Retrograde Gaming

Chapter 29: A Terrifying Poison

Translator: Henyee Translations

Editor: Henyee Translations

Li Huailin was heartbroken. Since his account was kind of strange, his previous experience of online games had become completely invalid, which was why he kept making stupid mistakes. He wasted so many bottles of healing potion that cost a lot of money! He could have just simply waited it out until all his stats became normal and easily go up by over a dozen levels.

He was having such a difficult time making money. Neither fighting monsters nor doing quests could net him any income. For the first time, Li Huailin realized that his character was getting into trouble.

“You, it seems that you’re severely injured,” all of a sudden, a voice interrupted Li Huailin’s thoughts and pulled him back from his deep dejection.

Li Huailin looked up and found an old male NPC. Judging from the NPC’s gray beard, Li Huailin guessed that the old man was over seventy years old. The old man then tried to pull Li Huailin’s arm with his wrinkled hand. Above the old man’s head was his name— Ed Stark.

“What?” Li Huailin was quite surprised. He was currently in a quiet residential district in the main city. He wondered if he somehow triggered a hidden quest. Were things actually this easy?

“You’re badly injured. I’m a doctor and I can’t watch you die in front of me,” Old Ed said sincerely. “Follow me, I’ll heal you.”

“A few hundred Reputation points… again.” Li Huailin sighed. He planned to accept the quest and then immediately give it up, by doing so, the points would be directly given to him for free. This was why he agreed.

Ed’s place was right next door, it was an old European style house. The house had two floors. On the ground floor was the living room while the upper floor should be where Old Ed slept. Upon entering, Li Huailin noticed the area was a bit messy, seeing as herbal ingredients and tools for making medicine were scattered everywhere. Except for these things, the living room was basically empty. Li Huailin only saw three chairs in the house.

Ed asked Li Huailin to sit down. He spent some time beside the alchemy table. Since Li Huailin didn’t learn or know anything about alchemy, he didn’t know what Ed was doing. After a short while, Ed came with a bowl of green potion. Li Huailin was very curious about the potion, due to it being in a bowl. Usually, they were in a bottle.

“Here, drink this. It should be able to cure you,” Ed said with a smile.

Li Huailin accepted the bowl.

Advanced Fountain of Life Potion (Quest): Restores 5% of Health Points per second for 25 seconds. Attacks will interrupt the healing effect. Note: This is a task item. Please drink it as soon as possible. The item will disappear after 10 minutes.

‘Holy! This heals by percentage! A single bottle can kill me!’ The only reason Li Huailin came here was to gain a few hundred Reputation points. However, this time, good luck fell upon him.

“Drink it, boy,” Old Ed smiled as he said. “It isn’t bitter.”

“Old Grandpa, do you have more of this?” Li Huailin hurriedly asked.

“What?” Old Ed was surprised by this question. He then responded, “We’ll talk about it later. You should drink it first, you’re badly injured right now.”

This was quite true. Li Huailin now only had a bit more than 60 Health Points right now, even less than 3% of his total Health Points.

“I have to tell you something before drinking this. Old Grandpa, I’m not kidding at all, your potion is extremely toxic. A single sip will send me down directly to hell,” Li Huailin said in a serious tone to Old Ed.

“That’s impossible!” Old Ed hurriedly denied Li Huailin’s allegations. “Even though I’m not a specialist in the Fountain of Life Potion, however, I’ve been making it for more than thirty years. This is also considering the fact that all the ingredients used in the potion are nontoxic. Boy, stop kidding around.”

“Really? Are you going to be responsible for your own words?” Li Huailin grinned while he asked him this.

“Of course!”

Li Huailin’s words made Old Ed bristle with rage.

“Go on and drink it. I’ll take any responsibility if anything bad happens to you,” Old Ed said.

“How exactly?” Li Huailin smiled and asked, “If I die, will you give me more bottles of this potion? A few hundred bottles will do.”

“A few hundred bottles?” Old Ed almost spit out blood. “You have no idea how many kinds of ingredients are used in just a single bottle! Silver Leaf Grass, Bright Grass, Blue Resin…”

“I’m not really an alchemist, so I don’t understand what you’re saying. Basically, long-story-short, is your answer ‘no’?” Li Huailin interrupted Old Ed.

“If you die, I’ll tell you the recipe.” Old Ed waved his while saying this.

“The recipe?” Li Huailin frowned. Since he wasn’t able to take on a Supporting Class, a recipe was of no use to him.

“I don’t want your recipe. Can I choose something else?” Li Huailin asked.

“You…! You’re impervious to reason!” Old Ed was really angry. The Fountain of Life Potion’s recipe was exclusively owned by him. If he ever decided to sell it, he would maybe be able to buy himself a city. After all, during warring times, this type of healing potion was extremely significant to injured soldiers. However, this little player just said that he didn’t want it!

“This isn’t toxic! You can choose to trust me or not, but it’ll heal you. Go drink it and leave. I’m not talking to you anymore,” Old Ed tried ending the conversation with this.

“Remember what you just said! I’m drinking it. I’m really drinking it,” Li Huailin picked up the bowl and taunted him.

“Just drink it so we can be done here. You won’t die.” Old Ed shrugged.

Li Huailin then poured the potion in his mouth. Before he could even see the icon which just popped out on his status bar, his screen turned grey— his body hit the ground and he died.

“What?! This is impossible!” Old Ed exclaimed; he was utterly shocked. After quickly recalling the process of making the potion, he didn’t find any problems at all. He already made over thousands of bottles of this potion in the past thirty years, making a mistake was impossible.

At this time, the player’s voice who just died drifted in Old Ed’s ears.

“Everybody! Attention! The quack here told me his potion could cure me, but it turned out that his potion directly killed me! I lost so much experience from it! He’s a murderer and a scammer! Everybody! Remember my words!”

“Sh*t!” Old Ed swore. He hurriedly ran out of his house and saw the player.

“You! This is nonsense! I’m not a quack!”

“Am I wrong? Your potion killed me! Stop denying it! I told you from the very beginning that your potion was toxic!” Li Huailin retorted.

“This… this…” Old Ed really couldn’t understand what was happening. He was really confident that his potion wasn’t toxic. However, it was also a fact that this player died because of it. “Come in here first! Let me check what’s wrong.”

With this said, Old Ed hurriedly dragged Li Huailin into his house. He then ran to his alchemy table, studying the potion and making it once again. A short while later, Old Ed brought out the potion once more, this time in a bottle.

“Try this. It doesn’t have any problems. I guarantee it,” Old Ed confidently declared to Li Huailin with the crystal bottle in his hand.

Li Huailin quickly took a glance at it:

Super Fountain of Life Potion (Quest): Restores 10% of Health Points per second for 12 seconds. Attacks will interrupt the healing effect. Note: This is a task item. Please drink it as soon as possible. The item will disappear after 10 minutes.

In the crystal bottle was a transparent liquid. Once purple light went through it, the liquid looked surprisingly beautiful.

“This… this is…” Li Huailin looked very surprised.

“That’s right! This is a Super Fountain of Life Potion. Even 10,000 Gold Coins aren’t enough to buy it,” Old Ed said with pride. “After I became a Master Alchemist, I finally figured out the recipe. This potion can fully heal an injured person within 10 seconds.”

“I meant to say that this is an even more toxic potion than before.” Li Huailin interrupted Old Ed’s bragging.

“More poisonous? That’s impossible! This potion was made from the leaves of the most lively tree on this continent,” Old Ed hurriedly said. “Go and drink it.”

“Why should I? Your potion killed me earlier. Now that my Health Points are full. I don’t need it.” Li Huailin took a glance at Old Ed and continued, “After dying from your potion earlier, I just respawned and my health points are full. Is this your way of healing people?”

“T-that’s nonsense!” Old Ed rose with rage again. “I merely want to prove that my potion isn’t poisonous. Your death wasn’t because of my potion. It must’ve been because of something else!”

“I see. You just don’t want to admit it! Look at me right now. You saw me respawn a few minutes ago and that I don’t have any buffs or debuffs, right?” Li Huailin asked.

“That’s right!” Old Ed nodded.

“Watch me carefully. I’m going to drink this toxic potion now.” Li Huailin neared the potion towards his mouth.

“It’s not toxic, you bastard!” Old Ed couldn’t help swearing.

“I’m gonna drink it! Take care of my body, okay?”

“Go ahead! It’s not gonna happen!” Old Ed said angrily.

“No problem at all then!” Li Huailin quickly gulped down the entire bottle.

“How do you feel?” Ed smiled and asked, “Don’t you feel really good now?”

“Blood is going in the opposite direction of my meridians. My organs are failing. I’m dying right now,” said Li Huailin calmly.

“Nonsense!” Old Ed growled.

“I can already see my parents who passed away years ago, they’re waving at me.” Li Huailin sighed.

“Don’t be stupid—”

Before Old Ed finished his words. Li Huailin’s head immediately went crooked—he joined his parents.