“Perfect.” She muttered with excited eyes as her strings finished fusing with the runes on the cauldron. Most alchemy was done using cauldrons. They were huge pots that were specially crafted to be blank slates for Runes.
Runes were a language that communicated directly with Qi. This gave them many functions that a cultivator couldn’t do with just Qi Manipulation, making them the keystone to all professions. Their use was also what made Cultivation Methods different from other techniques, as they used runes instead of meridians to achieve their effects.
Alchemists set the Runes needed for their mixture on the cauldron in advance and activate or deactivate them as necessary through the alchemy process. However, what Marina needed to do wasn’t so simple.
Marina was in the Refining Realm, meaning she could only use a cauldron of the Refining Realm as artifacts are limited by their users. One of the reasons why Alchemists have trouble performing alchemy above their grade is that a Grade One cauldron simply can’t hold all the runes necessary for most Grade Two alchemy. To go above their grade, an Alchemist needed to manually erase and write new runes in the middle of mixing.
This alone wouldn’t excite Marina. Performing professions above her grade had been her norm for the last three years, even now she’d already done that while making the grade two components required for this potion.
No, what had Marina excited was that this grade two potion had a difficulty above most grade three potions. The timing of the Runes is strict for it to succeed, and the amount of Runes it needed simultaneously active is also high, much higher than a grade two should have. Even in her prime Marina wouldn’t be able to say she could definitely make it, much less now.
All hope was not lost of course, otherwise she’d never waste the materials making it herself. while her realm might be lower than the past, Strings of Creation was a profession-based Cultivation Method, and much more suited to this than her old method.
Her string were fused with the runes, allowing her to change them much quicker and easier than most. She’d also mapped out a theoretically optimal route for the rune changes in her notebook that she couldn’t wait to see the results of.
‘I have enough for exactly three attempts, should be doable.’ Her eyes filled with competitive spirit as she poured the clear liquid into the cauldron. The runes glowed as they quickly brought the liquid to a simmer.
She’d occasionally pull out some of the solid materials from her ring and toss them in. Everything had already been cut, sliced, or bundled in the way needed beforehand. As for the liquid materials, they were already out and attached to her strings that fed them to the cauldron as needed.
Things started off calm, but she quickly had to speed up her movements as the potion became more and more demanding. The cauldron looked like lightning danced around it as the runes flickered on and off in rapid succession.
Her face became tense with extreme focus as she stirred the now orange colored concoction. ‘This is it. The rest should be easy so long as I get past adding the catalyst.’ She took out a small purple pill and dropped it into the brightly colored mix with a serious expression.
The mixture went ballistic the moment the pill plopped in. It went from a simmer to a boil as rainbow bubbles started floating out of it. Marina cursed at the unexpected reaction and changed several runes to try bringing it back to a simmer and contain the bubbles before they got out.
She succeeded, but almost the entire space of the cauldron was lit up with the temperature control, mixing, and containment runes. She needed to change some of them to move on to the next step, but the loss of any function now could mean failure. Her worried eyes looked at the bubbles with frustration.
The bubbles held some of the medical efficacy and would lower the quality of the Physique Repair Potion if they didn’t mix in properly, if not directly cause its failure. Slacking on the temperature would only cause more bubbles to occur, stopping the mixing process would be even worse as the potion would literally start coming apart.
She needed a solution, and fast. Maintaining the current status was impossible, the potion already grew muddier and muddier as the ingredients began to separate and spoil due to the lack of inputs.
She optimized the runes as fast as she could, trying to make enough space to enhance the containment runes and push the bubbles back in, but there simply wasn’t time.
Just as it seemed the potion would certainly fail, a stroke of inspiration struck her. She began weakening the containment while increasing the mixing speed. Despite the containment weakening, the bubbles didn’t fly any further. In fact, they started sinking back as she converted more runes to mixing speed.
The potion spun faster and faster, sucking the fleeing bubbles in one by one. This wasn’t without consequence. Such a fast circulation wasn’t part of the potion’s mixing process and would inevitably affect it, but it was the lesser of two evils.
The rest of the alchemy was a tightrope performance. Her previously laid plans were useless due to the earlier mistakes, and she had to constantly come up with different methods to do damage control. The potion finally finished after a grueling three hours.
Marina didn’t immediately check on the potion after finishing, instead she sat and started going over the process in her mind. This was the hardest recipe she’d ever made, and she’d gained many insights from the experience.
She opened her eyes after half an hour and made some notes in a journal before examining the Physique Repairing potion. It was… worse than expected. The quality had degraded from the peak of grade two to the bottom of grade one, lumps disrupted the absorption rate, and it had more impurities in it.
It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that she’d succeeded by the skin of her teeth, if you could call it a success. Marina simply jotted down her observations expressionlessly.
Failure was a key part of the creation process. She never expected to get it perfect on the first attempt, that’s why she’d prepared enough for three attempts to begin with. The quality of the final product will be the true test of her abilities.
She stored the potion away for later. She could definitely make some money back despite its poor quality. Physique Repairing Potions were hard to make and useless to most people, but this only made it more valuable to those who needed it.
She didn’t immediately start the next batch. Though, it’d be more accurate to say she couldn’t. Half an hour was far from enough rest for her injured body, she needed more time before she could do the straining process again.
Four hours passed before she attempted the second batch. She’d reviewed the flaws in her first plan during the time and worked out a new one. This one had some bold and innovative ideas she’d though of while doing the first batch. They weren’t easy to use, and stability would be an issue, but she was confident she could handle it.
The second batch ended up a spectacular failure, almost reaching the necessary things wrong for an explosion. Marina might have blushed from shame seeing the smoking brown sludge in the cauldron if she wasn’t busy writing down the plethora of interesting reactions.
She truly got a deep insight into the blending of the materials this time, and her head was bursting with new ideas. She spent eight hours alternating between resting and ironing out her plan for the third attempt. This one was more conventional than her second attempt, but it still held some risky ideas.
‘I’m not going to fail. I can ask the Vault Family for a loan if I do anyway so it’s no big deal. Worst case scenario I can just use the first batch.’ These excuses would’ve ran through her head ordinarily, but no such thought occurred now. She was fully immersed in the challenge of creation and all logical thoughts of loss or gain were nonexistent.
Three hours later, bright light shone from the cauldron as the potion began to settle in completion.
‘Grade two, slightly above average quality.’ She evaluated in disappointment. It was stellar improvement, but it fell short of her expectations for herself. Still, it was more than good enough to meet her purposes.
She took out a wooden tub and filled it with water before mixing the potion into it. She’d need to soak for a day as her physique repaired. She sent Raul a message of her success with the mirror before getting in.
Her eyes grew heavy with exhaustion as the water started flowing on its own and massaging her. She didn’t fight the urge this time, recognizing that she needed rest. She would face the nightmares with high spirits today, for when she woke up she’ll have restored some of her lost ability.
