Cure Potion

A new day began, and first thing that morning, Drew taught Joseph the tradition of evening study sessions.

Joseph's eyes lit up. Yes, this was a great idea.

The teachers would impart knowledge during the day, and the students would review what they had learned in the evening, reinforcing it and making connections.

What's more, studying together in the evenings would let everyone learn from and test their understanding against one another, greatly improving their efficiency.

Joseph could hardly wait. He was so distracted thinking about it during class that he barely understood the lesson.

As soon as class ended, Joseph, as class monitor, immediately organized the students to discuss the idea. They were all quite interested and decided to start evening study sessions that very night.

Once the evening study sessions began, Drew's lessons progressed much faster. During the day, all he had to do was explain the material clearly and give a brief explanation. The students could handle the rest themselves.

As a result, Drew's teaching hours were greatly reduced, allowing him to cover more material each day.

In less than a month, Drew had finished teaching all the courses.

With all the courses finished, there was nothing left for Drew to do. The students could review on their own, and all Drew had to do was prepare some questions and test them.

That left Drew with plenty of time to work on his own projects.

Drew spent several days putting together a large collection of questions and organizing them into a question bank. He handed it over to Joseph, then stopped involving himself in the matter.

He left all the administrative work to Joseph. Drew felt it was time to start researching alchemy.

He hadn't developed any new potions for several months because of the study group, and the town mayor was starting to complain.

For nearly half a year, the shop had only sold two kinds of potions: Antidote Potion and Shadow Potion.

But one thing had gone well: they had finally opened up a market for high-quality Antidote Potion.

The mayor had found a major buyer in Gold-Gleam Town, a nearby city.

They were now selling high-quality Antidote Potion in bulk each month.

Now that Drew and the mayor had money, Drew was thinking about developing a new potion.

This time, he wanted to research a life potion. Was that a typo?

Hadn't he been talking about Healing Potions?

It wasn't a typo. He really was researching Healing Potions.

Karen could make Healing Potions, which meant Drew could make them too. They were simple to produce.

But Cure Potions were another matter. It might seem like a small difference in name, but it was significant.

Healing Potions contained a lot of magic power, making them unusable by ordinary people.

Cure Potions, on the other hand, contained very little magic power, though their effects were much weaker than those of Healing Potions.

The key was that ordinary people could use them.

That was the crucial point. Developing a healing potion that ordinary people could use would spare people the awkward predicament of having to find a Priest whenever they suffered a serious injury.

After all, Priests who could use Healing Spells were all professionals, and they belonged to the rare divine class.

Ordinary people could hardly afford to pay what it took to hire them.

If there were an ordinary healing potion that could effectively treat injuries for a reasonable price, many ordinary people would be willing to buy it. Besides, it might take a while to find a Priest, but just about anyone could keep a bottle of Cure Potion on hand.

It would be convenient, quick, and effective. But were Cure Potions available on the market? No.

The Alchemist Association had even posted a bounty, offering a generous reward to any alchemist who could create a Cure Potion recipe.

Yet no one had ever completed the task, and no Cure Potion recipe had ever been produced.

There wasn't even a Cure Potion in the ancient recipes.

That was because there had been no ordinary people in ancient times. Even the ordinary members of the races back then had been physically strong enough to use Healing Potions.

But the humans who appeared in the present day couldn't. Now, Drew wanted to solve this problem left over from history.

The reason ordinary people couldn't use Healing Potions was that the magic power was too concentrated for their bodies to withstand. The solution was to lower its concentration.

But it couldn't possibly be that simple. Otherwise, people would have figured out the recipe long ago.

Drew searched through Karen's memories. Karen had a very strong impression of Life Flower, the main ingredient in Healing Potions.

It was quite rare for something to have such completely reversed properties.

What if he changed the main ingredient to one with less magic power? Would that work?

Or what if he used an ingredient with natural or Holy Light properties instead?

After all, both natural and Holy Light properties had healing effects.

Was there an ingredient with natural or Holy Light properties?

Drew consulted some reference materials. Using Joseph's identity, he had borrowed a book of common, basic alchemy ingredients from a branch of the Alchemist Association.

Drew found information about natural and Holy Light materials in the book. Holy Light materials were very potent. Perhaps priests could control them when casting spells, making them seem less overpowering.

But when it came to alchemy, Holy Light materials were extremely difficult to handle.

It was easy to imagine that if he used Holy Light materials to make Cure Potions, ordinary people would be even less able to withstand them.

He might as well just use Healing Potions. It seemed this approach wouldn't work.

Natural materials, on the other hand, weren't as overpowering. In fact, they were the best ingredients for making both Cure Potions and Healing Potions.

The healing effect of natural properties was the gentlest, but it took a very long time to work.

That wasn't the main issue, though. The main issue was that natural materials were extremely rare.

Natural materials were just as expensive as Life Flower, the main ingredient in Healing Potions.

So it wasn't impossible to use natural materials to make Cure Potions; it simply wasn't worth the cost.

That might be fine if he were making one for a specific person, but developing a recipe would require many experiments.

The raw materials were too precious to use on a large scale, making the whole thing seem rather pointless.

It seemed this approach wouldn't work well either. He'd have to think of another way. Until he found a substitute ingredient, Drew could only look for an answer in the original Healing Potion.

First, Drew examined the particles in a finished Healing Potion under a microscope.

Then he diluted the Healing Potion with water and examined it again. He found that, on a microscopic level, the liquid in the Healing Potion hadn't dissolved in the water. Instead, it had clumped together in little droplets.

In other words, the Healing Potion and water weren't compatible. So when an ordinary person drank the mixture, it was essentially no different from drinking a small amount of Healing Potion.

An ordinary person with a weak constitution still couldn't withstand the potion's power. This method wouldn't work. Drew hadn't expected it to succeed anyway; if it were that simple, anyone could do it.

Drew had used this method to confirm why it failed. After all, failure was the mother of success, and it was always good to learn from experience. Perhaps it would help him find the right method.

The potion wouldn't dissolve in water, but could it dissolve in another liquid?

Would finding the right solvent be enough to solve this problem?

Drew didn't think the answer would be that simple, but it was worth trying. Failure was still a step toward success.

The next task was to find a suitable liquid and conduct more experiments.