"How much do you want?" Trissy had expected Black Cat's answer. Setting aside the fact that this was a seller's market, the information itself was worth a fortune.
"Five thousand pounds." Black Cat did not hesitate, directly naming a sum so large that the current Mr. Fool would not even dare dream of it. Trissy frowned. "That's about the bounty on a Sequence Six pirate, isn't it?"
Although she still did not know the Potion Formula for the Demoness of Pleasure—Sno had told her the name—Trissy, as an Assassin who had traveled far and wide, had often played through "Black Flag" scenarios. Thus, pirate bounties were the first thing she compared it to.
Of course, there was another reason for that comparison: a pirate's bounty usually equated to the price of the potion for their Sequence. In other words, if a Sequence Six pirate was worth five thousand pounds, the complete set of main ingredients for a Sequence Six potion would cost roughly the same.
(Of course, pirates could earn higher bounties through their crimes, and potion ingredients could carry premiums as well, but the estimate would not be far off.)
"That's right. In fact, I've already given you a discount. This knowledge alone will be enough to last you until you become a god—assuming you can make it that far." Black Cat paced before the mirror as though waiting for Trissy's reply. Without hesitation, she said,
"No problem. Put it on my tab. I'll do three thousand seven hundred pounds' worth of work for you later. Give me the answer first."
"Since when did you get the impression that I offer credit?" Black Cat wore an extremely punchable expression. His amber eyes seemed to pierce through the mirror and stab straight into Trissy's heart.
Trissy's excellent emotional control allowed her to forcibly suppress her feelings. She took a deep breath, then said,
"Then how much can I learn for thirteen hundred pounds?"
"For example, if your question were what money could be used for, a hundred-pound answer would be that you could buy food. For five hundred pounds, I'd tell you to buy a house and rent it out. For a thousand, I'd tell you to invest and manage your finances, and recommend suitable ventures. For five thousand, I'd even tell you how to exploit loopholes in banks and make a fortune with no capital."
Black Cat's tone was exceptionally tempting. Trissy thought it over briefly, gained a rough understanding, and said,
"Then I'll buy the thousand-pound portion first."
"No problem." Black Cat nodded and said with a smile, "You've heard the saying, 'It isn't mastery, but digestion; it isn't excavation, but acting,' right?"
"Of course. Don't tell me that alone is worth a thousand pounds!"
Trissy's attempt at playing along was rather stiff, but Sno still picked up from there and replied,
"No, that's the hundred-pound portion. The five-hundred-pound part is the line about how you're only acting... Oh, come to think of it, I seem to have given you five hundred pounds' worth for free..."
"I hope you can get to the point, so I can go find that Isabella for you sooner!" Trissy gritted her teeth and forced out the words. Black Cat immediately flicked his tail, adopting an expression that said he was afraid of her.
"Fine, then. Do you know that Beyonder Characteristics precipitate from dead Beyonders?"
"I do," Trissy answered without hesitation.
"Then this is easy to explain. Simply put, every portion of a potion retains the Mental Imprint of its previous owner. Of course, that previous owner is not the previous Beyonder, and digestion is not merely about digesting the potion. But you haven't paid enough for that knowledge, so we'll skip it for now."
As Black Cat said this, Trissy's pupils visibly dilated. That undoubtedly meant she was shocked, but she had no intention of asking questions, so Black Cat continued.
"You can feel the shell wrapped around the potion's power too, right? That is the resistance of the Mental Imprint remaining in the potion. In other words, the process of acting is actually disguising your own Mental Imprint as that of the owner of this Beyonder Characteristic. By doing so, you pass through the Mental Imprint's barrier and steal the Beyonder power within it bit by bit. Once all the power behind that barrier has been stolen, the potion's power will be completely digested.
Why do I say you must remember that 'you're only acting'? Because if you forget that and truly make your spirit identical to that imprint, then the imprint will merge into your spirit. In that case, are you still yourself, or are you the previous owner? That is what I mean by being digested by the potion. Oh, right—based on this principle, there are also techniques for using Beyonder Characteristics to resurrect on someone else's body, but that's five-thousand-pound knowledge..."
"..." In just a few minutes of conversation, Trissy's understanding of potions had deepened another layer. She had known something about the existence of Mental Imprints, but once they were connected to the Acting Method, they suddenly became terrifying.
So every time someone digested a potion, they were actually risking the previous owner resurrecting through them?
Thinking of this, Trissy suddenly understood why Beyonders who drank potions without digesting them risked madness and Loss of Control. That was not madness or Loss of Control at all. It was merely the original owner awakening within them, yet failing to resurrect completely.
If that was the case, then the original owner could only be one of those lofty true gods, right?
But at that moment, Trissy suddenly recalled an even more terrifying issue. Black Cat had previously said that she was the Sorceress Cult's most successful creation, and that she most resembled the true god pointed to by the Assassin Sequence. That was why she had been raised as a vessel for that true god's descent.
Considering the information she had just received, that so-called resemblance probably meant that her spiritual structure was naturally prone to being "digested" by potions, didn't it?
No wonder the Sorceress Cult had not told her the true key to the Acting Method. Their fundamental purpose had been to make her lose herself in the act, then slowly become assimilated by the Primordial Demoness's Mental Imprint. So that was what a vessel for divine descent meant?
Trissy immediately felt that she understood everything. She even roughly understood what Black Cat's so-called five thousand pounds referred to. It was probably how to use potions to create a vessel for one's own resurrection, right? So true digestion meant leaving one's own Mental Imprint within the potion's power? And the so-called owner of the potion was a true god?
Of course, thoughts were only thoughts. Trissy still did not know exactly how to do it, but she had to admit that the price he had named was indeed more than worth it.
After taking some time to digest the information Black Cat had given her, Trissy looked into the mirror again. Yet all she saw was her beautiful face, adjusted to carry a hint of worldly weariness. As for that cat, he had severed the connection at some point long ago.
"Damn it, I still have three hundred pounds' worth of questions left!"
This interpretation of potion acting is personal analysis, not copied from the original work. The author analyzed and summarized it based on information from the original, and part of it is secondary setting material. It is not padding, so readers who have not read the original should not mistake it for the author padding out the original...
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