High Hrothgar Monastery, residential area.
Simon handed a healing potion to Dilo, which he had prepared early; after chilling, it was quite fragrant and refreshing.
As the young man drank it in one gulp, his body was enveloped in golden life magic, and his wounds and bruises healed and disappeared little by little.
The preparation of healing potions is actually very simple.
The simplest recipe is blue mountain flower plus wheat.
It only requires simple grinding, distillation, and mixing.
A novice can independently make it after practicing for some time.
Therefore, it is not a very precious potion; even someone fishing by the roadside might know how to make it.
Everything has magic, and alchemy is a magical knowledge that stimulates, refines, and combines the magic properties of things to produce spell-like effects.
Broadly speaking, alchemy is not just about potions, but due to classification, enchanting and forging magical equipment have been separated.
So now, when people mention alchemy, they refer to alchemical potions.
Due to the lack of many medicinal ingredients, Simon could not make the medicinal wine essential for external martial arts practice.
Healing potions are an excellent substitute.
Besides this, there is another item that can be used as a training essential—the oil for External Armor.
Of course, it's not real oil, but a magic liquid, also a type of alchemical potion, used to power the enchantment arrays of the External Armor.
Applying the magic liquid all over the body and then using massage to accelerate absorption can make the skin tough and the muscles firm, which can improve spell resistance and lay a foundation for future enchanted tattoos.
Dilo, out of shyness, was unwilling to let Simon massage him, so the Troll set up a large iron pot, added water, placed a bathtub, threw the naked Dilo in, poured in water, and added the magic liquid.
He lit a fire with wood for a heated water bath.
The young man squealed from the heat, flailing in the water like a drowning rat.
The Troll kept pushing Dilo back into the water like playing whack-a-mole.
In fact, the water temperature was not high; firstly, the altitude here is extremely high, and secondly, the boiling point of the magic liquid is lower than pure water, so the water temperature in the wooden tub was about sixty-three degrees Celsius.
With the strong physique of a Nord, soaking for twenty minutes would not be a problem.
After the Dragon Soul Jonas was subdued, Simon still did not interrupt Dilo's training.
After a day, the young man was exhausted to death, and with the evening's torment, he was on the verge of collapsing.
Lying on the stone bed, hard enough to kill someone, Dilo emptied his mind.
It was dim and cold here, but at least there was no wind and snow.
Jonas was still outside, tied to a stake, for a whole day.
"Mr. Baishan, I want to go see Jona."
Simon shook his head, "You can't help him; he'll be fine."
"It's so cold outside, he's just a child, and a Breton..."
"He needs to be close to death to have a chance of recovery."
"Why?!" Dilo was both shocked and angered by this inhumane answer.
Simon was about to answer but suddenly couldn't help but cough a few times.
His throat was sore and itchy; it was because he had used the Shout too hastily, injuring his body.
He quickly closed his mouth and breathed slowly for a while.
After using a Healing Spell, he felt much better, but he was not fully recovered.
This kind of injury was not common; the residual power of the Word of Power was constantly damaging his vocal cords and lungs, requiring a good period of recuperation.
"Are you alright?"
Simon waved his hand, sighing with a hint of sorrow, "Boy, you still don't understand Jonas's current state.
I'll give you a general idea, just listen, and then go to sleep obediently.
You still have to practice your cultivation every day."
"...Yes."
"Do you know what the most terrifying thing about Dragons is?"
It's not their Shouts, nor their sharp claws and teeth, but that they never truly die."
"Really? That amazing?" Dilo was surprised.
Although stories of Ancient Nord heroes fighting Dragons have always been passed down, they are too ancient, and few people truly go back to investigate the details.
"For a Dragon, they have never had the concept of death.
Even if you defeat them, for them, it's just a nap.
"Once they are not afraid of death, their attitude towards things becomes very brutal.
Dragons are arrogant, soaring through the sky, enslaving the earth—how magnificent!
"However, death is fair after all, and they also have a day to die.
Ancient Nord heroes created a Shout called 'Dragon Break,' using their hatred for Dragons as will, to make them experience the pain of death.
It was then that they realized they were not fearless.
What they feared most was the death they had always ignored!"
"So what does this have to do with Jona?"
"He is Dragonborn; a true Dragon hides in his heart.
Confined within the mortal obsession with life and death, what can make him afraid and submit is death.
In the face of such fear, his courage is weak and fragile.
Watch, he will not let himself die, nor will he let Jonas die."
...
It was very hot in the winery.
Jonas stood before a large copper still, carefully watching the flames rise in the combustion chamber, hitting the top again and again, being suppressed and dispersed, like a plate of fire, supporting the large liquid chamber.
"Sometimes, I wonder what fire is.
Does it have mass?
It moves, just like water, but water and fire are so different, even unable to coexist—hey, you tell me, why do opposite things exhibit similar traits?"
He didn't speak; now it was his turn to speak.
The two people, originally incompatible like fire and water, had their personalities reversed.
He always loved to say whimsical things, showing curiosity about natural phenomena.
Many of them made sense, many were also absurd.
In his words, the world was wonderful, like a play, with all the preparations backstage, and what was presented operated on unseen trajectories.
Why fire rises, why rain falls, the reproduction of animals, the rise and fall of cities, the brewing and bottling of a bottle of wine—these all had their order.
He liked natural order, not man-made order.
Among the Nine Divines, his favorite was Julianos, the God of Wisdom and Logic.
However, he did not believe that the logic of the world was created by this Divine; he regarded Julianos as the embodiment of the world's rationality and logic.
If even gods had no right to comment on the world's rationality, then mortal order was even more shallow and ridiculous.
Many novel ideas, some from childhood thoughts, some from his wandering days, and some from his eccentricities at the academy.
He disdained these things.
"Sometimes I wonder when I will die," he continued to chatter.
At this moment, Jonas in his memory began to eat dinner.
The winery only provided two meals a day for a laborer like him: a piece of moldy, sour bran bread and a large bowl of cloudy, rancid, bitter, and salty coarse salt potato soup.
The slave trader had sold him cheaply to the winery owner.
Although legally he was still a free man, in reality, he was a prisoner, even worse than a prisoner, because such a life had no end; only death could relieve his suffering.
Many older slave laborers said that when he grew up and gained strength, he would get better food.
What they didn't say was more strenuous work.
This was also a kind of order.
If evaluated by people who were not involved, they might ignore the sorrowful faces of the slaves and even praise the slave owner for being particularly thrifty.
Jonas just didn't like this kind of order.
He suddenly said, "Stop talking."
He didn't care, "Death is not something shameful; it's like a festival, it always comes, and it brings with it the suddenness of surprise."
"Enough! Stop talking!" He shouted.
Death, death, death—he always tried his best to avoid this word, but he deliberately went against it, talking extensively about his views on death, like a wise man who had seen through obsession.
"What the hell do you know?! The lives of mortals, like ants, are of course nothing to care about!"
He laughed, "So Father said, some people are born more equal.
Is a Dragon's life a life, and a human's life not?"
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