Lukas continued to make batch after batch of mana potions, each one restoring more than the last. It was unbelievably addicting to see the amount of mana restored go up one craft after another. He would’ve thought it unhealthy if it didn’t make him stronger or provide levels. That being said, he could feel more and more pressure to stop, and Lukas could swear he felt the goddess’s judging gaze on him.
Eventually, Lukas did stop with the mana potions, but only after he almost failed a brew due to the mounting pressure. And speaking of failed brews, Lukas had not failed a single one since just before gaining his ability. He was extremely proud of that and wanted to see how long he could manage the streak, but he knew it would likely come to an end soon.
It was time to move on to something new, meaning learning to make the other two resource potions. Lukas was confident that he’d be able to pick up the process much faster with these compared to his first attempts at the mana potion. He hoped he’d be able to match ordinary alchemy apprentices, nailing health and stamina potions within a couple of hours each. Lukas knew he might fall short a bit but would still try to surpass expectations.
With his final mana potion crafted and bottled up, Lukas cleaned up the lab area, putting away tools and ingredients, and wiping residue from failed concoctions off the tabletop. One clean lab later, Lukas found himself sitting in the plush chair in the central room, reading and going over notes on health potions since he had decided to take a crack at those first.
Health potions were interesting, and Lukas read about an effect he himself had experienced when experimenting with the blood moon lily and meat. The vital energy would split in two, the book he was reading stating that most of it would be used up to heal wounds while the rest went to the health pool.
Lukas knew from experience that it was more of a fifty-fifty split, but he couldn’t fault the author of the book since Lukas could literally see every health point he had with his ability. He remembered the bucket analogy he’d come up with weeks ago, where the water in the bucket was health points. If the bucket was wounded and water began to leak, a health potion would help top off the water while some of it would be consumed to fix the leak.
Lukas also found out what happened if someone drank a health potion that gave more vital energy—or health points—than needed. He had half-expected the answer to be the person exploding or for the excess energy to appear as tumors. The answer was actually that not a whole lot happened. Half the energy would be used up to heal while the other half went to the drinker, any remaining or unused energy simply dispersed, leaving the body. That was unless someone could accumulate health points over their maximum, an ability that was fairly common to Lukas’s surprise.
Lukas kept reading, taking in all that he could. Eventually a full day of studying came and went—how did he know this? Well, he could still feel the shift between night and day, having begun studying sometime in the early morning. So when that time rolled around again, he stopped and slept.
When Lukas awoke, it was still daytime, but he wasn’t sure exactly when. Not that it really mattered in a cave that took away his sense of time, so he just threw himself out of bed, ready to get to it.
Before heading into the lab, Lukas had to make a pit stop at the garden. He took his time picking out enough blood moon lilies for a day or two of intensive crafting, as he had no intention of stopping until he could regularly make health potions. Lukas also took the time to restock on the wesser vines since he was running low.
With everything he would need in his inventory, Lukas headed for the lab and didn’t hesitate to get started. The initial process was similar to that of the mana potion: boiling distilled water in the cauldron, turning the vine and flower into a fine paste with the mortar and pestle, before adding the two to the pot.
The whole thing took less than five minutes, the familiarity of it helping clear his mind and get him ready for what was to come. When it was time, Lukas placed his hands on the runes for infusing mana and activated his ability.
The difference between the crafting of mana and health potions immediately became clear. The energy of the blood moon lily looked and felt far different from that of the Mana Tulip. Sure, the properties of the two were completely different, but Lukas hadn’t expected them to be that far apart.
Lukas tried to wrangle the healing energies of the flower, but it was a totally different beast. He quickly found himself on the losing end and realized the concoction was a failure, but he didn’t give up. Instead, Lukas kept focusing on the process intently. There was no reversing the inevitable, and all he could do was delay, but he continued in order to learn more about what he was dealing with.
Ten seconds later, the crafting attempt failed, leaving nothing but a sickly green fluid in the cauldron. Lukas took out some papers and jotted down notes and observations. He didn’t mind failing so fast; things had gone stellar compared to his first attempt at a mana potion, and he truly believed that he had a chance to make a proper health potion within the day.
With much gusto, Lukas discarded his failed attempt and got started on another. He went at it for hours, and just like with his mana potions, each failure brought him closer to success. This time, with his amber eyes ability, things were different. Before, when first attempting the mana potions, Lukas had likened the learning process to trying to get through a maze where each wrong turn or dead end meant failure. The same still held true now, but the main difference was that he could see the maze from above. Sure, he couldn’t get it right immediately, but at least he could avoid the obvious failure points.
It was a realization that made Lukas understand just how right the goddess had been about his ability. It might not be a good one to most, but to him it was the key to progress and increased efficiency. He wasn’t entirely sure how useful it would be later, but he remembered what the goddess said about upgrading skills and hoped that his first skill wouldn’t fall to the wayside. That was a concern for later, though. As for now, he was getting plenty of use out of it.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Six hours after beginning, Lukas had his first success:
[Health Potion (Lesser)] – Has been successfully crafted. This is a new creation, providing extra experience.
It had taken him almost twice as long to get a proper concoction compared to other newbies, but it was sure as hell better than taking days. Smiling to himself, Lukas bottled up what he had, coming away with two bottles, each giving 40 health points. It wasn’t exactly a lot, but it gave almost double what his first mana potions did.
Unable to hold back his curiosity, Lukas downed one of the potions despite having full health. The moment the liquid hit his tongue, he was pulled back into his childhood. It tasted exactly like a cherry-flavored ice cream he’d always get from an ice cream truck. Lukas never cared much about anything back before he’d been pulled into this new world, but goddamn if he didn’t lose his mind whenever he heard the ice cream truck.
Lukas smiled down at the now-empty bottle. His eyes were hazy and unfocused as he went back to those days, remembering how he, his little sister Cas, and Iz would play all summer long. From dawn till dusk, they’d be out causing trouble and having fun. Thinking back, Lukas could only wonder why he’d been so lethargic and apathetic before coming here. Maybe if he’d been normal then—
Lukas pursed his lips and shook his head. ‘Best not to get distracted by unimportant things I can’t do anything about,’ he thought.
Sighing, Lukas got back to work, losing himself in it. He made potion after potion, churning them out like it was nothing. He had a few failures after his first success but quickly learned from each mistake and moved on to spitting out potions like there was no tomorrow.
With mana potions aplenty, Lukas was able to down one every hour or so. It wasn’t much, but it helped keep him going, feeding his drive to improve and gain levels. And gain levels he did.
By the time Lukas forced himself to stop, he had reached level 8 in his class and level 4 in his race. He managed to hold himself back from checking his status, wanting to wait until he reached level 10 in his class. He wanted to see the large jump in stats, knowing just how satisfying it would be.
Now that he’d forced himself to stop, Lukas would take a break and move on to stamina potions. His health potions still had some way to go, only providing 58 health per bottle, but for having only been making them for a day, it wasn’t bad growth. Besides, the goddess was right—diversifying what he worked on would help stabilize his foundations and let him grasp more complex things in the future.
Once the lab was clean, Lukas left it behind and went to take a shower. It had been several days since he’d cleaned himself, and it was starting to show. He might not have started working on poisons yet, but he could probably be used as an effective stink bomb.
Lukas had always been rather fastidious about his personal hygiene, especially after he moved out to the middle of the woods and built a cabin. Getting sweaty and dirty was a given, but there was no way he would bring that into his bed. He had found himself lacking recently, however. It was hard to view showering as anything more than a distraction.
Whenever Lukas ran out of mana and was forced to take a break, he still liked to feel productive and prioritized extra studying, restocking on materials, or meditating. Even sleeping had fallen by the wayside. Lukas knew he didn’t need as much sleep as before, but he was still pushing the limits. He saw sleeping as an unfortunate necessity and knew that if he didn’t get enough, the mana in his body would start acting up, making it harder to control. He found that out the hard way after multiple concoctions had exploded in his face.
Now was different, though, as he was covered in dry gunk from failed health potions. Eventually, he couldn’t take the smell anymore, and instead of jumping straight into studying stamina potions, he decided to shower and sleep. The aim was to go in with a fresh mind and body.
When he entered the bathroom, Lukas immediately noticed something different. Looking in the mirror, he saw the slick black mask still covering his face. Joining the mask were two amber-orange lights shining right where his eyes were.
Taken aback, Lukas looked at his even more unnerving reflection for a moment. Snapping back to it, he pulled the mask from his face and leaned closer to the mirror to get a better look at his eyes. Just as he thought, they had changed. They’d gone from the green he’d seen almost every day of his life to an amber that seemed to glow faintly.
It was a strange thing to see, and it made Lukas feel like some fantasy character. All things considered, he figured he was. His one eye still had strange milky swirls in it, unaffected by the change.
Lukas could only look at himself in the mirror and shrug. “Looks pretty cool, I guess.”
*
Hours later, Lukas found himself thoroughly refreshed as he went over some things on stamina potions. Out of the three resources, he found stamina to be the easiest to understand. Health he kind of understood—taking damage meant losing health. How that translated into some kind of energy was still confusing to him. Sure, he had read up on some theory, but it was all still new to Lukas.
As for mana? Forget about it. The chances of Lukas truly grasping what mana was—other than some kind of raw magic potential—were nil. He still didn’t really understand what that meant either.
Stamina was easier because stamina was energy. It was a concept that could easily move from a non-magical to a magical one. Stamina was the energy of the body and was spent through any kind of physical exertion. The way to regain stamina was to rest—easy as that.
There were some neat quirks to stamina. As for what they were, Lukas didn’t really know. The books he read were all alchemy-focused, so information like that wasn’t included only mentioned. His main takeaway, though, was that stamina potions were like energy drinks, except they provided a lot more energy and weren’t wildly unhealthy.
When the time finally came to have a crack at making the potions, Lukas felt as though he’d have it down within the expected timeframe.
Once Lukas sat down and began the process, he knew within two hours he’d make his first stamina potion. He found the energies of the vigor bloom iclum too wily and hard to control, but once he realized what he was dealing with, he adapted. The first few attempts weren’t great, the naturally energetic properties of the plant resulting in failures that seemed extra explosive. The outcome was Lukas getting splattered with black sludge. Each time this happened, he swore he could hear the goddess laughing at him, but he just ignored it and soldiered on.
Eventually, Lukas had his first successful craft, and he was pretty sure it happened within three hours at most. That put him shoulder to shoulder with other alchemy novices for once, something he was proud of. Bottling up the potion, he got three bottles—more than any first success before—with each providing only 36 stamina. It wasn’t a lot, but it was something.
Putting two of the vials in his inventory, he took one and did the customary taste test. Downing the contents, Lukas savored the sweet flavor.
Lukas nodded with approval. “Mango. I like it.”
Turning back to the cauldron, Lukas smiled. It was time to really get to work.
