the second round. 

Which led to curious glances upon him from the audience, fellow participants, and also from the examiner. Rain watched his vial shining with green flew away to the center and landed on the table beside Great Master Solarius.

Rain watches the ingredients boxes disappear from the center. Master Grey steps forward with a smile," Before we start the third round, Princess Narisa will join us for the third round."

" Everybody stand up and welcome the Princess."

Rain and the participants were already standing for 4 hours, Master Grey addressed the audience to stand up. Rain scanned the doors for entering the arena and found a door open at a distance. The door which opens is the furthest distance from where he and the other participants are. And in above the stands, there are no guests.

Rain watches a female enter the arena followed by two people wearing full body armor. Rain looks carefully at the Princess, and finds the princess is different from other tree spirits the hair is a mix of gold and light green co;ors, and most unusual the princess's pupil is surrounded by a purple ring.

" The changes of the princess are likely because among her ancestors someone is a 6th realm demon of changer profession."

Rain watches as the princess walks toward them with the two guards following her. Rain notices as the princess nears them every participant starts bowing, Rain also follows them. He also speaks following the other participant, "Welcome, Princess." 

He did not raise his head after welcoming the princess, remaining bowing. From the corner of his eyes, he could see the participant beside him bowing. As he remained bowing, he started to think that the circle he was in was truly special, as the highest number of participants remained in the circular row, with only three eliminated.

He then started to guess what potion they had given for the third round. If the first rank potion can be low to high difficulty then. In the first round, they were told to refine strength potion with an alternative ingredient which raised its difficulty to low to medium, and the second round was medium difficulty agillity potion but with two alternative ingredients, the difficulty rose to highest for a first rank potion.

" Then the next potion will be second rank potion."

"No, it's impossible, then I will be the only winner because from second rank power of the mind or soul is required to refine a potion." Among the participants, he is only an alchemist with the power of soul. And the rest are ordinary people without any extraordinary. Rain is sure of this because in the waiting room, his power of soul was spread around and he found all the participants were ordinary people.

"If it is not second rank potion then only one potion is left nightmare potion a quasi-second-rank potion. If I and other participants are asked to refine the nightmare potion for the final round, then If successful, everyone will become an elite potionist if are allowed to take the nightmare potion."

Rain stops his daydreaming when he hears a new feminine voice, speaking," Everyone raises your heads."

Rain raises his head and his eyes cast upon the center. 

Rain watched the princess's lips turn into a small smile and she spoke," First I want to congratulate all of you standing before me."

" You all are the great talent of our Empire." 

" And according to the difficulty of potions, you all successfully refine. You all are one step away from becoming an elite potionist."

" Only Nightmare potion is standing in between you from becoming an elite potionist." Rain hearing this felt his guess come true. They will be asked to refine the Nightmare potion.

" From here, I can see many of you figure out what potion all of you going to refine for the third round."

" Those who guess Nightmare potion, they are correct."

"For the third round yo,u all have to refine the nightmare potion and consume the potion right here. Those power of the mind is unlocked will become the Elite potionist of the guild and pass the third round."

Rain watches after she addresses them, she turns to Great Master Solarius and nods. Great Master Solarius as if receiving a signal. He waves his hand and Rain finds a box on his table.

Great Master Solarius starts speaking," Inside the boxes are ingredients of nightmare potion with its recipe. And for the third round, everyone has unlimited time because of these in the box the number of ingredients will only allow you to fill only one vial. So, If you make one mistake you fail."

"Now, everyone can start."

After Great Master Solarius spokes "start", Rain quickly opens the box and takes out all the ingredients, and the recipe. Then put the box on the ground at first he opened the recipe and started matching the ingredients written in the recipe with the ingredients he took out from the box.

After a minute, only the last item left to match. He reads the last item Nightmare Flower and moves his eyes to the obvious item on the left side while the other ingredients are on his right. Rain observes the nightmare flowers, first-rank extraordinary flowers. 

As he observes, Rain feels sleepy, he moves his eye from the nightmare flower and his sleepiness goes away immediately. He recalls what he read about nightmare flowers before people found out they could be used to refine nightmare potion, It was a worthless flower. From which people stay away, going near a bed of nightmare flowers, people will fall asleep immediately extraordinary people also feel sleepy after they fall asleep they suffer a neverending nightmare, from which they are not able to wake up without external factors and they die in their sleep.

After some unknown people use the nightmare flower to make a potion. First, it was used as a poison, people feed nightmare potions to their enemy to make their enemy suffer and experience neverending nightmares. But then a person, more detail a half-tree spirit named Fern Irontree was fed a nightmare potion by his enemy. He was able to wake up without any external help. And after walking he finds himself awakening the power of mind. After that is another history lesson.

Rain starts refining the nightmare potion according to the steps in the recipe. It is not difficult for him as he was thinking about the history of the nightmare potion, the soul chip in the meantime simulates five times the process of refining a nightmare potion. After receiving the memory, there would be no difficulty for him to refine the nightmare potion. 

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Narisa observes as the participant starts refining the nightmare potion for the third round. She was surprised after she announced she would reward the top 10 passing the potion test, so many people participated in the test. The participants who successfully refine the nightmare potions will be elite potionists after they pass the test of the nightmare potion.

Even if they did not pass the test of the nightmare potion this time, they will able to pass later. Her goal for announcing the reward is for the potionist who passes the test to join her team or a favourable impression on the royal family. In many parts of the empire, the royal family lost control and the noble families became defacto rulers in those parts.

Torian is a large city in the eastern part of the outer region of the empire. Bringing it under the control of the royal family is her goal for announcing the reward. And the large number of participants participating in the potion test after hearing her reward makes her smile. 37 participants passed the second round, and her guesses were all from powerful families or disciples of the master and Grandmaster potionist. They know participating in the test where she announces she will reward the participants is a show of goodwill to her. 

As she was observing the participants, she noticed a participant in the fifth row, is not a tree spirit but a half-tree spirit. Which shocked her, a half-tree spirit reached the third round of the test. And watching him refine the nightmare potion, she thinks." He may successfully refine the potion." She wants to know about him. He may be the next key to completing the mission given by the goddess.

She sent her voice transmission to Great Master Solarius and the two Master potionists," Do you know the half-tree spirit?"

Master Allerick returns her voice transmission," Master Samuel, told me a half-tree spirit alchemist looks like us will participate in the test, he may be the one from his looks?"

Narisa noticed a file appear in Great Master Solarius's hand and watched Great Master Solarius open the file and start reading. Narisa watches as Great Master Solarius reads the file, his eyes widen in shock. Narisa sent a voice transmission asking him, "What happened?"

She received a reply," Princess, read the file." and she took the file from his hand.

She opened the file and started reading. The file is a background check of the half-tree spirit, she mentioned. After reading she found the boy's name is Glenn GoldenOak, he is an alchemist. An became an alchemist a week ago, to rescue his friends who were captured by the slavers. She frowns finding the boy is an alchemist but he becomes one to rescue his friends for that he cannot say anything. But still, the boy can be used for the plan.

She then receives a transmission from Master Allerick," I received a message from Master Samuel after I asked him about the boy. He told me that the boy will leave for City of Freedom after the test."

She then receives Great Master Solarius's voice transmission," For him, City of Freedom is more suitable than here in the Endless Forest." Which made her nod, she agreed with him. The Goddess does not dislike alchemists like The God of light because there is no competition with the God of Alchemy with her but the new mission of the Goddess will change the situation.

Master Grey, "I found if the boy succeeds in refining the nightmare potion, his mind power is already awakened so after he consumes the nightmare potion, he can easily break its influence and escape from the nightmare. Then the boy will rank first."

Master Allerick," There is also Granddaughter of Great Master Noel, she is tied with the score with the boy. If a half-tree spirit ranks first it may lead to displeasure with the narrow-minded people in the city. So if the Granddaughter of Great Master Noel, successfully refines the nightmare potion and passes the test of the potion, we will rank her first and the boy second."

Narisa frowns and watches the other two nodding, listening to their voice transmission where they agree. But she is of a different opinion," How about let the Grandduaghet of Great Master Noel and the boy, Glenn both rank first?"

She receives a quizzical look from the three and receives a voice transmission from Solarius asking," Why?"

She thought for a few seconds and wondered if she would share the mission given by Goddess to them. Then thought they would get the information after some time anyway, as the main office of the potion guild already knew about the mission, She sent the details of the Mission of the Goddess to them.

After some time she receives the message from Great Master Solarius," Then, I should prepare another life seed for the reward."