Hidden genius: Black belly snake

Not long after Xander, Xavier, and Charlotte left the area, a group of orcs walked over to the now empty campsite which looked like it was never even used in the first place.

Observing the untouched forest grounds and the silent trees around them, one of the orcs sniffed, making his two short tusks at the end of his lips move up and down.

"Boss, are we at the right place?" He scratched his almost bald green head that only had a few strands of hair left with his thick fingers.

Hearing his obvious words, the other orcs as well grunted and nodded in unison looking at the orc in the center who was slightly bigger and muscular than the others and had more clothes on his body.

He seemed to be the leader of this group of orcs and everyone awaited his thoughts and decision regarding this matter.

The big orc remained silent for a few minutes and then squatted down to touch the forest ground and dig out a chunk of soil, scooping it up with his hardened and dirty yellow thumbnail.

"The smell of blood has seeped deep inside the ground. There was definitely a fight here."

"Oraaa! Something happened to Raphi?" Another orc gasped and exclaimed with his gruff voice.

"Boss… Big Boss is going to be mad ah?!" Another orc added.

"Ora! That's right! He was fucking the bunny!"

Everyone became tense and looked at their leader with a confused and tense expression.

However, the leader, the orc who was addressed as Boss simply let out a cold snort.

"Eh? Are you guys idiots? Big boss fucks a lot of women? Do you think he would care about one less pussy?" 

"He will probably be more pissed off about the bounty that slipped through our hands and the female elven slave we were promised."

"This is not good for our reputation. As Blacktooth bandits, we need to make this right and get what is ours back."contemporary romance

"No one will respect us if we let small fry like this outwit us. Ora!" He shouted and he swung the axe that he was carrying onto a nearby tree.

A loud bang resounded in the silent forest and the next instant the thick tree fell down with a thud, broken in the middle, with just the impact of that single hit.

Ora. Ora. Ora. Ora. All the orcs immediately started chanting and shouting in a bloodthirsty fervor. The entire forest was filled with the cacophony of their noises.

However, their targets, the three elven royals had long since disappeared from the forest, and without any more unnecessary disturbances hindering their speed, they had now quickly reached the Pengu city which bordered the Myrian Kingdom.

"Brother, let's rest for the night and head out tomorrow morning? We still need to travel for about an hour to reach the infamous white forests."

Xavier paused and then added in a more serious tone. "I don't think we should take a risk without preparing properly first."

Xander chuckled coldly after hearing the unexpected rational words coming out of his brother's mouth, which only happens once in a blue moon. 

"Mhm. I agree." He chuckled again and the three elves then walked over to one of the shabbier looking inns in the city to not repeat what happened in the small town Bassa and draw attention to themselves.

Xavier spoke with the innkeeper and handed him a few silver coins and even hagged a bit before finally getting a room. 

"Did I do alright keeping a low profile, brother?" He asked Xander with a big smile, proud of his efforts. The latter just wordlessly snatched the keys away from him and headed upstairs.

However, the two of them stopped after taking a few steps when they saw that Charlotte was still following them.

"Eh? You are not getting another room, Charlotte?" Xavier immediately asked, his mouth turning into a big O. She ignored him and continued following the two all the way to their room. 

There were only two beds and the two brothers directly occupied both without politely offering one to the lady, who simply sat down and leaned against the wall to get some shut-eye.

Charlotte would have gotten another room but she was worried that Xander would cut her loose the first chance he got, so she couldn't afford the risk.

She stuck like glue to both the annoying brothers and left the inn early the next morning at the same time when they did.

The three unwilling travel buddies then headed over to the adventure's guild in the city for some preparations.

Now that they had accumulated some points, though a paltry amount, they were able to head up and take a look at the first floor as well.

The items and goodies here were a little better than the ones on the ground floor, both in quality and variety.

The three elves silently coordinated and made some purchases, buying a few health recovery, mana recovery, and invisibility potions, and other items like blast powder, poison bomb, and smoke bomb.

They also purchased a multitude of barrier runes, enhancement runes, and healing runes before their points ran out and the three exited the building.

When they were outside the guild's space, Charlotte handed over some runes to Xavier and Xavier handed over some potions to Xander.

These were both for the purpose of utility and also for the purpose of research as these potions and runes were better than the ones they were used to.

Of course, this was because the ingredients were better to begin with, thanks to the rich mana swirling in the air, but there were also some minor tweaks in the backbone formula.

Others might not be able to discern all these small details and minute specifics from just a few samples, but Xavier was a Grandmaster in Rune crafting and Xander was a Grandmaster in Alchemy.

So it was merely a child's play for these two to work backward from the sample and figure out the recipe.

done.co