[Filter Blueprint (E)]

Awkward?

To be honest, a little.

But mostly, she felt relieved.

If this Ghost was referring to her, didn't that mean that from now on, when she went out at night to look for treasure chests, all she had to do was watch the ground?

At the thought, Lan Qingyou's blood began to race.

If she could find eleven while being so careful tonight, wouldn't she be able to find twenty or thirty in an hour without the threat of Ghosts?

Time for bed. Tomorrow, I'll rinse out the pot and get started.

Oh, right. I should take a bath first. No wonder people mistook me for a Ghost when I was covered in black.

Lan Qingyou wiped the soot from her face, grabbed her bucket and soap, and headed to the creek to wash up.

Feeling refreshed, she took in the clothes she'd hung outside, returned to her room, and read and studied until she got tired, then went straight to sleep.

Early the next morning, Lan Qingyou got up and changed into a T-shirt. Just as she'd planned the day before, she carried the crucible and mortar to the creek and started scrubbing off the rust with stones she'd picked up there.

Removing rust didn't take any skill; it was all hard work.

After more than an hour of effort, she finally got both items clean.

After putting them away, Lan Qingyou took her hospital gown and dress to the creek to wash them.

She only had four sets of clothes now, and after washing them in the creek, she'd have to wash the T-shirt she was wearing, too.

There was no way around it. Her legs had been soaking in the water while she washed everything.

After spending half the day washing the pots, bowls, and clothes, Lan Qingyou sat down at her desk to browse the Trading Post while she waited for the cookware to air-dry.

When she saw something good, she bought it. After a while, when she couldn't find anything else to buy, she lost interest and turned to her friends list.

Then she started deleting the friend requests there out of boredom.

Ever since she'd started selling Mana Potions, the friend requests had never stopped.

The messages included threats, pleas, begging, lectures, and offers to buy out all her potions. Hardly anyone had tried to talk to her properly.

"Haah... Is there not a single reliable person?"

Lan Qingyou yawned as her finger tapped away at the large screen.

Then she saw an interesting message.

The sender was a girl with a slightly chubby face, who looked about eighteen or nineteen.

Gu Xiaobei: "Big shot, do you need herbs? I have more than ten pounds of various herbs, and this [Disposable Filter Blueprint (E)]."

Oh!

A filter blueprint!

The words made Lan Qingyou's heart skip a beat. She immediately added the girl as a friend.

Lan Qingyou: "How much for the blueprint?"

The other person didn't reply for more than ten minutes.

That was only natural. Not everyone worked from home like Lan Qingyou did.

So Lan Qingyou got to work processing the herbs.

Processing herbs was basically like sorting vegetables: remove anything rotten or chewed by insects, wash the dirt from the roots and stems and the insect eggs from the leaves and petals, then leave the rest to dry.

One potion took ten milliliters, and the recipe called for ten grams of each herb.

That meant she'd need to put four pounds of ingredients into each batch to break even.

The rest was water.

Making Mana Water wasn't complicated either. She filled a bucket, poured the water into the crucible in the right proportions, then released her Magic Power to thoroughly fuse the Magic Power in the water with the water molecules. Lan Qingyou ended up with a batch of Mana Water with a faint blue tint.

This batch had cost her fifty points of Magic Power. Could've been worse.

Once the Mana Water was ready, Lan Qingyou returned to her desk to check her messages.

The other person had replied.

Gu Xiaobei: "Could I get ten Mana Potions for the blueprint? And what about the herbs? Do you want those too?"

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Lan Qingyou sent a reply at once: "I want the herbs too. How about this: I'll send you ten Mana Potions to use for now. Give me the blueprint, and I'll make up the difference tomorrow."

Gu Xiaobei: "The difference? Ten is enough, ten is enough."

Lan Qingyou: "Alchemy is all about Equivalent Exchange. A mere ten crude potions aren't worthy of this blueprint."

Gu Xiaobei: "Big shot, you're so principled. [Thumbs-up]"

Lan Qingyou then sent a trade request and received the blueprint.

[Disposable Filter Blueprint (E)]

[Materials: Wood*50, Cotton*5, Charcoal*5, Sand*10, Pebbles*50, Cloth*3]

[Effect: Can filter impurities or medicinal residue from water.]

[Description: With this, Mom won't have to worry about me drinking dirty water anymore. But be careful: it can't remove the Magic Power in water, so drinking it might give you an upset stomach.]

Well, it seemed the other person hadn't used it because she had no need for it.

The blueprint couldn't remove the Magic Power from water.

The materials were easy enough to gather. Aside from the cotton and pebbles, she had everything else in her storage.

Pebbles were easy to get—she just had to grab a handful from the creek.

As for the cotton, she'd have to take apart something.

Luckily, she'd bought quite a few cotton-stuffed items earlier. She grabbed the teddy bear she'd bought as a decoration, pulled out five tufts of cotton, and called it done.

The filter looked like a large, two-part Wooden Barrel. The filter itself was the upright section attached beneath the middle of the upper half, while the lower half held the filtered water.

It was a bit like a household water filter, except this Wooden Barrel didn't come with a tap.

Once she'd prepared everything, Lan Qingyou went outside to check the herbs drying on the terrace.

The moisture on their surfaces had dried completely. They were just right for making medicine.

Lan Qingyou didn't have anything to weigh them with, but she could estimate the amounts. As long as she used a little extra, it shouldn't matter.

Without wasting any time, she opened the window and poured all the Ascetic Herb and Yellow-Tail Flower from the winnowing basket into the crucible. With a snap of her fingers, a brilliant flame sprang from the middle of the alchemy base.

Cool, right?

In reality, she was simply using her Magic Power to activate the alchemy array, which was imbued with her Magic Power as well.

Of course, Lan Qingyou hadn't set it up that way just to look cool. The main reason was that she couldn't use her legs to control the heat.

So she could only control it by snapping her fingers.

Heat control was very important during alchemy. For example, once the water boiled, she had to turn the heat down right away. When the herbs began to release their aroma, she had to turn it up to medium, then, after an hour of simmering, lower it again to keep the mixture from boiling dry.

Next came the long, eight-hour simmer.

But Lan Qingyou had learned from her first attempt and was well prepared this time.

Food, water, books, and an alarm clock she'd already set.

Eight hours was nothing for someone like her, who could lose herself in a sea of knowledge.

Especially since she was floating without any body weight, so she didn't have to worry about occupational ailments like varicose veins.

Lan Qingyou worked so hard not only because she wanted to make a good life for herself in this other world, but also because she had one crucial goal: to heal her legs.

The high-tech treatments at the Federal Hospital hadn't worked, so she'd try alchemy from the Karim Continent instead.

She would make a potion that could give herself a new lease on life.

Of course, she knew this was a long-term undertaking. That was why she yearned for knowledge more than anyone.

That was what set her apart from everyone else.

Even if Albert's Alchemy Handbook hadn't introduced her to alchemy in the beginning, she figured she would still have taken this path.

Because right now, it was the only path open to her.

To be honest, she figured that if her legs worked properly, she'd be just like everyone else and toss those books aside without giving them a second glance.

Was it a blessing in disguise?

You could say that.

But if she'd had the choice, Lan Qingyou would rather have lived with her parents, who loved her.

Instead of receiving this blessing in such a way.