World Seed: Game Start (9 page)

Chapter 7: The
Brew That’s True

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.

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.

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.

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.