The gene solution required the processing and mixing of six different herbs. After calming himself down Villin reached for the first herb on the list, ‘Grassroot’. Even though it wasn’t required, Villin decided to use the microscope just to see how the tool worked. He put the herb between two small pieces of glass and put it underneath the microscope before having a look.

As soon as he put his eye on the tool he could see the very DNA of the herb. He could tell the movies of his past life were quite accurate as the DNA looked very… DNA-ish?

After working the microscope for a little bit to get a better feel for it, he finally began working. For this specific recipe, the processing was rather simple. A few of the herbs needed their stems removed which was simple enough, and then he had to use a device that extracted the liquids within the herbs.

There were two herbs who needed a different way of processing, an entirely new one which the creator of this solution had invented. First, he had to fill a vial with boiling water, which was simple enough. Then he put this in a stand and held the two herbs in one of his hands. In his other hand, he had a simple lighter.

It was quite funny seeing the station have all of this advanced equipment and then he had to use a basic lighter for this step. He moved the lighter to the underside of the herbs and used his skills in cut and crease to have a piece of paper float between the vial with boiling water and the two herbs. He moved the lighter up slightly and the herbs caught fire. He held it in his hand as the flames licked his finger, but he didn’t let go until the moment the last bit of the herbs had burned up. After all, if he let a bit of the burning herbs fall upon the paper it might catch it ablaze.

He ignored his burn wounds as he carefully looked at the ash that had fallen onto the paper, now he had to work extremely accurately. There was a reason he had made a piece of paper float and he didn’t just put a piece of wood down, he was now constantly shaking the paper slightly causing the ashes to fly a centimeter or two into the air.

Then he had to carefully ‘corrupt’ some of the ashes with his magical energy. Pushing out a second strand of magical energy he had it float a bit above the piece of paper, when small dots of ash flew into the area he tried to take control of them in a similar fashion he took control of the paper.

He only had ten seconds to do both this, as well as the following step, according to the recipe, so after ten seconds he flew the paper a well as the ash not in his control, straight into the bin. In total he had gotten control of about a third of the ashes, if he were to put them together they wouldn’t be far from the size of a ping-pong ball, which was the ideal amount according to the book.

Villin quickly flew the ashes over to the microscope, taking the vial of boiling water with him. He flew the ashes underneath the lens and looked at them through the device, he checked a few before confirming there were two small pure-white dots, this was his own magical energy. If it wasn’t at least light-grey you wouldn’t be able to concoct the solution and so it was already a bit of a relief to see his magical purity was on par.

Not wasting any more time, Villin grabbed a pipette and took a bit of the boiled water. He bunched up the ashes he had gotten and released four drops of the boiling water. At this point, four more seconds had already passed. Once the four drops were released Villin was constantly rearranging the ashes. Each of the particles could barely absorb anything, but all together they should be able to absorb the four drops, if a bit of water dropped down the success rate would plummet though.

After rearranging the ashes for three seconds Villin knew he was running out of time and so he chose to assume the water was absorbed and once more looked through the microscope. In the few bits of ash he checked, he noticed that the two bright white dots were now surrounded and connected by a pathway of still boiling water.

And so with one second remaining, Villin quickly put the ashes into the vial that contained the liquids extracted from the rest of the herbs. He then split it into two different vials and started moving them around in circles manually, causing the different liquids and the ashes to mix together. After doing this for about a minute, he noticed the vials now each held a single dark green substance. He continued making circles manually with one of the vials while he put the other one in a machine. As soon as he inserted some magic power the machine started spinning at insane speeds.

After about ten seconds of this Villin took it out and compared the colors. The one that went through the machine was now a lighter green and everything was going as expected. He took two pipettes and checked each of the liquids under the microscope. Everything was as expected as the ashes had spread the dots of magical energy and parts of the plants’ DNA still existed and had even begun fusing.

Seeing how everything thus far was perfect Villin put the vial with the dark green liquid on a heater and waited, after two minutes the liquid had turned pitch black, he took the vial off and now mixed the two liquids together before quickly making circles with the vial now consisting of both a light green and a pitch-black liquid.

Villin didn’t dare even look at the liquid as he had his eyes closed fully focussing trying to have as much of his magical energy enter the liquid as possible, when it entered he allowed the energy to dissipate to the liquid would absorb it properly. After ten minutes of this, a small crowd had gathered about a dozen meters away from his station. Two of them knew of the recipe and realized he was at the final step of making a gene solution. They were extremely quiet as they didn’t want to disturb him.

Then Villin opened his eyes and quickly put the solution in the freezer before closing it. Now Amelia and Kay walked up to his station as both of them were curious as to what the result would be. They had been keeping an eye on him since the moment he managed to take control of a third of the ashes created by the two final herbs and were surprised to see how skillfully he handled every step. Compared to them he was slow when dealing with the microscope but other than that his speed was extremely good.

Ten seconds passed but to Villin they felt like multiple hours. With a nervous heart, he opened the freezer and took out the solution within. Within the vial now was a bright red solution, the brightest red he had ever seen. He waited for a few seconds nervously, he was just about to put it aside and ask where he went wrong when the liquid within the vial started acting strange. Hundreds of tiny bubbles started forming at the bottom and they floated upwards.

Villin’s face lit up instantly and he looked around the room with a stunned expression. When he looked as Amelia with a questioning gaze she nodded and so he immediately drank up the entire vial. The longer he let it out the less potent it would be. Now he simply had to hope the gene solution was of a high enough quality.

He walked away from the station exhausted. He had planned to try to make one a multitude of times but after this first time, he felt completely empty. Even though he still had quite a bit of magic power left, he couldn’t muster up any as he was completely exhausted mentally. He was about to leave the room and head toward the dormitories to rest, when the serious-looking Kay stopped him.

Villin wanted to ask what was up but couldn’t manage to cast Mentallage and so he only had a questioning look. A moment later he heard a voice within his mind.

“Well done. Next week you will find resources on your station, you can sell any solutions you don’t need to us. As for today’s spell blueprint, Amelia will find you tomorrow.”

The number of words he ‘said’ was surprisingly high for Kay. But most of it went into one ear and out the other as he only felt an incredible exhaustion taking over his mind. When he realized Kay had stopped speaking to him, he tried to focus for one last time as he used his body to sprint, first to the door, and then through the halls. A couple of times along the way he nearly fell to the ground, but he managed to recover and make it to his room. Sadly though he didn’t make it to his bed and so he fell asleep on the floor.