An Owl's Rise

Once Evelyn had taken out everything she had collected from the glowing woods, both Melisandre and Anneli stood there stunned.

She had brought out far more of pretty much everything that Melisandre had asked her to gather and many things that she had not.

In fact, this was a valuable horde of materials any fiend beast and plenty of low tier awakened beasts would have struggled to collect. Yet somehow Evelyn had.

"This is an awakened rank venom bat. And you have the body of behemoth frog as well. How in the world were you able to take down beasts like these?" Melisandre said with a shocked expression.

Naturally she was flabbergasted to see the materials from two awakened rank beasts which should have been far stronger than Evelyn was currently.

"Oh, when I was in the caves killing venom bats and collecting vendelrite the boss of the bats came after me since I killed a few of its subordinates I suppose. I managed to keep ahead of it for a bit until I found the territory of another awakened beast. Luckily, they practically took each other out for me." Evelyn said as she explained what had happened.

Nodding along, Melisandre could better understand what happened, but it was still remarkable that Evelyn was able to survive the situation and get in a solid hit on a beast a rank above her.

"Well, I know that you brought the bat's corpse thinking it might have some use, but unfortunately, it is just like its fiend beast variant. Only the venom gland and core are useful." Melisandre said as she pushed the bat's corpse aside.

Shrugging her shoulders Evelyn had been expecting this, but on the off chance she was wrong she had brought it anyway.

"The behemoth frog on the other hand is an excellent ingredient for alchemical cooking. Combined with the right ingredients and it can make a delectable dish and temporarily increase one's agility. Its bones and skin are also useful for certain items, so if you sell it to the inscription hall you should make a fair number of credits." Melisandre explained.

However, she quickly went back on this idea since it would be a bit too eye catching for Evelyn to sell these materials herself and asked Anneli to do it in her stead.

"Now as for the tank turtles and the one spiked tank turtle, their meat is also quite delicious, but it appears that you melted the best part, lowering their value considerable." Melisandre said with a disappointed expression.

Evelyn had melted a bit of the large snapping turtles' shells making them far less valuable than they otherwise would have been.

Melisandre inspected every item that Evelyn had gathered one by one. Giving her complements and critiques on what she had gathered and how she had messed up on a few things.

Yet when she got to five blue orbs she stopped and stared at them for a few moments before whipping her head around so fast Evelyn did not even see her move.

"Where did you find these?" Melisandre said with a grave tone.

Hearing how serious she was Evelyn was taken aback since it was a far cry from what she had expected.

"I found them killing Rakus Flowers and collecting their nectar. They were making it difficult for me so instead of looking around for my own, I ambushed them and took what they had harvested."

Clenching her firsts Melisandre seemed especially angry and fear began welling up inside Evelyn.

She figured she must have done something terribly wrong. Maybe she should not have killed those humans. She had thought it would be fine since Melisandre explained that human magic cores were used in alchemy as well. But maybe it was not okay to just kill any random human they came across.

"I am so sorry Melisandre. I did not know it would be such a problem to kill those humans. Please go easy on me." Evelyn said as she lowered her head to the ground and waited for her punishment.

Luckily Melisandre was not mad at her, and no physical violence came to Evelyn who still expected to be beaten whenever she did something wrong.

"Raise your head, Evelyn. You have done nothing wrong. In fact, you have helped out." Melisandre said as she waved her hand and beckoned for Evelyn to get up.

Letting out a sigh of relief she felt a weight off her shoulders thinking that she had done something horribly wrong.

With Evelyn no longer prostrating herself, Melisandre explained that the Glowing Woods should not have had any humans in it. It was far from any known civilizations and had a veil around it that should have made it hard to locate from the outside.

"It is an area that the Roost has cordoned off because it is especially useful for gathering materials and as a safer environment for newer members to get some experience. If humans are entering it that means that the veil has weakened, or maybe even faded entirely and that they have set up a settlement nearby. I will need to address this later with some others, but I am glad you brought this to my attention."

No longer fearing that she made a mistake Evelyn was feeling quite proud to be complemented by Melisandre for her work.

"Now you have collected everything that asked you to and more. Tomorrow we will begin your lessons in alchemy. But before that here is a list of items you will need to buy. Not everything you needed could be obtained in the Glowing Woods, but you should have no problems purchasing the rest from the bottom floor of the alchemy hall." Melisandre said as she handed the list to Evelyn.

Taking it in one of her claws carefully, she placed it down and began reading the contents.

There were not too terribly many items on the list, and most of them were just supplementary ingredients that either boosted the effects of potions or increased the time that they lasted.

'There really is so much about his world I do not know.' Evelyn thought as she read through the list.

Little intricacies and common knowledge of many things were still beyond her, and she felt that it might take an eternity to learn everything.

Nevertheless, she was determined, and her first step was to learn alchemy from Melisandre who was the foremost expert in the Roost.

'I could ask for no better teacher. I can already tell that she plans to have me make more advanced brews than what were in the basic alchemy book that Mason left me.'

With her belly full, her body clean, and Melisandre's permission, Evelyn headed down to the bottom floor of the Alchemy Hall which lay below Melisandre's mansion.

Just like last time the lower ranked owls of the Roost were all milling around buying and selling items.

It was a lively place, but it made sense that it would be since magical pills, potions, and the like were so useful.

'If it were not for what Mason left me, I certainly would have died already.' Evelyn thought as she remembered the times that the healing items she had been left saved her life.

Going around the numerous stalls on the ground floor of the alchemy hall, Evelyn purchased all of the ingredients that she required and watched solemnly as her credits began to plummet.

'Only two thousand sixty-seven left.' She thought as she looked at the now much lower number.

She had to spend over four thousand of her hard-earned credits to get everything on Melisandre's list, and now she knew why she had to complete so many missions all at once.

'Whatever, I can get more credits later, and it is not like I need them for daily living expenses or anything anyway.'

Having finished up her shopping Evelyn ducked into the corner of the hall and slipped away to the area that was normally only accessible to Melisandre.

There she took her master's private elevator back up to the top of the Roost and entered into her office where she ascended back to Melisandre's personal lab.

There she found her master waiting for her with an expectant look on her face.

"Did you manage to get everything?"

Nodding her head, Evelyn took out each item one by one and showed them to Melisandre.

"Yes, this is everything that you needed, and with pretty good quality as well. Now we can finally get started on your training in alchemy. But first let us go to your room so that I can teach you how to use the equipment I have left for you. Then you can rest for the remainder of the day and tomorrow we will begin your lessons."

Melisandre then warped them back to the front entrance which made Evelyn a bit nauseous. But once she had recovered herself, she brought Melisandre to her room, and they descended down to the second floor where the majority of the magical equipment Melisandre was letting Evelyn borrow was.