"This is…?" Remian stared.

They were in a very cliché secret cave, located behind a waterfall which fed the lake where the Steel Scale Crocodiles lived. On the left was a bookcase; on the right, a bed, and right in front of them was a pot big enough to fit an entire Blood Rabbit Chief, one that Tim would probably love to use…

But it was filled with some thick blue liquid.

Oh, the mana crystals were there too. Remian could see them glowing right off the walls at the back of the cave. It's just that he hadn't sensed them. What he'd sensed was the blue liquid in the pot.

Carrie sniffed the pot, then turned away and sneezed.

[Alchemist cauldron. Tier 3.] Death inspected. [At least 200 years old. Someone left a batch of mana potion to cool after brewing and never came back for it.]

Mana potion?! Remian twitched. This was like he'd gone prospecting for gold and found diamonds. Mana crystals were external power sources; mana potions worked internally. Crystals would power your equipment, your airs.h.i.+p, and your rituals, but if you were tired after a long day and your MP was running low, what you really wanted was some mana potion.

Sadly, mana potions were expensive, so most people made do with mana recovery potions. Mana potions would give you a burst of MP within seconds and took about a minute before its power was fully absorbed; mana recover potions would help you recover your MP faster over the next hour or two. One had actual mana crystals as a necessary ingredient; the other only used herbs.

Clearly, this was the former. "Do you think he's ever coming back? How long has he been gone?"

Carrie sniffed the ground. [No one has been here for at least ten years.]

Long gone, and gone for good, then. Leaving something this valuable behind for a decade… he was probably dead. This was a dangerous region.

Well. There was an open crate of empty vials right over there, cork stoppers and all. Remian took one up, tugged to cork off, and went over to the cauldron to fill it up…

[Stop. Not like that.] Death growled. [Use the tap.]

[The what?] Remian blinked.

[That thing. Wash it and dry it thoroughly. Use wind magic if you must.] Death grimaced. [Screw it on to that slot over there, then pull the switch under the left handle of the cauldron. After that, use the tap to fill the vials. Never, never dip the vials into the solution itself. As it is, the top layer of potion is already spoiled. Anyone drinking it will definitely be poisoned.

Remian shuddered. That was dangerous… [Is the poison lethal?]

[That depends on who drinks it. If it's you, most definitely. If it's Max… he'll probably be in bed for a week.]

[And if it's Markus or Kage?]

[They'd be in bed for two or three weeks. They don't have the kind of poison resistance that Max has.]

Remian suddenly had an odd thought. [What if someone laced a spearhead with that top layer? Would that poison affect a Tier 3 Wild?]

[Probably won't kill it, but it should cause a lot of pain.]

[How much pain?]

[Like a Mana Burn in your blood.]

That could be dangerous. Any Wild affected by it could go berserk. Yet it was also a way for a small weapon to cause some serious damage. They just had to be very, very careful with it.

So thinking, Remian filled in about 100 vials of good bottom-layer mana potion before Death warned him to stop. Any more than that would be risky, already approaching the contaminated layers. Remian grimaced; he'd only taken about half the cauldron, but it was better to be safe.

Afterward, he went and did exactly what Death warned him not to; he took the top layer by dipping in a ladle and filled 10 specially marked vials.

[You might want to burn that ladle.] Death advised afterward. [No matter how hard you wash and scrub it, things could go very badly if someone later used it for food.]

Remian burned it on the spot.

***

Carrie brought Remian and his precious haul back to the Cave. He had no qualms stas.h.i.+ng the entire lot in the trunk Mandy used to store their clothes.

The rule of adventures (Adventurers Guild missions) was that you get to keep whatever you found out there as long as it wasn't something demanded of the mission. If the job was to pick up a red flower, for example, and you found a thousand blue flowers in the same field, you only needed to hand in the red one. Of course, you could hand in the blue ones for contribution points as well…

Remian actually intended to contribute some of those potions to the Guild for points, but before that, he'd need to know exactly what they were worth; the only one he trusted with appraising it was Charlie. Naturally, the storm mage was a shoo-in for the sales of the potions.

How much were these potions worth? The crystals in the waterfall cave were blue. That meant high quality crystals, each supposedly bearing 10 times as much as the green ones, which were 10 times again as much as the yellow ones. Doesn't that mean the cost would likewise be 100 times more? That is, 10,000 Lir per crystal? a.s.suming the mana potions followed that same pricing…

100 blue mana potions might very well be worth 1,000,000 lir. Unless potions were worth less than crystals? How many crystals did it take to make one potion? Or did one crystal supply enough material for 10 or 100 potions? Remian had no idea. Now he wished he'd taken back some of those books.

Maybe they weren't really worth as much as crystals. Potions were single-use items and their effects vanished very quickly, after all. Perhaps they were worth just a tenth the price of crystals, or less. More likely this batch of potions were worth about 100,000 Lir. Not enough to build a palace, but enough to equip everyone with Tier 3 weaponry.

The important thing was, they'd found the crystal lode. Even better, it was a high quality crystal lode. There didn't seem to be many in the wall, but each was worth 100 times the mana of the yellow ones.

In other words, the worth of the crystals stuck in that cave wall were worth far, far more than the potions in his clothes box.

Still. Best to keep it quiet. Except for Mandy, who would be getting her own clothes from the same chest, there was no reason to tell anyone else about it. In days to come, 100,000 lir would be loose change, but right now it was the most money anyone in the Guild had ever seen.

What would happen if Jane, for example, got her hands on it? Remian's head furrowed with worry. From what Mandy explained, Jane simply wanted to marry someone for riches.

How then should he keep the potions safe…?

Remian began to regret. Life was simpler when he didn't have anything to lose. Now that he had some sort of treasure, he worried about theft even from those close to him. What were the odds of Jane one day deciding to steal whatever valuables she could find in everyone's stuff, like clothes, and run away on an airs.h.i.+p? If she then opened this chest looking to steal clothes, she'd find much more valuable items…

Could he trust her not to do that one day? Would Jane really steal things? She was, come to think of it, a gang member not too long ago. An orphan and a gang member who wanted quick and easy wealth…

Remian let out a deep sigh. It wasn't just Jane. The hunters, the other ex-Ravens… even Mandy might steal it if it weren't already sort-of hers. They were just that poor and the value of the potions were just that high. Like it or not, he was going to have to put up some sort of protection.

"Carrie? I need some help from the wolfcats." Remian said at last.

[What do you need?]

"I need to turn this cave into a storehouse for all our goods and valuables… and I need the wolfcats to guard it." Remian said. "They can live here from now on. You and Vigil too."

[Oh?] Carrie's ears twitched. [What about you and the children?]

"We're going to build something next to the Open Frontier Inn." It had to come to that, in the end. As much as Remian liked them camping out and all… living in a proper building at the town center was much more suitable for young children than living in a cave outside town. Now that the Cruel Rose gang was gone, there wasn't much reason to keep them away.

It was fun while it lasted. Remian actually felt sad and regretful that it had to end like this, but it really did have to come to an end. Roughing it out for a few weeks in a cave was like an extended camping trip. Living like that forever… that was just too much.

Besides, even he knew that the girls had been following Mandy into town to bathe and such. The Open Frontier Inn had been very accommodating so far, but how long would their patience last?

It was time to return them to civilization. Remian regretted not doing it sooner, because now it really seemed like he was chasing them out to protect his treasures rather than out of consideration for their needs.

But n.o.body said anything! n.o.body even raised a word of complaint or said anything about indoor plumbing or a proper house or anything. Everyone just went along like n.o.body even noticed anything wrong!

Come to think of it, it wasn't actually his responsibility to provide them a place to live. The Adventurers Guild was a place where people came to work. Like Max and Kage, anyone could live wherever they liked; neither the Guild nor the Guild Master was in any way responsible for their housing or living conditions.

But if he really was a father figure to these children like Mandy said, then he had failed dismally. Although it wasn't his responsibility, somehow these children had come to depend on him. He had done no wrong, but in failing to meet their expectations, if nothing else, he felt guilty.

"I'm going to have to provide housing for everyone." Remian concluded glumly. "Not just the kids. The adults too, just to be fair. But it doesn't have to be at my expense. They can jolly well pay for it… with Guild Points. The Guild can provide rooms to members in an upper floor of the shophouse, but there should be a fee paid in Points, like a monthly rental. That's fair."

Having decided, Remian turned his attention to the most urgent matter at hand.

They were going to have to build a big shop house after all.