The combination of the two beehives, fortunately, resulted in three bottles of potion. Within a month, Angelet's spiritual power had reached 4.9, a testament to the assistance of the elixir and his own efforts.
If Angelet could find five or six more beehives, he would meet the conditions for a successful advancement.
Unfortunately, the entire city had run out of stock, requiring him to venture outside to collect them himself.
However, harvesting the beehives was not an easy task. The bees surrounding the hives made it impossible for anyone to collect them while they were still active.
These particular bees were nocturnal, highly toxic, and operated at night, making them difficult to detect. Every year, people accidentally entering their territory would get stung to death, as these nocturnal bees were challenging to deal with.
Moreover, the most troublesome aspect was that the traces of nocturnal bees were hard to find. They migrated everywhere, pulling beehives along with them, making them difficult to locate.
Upon returning to his residence, Angelet was surprised to find the lord's carriage parked in front of his shop. The horse-drawn carriage was adorned with sunflowers and white birds, indicating it belonged to the city lord.
A group of heavily armored guards, armed with heavy weapons, stood guard around the carriage. Several officials, dressed like minor officials, stood respectfully to the side, awaiting Angelet's arrival.
The alley was clean, and Tia, who had been arranged to continue her training in the courtyard, stood waiting outside the door, occasionally glancing at the two black horses with a hint of fear.
As Angelet entered the alley, the officials hurriedly welcomed him.
"Lord Angelet, you have finally returned. Lord Hyland has been waiting for you for over an hour."
These plump officials were all lower-ranking officials in charge of the city. At this moment, they spoke cautiously, beads of sweat forming on their foreheads.
Since Angelet attended the castle party the last time, they had learned about a powerful figure in their area. After a few visits, they realized Angelet did not like being disturbed, so they refrained from visiting his shop.
"Lord Hyland?" Angelet raised an eyebrow, looking at the black horses in the alley.
"Dear Angelet, I heard that you have been buying beehives all over the city. If you need anything, why not inform me? Have you forgotten our friendship?" Hyland, wearing an open white robe, smiled as he lifted the curtain of the carriage to welcome Angelet.
"How could that be?" Angelet smiled.
"I just wanted to see if there were any pharmacies in the city where I could buy them myself without bothering you."
Hyland waved his hand, and a guard behind him immediately presented a black wooden box.
He took it and handed it to Angelet.
"There are some beehives in this place. I hope it can help you."
Hyland's face revealed a sincere smile.
Angelet took the box, opened it, and examined it. Inside were eight beehives neatly arranged, small golden balls of earth wrapped in black silk fabric and packaged elegantly.
"I really need these, so there won't be any more trouble."
Joy appeared in his eyes, and he nodded slowly, closing the box.
"That's good." Hyland nodded.
"I still have some matters to attend to. Let's not chat any longer."
"Alright."
Angelet glanced at the escort team with the horse-drawn carriage, then slowly left the alley.
He opened the box again, glanced over the beehives inside, and picked up one that looked fresher. Its color was brighter, and there was even a faint red hue on the surface – blood.
Angelet frowned, picked up the beehive, and sniffed. The smell of fresh blood entered his nostrils.
"The smell of blood is strong. This gift is quite heavy."
He muttered softly with a slight frown.
Obviously, Hyland sent people to collect these beehives. Although the fresh blood smell on them was very faint, Angelet's five senses were much stronger than an average person's, allowing him to notice the difference.
He could imagine that at least Hyland had lost a lot of manpower to obtain these new beehives.
According to the description of the drugstore owner, nocturnal bees were very fast, twice as fast as normal adults. If they were not knights, it would be difficult to avoid them.
And, most importantly, they were tiny, poisonous, and had long stingers that could not be blocked by normal thin leather armor.
Thicker leather armor and similar items were too heavy, slowing down movement.
And they liked to live at night.
This made collecting beehives even more inconvenient.
In other words, the bloodstains on them might have been left by knights trying to obtain them.
So Angelet felt that this gift was quite heavy.
"Although I can find the beehives, there is still no information about the materials I asked Hyland to find for so long. It seems like I won't be able to find those rare materials. Normal people in this world probably won't be able to find them either."
Angelet shook his head, took the wooden box back to the store, and instructed Tia not to come over and to take a break for two days.
He carefully took out the beehive from the box and soaked them all in a transparent liquid. Placing them in a large glass jar.
Now that the material issue was resolved, it was time to calm down and accelerate the development of spiritual power.
Eight beehives could produce at least eight bottles of Clarity Elixir, combined with the progress of spiritual perception, reaching 6 points would not be a problem.
So Angelet simply stayed in the store, not going anywhere, focusing on mixing and consuming.
Striving to meet the upgrade standards.
...
Time passed quickly.
Very quickly, more than a week later.
Angelet sat cross-legged on the bed, his face calm. His luck had not been great these past few days, yielding only seven bottles of Clarity Elixir.
But regardless, his spiritual power had been raised to 6.2.
Originally, he thought it was 6.3, but it turned out that his body seemed to have developed a certain resistance to the elixir, so its effects were somewhat diminished.
"Anyway, in the end, I have met the conditions for advancement."
Angelet also breathed a sigh of relief.
He particularly instructed Tia today not to come over and to rest for two days.
He looked at the crystal clock on the table; it was around 2:10 in the afternoon.
Angelet got out of bed, stood up, and took out the Shamo elixir that had been hidden.
The elixir was contained in a silver metal bottle, narrow-necked like a vial, about the length of a hand, with a brown wooden button blocking the bottle mouth.
Angelet placed the Shamo bottle on the table.
He took two firestones from the drawer and rubbed them on the floor to ignite the special oil lamp. The oil lamp had a very high temperature and looked similar to Earth's alcohol lamps, except that it was filled with snake fat oil of white color.
A red flame suddenly burst forth from the wick.
Angelet took a large glass from the shelf, placed it on the black stove, and poured a pale red liquid into it. He then took an eyedropper containing yellowish powder and dropped some into the glass.
Angelet poured a bit of yellow powder into the cup.
In silence, the pale red liquid in the glass quickly turned into a deep green, quite turbid.
Angelet moved the oil lamp under the glass and began heating it.