The sun was rising when I got to the alchemy station. To my surprise, it was a beautiful gazebo in the middle of the forest, containing a workstation of different pots and tools. Inside cabinets were powders and herbs and liquids of different types, which was too convenient. It was clearly meant for a test, but it felt very eerie. There were plates with magic circles on them that looked weathered and used, while the ingredients and certain equipment were brand new. There were also parts of the countertops that had been eroded away or gashed and replaced with quick repairs. It was clear that the station had been there for a long time, but the ingredients and equipment and repairs were new and rushed, perhaps for my arrival.
"What's the catch?" I asked as I walked forward.
Twenty meters from the gazebo, my entire body scanned with blue light as if I were stepping through a bubble. I recognized that light. It was the barrier that I saw when I woke up!
I got a notification.
You have discovered the trial workstation! You have 72 hours of barrier protection. Please use this time to the fullest.
Note: You can leave the barrier at will.
I patted my backpack lovingly. "I guess this tent'll be useful, after all."
Kline pouted.
"Oh, please," I said, dropping the reiga in front of him. "Why don't you cut this up and sneak a bite when I'm not looking."
His shoulders slumped as if to say, I killed it; now you're acting like you're doing me a favor?
"Hey Lithco," I said. "Can I make a cleansing elixir for Kline?"
It was part of the tutorial, so a pop-up came up, and Lithco sent a message.
Yes. The same elixir will work for spirit beasts.
"Thank~you," I said and then looked down. "I'm gonna double your magic. You wanna cut that meat, now?"
Kline's eyes widened, and he started clawing through the meat without sass or delay.
I smiled and then walked to the alchemy station. There was an oven, pots, pans, and other equipment, each on arrays that had precise temperatures. I get the feeling they did half the work, I thought. So if I fuck this up, it's my fault. So why…?
It was at that moment that I realized something important. I didn't know anything about alchemy, let alone cleansing elixirs!
Suppose this's where I spend more money, I thought ruefully as I opened up my menu and went to skills. Yet I paused when I got there. This is a huge part of my class… should I go platinum or diamond?
My knee-jerk reaction was screaming, "Diamond, you idiot!" but there were only two diamond requests left (aside from my free requests), and I still needed equipment, spells, books, skills, and tutorials. Most importantly, if I got into soulmancy, I might need a request there.
Still… I thought about the mana syrup that I gave Kline and the bath bomb that saved me from the rootstrangler. The balm that healed my cuts. The water that saved my life. I was staring down a miracle in a forest where these powerful medicines were at my fingers. Wouldn't I be a fool not to pursue this? Hell, why did I even want soulmancy if I was being offered power right here?
I folded my arms, unfolded them, rubbed my forearms, tapped my foot, and folded my arms again. That's when I made my decision:
"Lithco. Give me the best diamond skill for learning alchemy."
A chime popped up, and I became overwhelmed with notifications:
Book: Fundamentals of Alchemy (Grades 1-5) has been added to your shelf.
Book: Common Alchemic Recipes (Vol 1-5) has been added to your shelf.
Book: Alchemic Herb Identification (Vol. 1-5) has been added to your shelf.
Book: Alchemic Mana Control (Vol. 1-3) has been added to your shelf.
Book: Fundamentals of Working with Spirit Ingredients (Complete Edition) has been added to your shelf.
Book: Advanced Alchemical Reactions and Catalysts has been added to your shelf.
Book Essence Extraction Techniques (Vol. 1-4) has been added to your shelf.
Book: Healing Alchemy (Vol. 1-5) has been added to your shelf.
Book: Alchemic Preparation: Choosing the Right Medium For Your Creation (Complete Edition) has been added to your shelf.
The list of books was truly overwhelming. There were thirty-seven in all, proving the intense power of diamond requests. It made me glad that I didn't use any of my free requests on books, as I could've probably bought a poisonous plant skill and gotten a dozen!
It didn't stop there, either. There were two dozen tutorials, followed by spells and recipes.
Spell: Purification (Second Tier) has been added to your spells.
Spell: Desiccation (Third Tier) has been added to your spells.
Spell: Water Sphere (First Tier) has been added to your spells.
Spell: Flash Freeze (Third Tier) has been added to your spells.
Spell: Controlled Heat (Tiers One Through Three) has been added to your spells.
Spell: Separation (Tiers One through Five) has been added to your spells.
Spell: Sublimation (Second Tier) has been added to your spells.
Spell: Essence Extraction (Second Tier) has been added to your spells.
Spell: Domain (Tier Two) has been added to your spells.
Spell: Skin Barrier (First Tier) has been added to your spells.
I ran my fingers through my hair and laughed. "Lithco, why would anyone buy spells when they can just buy skills?"
Since I had books and tutorials, he could answer me. So, a new pop-up materialized.
"The only reason you've obtained so much is because you bought a fundamentals skill, which requires a lot of prerequisites, with a diamond request. If you bought a higher level skill, it wouldn't provide you with any of these basic spells. You'd need to learn them before you could use the skill."
"Oh, so I should get the fundamentals of every trade, first?"
"Correct. The higher the grade, the better."
I nodded.
"There's other reasons as well," he wrote. "Beyond convenience, skills only provide you with basic spells. If you want to upgrade them, you must do so with requests. There are also spells that are convenient but unnecessary, or are necessary but for skills beyond your means. So you must buy those individually. Lastly, these books don't give Guide effects. Your poison and foraging books highlight plants at a distance, and your trap plants book notifies you when there's one nearby. That's more valuable than having the internet."
"That is useful... Okay. This is a lot to take in, so... let's just get started." I pulled up the tutorials and found one for cleansing elixirs. "That's convenient," I whispered.
I opened it, and Lithco's human form materialized like a genie.
"I was wondering if you'd ever let me out of there," he said, patting down his clothes. "I'd expect this torture from a Pather, but I thought you were a humanitarian."
"I should've just killed you," I groaned.
"Ah, yes, but you're a pushover." He walked over to my foraging bag and frowned. "It's a shame you didn't have preservation boxes when you picked those. You're killing those herbs."
I shrugged. "It'll have to do."
"It will. At least you have them." He picked up the bag, duplicating it as he walked over to a cutting board. "Let's cover the basics. Alchemy is one part cooking, one part medicinal creation. For scientific exactness, you must later enter heximedica, which is far more advanced and requires equipment to capture and distill mana essence in its rawest forms. Until then, you will be cooking up drugs."
I chuckled and watched him pull out knives, squeezers, and measuring cups, followed by pots and pans, placing them onto arrays.
"Each of these arrays have certain temperatures that align to a minor cleansing elixir that's provided here," he said, pointing to a recipe on one of the gazebo's pillars. "That's what we're testing you on. After that, you will use these…" He reached under the cabinets and pulled out discs containing arrays that were labeled with different temperatures.
"You made this easy," I said.
"As opposed to what? Having lab equipment with exact heat controls?"
I frowned. "Good point."
"If you get advanced alchemy equipment, it will have modifiable arrays and other convenient tools. Now let's get started. Once you begin, you'll use a purification spell on everything. Even without a core, you'll be able to do this." He used the spell, and his body radiated a white glow. He took his fingers and ran it over all of the equipment, and soon, everything sparkled.
"It really sparkles like that?" I asked in amazement.
"No, but I thought it would be a useful infographic," Lithco said. "What do you think?"
I frowned, and he shrugged his shoulders.
"Let's start with the bashak because it's the most important ingredient." Lithco pulled out a red plant with thick leaves like aloe vera. I had picked it up underneath a bush not far from the shelter. "This plant contains juice that opens up your pores to push out impurities found in your muscles. To extract the medicine, we'll first slice it up. Be careful not to get the juice in your eyes."
I watched as purple juice poured out of it. I'd have to be careful.
"Then, you squeeze the juice into a bowl," he said, adding the pieces to a juicer and pushing out the liquid. "And strain it to get rid of the pulp." He took cheesecloth and lined a second bowl, pouring in the purple pulp. It fell in thick clumps before Lithco lifted the cheesecloth and twisted it, allowing the juice to pour into the bowl. "You'll be able to do this with the Separation spell in the future, but that's a multi-process spell. So we'll do things the hard way for now."
He tied the cheesecloth and put it onto a hook over the bowl.
"Next, we'll work on the tram," he said, picking up a thin, purple flower.
"What does that do?" I asked.
"You don't want to know. All you need to know is that you'll need to use your Desiccation spell to remove the moisture. Otherwise, this'll take a month to create the powder."
I shivered when he didn't answer my question, a clear sign of "helping me." But then I forgot all about it once I saw his hands light up with green light and the purple flower wither into a wilted brown stump in an instant. Then he flicked it, and a section of it exploded in a rainfall of powdered flower matter.
"Seriously?" I asked in wonder.
"Yep. Magic accomplishes what human equipment has tried and failed to accomplish for centuries. Never underestimate the superiority of magic."
I swallowed and nodded.
"After you use the spell, you'll grind it up."
Lithco walked me through the entire process. It only took him half an hour to do it from start to finish, but it would take me hours to learn it. Worse, it used magic spells that I didn't know how to use.
"Can I practice with your augmented reality?" I asked after he finished. "I won't have enough time to keep getting ingredients."
"Astute question," Lithco smiled. "You can indeed. That said, there will be a difference in pressure. You can't actually slice something that isn't there."
I nodded.
"But first, put your herbs into these preservation chambers." He opened a drawer, and there were dozens of glass storage containers with arrays on them.
I pulled them out and opened them. Then, I pulled out the ingredients from the foraging bag and put them into separate containers since there was no shortage.
"How do I activate them?" I asked.
"Just put your fingers on the array and chant 'anthropoi' in your mind."
I glared at him.
"That pain you felt came from trying to inhale mana," Lithco said, straight-faced and apathetic. "It won't affect the trickle of mana you need here. If a core were truly necessary, Kline wouldn't be able to use magic."
"So you're saying that I can use magic?"
"Yes. Not without risking your core, but these spells only require a fraction of what Kline's spells use. You'll be fine."
I didn't trust him. I felt like an animal that had been beaten by a human—unwilling to trust completely ever again. But I did, and to my surprise, my arms warmed up and lit up. It was a truly pleasant feeling.
"That's it?" I asked.
"That's it," he confirmed. "Arrays execute a spell so you don't have to. With enough mana, a normal person could activate the most destructive of spells."
"Oh…" Suddenly, these arrays felt a lot more disturbing. "Okay. Can we start?"
"Yes," he said.
I went through each of the ingredients and followed the process. Lithco watched me and provided me with real advice with snarkiness. He was the best teacher I could ask for—and he only worked with me. He never got tired. Never complained that I was asking too many questions and only chastised me when I got lazy or repeated mistakes over and over again.
Once I got the basics down, he started teaching me spells. Purify. Desiccation. Essence extraction. That was the most time-consuming part, and it always left me exhausted.
"Drink some of your syrup," Lithco suggested. "There's plenty."
"Even though it's so rare?" I asked.
"You can always make more."
My heart fluttered, and my breaths became shallow. "Okay."
I pulled out the Maralune Syrup bottle and poured out a tiny amount. There was more than enough for another ten doses. Then I put some in my mouth and almost gagged it out. It was like absinthe—where burning sugar into the drink was necessary to make it drinkable.
"God this is terri… ble." A warm feeling filled my body, and mana channels, making me slump in pleasure.
"Take a break and eat lunch, but don't get lazy," Lithco said. "There's a lot to do."
I nodded. I'd be doing this non-stop for the next three days—I needed to keep my energy up. I would pull this off. It wasn't a matter of if—it was a matter of when. And I meant for it to be on the first try.