In the next day, inside Mack’s house.

“Did you gather all the material needed for the serums?”

“Yes, it was difficult to gather them, but I have all. Once I take your blood today, I will be able to create serums for the air element,” said Art the alchemist, while disabling the device around his neck and showing his true face.

Since Mack and Harlack left the Centaur planet, this was the first time they met again.

“Excellent. I hope the trip was not too dangerous?” asked Mack out of politeness.

Art shook his head and said, “It was a piece of cake. The mages were more concerned with the revolts around Centaur than about searching for an old man like me.”

“Good to know.” said Mack, already extending his right arm.

Art’s gaze went to Mack arms and only now he noticed the two gauntlets, and asked, “New toys?”, but knowing Mack for a bit of time already, Art did not wait for the response and took a flask and some other items and started to get blood from Mack’s arm.

“Kind of old new toys.” said Mack, not elaborating more in his choice of words.

Once Art got the blood he needed, he asked, “You will be staying in this house? I can send someone to deliver the serums every day. The first batch is the one that takes more time to do, as you already know, so I will only send one in two days I think”

“Yes, but is better if you don’t come too much in contact with me, In two weeks the plan will start, and I will come to you when I feel it’s safe after that, you need to focus on producing what we already talked about, that thing is very important for the plan.”

“No worries. I can start as soon as I have the lab ready and the samples,” said Art, while putting his things away inside a bag.

Mack pulled back his arm, raised from the sit he was, and picked up a flask with black powder that was laying in a small closet by the side.

He then sat again and put the flask on the table and said, “Art, see if you can help me with this,” and pushed the flask in Art direction while saying “I’m trying to break a spell into a rune circuit, but the spell uses this black chameleon skin powder as a catalyst, thus, I’m unable to know the correct runes to use as a substitute”

Art brows furrowed while looking at the powder, and said, ” I never heard of this powder before, but if what you want is to translate it to runes, then we can use an essence wave analyzer” said Art already pulling a device from the inside his bag, the device was barely a few inches in size and looked like a pencil from earth or digital thermometer.

“Essence wave analyzer? This device can give the corresponding runes to everything?” asked Mack, a little impressed by the small thing in Art hands.

“Hahaha, of course no, its like a normal database, once someone fully analyze something they record the wave signature, the material, and the corresponding runes in a database, what this little thing does is to check that database for the same wave signature. This work for common things and very well spread knowledge, rare materials or less used materials have a less chance that someone already analyzed it.” Once he said that, he grabbed the flask and put the wave analyzer close to the powder, almost touching it.

A slight blue light came from the tip of the device and a few seconds later, the display on the device showed a few runes.

Mack came closer to Art to see the runes better, but he never saw those runes before, he quickly grabbed a paper and started to record the runes, but was interrupted by Art “You can keep the wave analyzer, this is not very expensive, and is mostly used to not make mistakes while collecting materials or making deals, because it also shows the name of the material here” said Art pointing to the bottom part of the display, but Mack could not understand what was there, he didn’t know how to read the ‘common tongue’ yet.

“I should probably stop procrastinating and learn how to read the common tongue,” said Mack aloud than complemented “I appreciate it. This little thing will help me a lot in my research”

Art gave a slight smile, but deep down he could not avoid but think, ‘What? how he doesn’t know how to read?’, for Art, a man strong as Mack, was bound to know how to read, since it was ‘basic stuff’ needed in the world, but what Art didn’t knew was that Mack only came in contact with the common tongue less than one year ago, and during that time, in Centaur Planet, he was focused in training and didn’t have the time for anything else.

Seeing that Mack was still focused on the device in his hand as if he had a new toy, Art stood up and said, “Since it’s all, I will be taking my leave. I still have a lot of things to arrange in the new lab, plus, I need to start producing the serums.”

Mack came out of his own thoughts and stood up too and extended his hand in Art direction, in a typical hand shake position, and said “See you soon”, but once Mack realized the look on Art face and what he had done, he retracted his hand and gave a small cough, “Err.. old habits” and gave a slight bow.

Art was lost to what was happening, and his face clearly showed that. Did Mack was asking him to give something? ‘Why did he extend his hand?’ but then, seeing the small nod, he bowed back and said “no mind, no mind” but was still clueless to what just happened. 

======= Author Note =======

Thank you @WildUncomfort for gifting the book a castle!!! This shameless author dosn’t deserves it but he appreciates a lot. The bonus chapter will come today or tomorrow.

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