After the wedding of the mermaid princess and the human prince, the Sea King once again summoned Rhine and Aurora in his palace.
The two human children were still inside the big, transparent-bellied fish.
"Respected Magician, the Sea Kingdom and the human kingdom have now formed an alliance."
"The two countries will engage in trade and both will benefit. That human king is also working hard to help the people on land understand us merfolk and wash away their past prejudices."
"Thank you for helping my daughter, and for helping all of us merfolk."
"From now on, if the two of you have any requests, the people of the Sea Kingdom will do their utmost to assist you. Besides that, I am also willing to pay a reward."
"A reward?" Rhine thought for a moment and asked, "My companion, Aurora, is a formidable Super Warrior. Ordinary weapons simply cannot withstand her combat intensity. Can we find a weapon suitable for her here in the Sea Kingdom?"
At this point, Rhine suddenly had a strange association: a story about a monkey looking for a handy weapon in the sea.
The Sea King summoned his ministers, and after discussing for a while, he finally expressed his inability to help.
Even the Sea King's trident was more a symbol of power than a powerful weapon.
"Great Magician, I am truly sorry. Please choose another reward."
Rhine nodded with a slight hint of regret:
"Then I'll just take some specialties from the sea."
After receiving the Sea King's promise, Rhine successively touched thousands of large pearls from the Sea Kingdom. Afterward, he also touched many beautiful coral artifacts, crafts made from clams and shells, and other beautiful things only found in the sea.
"Your Majesty, as a Magician, I have left my mark on these items. I can summon them at any time whenever I need them," Rhine explained.
Because the reward Rhine asked for was too ordinary and cheap, the Sea King strongly urged Rhine to take more, but Rhine felt it was unnecessary.
He thought, "These sea products are common in the Sea Kingdom, but their value will increase a hundredfold on land. Just taking out one large pearl would be considered priceless."
"Next, I will be traveling with the wealth of an entire kingdom!"
In the Western Continent, most kingdoms were not large, and Rhine was confident that the wealth from the sea he possessed could buy most of the kingdoms on the Western Continent.
Returning to the palace, the Sea King sighed again:
"Now there is only one last problem."
"The magic potions you concocted, sir, can turn humans into merfolk and merfolk into humans. This will be necessary for long-term communication between land and sea."
"Relatively speaking, it is safer for humans to grow tails and go into the sea than for merfolk to grow legs and go onto land, because they don't have to bear that terrible curse."
"However, only you, sir, can concoct these miraculous potions. I am certainly willing to pay a generous additional reward for this."
"But I heard that you, sir, will eventually travel far away and cannot stay here long-term."
"What will happen after you leave?"
Rhine smiled, "It's alright, I can recommend another master of potions to Your Majesty. I will give her the formulas for both potions."
"After I leave, if anyone wants to go to the world of the sea, or if merfolk want to come to the land, please entrust her with it."
The Sea King was stunned:
"Who are you referring to, sir?"
Rhine answered with a smile:
"Of course, it's the Sea Witch who lives in the coral forest."
...
Passing through turbulent whirlpools and steaming gray wastelands, Rhine, the Sea King, and a group of Sea Kingdom Soldiers arrived at the Sea Hag's bone hut.
"Who is it? Who's coming to find me again?"
The Sea Hag thought business had arrived. As soon as she opened the door, she saw the Sea King holding his trident and many fully armed merfolk Soldiers, which immediately scared her.
"Your Majesty?" The Sea Hag trembled.
She knew her reputation wasn't great, but she never expected the Sea King to come to her with such a large force!
"Could it be that the Sea King found out about me wanting to cut off Ariel's tongue, and that's why he specifically came to trouble me?" The Sea Hag instantly panicked.
Her magic was not yet powerful enough to directly oppose the entire Sea Kingdom!
"Hello, Sea Witch, I'm back, and I'm here to fulfill the wish you mentioned before," Rhine's voice rang out.
At this moment, the Sea Hag finally noticed the big, transparent-bellied fish and the familiar Little Magician inside.
"What I said before..." The Sea Hag couldn't help but be stunned.
"Didn't you say you wanted to gain the recognition of the Sea King and even the entire Sea Kingdom?" Rhine said, "Now, the opportunity is right before you."
In the Sea Hag's incredulous and shocked gaze, one merfolk after another bowed to the Sea Hag in unison.
The Sea King showed the benevolent smile of a monarch of the sea, extending his hand to this ugly Old Witch who had always lived in the nightmares of merfolk children:
"Please become my court alchemist, respected Sea Witch. We need you."
"I will employ you as the monarch of the Sea Kingdom, and honor you as a distinguished guest of the Sea Palace. From now on, your good name will be renowned throughout this sea area."
The Sea Hag felt like she was dreaming.
No, no, a scene she wouldn't even dare to fantasize about in a dream was actually happening right before her eyes!
"Thank you... Thank you."
Although the Sea Hag didn't fully understand the situation, she knew this was definitely Rhine's doing and excitedly nodded several times to the human.
"I have provided the corresponding reward. According to our agreement, you should give me the information about the Witch Society," Rhine said with a smile.
"By the way, a reminder, they in the Witch Society seem to be considering kicking you out and then eliminating you, who knows too many of their secrets."
"Of course, if it's a deliberate plot against an unsuspecting person, eliminating you silently might be very simple. But once you enter the Sea King's palace and have made preparations and warnings in advance, killing you will probably not be so easy."
The sheer volume of information left the Sea Hag almost unable to react.
This aged Sea Witch turned to Rhine and nodded stiffly:
"Thank you for your kind reminder, great human Magician. I will make preparations in advance!"
...
After handing the potion formulas to the Sea Witch and obtaining the memory bubble containing information about the Witch Society, Rhine then asked the Sea King to search for magical creatures with self-healing abilities in the sea.
This was because, among the various ingredients for concocting magic potions, magical blood was the most important. And the Sea Hag's own blood was clearly not enough.
Relying on the deep-sea merfolk's familiarity with the ocean, and aided by their prophecy and divination abilities, it wasn't long before they found a magical whale in the vast ocean that recovered from all its injuries every morning, to serve as a blood provider.
After joining the Sea King's court, the Sea Hag was incredibly enthusiastic about her new job.
It was estimated that in less than half a year, to the merfolk of the Sea Kingdom, she would no longer be the terrifying protagonist of horror stories parents used to scare their children!
In the Sea King's palace, inside a specially designated alchemy room for the Sea Hag.
"Thank you, Rhine."
The Sea Witch carefully crushed the medicine in the jar, then lifted her head and looked out the amber window at a group of merfolk children playing.
The children were passing a ball woven from seaweed to each other, and telling boundless stories.
"Have you heard? There's an old, ugly Old Witch in the coral forest who lives in a hut made of bones, and she loves to eat little children like us!" one of the children said.
Unexpectedly, the other merfolk children all refuted:
"What are you talking about? Those are all lies. That Old Witch, she's the Sea King's court alchemist, how could she be a bad person!"
...
Inside the palace of the Kingdom of Western Asia.
Rhine, combining the information he had obtained, listed out all the known information about the Witch Society.
"Teacher, teacher," Aurora ran into the room excitedly.
"That Old Witch in the sea said that just providing you with a bit of information is far from enough to express her gratitude. Moreover, you not only fulfilled her wish but also warned her of potential dangers. So, the Sea Witch asked Ariel to give us other gifts."
Aurora took out two sparkling, jewel-like plant roots and placed them on the table.
"The Sea Witch said these are very precious plants from the sea, which she has been reluctant to eat for so many years. As long as you eat this plant, you will be immune to all poisons from then on. Also, many evil spells and curses will have a weakened effect on us."
"Immunity to poisons and resistance to curses? That sounds pretty good indeed," Rhine said, "Your blessing happens to lack this kind of protection."
Previously, when dealing with the poisonous snake transformed from the Old Witch's wand, the invulnerable Aurora had her right hand corroded by the venom.
After a simple confirmation that the plant roots were harmless, Rhine and Aurora ate them.
After eating, Rhine immediately felt a warm current flowing through his body. Other than that, there were no more external changes.
"Oh, by the way, recently people have been saying that Prince Eric is different after getting married," Aurora added.
"How is he different?" Rhine asked.
"Both the King and others say that Prince Eric seems to have matured. He seems to be diligently learning knowledge he didn't understand before, striving to become an excellent King in the future," Aurora recounted what she had heard and seen.
"Indeed..."
Rhine looked out at the azure sky.
"Prince Eric—the future King of the Kingdom of summer, is a symbol of human and merfolk friendship."
"I estimate that he wants to strive to become a great and respected King, using his entire life to reshape the world's perception of merfolk and wash away human prejudices."
"He might not like being King, but there are always some things in the world that even formidable Warriors and learned Magicians cannot achieve; only a King can do them."
Although he was only talking about Prince Eric, Aurora still nodded thoughtfully.
"Prince Eric once said he hated politics the most, but I didn't expect that after having a new goal, he still ended up becoming the person he hated," Aurora joked with a smile.
"You have more humor than before," Rhine shrugged, then said with a double meaning, "It just goes to show, people change after experiencing certain things."
Just then, Rhine suddenly froze.
He felt an unprecedented, immensely surging power of wishes finally converging, rushing towards him like a tsunami!