World Seed: Game Start (29 page)

Thanking
Rita and Malan, I made my way back to Lisara’s alchemy store.
As I entered, I saw that she was just finishing up with a customer,
who had purchased a green potion and was happily leaving. From what I
saw of her merchandise, that should be an antidote. “Hey,
again.” I said to the woman behind the counter, who smiled as
she noticed me.

“
Ah,
hello. What can I do for you today?”

“
Actually
came by to ask about a couple prices, and if they were affordable,
maybe spend some money.” I smirked to her, which made her laugh
lightly.

“
Well,
I shall certainly do my best to relieve you of your coin, good sir.”

“
Thanks.
First, how much is the recipe for a basic mana potion?” I
needed this one most urgently, as I had already come up with nearly
every other type of beginner potion there was.

“
Thirty
copper for the recipe.” I was relieved when I heard the price,
though I almost choked when she said thirty, thinking she’d be
asking for silver. Nodding with a smile, I asked my next question.

“
And
how much for a more detailed guide to plants in the area? I’m
looking to find some with certain characteristics to use with my
magic.”

This
time, she had to think a bit longer to say her answer. “Well,
there isn’t really a more advanced guide than what you bought
before. If you were in the capital, you could download a database of
plants, but for out in these forests there’s not that much. If
you’d like, you can tell me what traits you’re looking
for, and I’ll tell you if I know of any plants that match in
the area.”

I
nodded, and went over the list of things I wanted. “Well,
first, I need something fast growing, that can produce a lot of
seeds. I also need something straight and firm, and something with
sharp thorns.”

She
took another moment to process the information before laughing. “Oh,
you’re looking for an arrow vine?” I just sat there
blinking dumbly, not having expected her to know right away what I
wanted. “Harlan sells seed pouches for those. This is a
nature-heavy area, so lots of people want weapons they can grow with
their magic. Especially disposable items like arrows.”

Of
course they do. Why would I ever think that it might have been an
original idea?

Chapter 26:
Advancement, and Fluff!

“
So..
the recipe for mana potions?” I asked, still a bit deflated
after learning that the arrow vine was already a thing. Had I known,
it would have saved me so much trouble. After I put a silver coin on
the counter, Lisara took it and gave me my change.

“
Right.
First, you need half of a spidercap mushroom, ground into a powder.
Then, you need to mix in the juice from an enrichment fruit until it
turn into a thick paste. After that, heat it up until it dries out,
and grind it once again while mixing in a blood weed. Finally, pour
the powder into boiling water and wait for the mix to turn a dark
blue.” As she was mentioning the shade of blue, she led me back
to a shelf in her store where she had her own mana potions to show
me.

There
was just one thing that bothered me… “Enrichment fruit?
I don’t think that was mentioned in the herb guide.”

“
Oh?
Dear, we’ll need to fix that, then. It was likely an oversight,
since the only medicinal use it has is for beginner mana potions.
Otherwise, it is just a rather delicious fruit. Its appearance is
spherical, with thick brown skin. If you bite into it, it tastes
particularly sweet and gives an instinctive feeling of happiness due
to a chemical reaction.”

Wait,
that sounds a bit too familiar… Reaching into my inventory, I
retrieved one of the chocolate oranges and showed it to her. “You
mean this?”

“
Hmm?
Yes, that’s right. I see you already have one, then. Now,
something you should know about mana potions. Unlike most, they have
a unique reaction when you first make them, and will suck the mana
out of the area nearby. If you mass produce them, that will mean that
the mana might dry up enough to impact your natural recovery rate,
until nature balances itself out.”

I
nodded my head, accepting that. “Alright, and how much would
you be willing to buy mana potions for?”

She
gave a small smile, before nodding her head. “As long as they
are of decent quality, I can buy them for twelve coppers each. In
other words, I could buy a full batch for exactly two silver, if I
supply you with the vials.”

Hearing
that made me smile slightly as well. “Can you clear off an area
for me to work, then? Also, I’d like to buy enough vials for
two batches, and I’ll sell you half of the second.”

With
a light laugh, she led me into a back room, which was mostly empty.
There were various shelves, though they were currently void of any
objects. “This is where I keep the surplus potions if I get
bored and brew in my spare time. You won’t be disturbed here.”

I
nodded, and called the two lovebirds off my shoulder to give them
some instructions. Since they have been able to listen so far, I had
high hopes that this could work. Pulling out one of the spider caps
from my inventory, I attempted to communicate that I needed more of
these. The two birds looked at the mushroom curiously before
shrugging their shoulders and flying off.

I
could have had them bring me more ‘enrichment fruit’, but
I still had plenty of that in my inventory, same with the blood weed.
But, I only had a few of the mushrooms. So as they left to go gather
the plants, I sat down and got to work, pulling out the mortar and
pestle, as well as the bunsen burner and beaker.

Now
that I had Water Manipulation, I was able to pull in some of the
moisture from the air to fill up the beaker, which thankfully we were
in a forest so there was ample humidity. Then, with a touch of mana,
I started up the burner while pulling out the ingredients I needed to
make two batches of potions. She didn’t say how much juice I
would need from the enrichment fruit, so I assumed two for each batch
of potions. Aside from that, I also had two stalks of blood weed, and
the one full spidercap.

First,
as she said, I cut the spidercap vertically in half with my Chain
Dagger, before putting it in the mortar. Since it was so much thicker
than a simple weed, it took longer to work it into a powder. By the
time that the powder was ready, the water in the beaker was already
boiling. Next, I simply used my Plant Manipulation to remove the
skins from the two fruits, and held one over the mortar.

With
Plant Manipulation again, I had it gradually drip the juice from the
orange into the powder. It would seem that I underestimated how much
juice a single fruit contained. I held the fruit in one hand and
gradually mixed the powder and juice in the mortar with the pestle in
the other. By the time that the mixture had become a thick paste,
there was still plenty of juice left in the fruit.

Reactivating
the burner again, I snatched a bit of flame from it with Fire
Manipulation, and tossed it into the mortar. This part took a
considerable amount of control, as I had to sustain the flame until
the paste became hard again. Once done, however, I dismissed the
flame and tossed in one of the blood weeds, again crushing it all
into a fine powder.

With
that done, it was a simple matter of pouring it into the boiling
water and watching as it switched between shades of blue. I kept my
Mana Sense on the concoction the entire time, because there was
something that I wanted to try for the second batch. Once it got to
the shade that Lisara had shown me, I poured nearly a hundred mana
into the mix all at once, causing the potion to instantly stop
changing colors. Out of curiosity, I activated my Aura Sight to watch
the next part, and could see as the beaker of liquid took on the
appearance of a vortex, causing a lot of the ambient mana in the room
to rush into it. I even felt a slight pull on my own mana, but was
easily able to resist it.

Calling
back out to Lisara, I let her know that I was done. While she came
back and gathered the potion, pouring it into twenty small vials, she
nodded happily. “Very good. Most people can’t get the
right shade on their first try. But, I suppose you’ve had a bit
of time to practice controlling your magic, so it shouldn’t
have been that hard for you.”

I
smiled slightly, saying nothing as I waited for her to be done
extracting the potions. To my surprise, Yin and Yang had not yet
returned, but they likely had to go out a ways to find the mushroom.
Even then, they might not be able to pick one while keeping it
intact. Though, I was able to sense that they were safe, so I wasn’t
really that worried.

Once
Lisara was done, she returned to the front of the store. Meanwhile, I
simply sat there and let my mana finish recovering. My next
experiment would require quite a bit of mana if it worked, but if it
did it would save quite a lot of time in the future.

After
allowing my mana to recover, I placed the remaining fruit, half of
the mushroom, and the blood weed in front of me. At the same time, I
filled the beaker with water again using my magic. However, this time
I did not activate the burner. Rather, I relied on my Manipulation
abilities to conduct Alchemy this time.

For
the first step, I reached out with my Mana Sense to isolate the
medicinal qualities of the three herbs. Then, rather than using Plant
Affinity to control the plants themselves, I used my mana to gently
pull those sections of the aura out of the plants, before pushing
them together as one. In a corner of my mind, I used Fire
Manipulation to pull in fire mana to the water, making it quickly
start to boil.

The
next part was going to be tricky, as I pushed the medicinal aura from
the three plants into the boiling water. Using Plant Manipulation and
Water Manipulation, I did my best to adjust the aura of the water
with the aura of the plants, until it matched what I had sensed from
the mana potion earlier. This ultimately caused a series of things to
happen.

First,
the plants I had pulled the auras from quickly shriveled up. Next,
the potion did actually turn blue, just like the previous one.
Finally, there was that same vortex of mana, however this time my own
mana found it hard to resist. If anything, that was likely because I
already had such a deep connection to the mana in the potions.

But,
to my great surprise, the batch of mana potions stabilized, which got
me thinking about a few things. If it worked like that, then why
wouldn’t it work if I just copied the auras from the plants? I
gave it a quick experiment, copying the auras of the three familiar
plants in small quantities, and pushing them into water created by
the Water Manipulation ability. However, the two refused to properly
mix no matter what I tried.

Maybe
it’s a matter of the plants being natural creations, and me
copying it still isn’t a good enough substitute? Shaking my
head, I called Lisara again, telling her I was done.

She
seemed quite surprised that I was done already, since it took less
than half of the time of the previous batch. Meanwhile, I was
surprised by the smooth transition to Basic level Alchemy. Was it
because I conducted my own experiment, and figured out how to bypass
the more archaic brewing process?

I
shook my head, and collected the total of two silver and eight large
copper coins from Lisara. With this, I at least had a bit of spending
money again. At the same time, I looked towards the door of the shop,
as two birds slowly flew in. I could feel that they were a bit
depressed over the link, and soon saw why. In Yang’s tail
feather was most of a poorly harvested spidercap, while Yin didn’t
even have that much. It would seem that it was truly hard for them to
accurately gather herbs with their body types.

With
a shrug, I walked out of the alchemy store and went back over to
Harlan’s. He was a bit surprised to see me twice in one day,
though laughed slightly when he heard the reason. It seems that he
had actually been wondering why I was still using normal arrows, when
there were so many other options available. Most fields of magic
apparently had some way to supplement ammunition, or enhance it in
some way.

Since
the packet of seeds was a one-time purchase, rather than something
that customers had to come back for every time they ran out, the
price was two silver. When I asked, apparently a full quiver of
arrows only cost a tenth of that, so it was a bit understandable. I
also asked him about the different properties of the vine, and it
turned out almost exactly as I had been hoping for. The only thing
missing was the poison, which I could add myself.

As
for the seeds, each arrow vine could produce a dozen seeds after it
got up to two meters long. And growing it to such lengths took just
over a week, so it was still affordable in terms of mana. As long as
I did not use every single seed in a single fight, I’d easily
be able to regrow more.