"It's a nice place, but don't you think it's a little empty?" Melanie quips.

After escaping the math nerds, I carried her and Ed over to the house in the pedicab. I was going to get straight into building the workshop, but nature called her.

"We've been busy." I try to defend myself, but the house really is empty. I'm just going to have to fill it up even if it's just with placeholder stuff.

"As long as the bathroom works." She shrugs and heads into the door I pointed her towards.

"Did you finish up the water tank and septic line?" Edsel enquires.

"Yeah, I put the water tank up in the crown of one of the oaks, and the septic system under the roots of the other." I plan to add a simple water collection enchantment in the water tank, but for now, it's easy enough to reach out and fill it with my magic.

"I'm surprised you didn't just make one giant living tree-house." He laughs.

"I thought about it." I admit. "But, this design has sentimental value to me."

"Mhm." He nods. "Well, I should get started on the fireplaces."

"Okay, jut let me move the placeholder out of the way." A gesture with Blackthorne is all it takes to move the two-story chimney away from the house. "It's clear now, just let me know if you need anything else."

"I should be good, thanks." He starts pulling stone from his storage, shaping it to match the mock-up that is now standing on its own a couple meters away from the house.

Melanie exits the restroom a moment later and the two of us head back out to the front of the property.

"Now, do you have a specific layout in mind, or should I just copy your master's workshop?" I ask.

We're up near the road at the north end of the field, this will let Melanie access the shop without bothering us. It's also fairly far from all the neighbors, since they tend to put their homes as far back from the road as possible.

"Mhm, that should be fine for now." The mention of her master causes a shadow to cross her face, but only for a moment. "Though, I may need you to adjust things once I have a better feel for how the production flows."

I just nod and get to work. Fortunately, I already have an excess of lumber thanks to the forest I grew the other day. The shop itself is fairly modest in size, so it doesn't take too long to go up. The building is a simple rectangle with a flat roof; I matched the colors and some elements of the house, but the design itself is much more basic.

"Alright, this should do for now." I say after I finish. "But, I'd like you to consider this temporary. Once the rubber gets popular enough to support the business, I plan to move everything to it to its own lot."

"Well, I suppose when you can throw a building together in a few minutes, it really is just temporary." She says with a nervous laugh. "I just hope that this stuff turns out to be as useful as you seem to think it is."

"Trust me." I grin back at her. "If it takes off anything like it did back home, then there won't be any problems. And, even if it doesn't, I know a couple of other products that are sure to be popular."

"Oh?" She just uses that one word and a raised eyebrow, but I can tell she's interested.

"They're both the same thing." I explain. "But, the final step decides whether you get a fine thread that is comparable to silk, or a thin, transparent film that is great for food packaging thanks to it being nearly air and watertight. Both of which can be made from wood, though we'll probably use cotton to save a couple steps." I'm talking about Rayon and Cellophane, of course.

"I don't know about the film, but if you can make something like silk." Her eyes go wide while thinking of the possibilities. "That... that will definitely sell."

"Mhm." I nod. "But, that can wait. The rubber is more useful to me than another textile. So, let's get everything put back where it belongs, and then I can grow the secret ingredient. Which I'm sure you've been wondering about."

"A little bit, yeah. But, I can understand you not wanting to just give it out... Oh, I wish I could use the storage spell." She sighs as I materialize everything in the same layout it had at her master's shop. "I even hired a trainer, but the best I could manage was the pocket spell."

"Yeah, storage was kinda costly to learn for me too, but that time stop is invaluable. You might want to try bribing Apricot with some sweets, she might be able to help you pick it up." The pixie really could become a great magic coach, if she had any work ethic at all, that is.

"Truly?" Melanie looks hopeful. "Do you know what she likes the most?"

"Mana stones." I chuckle. "But, anything sweet should work. And, that's the last of the stuff. Let's head back to the house, so I can connect the pipes." There were no living spaces at the old shop, but it did have a small break area with a kitchenette and a full bathroom.

"And, then the secret ingredient?"

"And, then the secret ingredient." I agree

"How's it going?" Edsel asks from the second floor, it looks like he's just gotten started on the fireplace up there.

"Good, I'm just hooking up the plumbing now. And, then I need to do a bit of farming, though I'm guessing most farmers tend to treat what I'm about to grow like a weed." I pull a single potted dandelion from storage.

"Seriously?" Melanie scoffs. "I know it has some minor medicinal value, but you can turn it into that bouncy stuff?"

"It's not the best source but the others are either tropical plants or much harder to process." I explain. "That being said, I'm going to try some selective breeding to see if I can't make this a little more useful."

I create four large tables that look more like oversized potting trays with legs. These get filled with loose soil and plenty of water. Each table then gets hundreds of seeds all of which sprout and grow to full-size in less than a minute.

Running my nature magic through them; I pick out the sixteen largest, most sap filled plants from each table and pollinate them with each other after decomposing the rest. Those sixteen go to seed, and the whole process repeats, only this time I pick the top eight.

It's not quite a tournament bracket but it works surprisingly well, and in less than five minutes I've got four plants that each holds several-fold more sap than the first generation. They get bred together and start my production crop.

"That went much better than I thought it would." I comment while harvesting the petals from the first batch.

"That was certainly impressive." Melanie says. "But, those flowers don't look any different than when you started."

"Oh, no." I laugh. "This is for wine, it's been ages since I had a good dandelion wine, and I figure I might as well make some while I'm playing around. What we really need is the sap and these have much more than that first generation."

After shedding their seeds, the plants pull themselves out of the ground and walk to the edge of the tables to rinse their roots off in water before jumping into a large tub lined with cheesecloth. I'll have to try growing these hydroponically to speed up the process, but this works for now.

"Now, I pulp everything and rinse it in conjured water." I wish Amelia was here for this, but I've managed to pick up the spell just by watching her cast it. "The best source for latex is a tree that you can just collect the sap from like maple syrup. But, this is good enough, especially after the selective breeding."

After wringing everything out, I toss it into another tub to decompose back into soil. There's more than enough latex in the tub for a test batch, but I go ahead and start the growth cycle again while adding some vinegar to the tub.

"From here it's just like making cheese." I say while stirring the curds together. "Once it all goops up, the rubber gets squeezed through rollers and hung up to dry. But, I'm going to skip that last step by pulling the moisture out directly." I picked up this water spell in case of emergencies, but it has proven to be quite useful.

"You mentioned something about an acid made from ants." Melanie prompts. "And, that it's somehow similar to vinegar."

"Oh, yes. Formic acid." I nod while pulling up my memories of chemistry class. "It was originally made by distilling wood ants, but I think it's mostly synthesized from wood alcohol nowadays. Sorry, I either can't remember or just never learned that process."

"That's fine, I guess." She seems a little disappointed. "But, how is it connected to vinegar?"

"Oh, they're both carboxylic acids. That just means their molecules end with the same arrangement of one carbon, two oxygen, and one hydrogen atoms." I'm about to congratulate myself for actually remembering that when I notice the blank look she's giving me.

"Uh..." She draws out the syllable. "I can tell you're still speaking Varecian, but I have no idea what you just said. Molecules, atoms? I understood hydrogen, carbon, and oxygen. So, I'm guessing that your talking about basic elements, but I haven't studied much of that."

"Yes, atom is just another way of saying basic element." I'm glad she understands at least that much. "A molecule is how those elements are arranged, take water for example." I create a basic stick and ball model. "It's made up of two hydrogen atoms connected to a single oxygen, like this model."

"Really?" She turns the model over in her hands like it holds the secrets of the universe.

"Yeah, and that acid group all end like this, with formic acid -if I remember correctly- being the simplest with just one extra hydrogen here. Vinegar, on the other hand, has three hydrogen connected to a carbon, like so. Aside from one other simple one, the rest in the group have carbon chains like this, but in varying lengths."