Pisces returned to the medical room with his usual composed expression, and, seeing Ryan waiting obediently, allowed himself a small sigh of relief.
Seeing the door open, Ryan eagerly stepped forward to greet him.
"Master Pisces, you're back..."
"Mm."
The old man gave a nod and got straight to the point. "I've already spoken with Quinn. From now on, you'll be under me — start by helping out around the lab... If it turns out you truly have talent for medicine, I'll teach you serum craft as well..."
"Really?!"
Hearing this, Ryan feigned overwhelming joy. "Thank you, Master Pisces."
Two men, each harboring their own hidden agenda, put on quite the performance for each other.
...
"Since you're now my disciple, let me give you a welcoming gift."
At this point, to Ryan's genuine surprise, the old man — instead of immediately pressing him about what had happened in the sewer — offered a gesture of goodwill instead, handing over a dark-colored serum vial!
Ryan: "A welcoming gift? This is..."
"I noticed you're right at the threshold of awakening transcendence, and it just so happens I recently finished brewing a new gene serum..."
As he spoke, Pisces introduced his creation with no small amount of pride. "This serum is called Trickster. It's an assassin-class gene serum with a very high agility boost. I'd wager there isn't a single first-stage gene serum in the entire Weasel Gang that beats this one..."
Playing along, Ryan feigned astonishment. "Huh? This serum... better than Master Thief?"
"Master Thief? Heh heh..."
Pisces gave a disdainful look and pointed at the test tube. "This Trickster isn't ordinary Black Iron grade — it's Superior Black Iron grade! Even at a major auction house, this serum would count as a rare treasure, worth no less than three hundred thousand liras. And you'd rarely ever see someone willing to part with one at auction."
Ryan feigned genuine shock at the price. "Th-three hundred thousand liras? That's so expensive!"
(Currency units: 10,000 copper liras = 100 silver nairs = 1 gold crown)
To put that in perspective — even for these bandits, a single ordinary robbery mission only netted one or two ten-thousand liras in reward... and fifty thousand liras was already enough to cover an ordinary commoner's living expenses for an entire year in this world.
And if a mere Superior Black Iron-grade serum was worth this much, what about the Superior Gold-grade Corpse-Stitcher he already had in his possession?
Faintly, Ryan felt he'd stumbled onto a genuine path to wealth in this alternate world.
So this was how lucrative being a Serum Master could be?
"Of course! The better the grade of a gene serum, the more expensive it becomes."
Pleased by Ryan's display of naive shock, Pisces continued in a lofty tone: "Trickster's agility boost even surpasses some ordinary Silver-grade serums, and it opens up a wide range of advancement paths down the line... it's genuinely one of the best possible choices for awakening into the agile assassin class!"
"Oh, my god, a Superior Black Iron-grade serum?! Master Pisces, you're... giving this to me?"
Ryan put on a face of overwhelmed astonishment.
Had he not already obtained Baron Morin's belongings, he might genuinely have coveted this fine Black Iron-grade serum. As the old man claimed, using it to advance would immediately put him well above the other rookies at the same stage.
But in reality, a single phrase kept running through his mind like a scrolling banner: no one offers kindness for nothing — there's always an angle.
For this old man to dangle such generous bait, could it be he'd already figured something out?
Still, this serum couldn't have come at a better time. Since advancing to transcendence involved such dramatic physical changes, this gift would conveniently mask the fact that he'd actually consumed Corpse-Stitcher instead.
"Mm."
Pisces gave Ryan a meaningful glance. "Since I've agreed to take you as my disciple, this serum is naturally yours..."
A sly old fox like him understood well enough that you couldn't catch the wolf without sacrificing the goat.
Having already suspected Ryan was holding onto a major secret, he wanted to offer a taste of sweetness first — to seize the upper hand in this exchange.
Before the old man could even bring it up himself, Ryan seized the opening.
Putting on an expression of overwhelming gratitude, as though he could never repay such kindness, Ryan said directly: "Oh, Master — I need to report to you what happened in the sewer!"
...
At last, they'd arrived at the real matter at hand.
This was exactly the moment Pisces had been waiting for; a barely perceptible gleam flashed through his eyes.
Yet his expression remained calm and composed. "Oh? Go on, then..."
"Well... at the time, in the sewer, Captain Tiger and the others were keeping watch when..."
And with that, Ryan launched into his fabricated tale.
He said that after the explosion went off, he'd somehow been poisoned, and in his hazy, half-conscious state, someone seemed to have injected him with an antidote... and then, whether it was a hallucination or something that had genuinely happened, fragments of memory had surfaced in his mind afterward.
He put on such a convincing performance, the very image of someone from his past life waking up after a blackout drunk, straining desperately to recall the night before.
The whole story amounted to one simple line: some vague impressions remain, but the details are fuzzy.
As for why Baron Morin would do such a thing — who could possibly say?
One lie needs ten more lies to patch it up — the more he explained, the more holes would show. Whereas a simple "I don't quite remember" could be dismissed easily enough.
This was, after all, a world full of transcendent powers — all sorts of bizarre abilities were perfectly ordinary.
Perhaps Morin, dying, had confusedly mistaken him for someone else? Or perhaps something else entirely?
None of it mattered, in the end.
The dead couldn't argue otherwise.
...
"From what this kid's describing, it sounds like some form of 'mental transmission.' Morin was a Serum Master — it wouldn't be unusual for him to have such an ability... but why would he do such a thing..."
Having listened to Ryan's fragmented account, Pisces, sure enough, began filling in a great many details of his own accord.
Though he couldn't quite make sense of Morin's motives, what he cared about far more was the treasure. He pressed further: "You're saying... Baron Morin has a secret property at 88 Maple Street in Steelburn Fort, where he left something behind?"
"Yes!"
Ryan nodded, his expression the picture of sincerity.
A lie that was half-true was always the most convincing.
Because this part wasn't entirely fabricated — Baron Morin's diary really did mention such a property.
Of course, what was actually stored there amounted to nothing of real importance.
In any case, no one but Ryan had ever seen that diary. No one knew what kind of astonishing treasure Morin had actually left behind — a convenient lie would do for now.
Sure enough, hearing this, Pisces murmured the address to himself over and over: "88 Maple Street..."
He'd hoped to learn what the "great secret" actually was directly — instead, this was all he'd gotten.
To verify whether Ryan's account held any truth, he'd need to go confirm it in person, in Steelburn Fort.
But doing so would take at least several days.
Instinct told Pisces this kid in front of him wasn't telling the full truth — that he was still holding something back, at the very least.
But he couldn't very well press him further.
Ryan, however, didn't give the old man the chance to ask more. He continued: "Master, after being poisoned, my memory's a bit scrambled. It felt like Baron Morin told me some other information too, but I can't quite remember it clearly. Maybe after resting a few days, more of it will come back to me..."
He said this, of course, out of fear that the old man might get impatient and decide to silence him for good.
It also planted a subtle hint that Pisces might feel he was being clever in withholding.
Ryan, after all, was someone who'd lived a previous life — he understood clearly enough that only an ongoing exchange of value gave him any reason to stay alive.
"Oh?"
Hearing this, a flicker of amusement passed through Pisces's cloudy eyes as he replied unhurriedly, "Well then, whenever you remember more, be sure to tell me."
After all, he still held one card of his own.
The Zombie Serum antidote — that was his biggest piece of leverage.
The upper hand remained firmly in his own grasp.