"Who's there?"
In Jinx's secret base, Jinx was wearing goggles and welding modifications onto Blitzcrank, adding metal plates to cover his exposed wiring, when she heard footsteps behind her.
"Uh, Van? It's late. Did you need—"
Jinx lifted her goggles and greeted Van casually, only to suddenly remember something. She immediately looked away with a guilty expression.
"What did Jayce mean?"
"What did Jayce mean about what?"
"He said he sensed a trace of Hextech from Blitzcrank. Care to explain?"
"What am I supposed to explain? Ha! You'd rather believe an outsider?"
"Fine. Then look me in the eye."
Jinx turned her head and met Van's eyes for one second before quickly looking away.
"There. I looked."
"Powder…"
Van took a deep breath and looked up at Blitzcrank, who was tilting his head in confusion.
"If you won't tell me the truth, then I'll have to open Blitzcrank up myself and take a look."
"No!"
Jinx hurriedly hugged Blitzcrank's big energy-storing belly and looked at Van warily.
"You'll kill him!"
"Kill him? What do you mean?"
"That thing gave Blitzcrank life! Do you understand? Blitzcrank is like a person now. He can think!"
"So you admit you do have a Hex crystal?"
"I…"
Jinx curled her lip, then crouched off to the side with her legs hugged to her chest.
"Playing tricks won't work, Powder. You… Why would you mess around with something that dangerous? You didn't even tell me!"
"I was scared you'd get mad if you knew…"
"You knew I'd get mad, and you still used that thing!"
Van slapped Blitzcrank's big belly, making the hard metal shell ring with dull clangs.
"Do you have any idea how dangerous this is? And you still dared to experiment with it so recklessly? What if something went wrong?!"
"Then the world would have one less pest. One less person making you angry. You'd finally have some peace…"
"…"
Hearing that, Van looked at Jinx as she curled into a ball with her face turned away from him, and for a moment, he did not know what to say.
"I'm just worried about you, Powder…"
Van walked over and gently placed a hand on her smooth shoulder.
"I know… But I wasn't trying to make you angry. So why do you have to yell at me…"
Jinx buried her face between her knees. Soft sobs came from her, and Van's heart tightened. He quickly crouched down to comfort her.
"All right, all right. It's okay. I'm not angry, Powder. You—"
Jinx suddenly turned and threw herself into Van's arms, knocking him to the ground.
"Hehe, got you!"
Jinx lifted her face. There was no sadness or hurt on it at all, only the smug smile of a successful trickster.
"You little…"
Van looked at Jinx sitting on his stomach, both annoyed and amused.
"Mm-hm~ But you just said you weren't angry! No taking it back!"
"Fine…"
Even though she had fooled him, Van was not angry. If anything, he felt relieved.
Compared to seeing Powder looking truly sad, he would rather be tricked by her.
"Right, what were you saying about Blitzcrank? What life?"
"Oh!"
Jinx climbed off Van and walked up to Blitzcrank.
"You might not believe this, but after I added that blue stone to Blitzcrank, he suddenly became… smarter!"
"What do you mean?"
"Simply put, he can think now. Like—"
Bzzt!
Suddenly, a burst of flashing sparks erupted from Blitzcrank's belly. The dazzling arc startled both Jinx and Van, and Van instinctively pulled Jinx behind him.
"Don't be so nervous. It's just a tiny side effect. Sometimes he short-circuits a little…"
Seeing Jinx in his arms grinning as if she had no sense of danger at all, Van felt a headache coming on.
He really should never have given Blitzcrank to her.
…
…
Too lazy to return to the Last Drop, Van simply set up a temporary hammock in Jinx's secret base and made do there for the night.
At dawn, while Jinx was still sprawled out and sound asleep, Van had already gotten up and begun another busy day.
He first went to a small workshop on the edge of the Lanes. This was one of the Lanes' important sources of income, the place where compound potions were produced.
Because the ingredients were rare, the production process was difficult, and the success rate was extremely low, no large factory had ever been built.
The workshop sat close to the fissures. The chemical production area was underground, and wastewater could be discharged straight into the fissures.
"How's production lately, Uncle Barnes?"
"How else? Same as always."
Barnes was a fat little old man with white hair. He had even fewer hairs on his head than teeth in his mouth, and he wore a pair of tiny glasses. At first glance, he looked utterly ordinary.
But he was not someone to underestimate. His alchemy was among the best in the Lanes, second only to Van, and he had been around since Vander's time.
"Output still won't go up. Zac can only secrete a fixed amount of green fluid over a period of time. Nothing we can do about that."
Barnes took off his glasses and rubbed his aging eyes.
"To be blunt, Van, we can barely produce enough compound potions to supply the Undercity anymore, much less the topside business."
Van's brows immediately drew together.
"How did it suddenly get this bad?"
"Mm… probably because of Shimmer."
"Shimmer?"
"Yes. Even for a healthy ordinary person, six years is long enough for Shimmer to hollow out their body. That's why demand for the potion has been rising lately."
"Is there any solution?"
"Well, either we stop the topside business and put everything into supplying Zaun."
"That's impossible. Most of the Lanes' income depends on compound potions."
With their superior, almost miraculous effects, compound potions were extremely popular in Piltover. They could even let the elderly briefly experience the feeling of youth returning to them.
The rich and powerful were eager for them, and that placed enormous pressure on the small Lanes. Fortunately, Silco had stepped in and found a suitable distributor for compound potions in Piltover.
No matter the reason, supply to Piltover could not be cut off.
"Then we can only raise the price in Zaun… Honestly, your price is far too low."
"That won't work either. They're already poor people. I can't just watch them wait to die."
"Then it looks like there's no solution. This problem will only get worse sooner or later, unless Shimmer is banned completely… But how could that ever happen?"
Van fell into thought for a moment and did not answer. Instead, he slowly walked over to the vessel containing "Zac."
"Has Zac changed at all lately?"
"No. Its activity is getting stronger, but that's about it. To put it another way… half-dead, half-alive?"
"Hmm…"
Van nodded in understanding and looked up. He had always cared deeply about this mysterious substance he had created with his own hands. Unfortunately, it was far too mysterious, and after years of study, their research still had not made any real progress.
"All right, Barnes. What you need to do is maintain the compound potion supply as best you can. As for everything else… I'll handle it slowly."
[End of chapter]