Chapter 3: The Broken Cane-Minha Recuperação é Bilhões de Vezes Mais Rápida(Barco branco em águas cristalinas)

Chapter 3: Broken Cane

Xazuo's fears came true.

He, Little Nose, Little Fatty, and Little Shorty were all taken together into the alchemy room.

Little Nose still had swollen eyelids and clearly had not slept enough.

Little Fatty and Little Thin, two cellmates who rarely saw one another, looked sallow and jaundiced. They had barely managed a few bites of bread before being dragged over, and now their legs trembled from hunger, cold sweat streaming down their foreheads.

Xazuo let his hair fall over his face and swayed unsteadily, looking dispirited, though in truth he was in the best condition of the four.

The vile old man made the boys stand against the wall and watch him brew his potion.

This time, it was not a simple test.

"It's been dozens of days, and I still haven't succeeded."

He poured a spoonful of white powder into the cauldron, then patted the mechanical arm so it would keep stirring the thick potion.

"I gave you the chance to become apprentices. I gave you bread. I gave you shelter."

The old man turned around, his eyes faintly glinting with malice as he stared fixedly at the boys.

"Still a failure. Still a failure. You did not succeed. No, no, no, no..."

He shook his head violently and slammed his right hand hard against the desk, producing a series of dull thuds.

"It was me! I failed!" he roared.

He picked up two bottles of dark green potion from the alchemy table, poured them all into the cauldron, then hurled the empty bottles at the wall, letting them shatter into shards.

Then he grabbed two more bottles and repeated the same action, each time rougher, each time more savage.

"I was too merciful!"

"I was too indulgent!"

"I should have done this long ago!"

The old man lifted a basin of potion from beneath the alchemy table and emptied it into the cauldron. A strange plume of green smoke shot up from the surface, and the crackling of bursting bubbles came in a dense, endless stream as scalding water splashed to every corner of the room.

The four boys shrank together in terror.

Using his companions as cover, Xazuo swept his gaze around the room, searching for the extendable cane.

Found it. On the desk, the shaft was mostly hidden beneath several books, only a short length of the handle showing.

Xazuo bit down hard on his lip, thinking he might find a chance to strike the nearly deranged old man from behind.

But the old man seemed to have calmed down. He braced both arms on the alchemy table, his lungs heaving and collapsing like a battered bellows as he panted heavily.

He scooped up the boiling liquid with a ladle and filled four full doses of roiling, scorching potion.

"You. Drink them!" the old man said as he sat on the wooden stool.

Little Fatty, Little Shorty, and Little Nose seemed too used to obedience, or perhaps too afraid of being beaten, and immediately stepped up to the alchemy table and drank.

Xazuo was left standing where he was, looking very much out of place.

After they drank the potion, the three of them collapsed almost at once and rolled on the floor. At first they could still cry out, but after more than ten seconds, their screams turned into grinding teeth and whimpers, and then they could only curl into themselves soundlessly, fingers clawing at anything within reach.

"You! Drink the potion!" the old man bellowed, pounding the arm of the stool.

Xazuo cast Detection on the potion. This time it showed 32 HP lost within 60 minutes... however he spent it, it would be useless... the one free attribute point from reaching level 2 could be saved...

Could it really be over? Should he put the attribute point into strength and gamble on it?

"No! Wait!"

The old man sprang up, seized Xazuo by the collar, and roared through a spray of spittle, "I remember now! You were slacking off, pouring the potion away! Little trick, I saw it!!"

Xazuo was shoved against the wall, his back striking the stone hard.

"I will punish you!" The old man dragged out the remaining three basins of potion from beneath the alchemy table and poured them all into the cauldron.

"Kekekekek!" The old man laughed cruelly and joyfully, personally taking up the ladle to stir the cauldron.

In an instant, a vast cloud of dense mist gushed from the surface, blowing the old man's ragged hair upward and making his entire body radiate a feverish, wicked aura.

Xazuo fixed his eyes on the desk and slowly edged toward it.

Glug, bang.

A bubble the size of a fist rose in the cauldron, and the sound of its bursting was like a muffled thunderclap.

Xazuo froze. Did the gas released by that bubble carry sparks?

Glug, bang.

It did indeed carry sparks!

Glug, bang.

The bubbles were coming faster and faster. Threads of flame began appearing above the cauldron.

Xazuo's brow tightened. He hesitated between going for the desk or retreating back into the prison corridor.

Glug, bang.

Xazuo backed away, inching quietly toward the alchemy room door.

Glug, bang.

The old man stared blankly at the sparks, counted the empty basins overturned at his feet, then shoved both hands into his hair and shouted, "What have I done! What have I done! No, I have to fix this!!"

He grabbed the ladle, thrust it into the violently churning liquid, and brought up only a half-melted remnant of the spoon.

"This is bad!"

Xazuo muttered lowly, grabbed Little Nose, who was already half out of his mind, and used both hands to drag him toward the corridor with all his strength.

The moment he turned the corner, the bursting of bubbles behind him became as continuous as a machine gun spraying fire.

Tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat

Boom!!

The potion exploded suddenly. The blast shattered the cauldron, smashed the reagent bottles, and sent the old man flying.

A mighty blaze of crimson fire devoured everything alive and every piece of equipment in the alchemy room, then followed the violent air current into the corridor.

Xazuo was thrown to the floor. He instinctively covered his head with both hands as searing red flames scraped across his body, bringing a wave of agony and impact. His ears filled with a roaring din, and his eardrums swelled until they hurt terribly.

He opened his mouth and howled. He endured it for a few seconds in the midst of the pain, then finally lost consciousness.

...

No one knew how long had passed before Xazuo woke again. Before his eyes lay gray smoke hanging low to the ground, and the entire prison tunnel stank of charred ruin.

"How much health do I have left?"

[HP] 10/20

[Minor concussion, minor abrasions, minor shock injuries, slight burns, slight poisoning]

"Cough, cough..."

Keeping close to the ground to avoid inhaling the smoke, Xazuo crawled into the alchemy room.

What met his eyes were three human-shaped lumps of black charcoal.

Where was the old man? Was he dead or not?

Broken wooden boards and splinters littered the floor, and the alchemy table and desk had both been blown apart by the explosion. Where the cauldron had stood, there was now a pool of black sludge, the source of the smoke and the scorched stench.

The old man's body was half-buried in a mound of charred wreckage, only his two legs visible.

Xazuo stopped at the doorway to the alchemy room. Near Little Nose, his nostrils stung... perhaps his eyes had been irritated by the smoke, and that was why a few tears had come out. Nothing serious.

He continued crawling and rummaged through the debris.

The old man was thoroughly dead. A sharp shard of glass was stuck in his chest, and bright red blood had soaked his robe black.

Xazuo groped at the old man's waist and found a ring of keys and a shrunken little coin pouch, with a few round objects inside.

The six prison keys were of the same type and easy to identify. The alchemy room key was slightly longer. The remaining one, the longest and thickest of all, must have belonged to the iron door behind the desk.

Xazuo repeatedly blew the smoke away beneath the iron door, and after a few tries he found the keyhole and successfully released the lock.

He lay on his side, planted his feet against the wall, and gripped the heavy door panel with both hands. Even straining with all his strength, he could only pry it open a sliver.

He was simply too weak. The metal door was three fingers thick and could not be budged.

Right, the cane could serve as a pry bar.

Xazuo returned to the old man's side and found the cane beneath his body.

He jammed the cane into the gap, leaving half of it inside the door, then lay back on his side and pushed again.

Creak--the rusted hinges were forced to turn.

Crack, crack. The cane gave a brittle snap as the door swung a little farther, breaking into two pieces and exposing its intricate double-layer structure within.

Maybe even a broken telescoping cane could still be sold for money...

Xazuo put it away and crawled through the gap in the door.

Beyond the iron gate was an earthen tunnel sloping upward. It was steep and narrow, and within the soil on both sides he could still see grass roots and crawling insects. Smoke from the alchemy room drifted outward along the tunnel.

Xazuo climbed to the top on hands and feet, where the passage was sealed by a wooden board.

"One, two, three, push!"

The board covering the turf was shoved aside. Brilliant sunlight stabbed into his eyes, and long-missed fresh air flooded his nostrils, moistening lungs long tortured by smoke.

"I'm out! I'm out!"

Xazuo crawled out of the hole, spread his arms in triumph, greedily inhaled the fresh air carrying the scent of grass, squinted up at the sky, and then looked around.

This was a forest clearing. The woods were silent and deep, ringed about by dense ranks of trees. They seemed like mute sentinels, staring at the boy who had emerged from the hole.

There was a problem.

Why did this forest look nearly identical from every angle?

Xazuo turned left and right, then looked ahead and behind him. No matter which direction he faced, there were only rows upon rows of tree trunks, the greatest difference being that some trees were thicker or lighter in color than others.

How could there not even be a road? Where in the world had the old man hidden his alchemy room...

He raised his head and, using the sun's position, roughly determined east, west, south, and north, then went back down into the underground alchemy room to search around.

When he came back up again, he had a cloth bundle on his back containing the last of the dry rations and fresh water, as well as the pouch with three silver coins.

The broken cane was tightly bound with a hemp cord and could still barely be used.

The silver coins found on the old man were not the thumb-sized kind.

They were genuine silver coins, as large as a palm, with patterns engraved on both sides and words such as "Starry Night Kingdom, Minted in Rosak Province" and "Denomination: One Silver Dollar."

Their surfaces reflected a dazzling silver sheen in the sunlight, and they were obviously valuable at a glance.

No paper records were found in the alchemy room.

Whether it was the old man's identity, the alchemical experiments he had been conducting, or the map of this place, all of it had been reduced to ash in the earlier fire.

Even worse, before crossing over, Xazuo had not learned the first thing about surviving in the wild and could only rely on his own guesses to choose a direction.

Beneath the trees to the east, there were more thickets. Beneath the trees to the west, there were more thickets, as well as more gravel.

He took a few steps into the woods to the south, but not long after, he turned back, pale-faced.

That was where the dead boys had been buried... the stench was overwhelming, and a half-rotted arm protruded from the ground.

By normal logic, the old man would have chosen a direction where no one passed by in order to destroy the bodies and erase the evidence.

The opposite direction, then, to the north, was perhaps where human beings might appear.

Xazuo tightened the cloth bag, hacked open the thorny thickets with the cane, waved away the insects, and struggled onward through the forest.

He walked like that for an entire day.

By evening, with the sun hanging low in the western sky, there was still no sign of human activity.

At one point he even suspected that he had gone the wrong way, or had simply been circling near the hole, but in the end he restrained the urge to turn back.

That would only waste time going there and back. Better to keep heading north until nightfall, until his food and water were gone, until he no longer had the strength to continue.

End of Chapter 3