Chapter 188: The Liquor within the Mysterious Toad Flask

Just as it was approaching lunchtime, the two of them headed together toward the cafeteria for a meal.

Calling it a cafeteria was a bit of a stretch; in reality, it was simply a small dining hall located inside the Professionals Association.

After all, there weren't many professionals like Wu Jiajie and Wang Chen who needed to live on-site at the Association, so a large-scale mess hall was entirely unnecessary.

A small dining room of fifty or sixty square meters, staffed by three or four chefs and two kitchen assistants, was more than enough.

Even this modest setup was only maintained because Wu Zhige liked to eat a wide variety of cuisines, prompting the hiring of so many cooks.

Otherwise, in Wu Jiajie’s opinion, a single chef would have been plenty, with perhaps a few extra assistants just for the prep work.

After all, there were only a few dozen people at most who ate in the dining hall every day.

The two took their seats in the restaurant, and Wu Jiajie ordered a plate of cold bitter melon for Wang Chen, claiming it was good for clearing heat and removing toxins.

Since Wang Chen had made up that lie on the spot, he had no choice but to grit his teeth and eat it.

After finishing the meal, the two went up to the second floor, parting ways at the open corridor to head toward their respective rooms.

"Well, this is the start of free time; I'm heading back to my room," Wu Jiajie said. "If you plan on going out, remember to call for me."

Wang Chen nodded. "Got it, Brother Jie, though I don't think I have any plans to go out today."

"That's great, it gives me a chance to go back and rest. See you." Wu Jiajie waved and walked toward his room.

Wang Chen returned to his own quarters as well.

The room assigned to him by the Professionals Association was a single suite of about twenty to thirty square meters, complete with an en-suite bathroom.

Its furnishing resembled that of a hotel, as the previous decor had been left completely unchanged.

Wang Chen casually hung his coat on the rack and took a cool shower in the bathroom.

Things were infinitely more convenient now; had he stayed in his old apartment, he would have had to trudge over to a public bathhouse just to wash up.

And then he might have ended up triggering another misunderstanding just like the one with Wu Jiajie.

Thinking of this, Wang Chen felt as though a lifetime had passed. In just over a week, he had already experienced so much.

On the night he was ambushed by the thugs, he had made up his mind to seek help and bring the Public Security Bureau to justice.

Armed with Wu Jiajie's business card, he had come straight to the Professionals Association to negotiate directly with Wu Zhige.

Through Wu Jiajie, Wu Zhige had learned that Wang Chen was not only capable of defeating Platinum-tier professionals while punching above his weight class, but also leveling up at an astonishing speed.

Consequently, he accepted Wang Chen into the fold.

Of course, the reasons weren't nearly that simple, but the deeper motivations were likely known only to Wu Zhige.

Wang Chen only had a vague intuition about it.

The Professionals Association provided Wang Chen with the armed protection he desperately needed, while also promising to dispatch personnel to thoroughly investigate the incident with the thugs.

With his hands freed up, and with Qian Xiaomin's assistance, he began visiting the victims who had been persecuted by the Public Security Bureau.

Although the Professionals Association hadn't offered any direct, tangible help in that specific endeavor, the mere fact that Wu Zhige was willing to take Wang Chen in after learning of his intention to pursue a public lawsuit was already a massive favor, as it represented a form of political backing and endorsement.

Later on, however, Wang Chen found himself backed by the Military Academy as well.

That was something the Wang Chen of a week ago could never have even guessed.

After a brief sigh of emotion, Wang Chen busied himself once more.

The Ring of Life on his finger flashed with a dazzling brilliance, and after a momentary blurring of his vision, when he could see clearly again, he had already arrived within the space of life.

Stepping onto the soft lawn, Wang Chen felt his mood grow calm and serene.

For the past week or so, he had spent a short while in the space of life every single night.

His primary purpose was to test the effects of the brewed liquor refined by the Mysterious Toad Wine Gourd within this realm.

Because he had been busy visiting people and had no time to actively cultivate his strength, and because he refused to waste these nighttime hours, he focused his research on the liquor.

After all, researching liquor that could provide various kinds of buffs could also be considered a form of strengthening oneself.

However, lacking the time to venture into mystic realms to capture fierce beasts for refinement, he had ordered a batch of common fierce beasts through the All-Will Trading House.

Right now, they were all kept within the space of life, separated by individual iron cages. There had been a few dozen of them initially.

Now, very few remained.

That might sound rather terrifying, making Wang Chen seem like some kind of mad scientist slaughtering living creatures every day.

In reality, all he had to do was place a fierce beast into the Mysterious Toad Wine Gourd, wait for the refinement to finish, and then decant the resulting liquor into potion vials.

The entire process didn't even involve seeing blood, let alone any cruelty.

So far, he had successfully brewed several types of liquor that proved immensely helpful to him.

One category consisted of attribute-enhancing liquors. There were actually several varieties, but in Wang Chen's view, their functions were essentially the same, so he grouped them together.

Under normal circumstances, these liquors appeared amber in color, though other hues would intermingle with the main body depending on the specific attribute being enhanced.

For instance, the liquor that boosted strength featured golden, fragment-like colors drifting within the amber liquid.

Meanwhile, the liquor that enhanced constitution shimmered with a vibrant emerald green that exuded an aura of vitality.

Aside from the attribute-enhancing liquors, there were corresponding attribute-reducing liquors.

These were well-suited for ambushing opponents, though Wang Chen was still figuring out the best way to deploy them.

If they could only be administered by slipping them into food and drinks, their utility would undoubtedly be severely restricted.

Then there was the liquor that currently proved most useful to Wang Chen: the kind capable of refreshing his skill cooldowns.

Calling it a "refresh" wasn't entirely accurate; this liquor didn't instantly clear the cooldowns of skills currently showing as cooling down on his professional interface.

Instead, once ingested, it simply prevented skills from entering a cooldown state for a certain period of time, allowing them to be used at will.

Of course, this depended on the frequency of skill usage during that window; if the frequency was too high, the total number of times the skills could be cast would decrease.

Basically, drinking a standard potion vial's worth of this liquor allowed for five seamless, back-to-back uses of skills that normally had a cooldown of about an hour.

Naturally, that was only in theory. If one really pushed things to that extreme limit, the resulting side effects would cause a blinding, splitting headache.

As for how long the side effects would last, Wang Chen wasn't entirely sure; after experiencing that agonizing pain for a brief moment, he had simply had his rebellious trait reverse the side effects.

Even so, it wasn't something he needed to worry about. With the system at his disposal, he had basically said a permanent goodbye to side effects.

Wang Chen had named this particular brew "Medicine Ape Liquor," because it was refined from a fierce beast known as the Snowy Mountain Medicine Ape.

Wang Chen planned to catch a batch of these beasts whenever he had free time and brew up eight or ten gourds' worth of it.

Currently, he only had two gourds of Medicine Ape Liquor left, which, measured in standard potion bottles, amounted to about twenty doses.

Finally, there were various miscellaneous liquors, producing all sorts of strange and varied effects.

Wang Chen estimated that there were likely as many distinct liquor effects as there were species of fierce beasts.

Naturally, while some liquors had subtle differences in their effects, they were broadly similar and not drastically different, meaning those could generally be categorized together.