"Eren, I'm sorry we couldn't meet last time due to my circumstances. But I'm glad that you called me. Where are you these days?"
A beautiful woman was seen smiling at Eren when she first saw him. She seemed to be busy in her potion lab. And yet, the Master ranker had kept all her tasks on hold when she heard the Ace ranker call her.
"Master Levine, I know that you are in the Nightshade duchy. Will you please consider coming to the city of Arangar to discuss a business proposition?"
Eren bowed in front of his potioning master as he requested her to meet him at the city of Arangar. He was asking a B-Rank entity to do something for him. Even if she was his master, he needed to be humble about it as well as rational.
"Hehe! As sly as ever, Eren Idril."
Levine said and chuckled when she saw her student's demeanor. She finished jotting down a few things in her journal at the desk before responding to him.
"It was as if you knew where I'd be before deciding to contact me using the contact array mark I had given you. That's right. I'm at Montmorency estate.
I would have summoned you here instead of coming to you. We have a lot to catch up on. And I want to see your progress as well. Plus, there's so much I have to teach you now that you've broken…"
Levine narrowed her eyes when she saw Eren smiling at her when she said something about his rank. She had a suspicion in her mind so she asked.
"You… you haven't broken into Adept rank, have you? How much time did I spend in isolation?"
Eren chuckled when he saw Levine looking for her journal entries. He coughed and cleared her doubts.
"Ahem! Master Levine, I have not yet attained Adept rank. But I'm close. I didn't want to arrange a meeting with you to learn from you. At least not this time.
There's something big heading my way. And I wanted you to be a part of it."
Eren hesitated to continue speaking. Then he clenched his hands and looked at Levine cunningly before adding up.
"I know that you need a big win too."
The butcher looked down and perked up his ears, waiting for Levine to give him a positive reply. He knew a bit about her past from the very beginning. It was for that reason that he was so eager to learn from her and become her official student.
***
Levine de Montmorency belonged to the House Montmorency. It was a renowned house in the kingdom of Edinburgh for the processing of raw ingredients and other potion-related activities. It didn't excel in potion manufacturing per se.
The Montmorency House was home to many exclusive potion-making recipes. Several of the clan's members were pioneer potioners who explored various branches of the profession. They would invest all of their efforts in coming up with novel, better ways to concoct potions, known products, or otherwise.
The clan members of the Montmorency clan, therefore, preferred dealing with raw products. As a result, they opened up dedicated channels for dealing with potion ingredients.
If House Slughorn was famous for its all-encompassing potion manufacturing line, House Montmorency was known for its greenhouse-manufactured products. They had exclusive control over the time-element arrays and spells that could be used to process the products in a certain way, in a controlled environment.
Eren had gotten his time-element spells for the processing of ingredients courtesy of Levine. He had used them thoroughly in all his potioneering sessions. Thanks to these spells, he had managed to concoct better potions in a relatively short time.
House Montmorency was going to be an ideal partner for Eren in his endeavor to manage the produce coming out of Minerva's Utopia. In his previous timeline, House Remus had contacted House Montmorency for the same reason.
At that time, however, the handler provided by the House Montmorency to manage the raw materials coming out of Minerva's Utopia was different. It was someone named Ottoman Montmorency.
In Eren's previous timeline, Levine was injured in an ambush. That injury caused her to regress to her previous ranking status.
Levine sought shelter in LA due to this ambush. She was in a vulnerable position and being backed by a powerful force was the most effective protection for her. That's why she had taken up the job as LA's professor.
It was rumored that the ambush had been organized by someone in her family because of the power struggle the clan was facing. Levine's faction was pitted against another faction. And her injury had put her faction at a disadvantage.
But now that Levine was a Master ranker once again, she had decided to indulge in her clan's power struggle once again. But since she was absent for quite some time, her position had gotten a bit weaker.
Levine needed a win for herself. A win that would make her faction within the clan stronger than the opposing faction. What better way for her to score big than gaining exclusive rights for produce brought out from Minerva's Utopia?
Eren also guessed that since Levine wasn't back in the power struggle by this time, Ottoman Montmorency should be the leader of the opposition faction to Levine's. Being allowed to process an entire Utopia's raw products must have strengthened his position in the clan by a lot. That's why Levine of the past stayed in LA for a long time instead of returning to the clan's estate.
But this timeline was different. Eren wanted Levine's faction to win and get the faction's support for himself. For that, he needed Levin's full cooperation.
***
"What proposal do you have in mind, Eren?"
Levine had stopped underestimating her student when he had done what he had claimed to do and brought her the ingredient she needed to heal her. It seemed that he had a plan to make this proposal beneficial for both of them. So she looked at Eren with keen interest and waited for him to make her a deal she couldn't refuse.
Eren nodded with a stoic expression and started retrieving a bunch of items from his storage in front of Levine. These were the products he had gotten his hands on from Minerva's Utopia.
Instead of words, Eren believed the raw products he had displayed in front of Levine would help his cause more.
