A Brand-New Path

First came the matter of stabilizers. Wizards in this world were accustomed to relying on their own powerful mental strength to brutally reconcile and suppress conflicts between medicinal properties.

As for borrowing external aids—in other words, more efficient stabilizers—they clearly did not pay much attention to them.

To wizards of this world, stabilizers were more like assistance reserved exclusively for apprentices.

When refining mid- and high-grade potions, wizards often added a little out of habit, more like a placebo.

A vast amount of information from the Compendium of Herb Properties and Leyline Mineral Deposits flashed through his mind. Before long, information on several materials surfaced.

[Ice Crystal Stone] A mineral containing pure ice-element magic power. Extremely cold in nature, it could effectively suppress and soothe overly active fire-element and blood-energy types of energy. It was commonly used as a casting material for certain ice spells or in forging enchantments. There were very few medicinal records of it, only mentions that it could neutralize certain violent fire toxins.

[Soul Stone] A peculiar translucent crystal, brittle yet hard in texture. It possessed excellent affinity and conductivity for mental strength, along with properties of connection and buffering. It could even store mental strength. Only a few medicines for treating mental illnesses required its use.

[Stone Root Grass]: The most basic stabilizer material. Though its efficacy was insufficient, its effects could be enhanced through purification.

A composite stabilizer formula that had never existed before gradually took shape in Li Ang's mind, and his pen swiftly recorded this bold idea.

By repeatedly boiling Stone Root Grass, he could obtain a large amount of extract. Boiling the extract dry would yield the purest Stone Root Grass Crystal. Then he would add Ice Crystal Stone to suppress violent fire-element energy and remove some of the toxicity from the materials. The Soul Stone would serve as an extension of his mental strength, connecting several different energies and assisting their fusion.

He wrote down the names of the three materials, marking rough ratio ranges and preliminary processing ideas behind them. The Ice Crystal Stone and Soul Stone needed to be ground into an extremely fine powder...

Yet as he wrote, his brows knit once more. Even with this new composite stabilizer formula, the traditional refining method of simple heating and stirring still seemed insufficient to make up for his lack of mental strength.

High temperatures could certainly speed up the efficiency of water extraction, but what he faced now was a medicinal solution reacting too quickly, too violently.

"Temperature..." Li Ang tapped the tabletop with his fingertip and murmured, "What if... it isn't heated throughout the entire process?"

A concept from his previous life abruptly barged into his mind: cold extraction.

In this world, potion refining was practically synonymous with heating. Using different temperatures to trigger and fuse medicinal properties was a deeply rooted tradition.

Cold processing? No one had ever tried it—but why couldn't he?

The thought made his heart pound. An entirely new line of thinking for a potion-refining system unfolded before his eyes.

He immediately began writing furiously on the parchment, recording the preliminary process for a Cold-Extraction Potion...

Every step came with countless details that needed verification. What exact temperature should the low temperature be? How long should each stage last? In what order should the materials be added? At what rate should the temperature rise?

These questions would ordinarily require a great many experiments to explore, but Li Ang's eyes gleamed with excitement, because he did not need to feel his way forward bit by bit.

The next morning, with no lessons from his mentor, Li Ang arrived at Mentor Eve's workshop early after breakfast.

His gaze immediately fell upon the Everfrost Rune Cabinet in the corner, which had never been used.

[Everfrost Rune Cabinet: Lv0]

[Status: Can be bound]

[Binding cost: 1 point of mental strength]

"Bind." With a slight movement of Li Ang's thoughts, a mental connection was instantly established.

[Binding successful]

[Everfrost Rune Cabinet: Current level Lv0]

[Current effect: Slightly extends storage freshness duration]

[Lv1 effect: Freshness duration +10%, minimum controllable temperature +10%]

[Upgrade requirement: Mental World Magic Starlet count reaches 1, consume 5 points of mental strength]

Without hesitation, he directly invested 5 points of mental strength into the upgrade.

[Upgrade successful]

[Everfrost Rune Cabinet: Lv1]

[Current effect: Freshness duration +10%, minimum controllable temperature +10%]

A clearer chill fed back through the mental connection. Li Ang could now distinctly sense the changes in temperature within the cabinet, as well as its internal condition.

This was where his confidence lay. He did not need to grope through countless experiments; he could directly sense every change during the Cold-Extraction Potion process.

He drew a deep breath, calmed the excitement in his heart, and began preparing the composite stabilizer he had envisioned.

First came the Stone Root Grass Crystal. He fetched a large amount of unprocessed Stone Root Grass, placed it into a crucible, added distilled water, lit the Magic Heat Furnace, and began repeatedly boiling, extracting, and filtering it.

It was an exceedingly tedious and time-consuming process. He had to precisely control the heat and water quantity each time to extract the active components of the Stone Root Grass to the greatest extent possible.

The workshop was silent, with only the faint bubbling of the medicinal liquid. Sweat slid down from his temples as time passed second by second.

In the end, after using more than thirty portions of Stone Root Grass powder and spending several hours on repeated extraction and distillation, he obtained roughly 3 grams of pure grayish-white Stone Root Grass Crystal.

Next, he took out the Blackstone Grinding Mortar and separately ground the selected Ice Crystal Stone and Soul Stone.

Under the mortar's effect, the two hard minerals were quickly ground into powder as fine as dust.

Li Ang carefully took out a portion of each. Then he separated a strand of his mental strength and slowly infused it into that small pinch of Soul Stone powder.

Like water seeping into a sponge, the Soul Stone powder faintly lit up with a flowing gleam, storing that strand of mental strength perfectly.

The final step was to mix the three according to the proportions he had calculated.

When the Stone Root Grass Crystal, Ice Crystal Stone powder, and Soul Stone powder infused with mental strength were heated in a small spare crucible, the three materials instantly fused tightly together.

The composite stabilizer succeeded in a single attempt!

Looking at the roughly 10 grams of gray-blue powder at the bottom of the small crucible, Li Ang felt an immense sense of accomplishment rise within him.

He carefully stored this tiny amount of incomparably precious composite stabilizer in a small crystal bottle.

Wiping the sweat from his forehead, Li Ang ran outside the workshop and sat down against the corner of a wall. He planned to rest for a moment and take a few bites of bread while he was at it.

After resting for a while, Li Ang stood up again and entered the workshop. He took out another small spare crucible, filled it with the purest magical water using the Water Creation Spell, then opened the Everfrost Rune Cabinet.

Several materials requiring low-temperature storage were kept inside the rune cabinet. However, even such low-temperature storage could not preserve them indefinitely. Usually, after about a year, the materials would lose their activity and become unusable.

Li Ang carefully placed the small crucible into the rune cabinet, then added one drop of anticoagulant into it. This reagent could keep the solution from freezing even when the temperature fell below zero. Afterward, he took out a Sunflower and cautiously placed it into the crucible.