Chapter 183: Two More Things to Do in Toussaint
After staying at Corvo Bianco vineyard for a few days, Lynn, Geralt, and Regis left the estate.
While the identity of "Baron Brandon" couldn't be used to oppress unruly commoners, it could actually be used for many things. For example, investment.
His grand future plan required significant funding, so it naturally couldn't be sustained by this small piece of land alone.
Now that affairs in Toussaint were mostly handled, his next step was to establish his own merchant guild in Novigrad after returning to the free city. At that time, he could leverage his identity as Baron Brandon of Toussaint.
The difficulty of establishing a merchant guild as a commoner versus a noble was vastly different. As a noble, he would naturally avoid many troubles.
Although Toussaint's nobility belonged to the South, they wouldn't be excluded by Northern nobles.
On the contrary, Northern nobles viewed Southern nobles as much closer than their own common folk. Even if the Northern Wars were to break out in the future, it wouldn't matter.
Not to mention that Toussaint was a neutral country in all three Northern Wars, even Nilfgaardian merchants weren't significantly affected by the Northern Wars.
In fact, after the First Northern War, cheap Nilfgaardian goods flowed in through the ports of Mahakam, Verden, Brugge, and Cidar.
Since Northern handicrafts were generally inferior to Nilfgaard's, and they couldn't drastically cut labor costs like Nilfgaard, too many cheap Nilfgaardian imports would severely cripple their domestic handicrafts. \
The Northern kings couldn't close their borders either, as doing so would be opposed by merchants engaged in import and export trade. Merchants only cared about business, not politics. Therefore, his Toussaint noble identity would only bring him benefits with virtually no drawbacks.
Now, he had only two more things to do in Toussaint.
The first was to retrieve the Grandmaster gear diagrams of three witcher schools that had been lost in Toussaint for various reasons.
The second, closely related to witchers, was the crucial key to whether witchers could shed the shame of being "vulnerable to pitchforks" – the method of secondary mutation.
Once these were done, Lynn would have no reason to linger in Toussaint and could return to the North. As the saying goes, eat one bite at a time, and walk one step at a time. Things also had to be done one by one.
However, he didn't want to do all the grunt work of collecting all three schools' Grandmaster gear diagrams by himself. Therefore, he came to a campsite outside Beauclair and met with the long-awaiting Letho, and two other Viper School witchers, Auckes and Serrit.
After Lynn and Letho had reached an agreement previously, Letho had used the Viper School's unique communication method to contact Auckes and Serrit, who had escaped the Nilfgaardian Empire with him and come to Toussaint.
The trio's bond was as strong as that of the Wolf School's Geralt, Lambert, and Eskel. \
So even though Auckes and Serrit found the whole idea a bit unreliable—after all, in their decades of witcher life, they had never seen a witcher who lived comfortably, let alone a witcher employer—they chose to stay out of trust in Letho.
They chose to camp in the wilderness because staying in an inn was simply too expensive. Thus, the three had been camping outdoors all this time.
The two didn't differ much from their appearance in The Witcher 2, and Lynn recognized them at a glance. After exchanging greetings, Lynn took out two bags, one large and one small, that he had prepared from his magic-imbued leather pouch. He tossed them over.
The smaller one contained nine hundred orens. The larger one contained some higher mutagens and alchemical bombs that Lynn had crafted himself.
"This is your first month's salary, and some tools you'll find useful."
"Next, the first thing I need you to do for me is to go to the three locations I'm about to tell you and retrieve the lost witcher Grandmaster gear diagrams there."
Although the Viper School wasn't as emotionally deficient as the Bear School, nor as emotionally rich as the Wolf School, their facial muscles generally didn't fluctuate like those of normal people.
However, upon hearing Lynn's words, all three showed astonishment: "Grandmaster gear diagrams, in Toussaint? How do you know?"
Grandmaster gear diagrams, like the Trial of the Grasses formula, were the most cherished treasures of every witcher school.
For example, the Viper School's Grandmaster gear diagrams and the Trial of the Grasses formula were on Letho's person. How could a school's Grandmaster gear diagrams possibly be lost in Toussaint? Disbelief was etched across their faces.
But Lynn was their employer and had paid them, so the trio still went to the locations Lynn had specified. With Letho and the two others, plus Lynn's sponsored higher mutagens and alchemical bombs, and having been informed of the potential risks they might encounter... this first task was as good as done.
Next, Lynn himself could directly proceed to the second task: bringing Geralt with him to find the method for secondary mutation for witchers.
It's well-known that after a witcher apprentice undergoes the Trial of the Grasses, their body's mutation is complete. Skills can be practiced, experience can be accumulated, knowledge can be enriched, and connections can be expanded.
But physical growth almost stagnates, unable to progress further. Due to the different mutagens used in the Trial of the Grasses, the mutation direction and effects of witchers from different schools also vary.
For example, the Cat School almost loses the ability to use Signs, replaced by superior speed compared to other schools.
The Bear School is more adapted to wearing heavy armor; heavy armor is almost no burden to them, and they prefer to shatter enemies directly with powerful, heavy attacks.
The Griffin School are masters of using Signs; witchers from other schools might only be able to cast a few Signs in a battle, and their power is generally limited... but the Griffin School's Sign stamina and power have clear advantages.
The Viper School is similar to the Cat School, but unlike the Cat School, which solely emphasizes "speed is everything," the Viper School has made significant achievements in the field of poisons.
They have even developed different poisons for different targets. Viper School witchers usually coat their swords with corresponding blade oils and their unique poisons. If an opponent is even slightly grazed by their sword in combat, it's essentially the start of a death countdown.
It is these different mutagens that lead to the distinct witchers of different schools. And mutagens with varying effects can also lead to differences in strength among witchers within the same school, even if they received identical training. For example, among the new generation of Wolf School witchers, Geralt's strength surpasses Eskel's, while Lambert is the weakest.
This is because Vesemir used different mutagens when preparing their Trial of the Grasses concoctions.
And when the Trial of the Grasses is complete and the mutation finishes, a witcher's body enters a state of stagnation. For approximately the next one hundred years, most witchers maintain a physical and mental state equivalent to that of an eighteen to forty-year-old.
Secondary mutation, as the name suggests, is the process of breaking this bodily stagnation and inducing another mutation.
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