Chapter 22. Practice
The receptionist handed the organized ledger to the man. He spread the book open on the table and began flipping through it.
“Energy Potion material sold: 216 sets.
Fulan: 110 sets.”
He noticed that this number was far higher than anyone else’s purchases and became interested.
After all, his main purpose this time was to identify all the Alchemists producing Energy Potions.
If their success rates were high, he would attempt to recruit them and have them sign the newly introduced contract.
Of course, if the success rate was too low, they would not qualify. The association would not offer contracts to Alchemists with poor performance.
He immediately turned to the section recording recovered Energy Potions and located Fulan’s entry.
“Only twenty-one bottles? Is the success rate really this low?”
He quickly calculated it.
The success rate was even lower than one bottle per five attempts.
Naturally, that meant she could not be offered a contract.
But even so, the success rate was surprisingly poor.
How could someone buy more than one hundred sets of materials and still fail to reach even a one-in-five success rate?
Still, the fact that she kept purchasing materials so persistently was helping the association clear its inventory.
He flipped through the pages and saw that Fulan had purchased materials for many different potions, yet the number of potions she returned was not even one-fifth of the total.
He soon dismissed the name from his mind.
There was another Alchemist who had purchased forty sets of Energy Potion materials and produced eight bottles.
That result was exactly one-fifth.
Even so, it still failed to meet his requirements.
He shook his head.
It seemed that there were no Alchemists worth paying attention to at the Cuilan Academy branch.
Finally, he glanced at the association’s inventory of Energy Potion materials.
His eyes widened.
He grabbed the ledger and went to the front desk.
“Why do you still have five hundred sets of Energy Potion materials here? Why was this not reported?”
In other associations outside, having a total inventory of one thousand sets would already be considered large.
So why did this place have five hundred sets by itself?
“These are the materials we stockpile every year for Energy Potions. Three months ago the supply of materials was very low, so the president deliberately purchased extra.”
Every year before the assessments, the association would stockpile Energy Potion materials for potion production.
This year they had simply stocked a little more.
And the president had been missing for two months for some unknown reason, the receptionist thought.
The man suddenly froze.
He realized why the matter had not been reported.
He vaguely remembered receiving documents describing this situation.
But at the time he had gone to the neighboring city of Torlov to buy a Rune Sword decoration and had completely forgotten about it.
Then his expression turned to delight.
This situation gave him considerable room to manipulate things.
The association did not know about it.
“Pack half of the inventory. Leave the other half here. Also, double the price of the remaining materials.”
He issued the order while presenting his badge.
According to regulations, everyone here had to follow his authority.
Unless the president were present.
But the president had already fled, afraid of becoming a scapegoat.
Now he was the only authority here.
---
Fulan held a wooden sword and was exchanging rapid strikes with Bella.
Back and forth they went, their wooden swords colliding repeatedly without any sign of stopping.
After barely blocking a powerful slash, Bella stepped backward. She wiped the sweat from her forehead and continued breathing heavily.
She needed to trade space for time and recover a bit of stamina.
She had been entangled in combat with Fulan for quite a while, and her endurance was starting to fail.
Fulan did not appear to be in good condition either.
When she saw Bella retreating, she tried to seize the opportunity, but her strike missed entirely.
Fulan stood still, breathing heavily.
If she rushed forward recklessly now, she might end up being counterattacked.
Bella also chose not to attack, as if by mutual understanding. Both of them paused briefly to recover their stamina before continuing.
Suddenly, Fulan thought of something.
She placed her other hand on the sword hilt and fumbled slightly.
Before Bella could react, Fulan suddenly thrust forward with all her strength.
Bella was startled at first.
Then she felt a surge of excitement.
Fulan had made a mistake.
Bella was confident that if she managed to block this attack, Fulan would almost certainly lose the match afterward.
Both of them were already exhausted.
Yet Fulan had chosen to make such a large movement, and with such force.
Clearly she intended to end the battle in a single strike while Bella was unprepared.
Bella barely raised her sword to guard in front of her chest.
She was confident she could block the attack and then use Fulan’s drained stamina to deliver the final blow.
However, reality unfolded very differently.
The moment Fulan’s wooden sword collided with Bella’s, Bella felt an overwhelming force that she could not resist.
The impact threw her completely off balance.
Her wooden sword slipped from her hand, and she fell onto the ground.
“Take my hand. Get up.”
Fulan extended her hand and pulled Bella to her feet.
Bella shook her head slightly before speaking.
“That is not right. What was that just now? How could it have such strength?”
Fulan did not tell the truth. Instead, she told a small lie.
“It is a Combat Technique I recently learned. What do you think? Pretty well hidden, right? You did not sense any fluctuations at all, did you?”
Normally, when someone used a Combat Technique, as long as the opponent was not blind, they could detect it from the changes in the surroundings.
Once they noticed it, they would immediately make a decision instead of continuing to attack recklessly.
Bella thought about it.
Something seemed slightly off.
Why would someone place their hand on the sword like that when using a Combat Technique?
“Is that… really how it works?”
She had never heard of a Combat Technique that could be released so silently.
When she was young, she had once heard a story.
An assassin had attempted to kill a noble but decided to use a Combat Technique during the attack.
The sudden change in energy alerted the noble, who then killed the assassin instead.
The person who told her the story had specifically warned her not to rely too heavily on Combat Techniques.
Although they could produce extraordinary power, their usefulness depended heavily on the situation.
“That is exactly how it works. It requires quite a long preparation time. If the situation earlier had not been just right, I would not have been able to defeat you.”
Seeing how confident Fulan appeared, Bella eventually chose to believe her.
“Alright then. Let me rest for a moment before we continue.”
After Bella accepted the explanation, Fulan quietly breathed a sigh of relief.
Now she could continue using Bella to progress the Rune Warrior requirements.
Unfortunately, the Rune Warrior requirements specifically demanded that runes be used in combat to secure decisive victories.
Earlier, she had already used runes twice secretly without Bella noticing.
This time, however, her execution had been a bit clumsy, which was why Bella had noticed something unusual.
As for why she did not look for other opponents to complete the requirement…
She had already tried.
It simply did not work.
It seemed that the system only recognized battles against opponents of roughly equal strength.
Previously she had challenged people who were weaker than her, and those fights had not counted.
At the moment, Bella was the only person she could find who could spar with her properly.
No one else was suitable.
But she could not keep using the Impact Rune anymore.
If she used it again, Bella might realize the truth.
And if Bella refused to spar with her afterward, things would become troublesome.
“Why does my hand feel a little numb? My sword does not seem to follow my movements properly…”
“Maybe you just have not rested enough. Let us take a break before we continue.”