58 - Attempting Alchemy for the first time

No longer focusing on this Victor changed the paper to a beginners guild on how to brew tier 0 potions.

Victor wanted to try both and then pick which party to take, so after checking he had all the ingredients he needed.

Victor took out a brewing pot out of the box and set it down onto a burner, next he precisely measured the ingredients he needed according to the recipe.

Pouring clean water into the pot, Victor left it to boil as he cut and finished measuring.

"Once boiling at 100⁰ add 20 grams of Green Rook and 45 grams of Purple Poison Leaf, then stir it six times softly clockwise till turning light purple, and then inject mana to activate it...." Victor read out the steps as he followed them.

"... Now the final step, let it rest after slowly decreasing the heat of the flame, till it cools down..." Victor had spent the last hour following the recipe till he came to the last step before bottling it.

After 30 minutes the potion mix had cooled down enough to bottle, using a special tool to collect the medicine before putting it into the prepared clean bottles.

All together Victor had successfully made five tier 0 potions of lesser poison antidote.

[ Tier 0 - Potion of Lesser Poison Antidote ]

(Cures Weak Tier 0 Poisons when taken)

Although it didn't look all that impressive it was for him, as this was his first step as an Alchemist.

Deciding to take a break to rest his mind before trying to refine his first Pill.

After mediating for 10 minutes Victor was ready to try Refining his first Pill.

Unlike brewing that used a pot to mix ingredients into medicine, Pill refinement requires a cauldron and flame.

After the cauldron is at the right temperature you can start adding the required ingredients according to the recipe, then the Alchemist uses their mana to control the temperature and mix the refined ingredients together before finally forming the Pills.

It sounded simple and easy but it was everything but, and this is for refining a tier 0 pill, the higher the Tier the more control and mana is required.

Now normally for people that don't have an Alchemist class don't start learning Pill refinement until they have reach at least Tier 1.

As your mana flows as if it's half frozen honey at Tier 0, which as you can imagine makes it incredibly hard to control and use.

When you need precise control and strength when using your mana, it makes it incredibly hard to succeed when refining a Pill.

So Victor was prepared to failed a few times before managing to succeed, especially when it usually takes about 20 to 30 attempts for an Alchemist to refine their first Pill.

Taking a deep breath Victor made sure the cauldron was the correct temperature before taking the lid off and dropping in the prepared herbs.

Then he closed the lid and placed his palms on the sides before attempting to control his mana to inject into the cauldron, sweat was already starting to appear on his forehead as he pushed as much mana as he could out.

At first everything was going smoothly as the Herbs reacted correctly with his mana and the heat, as they broken down and slowly mixed.

"Bang!" Victor was broken from his concentration as a small explosion happened within the cauldron signifying his failure.

"Sigh, I guess it really isn't that easy." Victor sighed as he wiped the sweat off his forehead.

Opening the cauldron and looking in, there was nothing but a small pile of ashes inside.

"Hmm, was the heat incorrect? No it was the right heat, so it could only be my mana... This recipe doesn't require much to any control, so if put far too much mana in..." Victor tried to think about where he went wrong as he rested.

Coming to the conclusion that it must've been that he injected far too much mana, Victor made this a mental note for his next attempt.

Once again started to refine but this time he didn't inject his mana so quickly but it still ended in failure.

"This time my control wasn't enough I think..." Victor muttered to himself in thought, but he couldn't tell for sure.

Michael walked down the street back to the hotel in a greet mood, his arms were full of bags of food.

He had spent the whole dad traveling around the city markets going from food stall to food stall in search of the best food.

And he had been pretty successful in his mission shown by his newly brought loot he was carrying.

Taking the elevator up their hotel room, Michael took out the key and opened the door only to immediately smell a strong burnt smell.

Looking into the small room he could see Victor sitting down on the ground with a small metal pot in front of him.

Seeing the pale face Victor had, Michael could immediately tell that he was frustrated although slightly.

So Michael did the smart thing and be as silent as possible so as not to break Victor's concentration.

All of the sudden Victor leaned back laying down on the ground with his eyes closed.

"Sigh..." Victor let out a long held breath in relief, after 13 attempts he had successfully refined his first Pill.

Being able to refine a Pill in only 13 attempts is incredibly impressive but Victor managed to do it without anyone teaching him, which is... Well unheard off as if Victor did have a teacher he probably would have succeeded by his third attempt.

The main reason why he did succeed was actually because he never made the same mistake twice, so if he had a teacher pointing out so simple points he would have taken less time.

Sitting up Victor slowly opened the cauldron in front of him, inside was three bright blue pills the size of a grape.

"Three, Huh? I thought I would only successful make one correctly." Victor had used the left over medicine to make as many pills as he could but he didn't think it would succeed.

[ Tier 0 - Pill of Lesser Mana Recovery ]

(When taken recover a small amount of Mana)

When Victor ran out of mana in the future he could just take a few of these, but he needed to be careful as the toxins within the pill can build up with in him.

So he couldn't take to many at one time, as he would have to wait until the toxins are cleared from his system.

As if they are built up then it will have a range of negative affects on him from harming his mana circuits, his foundation or his mana purity.

That's why it's recommend not to take any medicine until you reach at least Tier 1.

Luckily for both Victor and Michael, both of them had a potion that eliminated the toxins within them.

Of course they only had two and it still had an upper limit so not only did they have to save them but they still couldn't take as many potions or especially pills as they wanted.

Placing the three pills into a small porcelain bottle before placing it into his storage ring.

"What's got you in such a great mood?" Victor was brought out of his thoughts by Michael's voice.

"When did you get back." Victor got off the ground before joining Michael at the table.

"Like a minute ago, come on look at all the goodies I brought back." Michael happily opened all the bags revealing all sorts of different food, hot and cold.

"So what did you see?" Victor asked as they started eating lunch together.

"Oh, this place is so huge, I was walking around and I still didn't leave the market area. But I saw some awesome sights, they literally have everything here." Michael started talking about what he had seen on his food hunt around the market area.

"Well tonight our rewards should be delivered, so tomorrow we'll go and enter the Earth Labyrinth to adjust to our new abilities." Victor said as he checked the time.

"Oh cool, that reminds me but we're do you think I can get a dead horse?" Michael suddenly said as he remembered one of his skills.

"Well.. Your skill requires a horse corpse right?" Victor asked as he tried to think about what they should do.

"Well yeah I also need your help to unlock my other skill." Michael opened his stats and showed them to Victor.

| Skeleton Steed (Level 1): Use the body of a dead horse monster to create a single Skeleton Steed Familiar, the future potential is affected from the horse corpse used, can be summoned & stored |

| Death Grasp (Level 1): Grasp a single enemy and absorb 0.1% of the targets stamina every second for 10 seconds. Contact can not be broken otherwise the skill will end |

"Hmm, well we can wait for a powerful or rare horse monster corpse for Skeleton Steed, so as to give the skill the best foundation for the future..." Victor thought about it before saying they should delay on unlocking the skill

"What does Death Grasp need to be unlocked?" Victor turned his attention to Michael's other skill.

"Umm it says that I need a hundred souls to unlock it." Michael held his chin as he looked through his stats.

"Only a hundred....." Victor looked at the 348 souls he had left, before deciding that it was worth it to unlock this skill.

Michael having this skill will be a game changer as His biggest weakness has always been the fact that he runs out of stamina quite fast.

So having the ability to absorb your enemies stamina to recover your own will allow Michael to fight far more effectively, as he won't have to worry about his energy as much.

And he'll be able to fight for longer while weakening his opponent.

_______________

(Author Here!!!

Hello Watcher From Beyond!!!!!

Now I know that these recent chapters have mainly had large info drops, and I apologise for that, after all we're all here for the story, the action, fights, romance, locations, drama and... "Cough"...

So yeah.... I would like to explain my reason if you've been wondering.

I want to make this story have a huge world full of kingdoms, empires, dynasties and countries, each made up of different races (or variation of a race) with different goals.

I also want this world to be a Hard Magic type world (so there's rules for how things work), so that you guys the Watchers will understand why certain things are happening as they are...

And so to make this a reality I've been planning ahead on the everything I can with my ability from rules, individual characters, stories, locations and more.

So I wish to get some important information about the world out of the way early even if it's just an introduction.

Now I fully understand that just reading that sort of information over and over, close together gets boring quite quickly, likewise the same with just pure battles.

And so after a few classes (at the academy) where certain things will be explained in more detail (of course spread out) we'll be able to truly take off with the plots and action I've planned.

And so until that time I'll do my best not to fill chapters with just info (after all we're all here for a fun time:)

So in order to make it up for you I'll try my best to write some awesome battles (I'm incredibly excited for a certain character, as I have a lot of cool idea's for their battles straight from the first get go battle!)

Now I do know it's been a little slow but I wish for a slow journey to OP strength for Victor, as although we always like a OP main character from the beginning every now and then (I know we all do)

It gets boring quite quickly and so I want there to be a balance, so don't worry I've got plans for Victor showing substantial growth in strength for the future...

And I want everyone to remember one key thing about this world! Everyone has a Weakness or a Counter! From monsters to races or classes!

So yes there will be ways to beat Victor even after I've made him OP.

Now one last thing before I go, you know what I'll save that for later, thank you for reading not only this but my writing as well.

I'll see you all later you Watchers from beyond!!!!