The liquid was cool and heavy. It swung against him with a half-filled back momentum not unlike the awful cough syrup he forced himself to down for his seasonal. The damn viscous stuff was the only type his local GP carried.

Like all his fellow adults, his families signed up on those sweet, sweet Universal Health Care. Free stuff right? Who wouldn’t want that? Yet, like all things free, government-free that was, one thing remained constant —that in receiving those free things, one couldn’t be a chooser.

So even though the stuff was a wretched mix of too much sugar and old, moldy leather, he marched on —downing them in one go. He was a practical man, why waste a half-day trip for avoiding three minutes of terrible experience. That or his laziness. He liked to think it was the first —after all the second couldn’t justify him gulping down the faux-grape blend three months a year.

Also, he didn’t have other good excuses, Mr. Cecero at least had one —inability to gulp down a hard tablet due to swallowing difficulty.

He? He was just unfortunate tick of demographic, a minority percentage who stuck with the cheapest —sorry— the economically viable preparation the top pharma logistic algorithm had generously determined.

Although... looking at his hand, he frowned. The bottle, the stone cold bottle was not really suitable for long handling. It needed leather or paper wrap. Just from his tightened grip, he could felt the low hum washed over his hand. A slight searing sensation of countless little pop, bubbling, tingling.

He sighed, it was a hallmark of yellow. And he was very glad it only came when he grasped the bottle a little bit too tight. Otherwise not to mention his soon-to-be customers, his ungloved hand would almost certainly burn. Magical burn. Which a lot worse.

He put the bottle back on top of the table. The very much empty table. The rest? Those had already been stored inside the safety of [Inventory]. Which with how Mrs. Crombe's clear soup had been kept warm for seven days when he pulled it out (which an effect of intentional experimentation and definitely not a byproduct of him being absentminded) he assured that the system had some kind of inherent time stasis effect.

This one though, the one he put out, he chose to not store inside the safety of that said inventory. Despite its definite short shelf-life, he still kept it out. Of course, he reasoned that it was to be used as display. Showing the customers what product that they would get. Caveat emptor and all that right? Or at least that what he told himself. More likely he just that —curious. Well, mesmerized. Captivated.

Curiosity had broken the window and burned the whole block to the ashes since a month and a half ago. This was just him staring at the liquid, addicted. It wasn't his fault that this world didn’t have internet. He needed his mindless scrolling, people! This was the best he got. Looking as if he was seeing an entertaining lava lamp.

And why wouldn’t he? The liquid was a kaleidoscope, witnessed by both his mundane eyes and his fledging [Mana Sense]. It was fireworks of light and dim. Gear-like rotations of geometrical patterns, clockwise and counterclockwise. Miniscule molecules interlocking with each other, exchanging a seldom spark every periodic second. An emerging property from a complete whole.

“So that’s how.”

He said. Again. Counting the twenty something since he sunk into this new low. Which was fair. Supposedly. This was his first pierce into the obfuscating mist that was magic after all. And reliving triumph was just that ...exhilarating.

Well, perhaps it was a tiny, tiny bit bordering addictive —obsessiveness. But why wouldn’t he? If he was on Earth (and was way, way more well-known) he’d be hailed as single-focused genius. Or some similar esoteric mumbo jumbo. Perhaps involving words like quantum, wholeness, and/or finding your center.

Which was ...understandable? After all, he managed to crack the great secret of the universe: the fact that alchemy was creating magic effect by mimicking spells.

Spells. You knew, the habble-dabble which magic operated. The real world manifestation of one’s intent. The great shifting of reality that symbolized by geometric pattern powered and weaved by mana. The spells.

As it turned out, the chemical compositions were the basis. Clusters of crystals, self-floating amorphs, dissolved substances, reluctant solvents. Those what enabled a formation of that said geometric. Casting dices to the random chaos, hoping that the mana that was traveling between the grip and gaps of molecules were functional, helpful.

Which was a question unto itself. From the minimum size required for the emergent property to happen, did the application route such as drinking the potion alter the effect somehow (because it was interacting and digested by the body), and more importantly —were those dangerous?

Particularly, those. His eyes zeroing. Focusing to ‘the those’ to the aberrations. The series of non-repetitive geometric. Not much, just four-five splotches spread around. The best he could describe it was that the things were ...misshapen, contrast with their neighbor regular, spaced, satisfying pattern.

As until now, he didn’t know what that was, of course. But it would be understatement saying that it didn’t bother him. His very stretched conjecture hypothesized that the aberrations were the representation of side effects.

Several of the [Chronicle] potions have those. Most famous was mana poisoning that inflicted constant burn which damaged 0.5% of the player HP every three seconds. And canceling casting mid-spell which was the worst thing that could happen for a mage.

The poisoning happened when a character consumed mana potions without reasonable spacing relative to the recommended level metabolism. It was especially prominent on the middling magician who tried to save money by imbibing the low-grade, cheaper kinds.

He knew it was ridiculous. Why didn’t the dev just do cooldown like other normal MMORPG? Which they answered in their stupid reality-obsessed thinking, that in the real world (shocker), you couldn’t really stop people from drinking stuff anywhere, anytime they want unless they were unconscious or gagged or numerous other things that prevented liquid from entering one mouth. But a personal choice, unhampered by external factors meant that player could continuously gulp all their beverage of choice. It just if they did so, there’d be a consequence.

Which was ...understandable, but it so annoying when you accidentally misclick and suffered the burn. Half of the mage he knew even didn’t put anything less than the highest grade mana potion on their hotkey anymore.

So knowing that, it was the only thing he could think about the odd, misshapen pattern. Not that he assured that it was the answer and only answer. He bet that this world, this system, still hide a lot of things from him. A lot of things he must be careful of.

Although even he was a bit leery of selling something ...imperfect, he reasoned that it was ...fine? For one, Nothing was perfect in this world. What existed were acceptable risks (read: risks that didn’t involve him in, let said, personal capacity).

Then, there was the [Appraisal], the all-knowing system’s [Appraisal]. It hadn’t said anything remotely side-effect-ish even under his [Alchemy] labeled section. Which was encouraging.

...or his [Appraisal] skill was simply too low.

Hmm...

Yeah... it was one of those life mysteries. Like the answer to life and everything. No one might ever know the answer to that. Right?

And while he hoped to create something that could be consumed daily. A nutritional supplement that would boost the sale to an even greater height. With the unfortunate fact that it looked like, seemed, existed a possibility that a yet to be known most likely to be a minor side effect, he’d be remiss if he wasn't thinking about his customer by exercising caution. Anti-lawsui— sorry, safety caution that was. Something like maximum daily dose, short-term, no-overuse warning. Perhaps conservative labeling like one bottle per day maximum. Yes! If in the end of the day the customers didn’t heed his exhaustive, good will of a warning, then it wasn't his fault.

Unless.... the side effect was chronic… hmm he’d test it later when —if he recouped the initial investment.

*Ehm*

For now, he had more pressing matter to attend.

Finding a shopkeeper.

“Of course.”

Of course, it would've been too easy. Looking at the quills and flattened sheaves stacking on the table side, he was hoping. Hoping that he could copy the geometric.

After all, if he could inscribe the summoning of the guardian (which he was also hoping to be both docile and agreeable), he would be set. Just sent them collecting items on the dungeon! Free employees! Free items!

Yet it not meant to be, as if knowing his ‘clever plan’ the moment he broke the green wax seal, a knowing surged in his mind, telling him to unfurl and activate the thrice-appraised scrolls at once or lost it forever. Which of course he did. He wouldn’t risk the scroll.

Staring at the flickering light, he unrolled the scroll. Faint shimmers were lighting within and between each line. Glowing. He gravely agreed seeing that, concluding-regretting that the knowing hadn’t lied to him. The characters were fading. And fading fast they were. Sighing and without further memorizing attempt, he let his mana loosed.

From his heart to his arms. To his hands. To his palms.

To the scroll.

And then… it drained. His mana was sucked as line and line of written runes light even more up. He tried to make sense the thing of course. Grasping at the last opportunity to burned even leastmost corner, one single rune to his memory.

Yet it not meant to be.

“Argh!”

He screamed. The pain akin to sharp stab of steel bolt punched his left eyes. Ramming through his cheekbone and ended up in his mouth. He felt his head pounding, his mouth metallic. And the flares gleefully throb up and down, up and down, mocking him.

“Alright, alright!”

He ceased trying to memorize the rune. Letting the pain washed over the irregular strokes he managed to glance. Then at once. At once. The pain stopped.

—and he felt his hand plunged to a sticky, cold abyss.

No. Not his hand. His pseudo-hand. It was the weird feeling of having another limb and somehow knew how to use it. His real hand was still holding the scroll which somehow had managed to open a cut in the space, a portal of dark, swirling abyss.

Before he could process the whole thing though, another knowing on his head tutted, telling him to grasp on the feeling of his pseudo-hand and reach. Reach until he found something.

He didn’t want to of course. But the knowing shout, barking —tirading something along the line of time limitedness nature of the spell. So he did it with sigh and protestation —he heeded the knowing.

He wiggled, letting his pseudo-hand moved, swam. Mimicking the moves he did when he was in school doing backstrokes. Between the slimy, indescribable cold, he could felt the pseudo-hand was pushing, dragging itself.

He felt something.

Something hard.

It was ...slippery? Sleek? He let the pseudo-hand felt around the ...thing. Caressing it, touching it. One experimental minute later, he concluded that it was formed of ridges. A two centimenter by two centimeter square, repeating. Tiling. Forming something cylindrical.

He continued to touch the thing, moving up and down, until—

“Ouch!”

He drew his pseudo hand, a jolt of pain as if he touched something sharp shook him, releasing the ridges. It wasn't that painful. Just surprising. Moving his hand again to touch the ridges again, he noticed that it had disappeared.

“What?”

He moved the pseudo-hand to left, to right. To front, to back. Even to up and down, knowing the whole thing was continuous unending whole. Yet, nothing. Nothing.

Then when he thought the spell was a failure. That the scroll wasted, the same knowing knocked on his head again. Asking him if he wanted to try again.

Which he nodded. Furiously.

Then he felt his mana dropped. Plunged a chunk. A big chunk. Around a fifth he roughly guessed. It was the same amount he transferred to get the scrolls going. Does it mean that every failure would cost him mana? If that was the case, it meant—

—he could only afford it two more times.

Well, three more times to be exact. However since he had no intention to experienced whatever happened when he ran out of mana, then it’d be just two more times.

Knocking on the knowing once more, he ‘swam’ yet again. After some time, he felt a bunch of hairs, sticky, and grizzly. It was exudating warmth and felt soft-hard to touch, like a tough meat —a muscle.

Oh!

It was the summons! He was feeling the summons!

The previous one should be between lizardfolk or snakekin, both were playable humanoids on the [Chronicle]. While this one should be ...werefolk? Werebear, werewolf. He didn’t remember it all.

Not what he needed though —he needed a humanoid. Well, human-humanoid. After all that why he summoned something relatively unknown instead of hiring another helper from the merchant guild. His identity was ...sensitive. Magical potion making? Please, he might as well invented new field of magic. While he was assured Restia would finally connect the dot. He’d rather have no more people banging up his door than the bare minimum required.

“*Sigh*. One more chance.”

He plunged his hand again, scooping through the endless goo. Skipping when his finger barely touched something that remotely not skin. A jelly, another hair, another scales, only a heat, a ...gust, he passed them one by one, until—

Something soft! It was meat-like and squishy. Definitely a human, well human-ish! This. This, he told the knowing. This what he would take!

At once another information unraveled, telling him to wrap his pseudo hand into the creature’s limbs, pulling it through.

He did just that.

He pulled, he pulled, and he pulled. Fighting against the sticky goop, fighting against the gripping cold. He felt his remaining mana fluctuated, sucked bit by bit, powering his hand. Then, with a twentieth remaining in his reservoir, he saw the portal crackling, the slit, rippling. Showing a white small hand gripped by his floaty, shadow-like pseudo-hand.

“AAAAAAH!!”

BANG!

A loud bang cracked the air as he was thrown back against the wall. Crawling, he waved his right hand around, trying to move the smoldering smoke, trying to saw the figure that he had managed to summon, [Ray of Frost] frantically conjured in his mind, ready to be thrown in any sign of hostility.

He stopped. In front of him was a thirteen, fourteen years old girl. She was wearing the familiar pink beret with smiling emoji slapped as a sticker on the side. She looked confused. He was definitely confused.

How could she be here?

With a trembling voice, he quavered the burning question.

“Clar?”