The Insider System

Chapter 385: The Deal Pt.21

After Tiff finished saying bye to everyone she headed off to where the strategist were to get up to date information on the giants so she would have an idea of where to start her investigation. The God of Light had already told her a bit but she had to go to this part of the Temple anyway to get the equipment she needed so she might as well talk to the people who knew the most about the war while she was here.

"We've been expecting you, here's a map with all the recent sightings." Tiff was happy she didn't have to explain what she had come for because she wasn't sure what she could say to them but the God of Light had already taken care of it so she was able to move on to gathering the right equipment.

Now with her new skills she really didn't have to worry about being tracked down by the Demon Worshipers but being alone on the road still meant that you needed to have lots of stuff with you like food and extra clothes.

She also needed more important things like armor that didn't look like she had just walked out of a Temple of Light. She planned to be invisible most of the time but there's going to be times where she would need to speak to people to gather information so them not knowing what group she was part of by a single glance would be useful.

...

Lake had finally finished his list of items and was now giving it one last look before h e got back to work reading history books. The new list had been organized by which Domain the items he wanted were in, then next to each name he had written down some notable things about the item in case he forgot what the book said by the time he got around to going to gather them.

The best part was since he had used Detector to highlight the names of the items that were in each Domain the information was up to date at the moment and he had lessened his requirements a bit for items in the Holy Domain so his list had around twenty items that were close by more than enough to fill Inner Vault twice over.

This meant he would have options once he had his hands on everything which would increase the flexibility in his capabilities. He could probably also do a lot of them in one outing if he just gave up on anything that proved to be hard to get his hands on and left it for another time. "Are you Lake?"

Hearing someone ask for his name, Lake instantly remembered the job he had accepted a few hours ago and turned around to see a servant. "Yes, is the Master hoping to talk to me?" Getting a nod before an answer Lake cut off the servant before they were able to talk by saying. "I'm ready if he is."

Lake had been about to start reading history books again but he hadn't really wanted to so he was happy the master wanted to speak before tomorrow when the job would start. "Alright come with me then. Master Doul is about fifty floors from here at the moment so it's going to take a while to get there."

Lake was sure he could get there more quickly if he carried the servant so he just told them it was an option. "I can fly if you'd like me to get us there faster." The Spire had been designed with teleportation in mind so now that they no longer used the teleporters unless necessary two people traveling together always left one of them the slower one who needed the other to either slow down or pick them up so the servant seemed used to things like being carried and said. "It's up to you."

Getting permission to pick them up, Lake did so as soon as they made it to the stairs. After a few seconds of flying the servant told him this was the floor the Master was on and Lake stopped and waited for the servant to bring him through all the right doors to reach the room their first meeting would be held in.

As they walked in Lake instantly recognized the face of the Master that was inside waiting for them even though he had only really seen him once before which had been during the meeting about how to deal with the traitorous guild members that had stolen the Elixirs.

If he remembered correctly this had been one of the few people there that didn't have much of an opinion they felt like sharing which was good because he felt there were probably still some masters that were mad about his suggestion that had been chosen during the meeting.

"Nice to meet you, feel free to call me Doul. I'm not much for the Master title the Guild forced on me." Lake wanted to ask if Doul was their first or last name but decided to just introduce himself and get the actual meeting started. "Nice to officially meet you Doul, I'm Lake. I've been looking forward to meeting you ever since Lucas showed me the list of jobs that needed someone like me who can work with poison proficiently."

"Well I hope you don't mind if I have you show off a bit before I share the rest of the information on the job with you. I've been working on it for a while and I don't want anything to go wrong tomorrow." Lake had expected this would be a test so he just shook his head and said. "I don't mind at all. I wouldn't want something I'd been working on to get ruined either."

The thing he had read said he would be helping to transfer poisonous things for around an hour a day which he should have no problems with but it was best to make sure in advance for everyone other than him who didn't get massive benefits from poison. "Alright I've seen you working with master Nancom but I wanted to see just how much control you had with your skill using this device I made when I heard it was you who accepted the request for help."

After Doul said this he pulled out what looked like a chemistry set for children from his old world with ten glass cylinders with a small amount of liquid in each. "I want you to put these into order by color and don't leave even a bit of the liquid in its original container because if they mix with residue left over they'll change alchemically and turn into sludge."

Hearing the depth of the simple looking test Lake had to give it to the man for making something like this in just a few hours. It was possible this wasn't a new test though and he was just particularly uninformed in the types of tests the guild used to test out people's skills. "I should be able to do that. Please stand back."

Almost like Doul realized what he planned to do to pass the test within a few seconds Doul added. "I forgot the part about how the poisons all go bad if exposed to air for too long so make sure to keep them out in the open in short bursts." This added to the difficulty because it meant he couldn't just have them all in the air as he sorted them and would instead have to swap two at a time until they were in order but he still had confidence that he could move all the poisons into the right order within a few seconds if he really tried.

After taking a few seconds to identify all the moves he would need to make in advance Lake started moving the liquids around and after nine swaps he had them all in order from lightest to darkest. After a few seconds of silence which lake assumed was Doul waiting to see if any of the poisons turned into sludge Lake got a passing grade. "That was perfect. With your speed and forethought we might be able to finish the experiments in just a few days."

Lake could feel the meeting was probably about to end after Doul let a few seconds pass in silence after praising his results so he asked. "Are there any other tests?" He really had to go read some even if he didn't want to so when Doul started to shake his head no Lake excused himself by saying. "I'll see you in the morning then."

Turning to walk out the door he heard Doul hurriedly ask him a question before he could get very far. "I have some time now, would you like to see what you'll be doing tomorrow in advance?" Weaning this offer with reading a boring book that would most likely be useless Lake turned and said. "Sure."