"No! I'm close to succeeding! Alchemy isn't some con man's trick—it's absolutely legitimate research. It's only arrogant simpletons like you who dismiss what you can't do as impossible! The greatness of alchemy is turning the impossible into the possible! Just wait, I will definitely make Uther pay using my research!"
Tauren's family had been studying alchemy for a long time, and he had an almost religious faith in it. (On a side note, this belief is why Uther executed his entire family. It's truly a tragedy; they researched for hundreds of years, never successfully creating anything, and then Uther wiped them out in one fell swoop. It sounds miserable.)
Nimue raised an eyebrow, clearly unconvinced, but she didn't care. She wasn't there to debate the merits of alchemy. Why bother? She could achieve the same results with real magic.
"Why wait? Is your plan to make King Uther 'pay' by waiting for him to die of old age? How long have you been waiting, Tauren? Ten years? Twenty? Are you planning to wait another decade or two? Why not do it now?"
This question choked off Tauren's boastful speech. She was right. He had found the key to successful alchemy, but he still didn't know how long it would take to finish his research. Maybe tomorrow, maybe never.
However, Nimue's last sentence immediately grabbed his attention.
"Do it now? What do you mean?"
Nimue didn't play coy. She stated plainly, "There is a golden opportunity right now!" She then glanced around the camp with a hint of disdain. "If you're willing, we can work together. If not, you can keep scurrying around like a rat in the shadows, just like you are now."
Tauren naturally wouldn't let such an opportunity slip away. His goal in studying alchemy was to kill King Uther and destroy Camelot. Not the other way around. Since there was a chance to realize his long-held ambition, he knew exactly what to choose. He could always go back to studying alchemy after Uther was dead and Camelot was ruined.
"What kind of opportunity? And why choose me? I recall you ruthlessly turned down my previous request to partner up. Why are you seeking me out now?"
He had been a rebel leader for years, so he wasn't completely naive. Although the idea excited him, he needed to get all the details before making a decision.
Nimue didn't mind Tauren's caution. After all, surviving Uther's purges for so many years required prudence; otherwise, he'd be dead already.
"Camelot and Senedred have gone to war!"
"Impossible! Uther signed a treaty with Senedred. They've been at peace for over a decade! How could a war suddenly break out?"
Tauren's greatest desire in life was to destroy all of Camelot, so he naturally kept a close watch on the kingdom. While his intelligence network wasn't top-tier, it wasn't so weak that he'd miss something this big. Therefore, his first reaction when Nimue claimed war had broken out between Camelot and Senedred was disbelief.
Tauren had previously tried to leverage foreign powers against Camelot, but it never worked. Camelot's own strength and King Uther's diplomatic skills had kept the surrounding kingdoms quite peaceful.
So, when Nimue suddenly told him war had broken out, he was skeptical.
"You're right, ordinarily, they wouldn't start a war. But what if Prince Arthur killed Prince Alarick of Senedred?"
Tauren immediately calmed down. If what Nimue said was true, then war was definitely possible! Killing a nation's prince is extremely serious, let alone killing the heir to the throne.
"Uther's son killing Alarick—that was your doing, wasn't it?"
Although Tauren wasn't impressive in Nimue's eyes, that didn't mean he was completely useless. On the contrary, the guy was quite smart. Nimue, as a sorceress, simply viewed the world differently than ordinary people. In her opinion, Tauren was a novice, pathetic sorcerer who wasted his time on useless alchemy, so she looked down on him. But the fact that Tauren had survived Uther's years of purges proved he wasn't incompetent. He quickly understood why Nimue was claiming war had broken out.
"Precisely! Just a very simple little spell."
Nimue admitted the intervention. She had indeed meddled in the events.
For certain reasons, Arthur could not die by Nimue's hand, so she never targeted him. Instead, she cast a simple spell on the other main character in the conflict, Prince Alarick, to make his emotions slightly unstable. Nimue had planned to stir up more trouble, but she hadn't expected Arthur to be so aggressive, actively escalating the situation and ending Alarick's life in the process...
So, in the end, she only made a tiny contribution. The real "hero" of the incident was Arthur.
Tauren didn't care about the details. He only knew that Nimue had no reason to lie; this was something that could easily be verified with a quick inquiry. He was left with only one final question:
"Why choose me?" Tauren knew perfectly well that Nimue didn't respect him.
"I need manpower, and you have manpower!" Nimue was candid.
Tauren didn't waste any time. Their goals were aligned. He didn't care about Nimue using him; on the contrary, if it meant killing King Uther and destroying Camelot, he was happy to be used. "What do you need me to do?"
Nimue smiled, satisfied.
"I need your help retrieving two things: one is a tomb beneath Camelot, and the other is the Crystal of Niard!"
"You..." Tauren stared at Nimue in shock. "Those things are only legends! I have no idea where they are, so how do you expect me to get them?"
Tauren himself was from Camelot; his family had lived there for centuries, so he had heard whispers of certain secrets, including the legend of the underground tomb from a young age.
As for the Crystal of Niard, that name was infamous. Twenty years ago, countless sorcerers were killed by Uther trying to protect it. Although Tauren didn't know what power the crystal held, anything that so many sorcerers died to protect couldn't be ordinary.
Unfortunately, that was all the information he had about both the underground tomb and the Crystal of Niard—nothing more.
"That," Nimue replied with a confident smile, "is exactly why I came to you for a partnership!"