What witch? The Deadly Pharmacist!

But to Lena, this was utterly baffling.

If I were caught by the Inquisition, wouldn't that mean I'd be completely finished?

What she should be trained for is how to avoid being caught by the church, rather than how to struggle desperately after being caught.

“You don’t understand the process of the trial of heretics. Arresting you doesn’t mean you’ve been convicted; it just means you’re a suspect,” Leon said, pointing at Lena.

"Once it falls into your hands, you can do whatever you want with it. You can just take some seized magic elements and say you found them here, then grab my hand and make me sign a document on a piece of paper, and you'll be convicted, right?" Lena muttered.

“That was two hundred years ago.” Leon shook his head. “The church has undergone many reforms since then, and the trial process is now quite sophisticated. For serious crimes like receiving a witch’s blessing, decisive evidence is required.”

"Conclusive evidence?" Lena asked, sounding a little confused.

Leon held up two fingers and began to explain: "There are mainly two types: confessions made by the parties in court, or physical evidence like the altar of Moirai, which only witches would possess. Simply finding magic essence is useless, as any smuggler who passes it on may possess magic essence."

"What about the confessions? You arrest people and torture them, you can't just make them confess to whatever you want, can you?" Lena was still a little skeptical.

“Now, torture requires approval from above and is only permitted if certain conditions are met. For example, there must be other evidence to prove that you are highly suspected, or you must be involved in other serious cases that require expedited processing. Otherwise, if the court finds during the examination of the injuries that the Inquisition has used torture under circumstances that do not meet these conditions, the confession may be deemed invalid in court,” Leon said.

Lena was quite surprised to hear this, as it was completely different from the church she knew. She had always thought that the Inquisition was a violent and totalitarian place where, once someone was targeted, even if they weren't a witch, they would be beaten into becoming one, let alone someone like her who was a real witch.

"So now you know the significance of my special training for you, right? In fact, the church doesn't have a way to determine whether someone is a witch with 100% certainty. They can only convict you based on physical evidence and your own confession."

When we can't find physical evidence, we'll try every means to make you confess. We'll use a lot of rhetoric, such as telling you that we've caught you red-handed and that someone else has implicated you, so that you'll be treated leniently if you confess.

We will also use non-violent methods, such as sleep deprivation and psychological pressure, but you must persevere. The stronger the pressure the inquisitors exert on you during interrogation, the more it indicates that they lack conclusive physical evidence and must obtain your confession.

According to church regulations, if no new evidence is submitted, the longest period of detention for arrest and questioning cannot exceed thirty days. Detention beyond this period will also cause procedural problems. Once you survive thirty days, the Inquisition will be temporarily unable to do anything to you.

"So you have to remember, you can't be like I was when I first met you, where I scared you a little and you broke down and answered every question I asked," Leon explained.

“This is different from what I imagined. Is there really so many restrictions on the church investigating this?” Lena seemed quite surprised.

“I think this might be related to the prevalence of magic essence trading. Those with power and influence want to prolong their lives the most. Magic essence is so expensive, and they are the main customers of magic essence. So naturally they would want to restrict the church’s power to investigate magic essence trading. Every year, there are related proposals submitted to the capital. Perhaps there are people in the church like Karon who are related to illegal trading. It’s not surprising that the church is reforming for this reason,” Leon said.

“But if I’m under control, it’s only a matter of time before they find evidence in my house, right?” Lena said after thinking for a moment.

“I’ll figure something out; that’s the point of your cooperation with me. Similarly, if I suddenly become unreachable, you’ll have to find a way to destroy the evidence,” Leon said.

"Does that mean if we're all caught together, we're definitely doomed?" Lena asked casually.

"More or less, but..." Leon hesitated for a moment.

"But what?"

“But if it really comes to that, maybe we can save one person,” Leon said.

"How can we protect it?" Lena frowned.

Even if she didn't know much about the law, she could understand that they had sold so much magic essence and monster materials, and killed at least two people, one of whom was the head of the Inquisition. That was more than enough to send both of them to the stake and burn them at the stake.

“At that point, you can say that I coerced you into doing it, and if I cooperate with you, you should have a chance to get a lighter sentence. Although as a witch, you will probably have to spend the rest of your life under the supervision of the church, that should be better than being burned at the stake,” Leon said, looking at Lena.

“You…” Lena paused for a moment, then narrowed her eyes suspiciously, “You would be so kind?”

“I was prepared for this when I started this business. It’s unrealistic to pin all the blame on you if I’m found guilty of apostasy, but you have the opportunity. There’s no need for you to die with me. One death sentence or two makes no difference to me. This is the right thing to do for us. Since I dragged you into this mess, it’s only right that you take some responsibility at that time,” Leon said calmly.

Lena stared at Leon's face for a while before snapping out of her daze and looking away: "You're making it sound nice now, but maybe when you were arrested alone, you'd be eager to implicate me to make amends!"

“The chances of me getting caught are still lower than yours. You should think about how you should deal with this.” Leon said, putting his mask back on. “Let’s do it again. To make you take it more seriously, we’ll add some punishment this time.”

"W-what are you going to do?" Lena immediately became alert, raising her hands to protect herself. "I'm warning you, don't do anything weird. If you dare touch me, I'll get angry!"

Just hearing Leon mention the so-called punishment made her mind start to conjure up images that made her face burn.

“I haven’t said anything yet, but punishment is only effective when it involves things you hate. Since you’ve made this suggestion, we can give it a try.” Leon deliberately teased the other party.

"I didn't! No, absolutely not! Hey, you, you're joking, right?" Lena was both angry and amused. She got up to try to escape, but her hands were still firmly handcuffed to the table.

“If you don’t want to be punished, then be serious. We’re starting over now.” Leon said, putting the mask on his smiling face.

Chapter 59 Earning a Million Annually

Some time later, at a post station in the eastern part of Hamel, Leon, disguised, dismounted from a carriage from outside town carrying a large trunk and walked down a street to a nearby tavern.

The pub was quiet in the morning; there were no other customers, and the bartender was wiping glasses behind the counter.

"Do you have any York Estate wines here?" Leon asked as he sat down at the counter.

"White wine or red wine?" the bartender asked casually.

“Gin, a little aged,” Leon replied.

"I'll serve it to you right away."

The bartender turned around, picked up a small tin flask, poured him a small half-glass of liquor, and pushed it towards him.

Leon, who hadn't been drinking, asked, "A friend invited me here today. He said he'd wait for me in room six. Has he arrived yet?"

"It's already here. Please go up the stairs to the second floor and walk along the corridor to find it," the bartender explained.

Seeing that there were no other guests around, Leon didn't touch the glass of wine and simply carried his suitcase upstairs.

He quickly found room number six, carefully opened the door and went inside. The room was furnished like a reception room, with two long benches on either side of the coffee table, a table and spare chairs against the wall, and a decorative statue against the wall.

Someone was already waiting for Leon inside. When he saw Leon come in, he raised his hand and waved, "You're here pretty early."

“Father Auden?” Leon frowned slightly, picked up his suitcase, and sat down opposite the priest.

Father Auden was sitting on a bench inside, and behind him stood a gang member whom Leon had never seen before.

After the old owner of the recycling shop died, Potter had the shop emptied and then set up a new transaction location with Leon, which was this tavern, one of Potter's properties.

“You seem quite surprised,” Father Auden greeted him.

“I just didn’t expect you to be the one who was supposed to meet me,” Leon replied, placing the box on the coffee table.

“I’m in charge of the accounts under Potter, and I also know how to appraise things, so I’m undoubtedly the most suitable person to come.” Father Auden’s gaze was fixed on the box. “Let’s take a look at the goods first.”

Leon opened the box, inside were the monster materials for this shipment, as well as magic essence packaged in two test tubes, one pale red and the other a faint pale blue.

“This one is around 78% pure, 46 carats, and is from our previous stock. This one is the same as the last sample, with a purity close to 85% and 39 carats,” Leon explained.

The slime is now used to process Karon's corpse, and the purity of the extracted magic essence is significantly higher than that of the headhunter rabbit. Now, he and Lena basically process them separately.

“Yes, we need to check it.” Father Auden finished speaking and raised one hand to make a gesture.

The gang members then took out a prepared balance scale, brought over the two test tubes, and weighed them in front of the two men. The weights matched what Leon had said.

The priest then took out two tubes of reagents, dipped a glass rod into the magic essence on both sides, mixed it with the reagents, and tested the purity by colorimetry. He used the same testing method as Lena, and seemed more professional than the old shopkeeper Roddy.

“The goods are fine,” Father Auden replied.

“Where is what I want?” Leon asked.

Father Auden gestured to the people beside him, and a gang member took out a sealed jar containing a dark red liquid and weighed it on a scale for Leon.

“The purchase price for 78% purity is 35,000 per gram, and for high purity it is 50,000 per gram. Then add these materials, and deduct the refined wolf blood you want, hmm…” Father Auden wrote quickly on the ledger and soon got the result, “715,000 pfennigs.”

Father Auden handed his calculations to Leon for confirmation, and Leon looked at them for a while before checking them.

After the old shop owner was gone, he supplied Porter directly, eliminating the middleman's profit margin. In addition, the increased purity led to higher profits, and this time their profits from the shipment were almost double that of the first half of the year.

"What denomination of gold certificates do you want?" Father Auden asked, picking up a locked box and opening it.

“The face value doesn’t matter, as long as the source is safe,” Leon replied.

“There’s no safe money here until it’s clean.” Father Auden began counting the gold certificates and coins. “You’ve earned almost a million this year, haven’t you? It’ll take some effort to clean up such a large sum of money. You’d better hurry.”

"I'll consider it," Leon replied casually, taking the money Father Auden gave him and counting it.

Oden packed the items and money back into the box, locked it, and had the gangsters around him take it and keep it safe.

Only Father Auden and Leon remained in the room. Then Father Auden spoke: "You sold less than I expected."

"We've encountered quite a few unexpected events this year, so achieving this level of transaction volume is already quite good," Leon replied.

Leon had originally planned to retain some monsters to ensure production scale for next year, but the changes within the Inquisition and Father Auden's reminder made him feel the potential dangers.

Raising monsters in the labyrinth shortens their breeding cycle, resulting in a higher yield than Leon had anticipated. Moreover, monsters can actually be bought back through various channels.

After careful consideration, he decided to slaughter most of the adult monsters before winter to obtain magic essence, accumulating nearly eighteen grams, which he then sold during this batch of transactions.

The previous transactions, both large and small, with the old shop owner Roddy, plus this direct transaction with Mr. Griffin, and the 100,000 samples sold last time, brought their total transaction volume this year to just over one million pfennigs, far exceeding Leon's own expectations.

With this split between Lena and Leon, they each had over 500,000. Leon had also previously robbed the old shop owner, Roddy, of some money. Combined with the money he already had, he now had 780,000 in savings.

Kalon's petrified corpse has been crushed by Leon. After petrification, the corpse unexpectedly became able to be stored for a long time, which means that feeding it to slimes in batches should be able to continuously produce 85% high-purity magic essence for quite some time.

If Leon continues to make deals with Mr. Griffin for the next two years, he should be able to achieve his small goal.

“I told you you’d better sell as much as possible; frankly, every transaction now could be the last,” Father Auden said slowly. “The Inquisition has a new director and deputy director, hasn’t it?”

"You're quite well-informed," Leon commented.

“At my age, even if I don’t have any status, I still have my own connections in the church, so I should have some information. However, I don’t know who they sent to take up the post. Let’s exchange some information. Maybe I’ve heard of those two people before,” Father Auden said to Leon.

After thinking for a moment, Leon told Father Auden about the matter involving Director Aaron and Bishop Beckett.

“Bishop Beckett, Bishop Beckett of the Church of War?” Father Auden pondered for a moment.

"You know him?" Leon asked.

“I don’t know him personally, but he was investigated internally a few years ago by an old friend of mine at the Disciplinary Society. I have a vague recollection of him,” Father Auden said.

"An internal investigation revealed that he violated church rules?" Leon asked.

"It was just a suspicion, and in the end nothing was found. That doesn't prove anything. Caron was actually investigated once, and I myself was investigated five times, and nothing was found. As long as you have connections, many things can be solved."

"There are many factions within the four major churches, and impeachments between them are commonplace. The Discipline Council has become numb to dealing with this kind of work." Father Auden said casually.

“But you and Caron really have a problem, okay?” Leon replied.

From this perspective, Bishop Beckett may not have been a clean person either.

“The biggest problem now is that young master you mentioned, the one surnamed Diaz, hmph, Diaz.” Father Auden suddenly shook his head with a smile.

"You also have some information about this Aaron Diaz?"

"No, that's the problem. For this young man to climb to this position without any notable achievements, he must come from a powerful family. I know most of the powerful families in the empire, except for the newly emerging nobles in the pioneering territories, and none of them have the surname Diaz." Father Auden concluded with certainty, "It's a fake name, and at least the surname is very likely fake."

"A third-tier knight using a pseudonym in the church? Is that even possible?" Leon was a little skeptical.

“If he has a powerful background and sufficient reasons, such as being the illegitimate son of some important figure, there are many possibilities. But if such a person is transferred here at this time, there is only one possibility: it's for personal gain. Caron's disappearance is a major case, and the people behind him will pour resources into helping him solve the case,” Father Auden said.

"So, you're advising me to stop selling for now?" Leon asked.

“You’ve already shipped your last batch of goods this year, and we won’t be doing any more business next year. The problem lies with Porter,” the priest said.

"What's up with him?"

“I actually advised him not to rush into selling your goods, so as not to arouse the suspicion of the church and the count’s power. I suggested he lay low for a while, but he wouldn’t listen. He’s already used your two-gram sample to make potions and is selling them to customers.” The priest shook his head and sighed. “He’s too eager to compete with the count. You shouldn’t have incited him.”

“I didn’t come here today to listen to your complaints, and I can’t help you persuade him,” Leon said.

“Porter isn’t my first employer. To be honest, based on my assessment of him, his recklessness in this situation could easily lead to trouble. If something goes wrong with his operations, we could easily be investigated as well. You’d better leave yourself some way out,” Father Auden said earnestly.

"Do you want me to survive in his place and continue being your client?" Leon asked.

“At least you look a little more likely to survive than Porter,” Father Oden remarked.

"Thank you for your concern. The transaction is complete, I should be going now." Leon stood up to take his leave.

"Wait a moment, here's the key." Father Auden handed Leon a key.

“What is this?” Leon asked.

“I remember you rented a house from the Hershey family, right? This is the empty house next door to them. The owner there owed money to Potter Pawnshop and the house was seized. Now the house has changed hands several times and is no longer nominally part of Potter's assets, but it is for our use. It's quite suitable for hiding stolen goods and evidence, or as a meeting place. This should be more convenient for you,” Father Auden explained.

"Okay, thanks."

Leon didn't quite trust the other party and didn't intend to use the empty house, but he still accepted the key for the time being.

Chapter 60 Would you like to be friends with the Earl?

Southportshire, Castells, Baron Turner’s House.

The elderly Baron Turner sat in his living room, his hands on his cane, looking at Bishop Beckett sitting opposite him with displeasure.

“Your Excellency, now that we’ve come this far, please tell me directly,” Bishop Beckett said calmly. “You did indeed regularly purchase medicine from ‘Mr. Griffin,’ did you?”