*knock* *knock* *knock*
"Who?"
"Me"
"Order or collect?"
"Collect."
"Come in."
Bomb alchemist has a really nice room. It's full of all kinds of potions and vials. I also see a shelf solely for bombs but he wouldn't be bomb alchemist if he doesn't have at least a stash of bombs.
"Did you finish it yet?"
"Just a bit."
"It has been three months, what is taking it so long? Don't tell me you took your time out of spite?"
"Don't group me with some kind of third-rate alchemist. If I get a commission I accepted then I would do it to the best of my abilities. This is my pride as a craftsman. The solution you needed is doable but I don't have enough mana to synthesize it. I had to do it in parts so it's taking too long."
"It's only a cleaning solution, is it something that really needs three months of your mana?"
"You wanted something that cleans while being gentle to sensitive to the eyes. Most cleaners we have eradicates germs with a great use of force so it's not exactly 'gentle'. Also if you are going to use it on your eyes it needs to have a soothing effect to so it won't irritate it. Most importantly, alchemist generally don't have a lot of mana. We don't really need it to make most of the potions and if we do need to make something that requires the use of it, we drink our own mana potions. You gave me limited budget so I won't take up the cost of the mana potion, which led me to synthesizing the potion by parts in these past few months."
I will use it to clean the contact lense and put that on my eye so I appreciate the care that went into making this cleanser for me but I don't want to take any longer than necessary. I want him to be done with this project and go back to his old ways of bombing me so I can earn my income again. As part of this deal with the cleanser, I already promised that I would limit the coin I take from him to 25 copper coins per bomb so I need him to do it as often as possible. If I can save that money then I could rent a forge workshop, buy some knife materials and sell that so I can have my own income. Until I can start that production, I need him to be my main source of income.
"How about I supply the mana?"
"Can you keep a continuous of mana with precise control? If your mana wavers a bit then this cleaning agent will be destroyed. Also since you want to be part of the making process, regardless of the result, our deal would be completed."
"I'll release a stream of mana, measure it and tell me how much you need so I can estimate how long I can keep supplying it."
"Wait a bit, I'll get my mana conducting tool."
I do have quiete a bit of mana now. Especially with this ring that gives me almost 50% mana regeneration. It was too bad that its not my supposed 'hero cheat' snowballing my stats but finding out that this ring actually gives that much mana regen is well over worth the price I paid for it.
Three months I go I forgot to do a last control test so I went through a week thinking that I suddenly gained a lot of mana reserve but to think it was the ring. I used the same experiment to release continuous wind magic without the ring again, when I was curious how much my mana have grown, only to find out that my mana only grew by about 2.3%. This means the rest of the percent when I stayed up for about 8 hours of nonstop wind magic was from the mana regeneration of my ring. How come such a ring that gives that much mana regeneration is included as a bonus for the mystic store? I guess it's some kind of mistake from the shopkeepers part, that must be why the auction house gave me that slightly aggressive 'business talk' as I was returning to the auction that day.
"Hold this and channel your mana through it. Do you mind if I store the mana so I can use it later or should I just direct the flow outside as an explosion?"
"Why is does your mana conducting tool produce explosion? I thought that mana conducting to to check the flow and strength of someones mana produces rainbow light?"
I heard that depending on how much colour you can produce it would show the strength of your mana and the clearer the colour it would show your control.
"Hobby."
"Store it, I might hit you on reflex if I hear an explosion."
"Got it. I'll use a fresh mana storage that has a receptor that can allow the flow of the maximum amount of mana, needed for the synthesis of your item."
This is the other way you can measure the control of a person, you can change the receptor to a certain size so a person can only input a certain amount of mana into the item. If you put in too much mana force then it would glow to show the overflow, if you put in too little then the item would work poorly. In this case the storage would not fill up to its maximum efficient speed. This is what they use to limit the flow of mana in magic items so they don't wear out.
"I'm amazed, for a first year blacksmith student you have excellent control and mana capacity."
"I know, then can you hurry up my order now?"
"Yes, and with that output we will finish in two hours. Just pour your mana into my potion cauldron with the same flow rate."
I feel bad for taking your money all the time and the time to come so I will let it slide that you casually hid the mana storage I filled up from the earlier test. However, if I have no business with you then its fair game. Attack me often as I am in dire need of money.
"Done, get out."
"Thanks."
Watching how a paste of different coloured unknown things turn into a clear clean smelling gel is fascinating to say the least. I saw the ingredients he had on the room and it's mostly different kinds of plants, soil and some monster parts. There are powdered things too but I don't know what it is other than they give off different kinds of glow. If I rebirthed in another continent with a rich forest then such a job would surely be useful but the job itself is pretty tedious in my eyes. You not only have to learn a bunch of different things about different kinds of materials but you also need to know how each of those interact to each other to produce a specific effect. It needs a lot of experimenting if you don't have a recipe or you want to create a new kind of potion.
The process seem finicky too with a lot of factors to take into account. It's a very unforgiving craft with a high payoff but the smell deters me from doing it. The use of a potion is always optional too so its not worth it to learn. If I am wounded I can heal myself, If I need mana I can just wait for the regeneration, if I am poisoned then I can keep healing myself until I get a resistance. I don't see anything that I would need to go out of my way to learn being an alchemist. This cleanser being a rare thing too so I can just hire an alchemist if I need something. I do want to learn to be independent but delegating unimportant things like this is forgivable, like how I didn't need to raise and butcher meat for my food when I had a farm before.
For now, let's clean this contact lense and see if the person who made this added some kind of enchantment on this or they just don't want to wear glasses.
I forgot to ask him how long I need to soak the contact lense but even if I ask him I don't think he would know. I only commissioned him for a cleaner so the thing he made is basically eye drops. I should drop som in my eyes before wearing the contact lense just to be sure, I don't want to be infected with whatever that guy had or anything that may have grown on the contact lense during the years this has been left alone.
It stings a bit but its within tolerable level. My body is fresh so my brain might numb itself of the pain but my body would and the nerves would still react. I need to remedy this situation so my body can move through the pain and won't react involuntary that may endanger me during combat or when I am forging something. I can't exactly donate my body to 'science' again so maybe I can toughen my nerves if I swim in the iron sand dessert. That sounds good to not only strengthen this body's nerves but also toughen up my defenses. I have to worry about the giant worm but I don't think I will encounter it in the outskirts.
Vacation is coming up and I don't really have anything planned so that seems like a good idea. I better start preparing early, I need to make some weapons and tools.
The feeling of my left eye is now soothing so I guess it should be fine to wear the contact lense and it has been soaking in the cleaning solution for a few minutes now too.
Ah, this is the weird part. It doesn't scare me as much from my life in the modern world since I did have the experience of my eyeballs being scooped, burnt and melted at the academy but putting something on your eye still gives anyone a weird feeling. I never used glasses in the modern world except sunglasses or those glasses that helps with the glare since it makes driving during a sunny day easier on the eyes.
I did use fake glasses during my work in the bookstore. The bookstore is part of a retail chain so we had some events the higher ups cooked up and one day they decided to do a 'hipster week'. The others seem all for it but it was torture for me to wear those fake glasses, a beanie and suspenders. After I few days I wanted to quit but I figured suffering for a bit all for the sake of my retirement is needed.
Let's see, it doesn't itch, burn or hurt in any particular way so no worries so far. However, except for a feeling that one of my eye has a glass filter, nothing significant is happening.
Is it really just a contact lense? Maybe I need to say some kind of password to activate it? It seems like this thing is a bust, I wasted some coins in this one.
Putting this thing on is weird but removing it is a huge pain. It's like a suction cup to my eye and it's wet from the solution so I can't get a good grip on it.
There we go, I really don't see why people choose to wear this rather than a pair of glasses. Hmm? There is a shiny vein like design on the contact lense. Is this a circuit? Maybe I need to channel mana into it, the size is small so I need to slowly and gradually increase the amount I channel into it until it works.
I wonder how long of an experiment this is, it seems like every experiment I did in this life includes spending a large amount of time waiting. I wish I had a sofa or a reclining chair for times like these.
Blob Neutral