Author’s Corner: Greetings to you, my glorious readers/leeches/NEETs/generally bored people. I bring to you another chapter! Some of you may have caught the hints in the last one about where the story is going, and for those that did I say bravo! No clue how many chapters it will take to fully reveal itself, but I shall do my utmost to maintain a steady stream of releases.

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A few minutes after separating with Jacobs, I reached the alchemy store once again. Since we hadn’t gone out far enough to find any trees small enough for him to cut down, it couldn’t be helped that he still had to go back to look for some. As for me, I needed to get busy learning how to brew potions! My leg is killing me and I want nothing more than to finally be able to finish healing that wound.

“Welcome, sir-- oh, hello again.” I was greeted by the beautiful half-elf once again as she recognized me.

“Hello, miss.” I smiled to her, limping my way forward. “I managed to find some of the herbs, and got the money for the training.” I pulled out a bundle of the blood weed, a few fireflowers, and the silver coin. Seeing these, she seemed a bit surprised, but nodded her head, taking the silver coin and giving me back three large copper coins.

So… the guards just purposely gave me regular sized coins in bulk, then? Guess that explains why they weren’t so eager to exchange all one hundred of them for a single silver coin. Must have been like someone asking to give you a hundred pennies for a dollar. Too much small change! I thanked her for the change, and put it in my inventory. At the same time, she produced a small box containing various items, including a mortar and pestle, a few thin glass vials, and what looked like a dropper.

“This is the most basic starting kit for alchemy. As your skill grows, you’ll need more and more kinds of tools, and will eventually need to establish your own lab in order to brew everything. For now, though, this will be all you need. And, of course, a journal.” She pulled out a thin book and set it next to the box. “Once you grow a bit more, you’ll be given a device to properly record all of your notes on.”

I nodded, opening up the journal, not surprised to find that it was blank. Taking out the two sketches I made earlier, I put them in the front of the journal, as my notes about the two herbs. “Okay, so when can we begin?” I looked up at her and asked curiously. I really wanted to get my leg fixed.

“We can start now, of course. It shouldn’t take too long to teach you how to brew the basic health potion. However, any recipes after that will cost you, or require you to experiment to discover.” She smiled, pulling the various items out of the box. Only now did I notice that the glass bottle I saw earlier was a rounded beaker, with a small burner with it in the container. “First, fill the beaker half full with water, and turn the burner on by supplying it with a small mana supply.”

I nodded my head, putting the beaker onto the rack of the burner. When I was looking around for the water, my faithful teacher produced a small flask to pour in. I then tried to pour just a small amount of mana, maybe two or three points. Unfortunately, that was barely enough to even get a spark, so I put in ten and it activated. “Good, now, you’ll need to refresh the supply once a minute, or get a mana crystal to power it. Next, while waiting for that to boil, crush together two stalks of blood weed, and three petals from the fireflower.”

Once again, I followed her instructions, putting two blood weeds into the mortar, and plucking three of the seven petals of the fireflower to put in as well. Afterwards, I took the pestle and began crushing them thoroughly, doing my best to reduce the plants into a fine powder. Once a minute I would put in another ten mana to the burner, which I had to do a total of twice before the water began to boil. By that time, the plants were fairly well ground, and she seemed to be satisfied with it. “Okay, now pour the mixture into the water.”

After I followed her instructions, the red powder was poured into the water, making it look vaguely blood-colored. “This is the tricky part, as it requires a bit of timing and experimentation.” As she spoke, the water was shifting shades, from lighter to darker red then back again. “Depending on when you infuse mana into this concoction to finish the brewing process, the effectiveness will vary. This is a typical step found in most recipes that serves to stabilize the different compounds by binding them together with mana.”

Watching the liquid, I wasn’t sure at all what would be the best result. So, as it started going darker again, I went ahead and infused mana into it, steadily increasing the amount until its color settled. Of course, by that time, it had already shifted halfway back to light red. By now, the burner had again turned off, so the potion gradually stopped boiling, now settled on a rather neutral red color.

New Skill Acquired!Alchemy - Beginner Level 1

Exp: 0%

This skill allows the brewing of potions through herbs or various miscellaneous materials. Higher levels will present additional options.

The half-elf whose name I still haven’t found out nodded satisfied at the result. “A bit above average for a first try, I think. Just let it cool off for a moment and it will be ready.”

I smiled faintly. Finally, I’ll have a healing spell. Though, my healing spell will likely get stronger as I perfect the recipe.. I then turned to look at her. “Thank you very much. Though, I don’t think I ever got your name yet? I’m Falenel, by the way.”

“Lisara, pleasure to meet you.” She giggled slightly, realizing it took me this long to ask her name.

“So… out of curiosity, does it take this whole thing to form a single potion?” I looked at the beaker, which seemed far too large for normal adventurers to carry around in bulk.

Lisara tilted her head curiously, and then widened her eyes as if she had forgotten something. “Ah! No, sorry. Actually, beginner potions only take ten drops to be considered a full potion. A beaker this size will produce twenty potions in a batch.” She explained, handing the dropped to me from the box.

“And… I suppose you would be willing to sell me some potion vials?” I asked curiously, seeing as there were none in the beginner box. She nodded her head again, going back and retrieving a small box of vials. These were far smaller than the beaker, but the glass was thicker. No doubt that was to make them less fragile for adventurers.

“Two coppers per vial. But, if you want to trade for the potion you brewed, I could take half of the potion, and given you the other ten vials for free.” She smiled to me. I had a feeling I was either getting a really good deal here, or being ripped off. The former because these were potions brewed by a beginner, and likely not worthy to be sold in a specialized shop. The latter because they were health potions, and that was basically me selling her a potion for just the price of the vial. Since I hadn’t looked at her wares, I wasn’t sure her typical price. Speaking of, I could probably look at the potions she sells and figure out the optimal shade to imbue mana for the last step.

“Deal.” I smiled to her, and she grabbed her own dropper, measuring out ten of the potions before storing them behind her shelf, giving me another ten vials. Doing the same thing as her, I carefully measured out ten drops for each vial, before putting them in my inventory. I wanted to be very certain of how much I put in each vial, because I knew the risks of overdosing on medicine. I wasn’t sure if it was possible with potions, but the idea of tissue over-regenerating to either cause a cancerous growth or a mutation did not appeal to me.

After thanking her, I gathered the alchemy kit, and went out to the mage’s tower. Once more, I found the loli teacher and asked her about nature magic.

“Hmm? didn’t I already explain it to you?” She asked with a rather cute tilt of her head.

“Ah, yes. You told me it’d be best to learn alchemy so that I could replicate the effects with my magic. Well, I have alchemy now, and now how to make a potion, so I was hoping you would instruct me on how to use the magic to mimic it.”

She smiled at that, happy to see that I had followed her instructions. “Alright, then! It’s actually pretty easy once you know it. Nature Magic is a school of magic governing plants and beasts. If you attune to the magic of the world around you, you will find that everything in nature has its own mana signature. Whether it’s oxygen, water, or different kinds of plants. If you mimic the mana signature of the plants in your alchemy potion, and then mix them in the same ratio you would do so for the potion, you will achieve alchemy through magic!”

Thinking over her words, I silently nodded, trying my best to understand. “So I have to memorize the particular mana signature of the herbs first? Well, at least it’ll give me something to do for a while.” I smiled dryly, thanking her again.

My next stop was at an inn, where I spent ten coppers to rent a room for 24 hours. It was rather interesting climbing up the branch steps to a small room inside the tree. Inside I found a wide and thick leaf which seemed to serve as the bed, and sat down on it. Finally off my leg… I reached down and untied the root from around my leg, finally getting rid of it. Though, I still had a decent sized hole in my pants showing off the scabbed wound. If I didn’t figure out this healing trick soon, I could drink one of my potions or gain a new scar.

Quietly, I pulled out a blood weed and the same fireflower I had started using earlier. Closing my eyes, I focused first on the blood weed, sending a trickle of mana into it to understand how it feels. It was strange, like rubbing my finger along a wet rose, but with infinitely more detail. Rather than just a surface texture, my mana had penetrated through to the core, allowing me to feel the entire substance inside and out.

Opening my eyes, I smiled slightly, before trying to replicate the sensation with my own mana. I used the same circuit method I had performed with my spells to make sure that I wouldn’t waste any excess mana, while trying to shift it into what I had felt. This was the difficult part, I found. Attuning myself to a school of magic was one thing, but mimicking the magical aura of something felt entirely different. In the end, I drank one of the potions anyways after ten minutes. Immediately, the scab fell off and my wound faded away, with my health finally rising to maximum.

Another hour of practice, and I felt like I had managed to mimic the feeling of the blood weed. It was just for a moment, but in that moment it felt like I was holding the herb in my mana again between my hands. The realization of that surprised me so much that I lost the feeling right away.

New Skill Acquired!Mana Signatures - Beginner Level 1

Exp: 0%

This skill allows the user to alter their mana signature to match a studied object. Higher levels may allow the user to conceal their aura entirely, or blend it with their surroundings.

The presence of the skill caused another burst of excitement, and I foolishly thought that possessing the skill would automatically enable me to repeat the action. Have I learned nothing yet? It took another ten minutes to regain the sensation of mimicking blood weed, but I was slowly growing better.

Wisdom +1

Messages like that appeared every now and then while I was practicing, probably showing that I was learning how to control my mana better. The third time, it took me three minutes to get the feeling of blood weed, the fourth only one minute, and after that I was able to produce the feeling after only a few seconds.

The next thing I needed to practice was the fireflower petals. Only the petal, because I didn’t use the rest of the plant in the recipe, and was unsure of what the result would be. So, plucking another petal, I put it between my hands to focus. Again, I was able to get the feeling of it after a little while, and started to try to reproduce it.

Thankfully, I at least knew how to shift my aura this time, so it didn’t take too long to match the aura to the herb. But like before, I kept repeating the process until I was able to do so in a matter of seconds. Of course, my mana supply wasn’t unlimited, so I had to take a break for a half hour while I ate some more stale bread. But after that was done, I got back to it, and finally managed to replicate the aura.

The next step was likely going to be the hardest. Three petals of fireflower and two stalks of blood weed made twenty potions. So, first I needed to test how much mana it took to replicate a single blood weed or flower petal, then divide it by the appropriate amount. For instance, I’d need only a tenth of a blood weed, and just over a tenth of a petal.

This process easily took me another hour before I got the individual components correct, and by now I had earned a total of 8 wisdom through all of this. But now I was finally able to produce the feeling of blood weed in one hand, and fireflower petals in the other, then mix them together. Once the two sensations mixed, I was presented with a whole new healing, a warmer and gentler one. And now that I knew how to do this, I’d be able to do so in the future much more easily.

New Spell Developed!Alchemic Heal - Nature Magic Spell - ★☆

This spell allows the user to replicate the effect of healing potions through their magic.

Mana Cost: 10

I smiled as I saw that this spell registered as half a star higher than my others, but afterwards I laid back on the giant leaf and let myself fall asleep. It had been a long day, and the sky was already dark after I finished practice.