"That was the expected result."
Angell looked unsurprised when he heard that Kata had passed the Mana test.
The child was one of the top players on the Leaderboard, so Angell had remembered him.
"He probably played the game many times a day, right? That means he was also repeatedly meditating every day. With training that intense, it would be stranger if his Mana level didn't improve."
"So does that mean anyone can become a Mage if they work hard?" Enlise asked, her eyes sparkling.
Mithril couldn't help twitching his whiskers at the sight of her.
"Unfortunately, the limit of one's talent..." was already set.
Mithril wanted to answer that way.
But Angell suddenly reached out from behind and firmly pressed Mithril down into the pot.
"Yes!" Angell told Enlise. "As long as they work hard, most people can become Mages."
"I'll work hard!"
Enlise said excitedly.
In truth, she was already working very hard.
Before this, after Enlise discovered that the games on the Game Table trained her meditation skills, she had kept at it, using the games to improve her meditation. Kata's success had clearly given her even more motivation.
But after Enlise walked away, Mithril raised his head out of the Alchemy Pot and rubbed his nose with a paw. "You're lying!"
Mana had a limit.
Just like intelligence, a person's Mana level limit was set at birth.
Angell knew this better than anyone.
He had been an Intermediate Mage a hundred years ago, and after spending a hundred years in the Mage Tower, he was still an Intermediate Mage. It wasn't because he hadn't worked hard. It was because his body's Mana limit had determined what level he could reach in this lifetime.
"That's not a lie! It's true that anyone without an 'Anti-Magic Constitution' can become a Magic Apprentice, or even a Low-level Mage, if they work hard!" Angell argued. "The proof is that there are far more Mages among nobles than among commoners."
"That may have been true in the Magic Era, but in this era, Low-level Mages and Intermediate Mages are useless."
That was why many nobles no longer put much effort into becoming Mages.
It was a direct cause of the declining number of Mages.
Whenever Mithril brought up this topic, he wanted to sigh. "If your ideals are doomed to fail, it's better not to hope in the first place."
"By that logic, anyone who can't reach the highest level of talent in their profession might as well give up," Angell said with a frown. "Besides, raising people's Mana levels is necessary for me."
So he could make more money.
Since people could only reach the level of meditation, Angell could make only simple little games that consumed very little Mana, much like the limitations of early Electronic Games.
But given how this world was developing, Vacuum Tube Computers should already have been invented. Their evolution into Electronic Computers was only a matter of time. When that happened, the Game Table would lose all the headway it had gained.
During this period, Angell had to raise the Mana levels of Rune Game players and create more complex games, cultivating a group of "veteran players" to keep the Rune Game's core audience.
The Workshop's future depended on it. This was no joke.
Fortunately, things seemed to be going well. In just one month, one child had already passed the Mana test. The others should reach a similar level after clearing those few games, too.
Angell remained optimistic.
Mithril, however, knew nothing about the history of computer development in another Plane, so he had no idea what Angell was planning. He looked at Angell and twitched his ears. "You really do..." want to revive the Magic Era, don't you?
As a Mage, Angell naturally wouldn't want to see magical civilization decline, would he?
The Black Cat thought to himself.
He curled up his paws and stuck out his paw pads, intending to pat the hand Angell had kept pressed against him. But before he could finish speaking, he heard a hissing sound from beneath him.
Then a mechanical voice rang out. "Food Appraisal complete. Generating menu."
"Menu?" Angell asked in surprise, looking beneath Mithril.
It was an Alchemy Pot.
Since Mithril had eaten the Monster waitress from the Adventurer's Guild, there was no chance of getting a bartender or a cook from there. Angell had planned to post another job listing at the Career Agency, but when he noticed a batch of Magic Pots sitting in storage, he decided to try one out first.
This pot was extraordinary.
As long as you tossed food inside, it could analyze the recipe.
Then you could find the ingredients on the menu, put them into the pot, and it would produce food identical to the original.
Unfortunately, its recipes were a little off from normal ones, and in the end, it had lost out to the oven.
Angell couldn't understand what "a little off from normal recipes" meant, so before Enlise came running over because of Kata, he had been experimenting with the pot.
Angell hadn't expected it to work when he pushed Mithril into it, too. He took the recipe from beneath the pot.
[Dish Name]: Angell's Left Hand
[Ingredients]: Human flesh, human bones, a bottle of gentleness, a bottle of casting gestures, and lots of "clumsiness."
[Special Effect]: When petting a cat or patting someone's head, the other person's favorability increases by 5.
What the heck was this?
"Wait a minute. You're the one in the pot, so why is this my hand?" Angell asked in confusion.
"Because I don't count as food!" The cat in the Cat Pot answered righteously.
Angell was skeptical.
He suspected Mithril had been made in this pot using Argumentative Spirit as an ingredient.
"Let's try something else."
Angell's interest was piqued.
He lifted Mithril out of the pot and put in the sandwich Enlise had made for lunch.
[Dish Name]: Enlise's Heartfelt Sandwich
[Ingredients]: Two slices of bread, a lettuce leaf, a fried egg, two slices of ham, some apple jam, a spoonful of admiration, a spoonful of worry, and a spoonful of leftovers.
[Special Effect]: Fills your stomach.
Angell said, "The first part of the ingredients makes sense, but what the heck is the rest?"
"Admiration and worry are Enlise's feelings for you. The leftovers refer to the fact that you didn't finish it, right?"
"..." Because ham sandwiches with apple jam were weird!
Even after living in this world for over a hundred years, he still couldn't understand the local tastes.
Angell grumbled to himself.
"These feelings are superfluous, but you have to put them in, or this pot can't make anything," Mithril sighed. "That's why nobody will buy it."
"Only a White Mage who can read emotions could use this pot, right?" Angell asked with a frown. "Are all the recipes like this?"
He looked around, then walked to the middle of the room, still unwilling to give up.
A huge magical machine stood there.
It looked like two enormous cultivation tanks. Different-colored potions bubbled around inside one, while flames burned in the other, with bubbles continually puffing out of the fire. The bubbles traveled through the tanks' pipes, mixed with the potions, and were compressed into a drink that flowed into a cup.
"This thing hasn't been handled by anyone, so there shouldn't be any strange ingredients mixed in, right?"
As he spoke, Angell poured a drink into the Alchemy Pot.
[Dish Name]: Happy Water
[Ingredients]: One glass, a spoonful of Luck Potion, lots of water, and three mouthfuls of waste gas from the lungs.
[Effect]: Grants a small chance.
"They added something strange at the end again!" Mithril said after looking at the recipe.
Angell shook his head. "No, this recipe is right." Wasn't waste gas from the lungs just carbon dioxide?
It was a little odd, but the result was correct.
"This waste gas is weird, meow!" Mithril complained. "But the drink itself is weird, too. I can't believe you thought of mixing Alchemy Potions with water and bubbles and selling it to customers as Happy Water."
"Was I supposed to watch all those Alchemy Potions expire?" Angell replied.
Normal Alchemy Potions didn't have this problem.
Magical products usually had no expiration date. A magic sword could be used by generations of Heroes, and a golden apple dug out of some ruins would still have its original effect. Alchemy Potions could usually just be drunk.
But the batch of Alchemy Potions in the Magic Gear warehouse had been specially made.
Apparently, cheap medicine had hurt Alchemy Potion sales, so the Workshop Master at the time had cut back on ingredients when making this batch of potions. As a result, they cost more than regular medicine, had an expiration date, and were less effective than normal Alchemy Potions. They failed the Drug Regulatory Department's inspection and were a complete disaster.
Mithril had mentioned it the last time they talked, so when Angell went to get the Alchemy Pot, he remembered the batch and took it out, too. He diluted it with water and sold it as a drink, dividing it into different types based on the Alchemy Potion used: Lucky Happy Water, Strength Happy Water, Spirit Happy Water, Healing Happy Water, and so on.
Mithril thought that was far too dishonest. "Those potions are already weak, and you're watering them down? They won't do anything at all, meow!"
"It's precisely because the potions are too weak to sell as medicine that I'm selling them as drinks," Angell said. "Actually, the Alchemy Potion is just a bonus. Carbonated Water alone should make a decent profit."
But it was the Alchemy Potion that had made him think of cola.
Angell's memories were a little hazy, but he seemed to recall that the first cola had been invented by a pharmacist. He hadn't learned much about it in his previous life. So when he thought about how to sell the Alchemy Potions, cola had come to mind.
Of course, Angell didn't know how normal cola was made, so he had used magic to make it based on its ingredients.
"You're the only one who thinks Carbonated Water can make money!" Mithril argued, as usual.
The Black Cat wasn't fond of drinks that made you burp.
"...I'm the only one?" Angell paused and asked in surprise. "Nobody else here has 'invented' fizzy drinks?"
He remembered that soda water and the like had appeared a long time ago.
Given the level of technology here, they should have invented it ages ago.
"Only you would make something that weird!" Mithril said.
Maybe people simply looked down on that sort of drink?
Angell thought it over, but decided it had nothing to do with him, so he didn't investigate further.
Just then, a golden-shaded cat came in to pick up some Happy Water, so Angell put the cup in its tray.