Chapter 38  

Turning in his bed, Kai raised his arm over his eyes to cover them. He wanted to keep sleeping. A glimmer of light was filtering through his window. He had purposely left it open to wake up at the first light of day.

Strange. The window looks more closed than how I left it…

His eyes shot open. His mother must have closed it to let him sleep. Kai jumped off his bed, running out of his room. As soon as he opened the door his worst fears were proven true. Judging by the light, dawn could have been hours ago. He lost precious time sleeping.

Alana was sitting at the table, watching him. He was about to give voice to his grievances, but his mother talked first.

“Come sit and eat breakfast.” She didn’t raise her voice, but her tone sounded more like an order than a suggestion. “You can’t work properly without rest and a full stomach.”

Forcing his beating heart to calm down, Kai sat at the table. His mind screaming at him to hurry and go brew more potions.

Seeing his restlessness Alana said, “Don’t worry it’s just a couple hours after dawn. Still plenty of time in the day.”

Kai’s agitation decreased slightly. He took a big breath and started eating breakfast. Under his mother's watchful eye, he tried not to gorge himself and chew every bite a few times.

There is plenty of time. It’s all about pacing.

Alana watched him eat, probably still mad about the whole situation, but holding off from lecturing him. “I have to go out now. Kea should be back to help you in a while and Eleni will be back to cook lunch. I expect you to eat every bite.”

With a last look full of meaning, she stood up and walked out.

I’m sure she’ll understand once this is over. She’ll understand for sure.

There was no time to think about that now. He needed to work. He was going to skip his training routine, surely Elijah would approve. Doing some light stretching to wake up, Kai was to start.

He found a bucket full of distilled water near his table. Alana must have worked into the night and woken up early to do this. His heart warming at the thought.

A bucket wasn’t exactly the perfect container to avoid contaminants, but he wasn’t brewing delicate recipes anyway. It should be fine.

Checking his notifications to see the progress of the day before, he received a pleasant surprise.

Skills:

Running (lv74)

Swimming (lv73)

Meditation (lv62)

Awareness (lv54)

Herbology (lv49>50 – Max)

Acting (lv44)

Processing – Plants (lv23>28)

Reading (lv19)

Gardening (lv12)

Sneak (lv1>7)

Mana Sense (lv40)

Mana manipulation (lv7>8)

Alchemy (lv4>6)

Inspect (lv4>5)

*Ding*

Herbology reached lv50 – Max, congratulations!

Herbology (lv50) ➔

You are presented with one choice to continue your journey:

Stay the course. You won’t gain significant new benefits, but you’ll deepen your insight into what you already know.

Well, not much choice there.

*Ding*

You chose to stay the course, Herbology (lv50) can now reach lv75.

True to Virya’s words, specializations were hard to get. Having three options for Meditation had been an exception to the rule. Swimming and Running had been the same.

He had expected this. To be offered a specialization, the easiest way was to repeatedly use a skill favoring a certain aspect. In the case of Herbology, if he had focused on studying only poisonous plants, he would have been offered an option to make his study easier at the expense of all other types of plants.

He was not ready to commit to something. For now, he wanted to leave all the doors open.

Satisfied with the significant growth in his skills in just a day, it was time to get to work.

Kai opened his small window to let in more light and air, tidied up his workbench and prepared the ingredients for the healing potions. Ready to start he checked his mana levels on a whim.

I’m not yet full. Fuck this shit mana density and fuck my small body.

He was around 95%, the situation wasn’t too bad. But after a whole night of sleep, he had taken for granted he would be 100% full. At the estate, he got topped off in a couple hours with a nap. It was true that yesterday he overdid it, but still…

Not much I can do, except be even more careful with my mana usage. I can’t afford to waste even a drop.

Thankfully his mother let him sleep. He would only be tired with less mana.

Not losing himself to negative thoughts, Kai poured a triple dose of distilled water into his cauldron and lit up the flame. He wanted to refresh the process before trying a batch of four. To not waste his mana, he would need to be more careful during the preparation of the ingredients, relying on Mana Sense and Processing – Plants to refine his process. Every mistake was one mistake too many.

The triple batch went without problems. Being extra cautious, while testing a few adjustments to his technique, Kai did another two, gaining valuable information. Now it was time for the next step.

After he added all the ingredients, the process went smoothly for the first few seconds. The difficulty increased a little yet again, but nothing out of the ordinary. Then the energies inside the cauldron started moving erratically.

Damn, why can’t something be easy for once!?

With four sets of ingredients, a new reaction emerged. Kai tried to dissolve the problem in the mixture by changing his stirring pattern. Unfortunately, it made the situation worse. Without hesitation, he intervened with his mana. The longer he waited, the more mana it would need.

The next batch of four would require a way to solve this problem without using his mana. For now, this was the best he could do.

He focused on Inspect and Mana Sense to not let this accident go to waste. Maybe if he stirred in a way to slow the reaction, he might prevent it from going berserk.

With a couple more ideas, Kai sifted four potions of average quality and got back to work.

Testing one hypothesis after the other, the batch of four got easier after three more attempts. After six, he had perfected it.

Should I try with five?

Five would be the limit with the capacity of his cauldron, but that wasn’t the reason why he hesitated. Each new problem that arose had to be solved, while not interfering with the solutions to the previous problems. There was no point fixing a leak if he created two more in the process.

With only 43 more healing potions left to brew, he could do nine batches of five or eleven of four. Considering the time to learn the new kinks and the risk involved, it didn’t seem worth it.

Four is the magic number.

With the decision made, Kai continued to concoct batches of four. He could once again focus on improving efficiency and maybe push for peak quality.

Working methodically, he fell into a rhythm. Process the herbs, try small adjustments, throw it all in the cauldron, stir, observe and repeat. It was relaxing, almost meditative.

The deadline was still looming over him, but right here and now he had a clear task in front of him. There was nothing else to worry about. He got better with each try. Using his resources in clever ways for his last batches, he was able to consume only as much mana as he naturally regenerated.

Kai took a small pause around noon to eat a quick bite and then finished the last two batches. He wasn’t able to achieve peak perfection but got close to it. He was sure that if he tried with one set of ingredients by itself, he would easily succeed.

In a rare waste of time, Kai spent five minutes neatly arranging a hundred vials of greenish color on his workbench. He smiled satisfied. More than half of the order was completed. The easiest half to be honest, but it still felt great.

Carefully putting away all the vials in five wooden boxes Reishi provided, he noticed he had some ingredients left. Not many lushstalks, but plenty of secondary ingredients. Enough to brew a few more for personal use. He was surprised the greedy merchant didn’t count the herbs to the last one. Maybe he had judged him wrong.

It was time for the next step.

Taking out the energizing potion recipe to refresh his memory, Kai nodded to himself. It didn’t look much harder than the healing potion. The main tier one ingredient was a dragonroot, together with three secondary pseudo-mana herbs. The processing steps looked a bit more difficult, but nothing exceptional.

He needed to make fifty of them, possibly before the end of the day. With more materials, his cauldron could not possibly contain more than a quadruple batch, but he would be surprised if he got to that point.

With his tried and tested methods, Kai started working. He was already familiar with the dragonroot, so the main ingredient and obstacle went without a hitch. With Inspect and his high Mana Sense, the secondary herbs weren’t a challenge either.

He moved cautiously, his mana was around 80% and had to last the rest of the day. The only thing worse than going under 50% once, was doing it twice in a short time span. While his body felt fine, Dora had warned him the consequences of mana overuse were unpredictable. One day you were fine, the next you crippled yourself for life. It was especially dangerous since his mana veins were still developing, growing together with his body.

His first potion was a success. Kai didn’t feel like this recipe was any more difficult. Or maybe he had improved his technique. In any case, he soon perfected the process.

Around four in the afternoon, Kea begrudgingly came to help make more distilled water. After a while, she sat on his bed behind him, looking at him working.

“Do you need something?” Kai asked, containing his irritation. She was just being curious, but it was unnerving and distracting to have someone observe him from behind his back. Especially when he was trying to perfect the double batch.

“Is what you’re doing alchemy?” She asked.

“Yes, it is.” Kai tried to channel his Zen self.

Remain nice and calm. She is just fascinated by her cool and smart brother.

Forcing a smile he said, “I can show you how it works when I’m free in a couple of days.”

Kea stared at him silently, “Nah. Thanks but that just looks boring. I thought you worked with magic, not chopping up vegetables to make strange soups.”

A vein popped on Kai’s head. He considered explaining what was going on beyond her mortal sight, but it felt like a lost cause. He had still not managed to teach her or Ele Mana Sense.

“I like it. Why don’t you go find something that you like.” Kai knew while he was saying it that it was a low blow. Kea was stumped trying to decide about her future. But he didn’t have the patience nor the energy for her shenanigans right now.

Predictably, Kea glared at him and ran out.

I might or might not do something nice for her later. For now, this is a relief.

Finally, blessedly alone, Kai immersed himself back into the flow of alchemy.

This is much more complicated than just ‘chopping vegetables’.

Forgetting his problems in the methodical work, he was able to enter the same semi-meditative state he had this morning. Perfecting his double batch and then the triple.

As he had predicted, there was no point pushing for a quadruple.

Alana came to check on him at some point, bringing him dinner and asking if he needed anything.

“More distilled water for tomorrow,” He replied distractedly. He was so close to pushing the quality to the peak. Alana nodded and disappeared.

“Finally.” Kai raised the vial of brownish liquid with reverence. In his last batch, he managed to achieve the awaited result. To his senses there was nothing more he could do better. It was perfect.

With great satisfaction, he placed all 50 of them in their boxes.

Outside his window, the moons were lighting the night with their pale colors. Only now he realized how tired he was. Having to stay bent over the cauldron the whole day left him with a sore neck. He made some slow circular movements and massaged it.

Three full bottles of distilled water and the remains of his cold dinner stood a few feet from him.

Finishing the food and drinking a glass of non-distilled water, Kai did some quick stretches and jumped in his bed. Another day was over, and more importantly, he was on schedule. Only 20 bait poisons remained to concoct. Reishi told him they would leave in the evening. He had almost the whole day.

With his mana a few percentages over half, it all worked out perfectly and he could fall asleep with a smile.

~ ~ ~

Aboard the Fortuna, Reishi stood leaning on the rail of the ship, facing the muddy fishing village. A few fires illuminated the houses in the distance, not that he needed them. The faint light of the pastel moons overhead was more than enough for his eyes.

After just two days, all the possible deals had already been closed. The small village offered no more opportunities for him to train his skills and profession.

The bizarre duo of the day before had given him hope this boring stop might hide a few more twists. Alas, nobody as fascinating showed up. Or maybe he was setting his expectations too high.

The hunter had been a surprise, but the kid even more so. He never imagined finding an apprentice alchemist at the age of seven in this forgotten corner of the seas. It had been welcomed entertainment on this dull voyage his father forced on him.

When he had been told they were going on a journey, he thought they would sail the Golden Coast or maybe the Shatter Isles. Instead, his father chose this desolate archipelago he had not even known existed.

New opportunities, a fresh market, he said. More than fresh, the market had been non-existent. True, the low competition allowed them to get a few good deals, but he had hoped for something more exciting.

“Do you think it’s worth wasting a day? The Fortuna hull isn’t so fragile, we could set sail right now. I’m not so sure he’ll deliver the order in time or that it will be worth it anyway.” Sehn’s voice drifted to his ears.

The old merfolk walked up to the rail next to him, adjusting his golden monocle to look into the distance.

Sehn turned towards him, “The bait poison is not something an inexperienced alchemist can make. And that human child is as green as they come. He probably got his Alchemy skill a couple weeks ago.”

After leaving all decisions to him, his father had been trying to make him doubt his own judgment.

Reishi glanced at his father, “Why not? It’s not like another merchant will beat us to the next rock if we wait a day.”

Waiting to see if the little alchemist would deliver on his promise sounded much more appealing than visiting the next scattered village.

“I’ll bet you ten silvers that he doesn’t show up.” His father offered.

“Let’s make it fifteen, old fish,” Reishi replied with a smirk.

Sehn stared at his son, “If you want to hang yourself, we can do twenty. But he needs to bring at least 90% of the bait poison. If he just comes empty handed, it’s my win.”

“Deal.”

Reishi was sure his father had faked falling for his provocation, but he took the bet anyway. What was the point of going on a journey to become a better merchant if he didn’t trust his instincts?

That kid better deliver.