Extraordinary Proficiency

In the residential district of Cuilan Academy, inside a quiet three-story house with a courtyard.

Fran was arranging her potion-brewing instruments, moving the equipment related to alchemy into a small room.

This house was one Fran had purchased in full for four gold coins and 53 silver coins. Although the location was quite remote, requiring a half-hour walk to reach the teaching area, the space was large.

It allowed Fran to store plenty of miscellaneous items, and since she usually ran a few 'small businesses' on the side, needing a bit of privacy was only natural.

She set up her instruments and took out three sets of materials for Strength Potion, placing them into three separate beakers.

After adding water, she immediately activated the Harmonization Method; that's right, she intended to brew three potions at once.

This was a little trick she had recently discovered. After stacking two professions, her Mental Power had increased significantly, and she also possessed the [Skilled Alchemist] trait.

It allowed her to brew potions with ease. After a simple trial, she found that four bottles were her limit, and since there was a chance of failure, she stuck to three.

As for the steps, they were specifically designed for novice alchemists to easily brew via the Harmonization Method; she had no need for such things and could simply fuse them directly.

This was the strength brought to her by her Proficient-level Pharmacy, and now, after finishing these three bottles, her Pharmacy skill was about to level up.

[You have successfully performed a multiple potion brew, Pharmacy proficiency +34]

[Pharmacy proficiency is full, level increased.]

After storing the three potions in a box nearby, she began to check the changes brought by the Pharmacy upgrade.

[Name: Fran

Profession: Rune Warrior (Half-star), Alchemist (Half-star)

Attributes: Physique 2.5, Mental Power 2.6

Skills:

Pharmacy (Extraordinary) (Proficiency: 3/100,000): You have transcended the common person in potion making.

Star Gazing Art (Mastered) (Proficiency: 174/1,000): You are highly skilled in the methods of obtaining information from celestial phenomena.

...(Omitted)

Traits: Moving with the Wind, Mental Power, Miraculous Alchemist (You can make the effects of a potion stronger or weaker, depending on your will.)]

First, a half-star appeared next to Alchemist, indicating the profession's level had increased. But wait, the upgraded Alchemist was the same star rating as the Rune Warrior?

This upgrade only increased her Mental Power by 0.3, whereas both attributes had increased more than that when she leveled up as a Rune Warrior. This was exactly where Fran felt puzzled.

How could the attribute gain be so low! It barely felt worthy of being the same star rating as the Rune Warrior.

Next, she looked at the trait section; her Skilled Alchemist had changed into this Miraculous Alchemist.

Setting aside how the effect was, she hoped it hadn't overwritten her original skilled trait. When she played games, she often encountered trashy higher-level skills that would overwrite the most useful lower-level ones, causing the original effects to vanish entirely.

Frightened, she immediately began brewing another three bottles of Strength Potion. After a while, looking at the three perfect potions, she finally let out a sigh of relief.

She felt that the process of brewing just now hadn't seen a decrease in precision or proficiency; on the contrary, it had improved to an unfathomable degree.

She felt that brewing three bottles was somewhat easy now; she felt she could easily handle five.

It didn't stop there; she hadn't even been fully focused, even spacing out for a moment, yet the potions were still successfully brewed.

If the previous her, with Proficient-level Pharmacy, was a very diligent person who had been immersed in potion making for decades, then the current her, with Extraordinary-level Pharmacy, was like a once-in-a-century genius, effortlessly reaching realms others couldn't attain in a lifetime.

Then there was this Miraculous Alchemist trait. She tried brewing one more bottle of Strength Potion.

During the brewing process, she imagined the effect of this potion being more powerful, and then she felt her Mental Power drain slightly.

After finishing, she looked at this darker-colored Strength Potion and drank it in one gulp.

"Even with my physique, it has such a significant effect, and the degree of strength enhancement has also increased."

In game terms, it was like the usage cap had increased, and the potion's effect had grown by 30%.

"It's not bad, but..."

Although she could make these superior potions, the problem was how to sell them?

They didn't exist on the market; at least in the City of Apprentices, there was no distinction between potion effects. In other words, there was no such thing as a 'High-Grade XX Potion'.

Others didn't know about this stuff, so if she marked a higher price, there was no guarantee anyone would buy it.

Moreover, this stuff consumed her Mental Power; she estimated she could only make about twenty bottles a day.

"I'll seal them away for now; who knows when they might come in handy."

Next, she made a small portion of the potions required by her orders.

Then she calculated the time.

"I'm a bit tired, but it's still a bit early..."

She felt that making that enhanced Strength Potion had drained her Mental Power, causing her to feel drowsy earlier than usual.

She looked at the stars outside the window and gritted her teeth.

"Then I'll use that Star Gazing Art today; it's been a long time since I last looked at them."

Fran sat on a lounge chair, leisurely watching the stars outside the window as star charts began to emerge within her mind.

Ever since her Star Gazing Art reached the Mastery level, a vast array of star charts had appeared in her consciousness; some she had seen in the book Astrology and the Sea, while others were entirely new to her.

Fran's vision went black, and as she regained a sliver of consciousness, the first things she heard were rhythmic, rapid "tap-tap" sounds, followed by a hurried, exceptionally loud "whoosh" sound.

When Fran could finally see the scene clearly, she was stunned, and her immediate thought was: Why on earth am I doing this?

First, there was the back of a person; Fran recognized it as herself almost instantly. Even though she was wearing baggy clothes and trousers that were quite dirty, she knew it was her at a single glance.

There was no one else around her, only a machine moving on its own in front of her.

It spewed thick smoke, and a wheel was spinning incessantly.

After watching for a while, Fran finally realized: isn't this a steam engine?

The entire steam engine was not small, large enough to envelop Fran's entire frame, yet it was only a size larger than her.

Fran watched the flywheel spin continuously before the entire image vanished, leaving behind only a single notification.

[You have observed a scene from the future. Star Gazing Art proficiency +20]

Fran pondered for a moment and, just as she was about to use Divination Art, she felt a sharp pain in her brain and hurriedly stopped.

"This must be something from a long time in the future; I cannot use Divination Art."

Fran rubbed her aching head; it seemed that figuring out why she was building this steam engine would have to wait until later.

From the perspective of the current Fran, the steam engine was considered backward in this era, so why would she be making such a thing?

Fran had heard from the idle chatter of other apprentices that elsewhere in the Alliance, there existed a Magic Engine capable of moving mountains and lifting entire cities into the sky.

Compared to the Magic Engine, the steam engine seemed to have no advantage whatsoever in terms of power.