What witch? The Deadly Pharmacist!

Moreover, for some reason, he inexplicably felt that something was staring intently at him from the depths of the maze. He couldn't see what was in the darkness, but he just had this feeling.

His heart began to pound, and cold sweat beaded on his forehead. He had a premonition that something was about to happen to him!

Without warning, a sharp pain appeared in the palm of his hand holding the gun.

"Hiss!" He frowned, put down the things, and looked at his palm.

"Leon, what's wrong?" Lena rushed over to check on him.

Then, the two saw a purple rune slowly appear in Leon's palm.

As the mark appeared, a strange warm current began to flow slowly through Leon's body.

"What is this?" Leon instinctively wanted to ask. The rune looked very familiar to him.

But at that moment, Lena's eyes widened, and she blurted out before he could: "The Mark of Lord Moirai's Favor?"

Chapter 43 Is this considered a perk for transmigrators?

"What did you say?" Leon looked at Lena in confusion.

“That mark is the mark of Lady Moirai’s favor, symbolizing her blessing. This mark appears on a witch after she becomes one through the ritual!” Lena’s expression was also full of confusion. “Why…why would you receive the witch’s blessing?”

To become a witch, one must go through the altar of Moirai, perform a ritual in a place that connects to the labyrinth, and then drink a potion made with magic essence.

But Leon hadn't done anything except poison a heretic inquisitor with supernatural powers.

Not to mention, Leon is a man.

But Moirai's mark of favor suddenly and inexplicably appeared on Leon.

It was only then that Leon realized why the mark looked so familiar.

The Moirai altar that Lena used to extract magic essence has this seal; it's the seal of the place where magic essence is generated.

Does this mean... I've become a "witch"?

Thinking of this, Leon's expression suddenly changed, and he subconsciously reached down to check his crotch.

"Hey, what are you touching?" Lena stared in disbelief, unsure where to look.

"I'm checking if I've turned into a woman!" Leon said solemnly.

To date, all believers captured by the church who have received the blessing of Moirai have been women, hence the term "witch."

Even if male believers are devout in their faith in Moirai and want to receive blessings through the ritual, they are unlikely to succeed.

Suddenly informed that he had a mark on his body that signified he had been blessed to become a witch, Leon immediately began to suspect that something unusual had happened to him.

This is extremely important!!

"W-How is it?" Lena asked cautiously, glancing at Leon before looking away into the distance.

"It seems to still be there." Leon breathed a sigh of relief.

He hasn't lost anything that should be there, and nothing that shouldn't have appeared has appeared yet. At least he hasn't really turned into a witch or something like that.

What should I call my situation? A demon man? A male wizard?

After calming down, Leon thought for a moment, realized something was amiss, and suspiciously asked Lena for confirmation:

"Are you sure this is the mark of becoming a witch? Do witches have such things?"

This was the first time he had heard of witches having special marks on their bodies. If such things existed, the Inquisition would be able to catch witches with ease.

However, the Inquisition's case register never mentions using the Moirai's Sign of Favor to identify witches.

As far as Leon knows, the Church does not actually have a definitive method to identify witches.

“This mark will disappear in a while, but the blessing will stay with you. However, this is indeed very strange. I have never heard of a man receiving a blessing, nor have I ever heard of a mark appearing on his hand!” Lena looked at Leon with confusion.

"Where would it originally be?" Leon asked casually.

"Well..." Lena hesitated for a moment, then touched her lower abdomen with her hand. "Usually, it's in this spot."

The Seal of Grace appeared here when she herself successfully completed the ceremony.

Her grandmother had told her that after the witch's ritual was successful, a mark would appear in this spot, and then the mark would gradually fade away.

Leon couldn't help but frown. The lower abdomen area... why does this design look so much like a lewd mark?

Thankfully, the shape of this talisman doesn't look too strange...

However, this may be related to the female physiological structure, since the main organs that distinguish women from men are located in that area.

But why is my mark on my hand? In the end, why did I develop this mark in the first place?

With these questions in mind, Leon's gaze unconsciously fell on the petrified corpse of Caron Esso.

Is it because I killed this guy with my own hands? Killed a benefactor of the God of War?

Moirai are hostile to the Origin Gods, and their monsters are also hostile to the Church's Blessers.

He killed a god of war's blessing in the labyrinth and inadvertently offered a sacrifice, so Moirai blessed him.

In fact, heretical sects that worship the Primordial Witch have also made declarations such as "Slay the Witch's enemies in the labyrinth, and the Primordial Witch's grace will be revealed."

However, the ancient files of the Inquisition contain many cases of heretics who believed in Moirai resisting the Imperial Church, poisoning or blowing up the chosen knights, and then putting them in the labyrinth for sacrifice. There were male believers among the participants, but no cases of men being blessed have been recorded.

Leon had also seen it in the church's reading room materials. In the past, the church had always positioned the original witch Moirai as a woman, in order to explain why Moirai's blessings were given to women.

However, some church scholars now claim that it is too arbitrary to forcibly attribute human gender characteristics to these extraordinary beings.

They proposed that Moirai's power could potentially influence the reproduction of living beings, which might make Moirai's magical attributes more compatible with women who can give birth to life.

Correspondingly, the God of War's blessing also has a similar situation. Those who receive the God of War's blessing are mostly male. Although there are records of women receiving the God of War's blessing in history, the success rate of the divine selection ritual is extremely low. Over time, the Church of the God of War has formed a tradition of only selecting male knights and bishops. This may also be because the attributes of the God of War's power are more compatible with men.

This doctrine has actually been heavily criticized, especially by the Church of War, because this assumption undoubtedly places Moirai and the God of War on the same level.

Regardless of whether the theory is correct or not, Leon still couldn't understand why he, as a man, could receive the witch's blessing without going through any rituals.

Could it be because... I am from another world inside myself?

If I had to pinpoint the biggest difference between myself and the rest of the world, it would probably be this.

To receive the blessing of the primordial witch while being a man—could it be that after struggling in this world for so long, I've finally encountered the so-called benefits of being a transmigrator?

No, none of this is certain yet… Leon thought cautiously.

As Lena said, only a few minutes later, the so-called mark of grace that Leon had appeared in his palm disappeared.

Leon didn't actually like the term "Sign of Grace," even though he knew it was just a term commonly used by the Moirai followers.

Blessings are fine, but why the extravagant favors... I didn't kill him for your sake. If you really want any favors, just give me some powerful abilities so I don't have to go through all this trouble to kill him.

Thinking this, Leon turned his attention to the wound on his shoulder and covered it with his hand.

The bullet only passed through the trapezius muscle; the damage wasn't severe, but it was still incredibly painful and bleeding.

"Let me treat your wound." Rena remembered that Leon was still injured, so she turned around and went to the messy studio to find bandages and hemostatic medicine.

"Yeah, thanks," Leon replied casually.

If he really did receive the witch's blessing, would he also be able to control monsters or create magic essence? Would he have some other abilities or something? Leon pondered aimlessly.

After a while, Lena returned with the bandages and suddenly froze on the spot.

She looked Leon up and down, and gradually fear began to show on her face.

“Leon, your blood…” she said cautiously.

"My blood?" Leon looked at his shoulder in confusion.

At some point, the blood seeping from his shoulder turned purplish-red. It wasn't just the newly flowing blood; the red blood that had already seeped out and been absorbed by his clothes or was flowing on his skin also turned this strange color for some reason.

A few drops of blood flowed down his arm, dripping onto the ground with a hissing sound, and instantly turned into purple smoke that billowed out.

Leon was stunned.

What kind of ability have I awakened?

Chapter 44 Business Must Not Stop

Lena watched Leon's purplish-red blood warily, not daring to approach rashly.

This eerie, vibrant color is reminiscent of animal warning colors. Many poisonous creatures, such as insects, frogs, and snakes, often have extremely bright colors and patterns to deter predators.

Leon's blood has a deterrent effect that goes beyond just its visual impact.

Just seeing the flowing purplish-red blood made Lena feel an inexplicable palpitation, even more so than seeing a man-eating beast. Her biological instincts kept sending her danger signals, warning her to stay away from Leon in the present moment.

Even Leon himself could sense the ominous aura emanating from the purplish-red blood, but he felt no fear towards it.

Is this blood poisonous? Is this his blessing?

Leon frowned. This wouldn't do. If his blood was poisonous, then all the bodily fluids in his body would likely be affected.

When you come into contact with someone, not to mention intimate or deep contact, even droplets from talking can accidentally kill someone.

More importantly, if someone sees that I'm bleeding in the future, they will immediately find out that I have a problem!

The moment this thought crossed his mind, the strange warm current flowing through his body suddenly subsided.

At the same time, the purplish-red color in the blood quickly began to fade, returning to its normal dark red.

A few drops of red blood fell to the ground, but did not turn into smoke.

"It turned back?" Lena said in surprise.

As Leon's blood returned to its normal color, the intimidating aura that made people hesitate to approach also disappeared.

Leon was somewhat surprised; the properties of this blood seemed to be controllable by his will!

Could that warm current circulating within him just now be magic? If he could manipulate it with his mind...

He tried to concentrate and find the feeling of that warm current flowing through his body. The warm current started flowing again smoothly, but his blood did not change color immediately.

"Then it turns into poisonous blood..."

Leon tried to focus his attention on the idea.

The circulating magic began to converge towards his wound, and soon the blood turned purplish-red again. Even the blood that had dripped onto the ground and seeped into the rocks changed color and quickly evaporated into purple smoke.

Upon seeing this, Lena instinctively took another step back.

"I can control it!"

Leon was amazed to feel the special power he had gained for the first time in his life.

He thought for a moment, then calmed the magic and returned the blood to normal: "I need to do some more experiments."

He felt it necessary to conduct further animal experiments to determine the effects of the purplish-red blood; surely the power of blessing couldn't just be about changing the color of one's blood.

"You should treat your wound first; we can't let the bleeding keep going," Lena suggested.

“Okay.” Leon looked at Lena, thought for a moment and said, “You put the things there, I’ll take care of my wound myself. For now, we should keep some distance.”

Although he appears to be able to manipulate his newly acquired superhuman power with his mind, he is not yet entirely certain what changes have occurred in his body.

To be on the safe side, it's best to avoid contact as much as possible.

Lena understood what Leon meant, put the things down, and stepped back a short distance.

Leon took off his clothes, cleaned and dried his wound with gauze and water, pressed the wound for a while, and then picked up the small porcelain bottle of medicine, which actually contained slime gel.

He poured the gel directly onto his wound and applied it, then struggled to bandage himself, which was somewhat inconvenient.

Slime gel is actually a very useful wound dressing. Wounds heal faster after being applied, and the risk of infection is greatly reduced.

Even setting aside civilian use, if it were only used in the military, it could greatly enhance the combat effectiveness of the troops. Sometimes Leon really didn't understand why the church would prohibit something with such high practical value.

"What should we do now?" Lena asked Leon in a low voice.

Leon did not answer immediately, but instead stepped forward and carefully examined Caron's body. Caron's body was stiff as a rock, with no signs of life.

Leon searched the body and, besides the sword stuck in the ground and the tobacco from the pipe, he also found some money and a set of keys on Caron.

In addition, he found a gold ring with an emblem on Caron's hand, presumably the Caron family crest. Leon considered it for a moment, then removed the ring from Caron's stiff finger, and also took off the silver church emblem from Caron's uniform.

“Let’s deal with the body later…” Leon said, getting up. “Let’s go back and check first.”