“Time’s up!” Mrs Myrtle shouts, silencing the room and pulling everyone’s focus back to her.

“That should be enough time for even the slowest of you as long as you’ve been paying attention properly,” she says while casting a glance at a few students still shamefully crushing crystals. “Now, on to preparing our ingredients themselves. You all have it easy today, as the nymph’s blood doesn’t need anything doing to it, and the wyrmroot has already been cleaned so you just need to prepare it. We shall be preparing enough to attempt brewing three times, so please take six stalks out of the storage jar and grab your cutting plates.”

Emily follows her instructions, grabbing the smooth white stone sheet and placing it in the centre of the table in front of her as she pops the lid off the wyrmroot’s jar. A rich earthy aroma hits her the moment the seal on the jar breaks, followed by a soothing calm spreading through her body. Ignoring the effects of the root, she pulls out one of them and places it on the plate.

“Now, you are going to take your preparation knife, and slowly split the veins from the root. Be very careful not to cut the veins, if you break a vein, you will spoil the entire root and be forced to throw it away. Once you have separated the body and veins of the root, leave the veins whole and pulp the body, being careful to keep the sets of prepared veins with their original bodies unless you want an imbalance to ruin your potion. If you need an example, watch me do it once first: if not, start when you are ready,” Mrs Myrtle says before looking down at the root before her and raising a small silver knife with immense focus.

Emily watches her slowly bring the knife to the edge of the root, before carefully tracing it along the side of one of the red veins. She slowly guides her hand down the length of the root without a single quiver. After reaching the bottom of the plant, she lifts her knife back to the top and traces it along the other side of the vein. By the time she reaches the bottom again, the vein is practically falling from the root.

Seems easy enough.

Emily grabs her own silver knife and carefully cuts out all of the roots. Her hands smoothly follow her will, without a single vibration or variation from the intended path, a testament to her vastly improved dexterity. Placing the loose veins together on an empty tray, she grabs an empty mortar and pestle, grinding up the root’s body before placing it in an empty ramekin next to its veins.

She repeats this process with the other five roots in the jar, only having her focus broken once when Mrs Myrtle starts moving around the room to inspect the students’ preparation. Upon seeing Emily’s controlled and fluid motions, she gives her an approving nod before moving on silently.

After twenty minutes, everyone in the class finishes preparing their roots, and Mrs Myrtle returns to the front of the room to continue guiding them.

“Next, we move on to preparing our cauldron’s arrays. Can anyone tell me which array or arrays we will need to use for this potion?”

Several hands shoot up, and Mrs Myrtle picks a random boy in the back row.

“Just a control array. There are no unstable ingredients in the recipe.”

“Good! He’s completely correct, nymph blood and wyrmroot are both magically weak ingredients on their own and don’t have any major conflicts, so we can mix them without the need for any form of stabilising array or agent,” she says while moving to stand in front of the large cauldron next to her desk. “We will, however, need a control array to help us manage the reaction since most of you won’t have the refined mana control to do without yet.”

She lifts the lid of the cauldron and turns it to show its insides to the class, revealing a complex weaving of runes carved onto a silver panel within. Emily stares at the magic circle, awed by the density of engravings.

That’s got to be a third circle array at least, there’s over twice as many runes as in my second circle spells. Can second circle mages even activate that?

“All of your cauldrons have these flexible arrays mounted in the lid. Some of you have used these before, but if you haven’t, you can activate the appropriate section by channelling mana into the correct point on the outside.” Mrs Myrtle flips the lid and points to several small silver dots snaking around the edge of it. “Each point will have a small letter carved next to it to show what it activates. C is the basic control array. If you haven’t used one of these before, please have a play with it now to familiarise yourself with it before we begin our brewing.”

Upon being given permission, Emily follows most of the class in moving over to her cauldron and tracing her finger around the outside of the lid. Quickly locating the small engraved ‘C’, she places her finger over the corresponding white dot and pours her mana into it. The moment her mana saturates the array, she feels an ethereal connection being formed and watches in fascination as her vision splits, as a strand of mana stretches down into the cauldron allowing her to see inside.

The odd change in perception, being able to see outside the cauldron with her eyes and inside with her mana, makes her feel slightly dizzy, but she adjusts after a few seconds. Curiously, she moves her mana around the inside of the cauldron for a bit, experiencing a strange feeling of disconnect with the strand.

How interesting, it feels like the commands to my mana are being delayed and having small variations removed... It’s artificially removing unstable motions that would upset the brewing! This may have been helpful before I practised controlling my mana enough to develop the mana manipulation skill, but it feels limiting right now.

Pulling her finger away, she breaks her connection with the array before placing her hand flat on the top of the lid. Shutting her eyes, she directs her mana to flow out of her palm, forming into a pure strand on the other side and reaching down into the body of the cauldron. She performs the same motions as before, confirming that she has better control without the array.

I guess I don’t need to use it then. Though, I’m not quite sure how to view inside using mana alone, so I might have to use it anyway for now.

Her testing is interrupted when Mrs Myrtle claps her hands to draw everyone’s attention back to her.

“Right, that’s enough time to familiarise yourselves with the array, now it’s time to start brewing!” She gathers the prepared materials next to her cauldron while explaining the brewing process to the class. “You should already know this recipe by heart, so follow along as I demonstrate. We start the process by pouring three hundred millilitres of water into our cauldron and starting the fire beneath.”

Emily follows her instructions, measuring out the correct amount of water and pouring it into her cauldron. Then she bends down and places a hand on the logs held in a small chamber underneath. With a small burst of fire-charged mana, the logs ignite, and she quickly retracts her hand before standing back up.

“While we wait for the water to come to a boil, measure out two hundred millilitres of nymph’s blood and bring over your prepared wyrmroot.”

Emily pops the lid off of the jar of blood and carefully measures two hundred millilitres using an empty glass measuring beaker. She then places the beaker and two portions of veins and pulped root at the ready on the edge of the table next to the cauldron. She watches the water intently as the surface begins to shake.

“Now use your own judgement and add the nymph’s blood the moment the water starts to boil, then replace the lid,” Mrs Myrtle calls out before falling completely silent with the rest of the class and watching her own cauldron carefully.

A few small bubbles start to rise to the surface of Emily’s cauldron, but she holds off on adding the blood. A few students around her rush to add their blood and she scoffs at them internally.

The heat isn’t evenly distributed so most of your water isn’t even boiling yet, idiots.

The bubbles in her cauldron quickly multiply until the calm of the surface is broken by a raging torrent of activity. Reacting quickly, Emily pours the beaker of blood into the roiling waters. The viscous fluid swiftly overtakes the cauldron, dying the water a crimson hue as they seamlessly combine.

After emptying the entire beaker, Emily places the lid back on the cauldron and starts a mental timer.

Two minutes.

After the repeated clattering of heavy metal lids dropping into place settles, Mrs Myrtle addresses the class once more.

“For each stage now, never remove the lid for more time than is required to add your next material. We will leave the nymph’s blood and water to boil for two minutes before we add the pulped wyrmroot body. After that, give it a thorough stir with mana for thirty seconds, then add the veins and a third of your powdered light crystal. Finally, fully incorporate and manage the reaction of your ingredients for the last four minutes! Don’t let one overtake the other since this potion requires a careful balance. Good luck.” Her final words fall as Emily’s mental timer finishes.

Emily pulls the lid off slightly and drops two ramekins of wyrmroot pulp into the mixture. Dropping the lid back down instantly, she ignores the light red steam that escapes and places a hand on the top of the cauldron while shutting her eyes. She reaches a small tendril of mana down through the lid and begins stirring.

After thirty seconds pass, she grabs the wyrmroot veins and moves to place them into the cauldron before noticing the lack of crystal powder within her reach.

Shit, this will set my timings off.

As quickly as she can, she steps away from her cauldron and grabs a ramekin of light crystal powder. She opens the lid and drops the two sets of veins in along with the powder, before placing it down again and connecting to the control array. She watches in rapt fascination through the strange split perception as the glowing crystal powder and ruby wyrmroot veins break down into the violently bubbling crimson mixture, spreading a glistening tint of light through the mixture.

Forcing herself to focus and ignore the beautiful sight, she pushes the mana tendril down into the brew and begins to stir again. The viscous fluid resists her control, and as time slowly ticks by, she starts to notice bubbles of extreme dark or extreme light forming impurities throughout the mixture.

Each time she notices a problematic bubble forming, she quickly reaches for it and pops it with her mana tendril. However, the speed of impurities forming soon overwhelms the reaction speed of her tendril, and by the time her four minutes of brewing are up, she’s left staring at an uneven mess of colour.

With a disappointed sigh, she cuts off her connection with the control array, lifts the lid, and pulls her cauldron off the active fire, looking inside at the failed potion. The viscous red fluid maintains an unappealing appearance, as small off-coloured blobs float about freely.

“That’s attempt number one done,” Mrs Myrtle calls out while lifting her own cauldron and pouring its contents into a small glass bottle. “Did anybody in here succeed on their first try?”

To Emily’s surprise, not a single student raises their hand in response to the question.

Wait, no one succeeded?

“As expected. Clean out your cauldrons and try again on your own. This lesson only ends when you have tried all three of your attempts so don’t rush and take care in your work,” she finishes before stepping away from her table and beginning to move through the room to watch the students work.

Emily pours the unpleasant-looking contents of the cauldron into a waste bin before quickly cleaning it out with some extra water. Filling it with three hundred millilitres of water again, she places it back onto the fire before moving all the required ingredients to the edge of the table, this time making sure not to miss anything out.

She follows the same process again, following the precise timings needed, and as she adds the veins and light crystal to the mixture again, she takes a slightly different approach. Dismissing the control array, she places a hand on top of the cauldron lid and shuts her eyes, pushing a mana tendril down into the brew without assistance. Stirring the contents, she focuses on feeling for mana within the mixture. After a minute or so, at the same point where she started to see coloured bubbles, she starts feeling dense points of mana gathering.

Thought so! I can use mana density to work out where the impurities are without seeing the mixture.

With great speed and control, she lashes out with her mana tendril, bursting apart any impurities before they can fully take shape. The second four minutes pass, she pulls off the lid and is greeted by a burst of light crimson mist and an enticing sweet smell, along with a system notification.

¯¯¯¯¯

Quest generated: Alchemical Aspirations

[Alchemical Aspirations]

[Rank:] D

[Description:] You’ve joined the world of alchemy by following a known recipe. Now become a true alchemist and create your own!

Requirements:

-Create and successfully brew a new unique potion (Not Complete)

Rewards:

-Mechanic Knowledge: Chemistry

_____

Wait, only a single knowledge for a D-rank quest? It’s either a really useful knowledge, or this system’s unfair.

As she processes her new quest, she takes a glass bottle from the table and pours the healing potion from her cauldron into it. Putting the cork into place, she happily marvels at the bright crimson liquid with glittering sparks of light mana flowing through it.

“We have our first success! Congratulations, Miss Coldstone,” Mrs Myrtle says from behind her, catching Emily by surprise.

Emily turns to face her and thanks her with a smile. Mrs Myrtle urges her to try her last attempt before handing her a list of books for further reading, wishing her luck, and leaving to continue her job.