When Eli made sure that Baobao had been completely transferred to Little Han's side, she then turned her attention to the line leader who was looking at her in disdain.
"C-can I at least wear something to cover my nose when I work?" Eli tried to appear so miserable and timid as she pleaded with the leader. It appeared as if she would be knocked unconscious at any minute.
The line leader rolled his eyes and looked at her in disdain before he answered, "Just do what you can to be accustomed to this environment. If not, we will send you out of the temple…"
"Thank you… line leader…" Eli acted as if she was granted a great gift as she thanked him in relief.
The line leader then called the most senior woman in the group and introduced Eli as a new member of the work area. The people looked around but they were not really surprised to see another one joining them.
Everyone seemed to be accustomed to seeing a new member joining them each month so they did not see Eli's arrival as unusual.
"Welcome to the mixing section… You can just call me Ada, I've been here for eight months…" The woman, who looked thin and sallow, coupled with the fact that there were already signs of purple poison in her skin and nails, greeted Eli rather gently.
She took Eli to go around the entire area and introduced her to each of the women working in the mixing section.
"That's Lily, Roella, Sonya, Mara, Kashi, and Daisy… each of them joined a few months ago, just like you... We all receive new members every month."
Eli greeted them timidly and smiled, the other women also smiled at her, but it was obvious that they weren't looking good because of the surroundings.
"W-what shall I do from this point onwards?" Eli asked in a shy manner as she looked around. It was nearing noon but the seven women seemed to have not even slowed down for lunch.
"I shall then bring you to your new work area… each of us is assigned to create a certain mixture and we are to complete our work before the third hour till noon… only after that will we be able to go out, take a bath and eat." Ada then led her to her new workstation, which was coincidentally near her.
"We usually assign the new ones here… This way you can get accustomed to mixing and would eventually be able to rotate with others to mix other potion ingredients.
Don't worry about how strong the odor of this work area is… our team is actually the group who had the fastest rate of promotions as compared to the other area…" Ada explained.
"That's right… in fact, we are anticipating Ada would be promoted as soon as next month… then it will be my turn to teach the newbie!" Lily heard our conversation and chimed in excitedly.
The mention of promotions seemed to have livened up the gloomy mood of the women, it seems like the 'promotion' is something that they all look forward to.
Ada gave a shy smile and continued, "Aside from the promotion, our team also has the easiest job. Once we complete all our mixing, we can already go back to our quarters and be free for the rest of the day. We do not need to wait for the sun to set before we go home."
The other women agreed and felt that they were lucky. Other than the strong odor of countless herb pastes they were mixing around, they felt that they were really having it easy as compared to the other laborers.
"I-is that so?" Eli pulled a relieved smile, but her heart was broken for the seven women who were completely oblivious to the fact that their work was actually the deadliest one!
Eli even thought that those who got promoted were brought somewhere unreachable to die there quietly.
Looking closely at Ada's entire condition, even if she was not a doctor like Kayden, she could actually tell that the poison in her body would start to relapse soon.
'Not good… I can't let the people around me die like this…' Eli felt conflicted. The reason she infiltrated the temple was for the greater good. But if she did nothing to the people in front of her, then what was she here for?
And so she decided to do something to at least delay the effects of poison in her co-worker's body, after all, she still had to take time to wait for a chance to infiltrate the main temple.
'Let's start by creating a mask and gloves…' Eli thought to herself.
With Ada and Lily's help, Eli manages to finish her quota for the day. The women were equally happy because they saw that Eli was a fast learner. They expected to finish everything just before the deadline approached, but they never thought that Eli would get everything within an hour.
Although they do not know that Eli just wanted them to end early so that she could minimize their exposure to the poisonous fumes around them.
The women happily went out carrying the vats of mixture they just finished and loaded them onto the cart bound to the next workstation. After that, they dragged Eli to their quarters.
After bathing and cleaning themselves, they proceeded to the kitchen to get their food. Eli was surprised that the food was still hot when they got their rations.
She thought that the kitchen might have anticipated that their group was always the last to get their meals due to their schedule.
When they finished, the group of women were now rolling on their wooden beds and started to ask Eli about who she was and how she came to the temple.
Eli also managed to know the stories of these people. Ada and Lily were newly wedded women who thought of helping their husbands raise the family by being a servant in the temple. The rest were still young ladies but they were forced to serve in the temple because of poverty.
Eli sighed as she listened to their stories. In the end, what they thought was hope for their miserable life was actually something that would lead them to eternal disasters.
After some talk the other women went around when the evening approached, they liked to go out and talk to the other co-workers around as almost all of them came from the same continent- Vandeford.
Eli on the other hand remained in their quarters and started to get some materials to create a makeshift mask and working gloves.
She made it so that the other women also caught a glimpse of what she was doing so as to not make them surprised at what she would be wearing tomorrow.
When they were totally gone, Eli moved to take out rubber materials and embedded them inside the leather gloves. Rubber gloves are not yet popular at the moment and so Eli could only conceal it as a middle layer for the leather gloves.
After all, what she wanted was just to make sure that the women won't use their bare hands to touch the mixture as it was directly poisonous.
On the working masks, she took out the modern masks that they found in the Asani ancestor laboratory, and just like the leather gloves, she also covered the other layer with a breathable mesh tapestry that was not eye-catching and appropriate to their peasant clothing.
When she was done, she sneakily moved to the drinking water vat and diluted the purest cure potion she had at the moment. This is to slowly cure the curse effect that was accumulated on their bodies. Her, since she only had a few contacts, she only dared to drink the cure potion and ask Kayden for the antidote.
Eli then moved with the workers during dinner time, telling them that she had to look at her brother and ask about his situation. Her coworkers did not mind and allowed her because it was still her first day in the temple.
"Brother…" Eli slowly approached Kayden and talked about their day. When everyone was not paying attention, they started to speak their codes that appeared as if they were just having small talk.
Eli reported that the station that she was assigned to was for creating purple curse bombs and other sinister potions.
Kayden discretely checked Eli's condition and took into consideration the formula that Eli managed to copy into the workstation files through the power of the book of knowledge.
"This 'place' has completely turned away from the 'sky'! How could they let the 'pasture' be destroyed by the 'fire' and let the 'flock' die?"
Meaning: [The main temple became completely sinister, how can they allow the holy temple to be defiled and even killed innocent people?!]
Kayden could not help but let out his frustration as he took a close look at the herbs being processed in the work area.
Clearly, the main temple had long turned evil, even luring people to participate in their evil works and letting them die without knowing how!
