Immortality Starts With Selling Pills

Chapter 30: Chapter 30: The Cripple Mad Alchemist

”I am back.” Derrick announced himself as he walked in through the front door. Rebecca was sitting in the hall with Cassie, talking.

Hearing him, they looked over at him and welcomed him back.

”Is that what you bought?” Cassie glanced up from the sofa at the rusty antiquity in his hands. This was the first time she had seen something like this.

The cauldron consisted of two portions.

First there was a lid with a broken handle and some words, openings carved on top of it.

”Is this for letting out the steam or something?” Rebecca seemed more interested in the thing than Cassie.

Derrick had not even realised when she had gotten up from the sofa and rushed to his side.

Standing close to him, she looked over him and carefully admired the antiquity.

”Looks a bit creepy, doesn’t it?” Cassie said evenly as she stared at the main body of the cauldron itself, which was also the second part.

It had a wide opening and bitch-black surface with several cuts and dents all over it. But what Cassandra was referring to were the horrifying, human-like faces etched on four sides of the cauldron.

Each face had a different expression. But the one facing Cassie was screaming in agony, and somehow it made her uncomfortable.

It was like the eyes of the face were staring directly at her.

Cassie ignored the feeling and looked away, no longer looking at the thing.

”If you bring that thing close to me, I will throw you out of the room and you can sleep on the sofa.”

Derrick and Rebecca looked at her in confusion. If Derrick had really been her brother, he would have taken the cauldron close to her despite what she had said.

To a sibling, those words were like an invitation for some teasing.

But he did not think much of it.

”It does seem a bit... unorthodox.” Rebecca looked at the different faces and nodded solemnly before asking, ”Are you sure it is alright to keep something like this in our house?”

”Despite what it looks like, I don’t sense anything particularly evil from it. So I guess it is alright.” Derrick activated his newly refreshed all-seeing eyes once more just to be sure.

”I will go to my room and study it some more and then go to sleep.”

Rebecca watched Derrick walk away with the cauldron and reminded him from behind, ”Don’t forget to fill your water bottle if it’s empty.”

”Cassie, what about you? When are you going to sleep?” She turned to look at her daughter, who did not seem very interested in going back to her room any time soon.

”I will watch and read some books before going inside. You should go to sleep; I will be fine.” Cassie replied without looking up from her phone.

”Don’t stay up too long; you have to get up for school early.” Rebecca sighed but decided to let her stay up anyway.

How could she not understand her daughter? Ever since she was little, Cassandra has been scared of horror movies and anything related to them.

The way she reacted to the cauldron made it obvious why she was not going back inside.

If it had not been for that thing, she would have followed Derrick like a shadow like she always did.

Rebecca locked the doors on the ground floor and shut all the windows before she enabled the security interface covering the whole house.

Although it might seem extravagant, things like these usually came with every house in the neighbourhood.

As for the high-end houses, they had even better security. Metal reinforced doors and walls. Emergency laser shields that deployed in case of a breakout and whatnot.

”Goodnight, Cassie.” Once she was done with the security, Rebecca walked up the stairs while winking playfully at her daughter.

Seeing that cheerful smile on Rebecca’s face made Cassie’s lips curl upwards. ”Goodnight, Mama.”

...

The moment he entered the room, Derrick placed his feet in the shoe cleaner, which erased every speck of dirt or stain from the white sneakers.

Once they were thoroughly cleaned, he placed them in the shoe rack and then finally jumped into the bed and started inspecting the cauldron he had bought.

The cuts on the top made no sense. They looked like they had been formed from the metal erosion.

He focused on the main body instead.

The four faces.

One was screaming in agony. The same one Cassie saw.

The second one was laughing in delight. It was not a hearty laugh but a sadistic one.

The third was the sobbing woman. She had no deep emotions on her face. Just her eyes were closed, and tears were sliding down.

The last one was a child. Just a joyful child laughing heartily.

”I don’t understand a thing.” Derrick looked at the faces over and over again, but it did not make sense to him at all. ”How can I check the hidden abilities of this cauldron like this?”

”System, do you have any hint for me?”

[...]

[The function is currently unavailable. Please proceed to the unlocked features of the system and the current abilities of the Host.]

”Currently, huh? Thanks for trying anyway.” Derrick proceeded to look down and turned the cauldron upside down.

The whole thing was the size of a basketball. It might have weighed around 50 kg, and yet Derrick was moving it around like it was light as a ball.

The Property Of The Crippled Mad Alchemist.

Who names themselves like that?

The words were so faded that they were almost unrecognisable, but once Derrick activated his all-seeing eyes, he could read them cleanly.

As for how he knew to activate the ability, it was intuition.

”Either the man who owned this was a weirdo or a legend.” Derrick toyed around with the thing for a while before shoving it under his bed once he learned nothing more about it.

He walked up to the study table and fired up his screen.

”What are you doing?” It had not been five minutes since he sat down; the door to his room opened, and Cassie peeked in.

Once she saw or did not see what she was looking for, she walked inside and leant over Derrick’s back to see him working on a new Chapter.

”I will finish 5 Chapters, upload three and then go to sleep.” Derrick replied without looking away from the screen. Cassie, seeing his serious and focused side profile, let herself smile before leaning in and wrapping her arms around his neck.

”What happened?” Derrick asked, a little surprised by the sudden closeness.

”Nothing. Goodnight, Derrick. *Muah*.”

Feeling the wetness on his cheeks, Derrick let out a strained sigh and replied, ”Good night.”

After two hours, once he was done with the Chapters, Derrick opened a tap that he had been working on for a while.

It had lists of all the affordable Gyms he had found online. All that was left now was for him to go there and check them out for himself.

I can start taking pills again tomorrow. With the equipment of the Gym, I can completely absorb the leftover energy of the pill.

With that thought in mind, Derrick closed the Pc and went to bed. Even when he closed his eyes, he found it hard to sleep with the exciting day that was waiting ahead for him.