Successful Preparation

"Let's begin!"

Green's gaze sharpened with focus. He took a fist-sized, blue-green fruit from the container.

"Elf Fruit. A special fruit altered by elemental radiation. It's rich in Life Force, but its medicinal properties are violent. An ordinary person who eats one will bleed to death, unable to withstand the flood of Life Force. Before it can be used in a potion, it must be diluted to temper its effects."

Green placed the Elf Fruit in a press. The hammer above it descended slowly. Under the immense pressure, the fruit burst, releasing green juice from its flesh. The juice ran through a channel below and into a beaker.

Using a pipette, Green drew the amount of juice he needed from the beaker. After weighing it carefully on a balance, he poured it into another beaker.

Green activated a heater and set the beaker on top. It resembled an alcohol lamp from his previous life, but it needed no flame to light it. A touch of Mental Power was enough, and he could adjust its intensity the same way.

"This heater really is handy. Much less trouble than an alcohol lamp."

The heater worked steadily. In less than two minutes, the juice in the beaker began to boil.

Watching the boiling juice, Green used Wizard's Hand to lift a dropper, draw up some pure water, and add it to the juice one drop at a time.

This step took over ten minutes. The green juice had been diluted to one-tenth its original concentration, and its color had turned emerald. Clear and lustrous, it looked far more appealing than before.

[The dilution threshold has been reached. Add 15 g of Aisa Tree Root immediately.]

At the Chip's prompt, Green guided Wizard's Hand to pick up the Aisa Tree Root from atop the container. Following the Chip's markings, he gently cut it with a small knife and weighed it on the balance. Not a fraction more or less: exactly fifteen grams.

Without hesitation, Green dropped the measured root into the beaker. The emerald liquid, which had been boiling furiously, seemed to have received a stabilizer. Its bubbles grew smaller and smaller, and it turned red. A peculiar scent rose from the beaker, somewhere between the woody aroma of trees and the fragrance of grass.

Green watched the beaker without blinking, glancing now and then at the Chip's display.

[Monitoring changes in medicinal properties. Estimated completion time: 7 minutes.]

The blue screen kept changing as the Chip monitored every detail of the beaker's medicinal properties, composition, structure, and elemental concentration.

The room was silent except for the heater's hum.

[Time elapsed.]

The instant the Chip gave its prompt, Green split Wizard's Hand in two. One hand took a heartlike organ from the container while the other lifted the beaker. Both floated in the air.

At the same time, strange sounds came from Green's mouth. They resembled birdsong, rising high, then falling low.

The heart in Green's grasp seemed to receive a powerful jolt and began beating wildly. Its thuds grew louder and louder, echoing through the laboratory.

Watching the heart pound, Green poured the juice from the beaker through its blood vessels and into it. As the liquid entered, the red heart began turning green.

[Biological transformation complete.]

This continued for ten minutes. Only when the Chip gave its prompt did Green move to the next step.

"Erion—Wusa!" Green chanted an incantation.

As he chanted, Green's Mental Power slowly penetrated the heart. Its peculiar rhythm synchronized with the heartbeat under his influence.

The heart's surface began to seep emerald liquid, as though it were sweating. Green used Wizard's Hand to position the beaker beneath it and catch the drops. As the liquid seeped out, the heart's beating steadily slowed.

The liquid that emerged was crystal clear, gleaming like an emerald.

Once the heart had returned completely to normal, Green immediately placed it back in its container. The cold seemed to suppress its beating; a long time passed between each beat.

"A Forest Cheetah's heart really is useful. I can use it again." After thanking some unknown Forest Cheetah, Green looked at the emerald liquid in the beaker.

"Not bad luck. I succeeded on the first try."

"Chip, check its purity."

[Ding! Testing... Result: Lesser Life Potion successfully prepared. Good quality.]

"Good? Not excellent? Looks like there's still a problem. Chip, what caused it?" Green asked after hearing the Chip's assessment.

[Causes: 1. Heat was not adjusted promptly, and Mental Power fluctuations became disordered. Minor flaws reduced the potion's potency. 2. The Aisa Tree Root was prepared at the last moment, causing a slight delay and insufficient stabilization of the potion's potency.]

[Solutions: 1. Have the Chip assist with Mental Power adjustments during potion preparation. 2. Cut the Aisa Tree Root in advance to ensure it can be added to the liquid immediately.]

The Chip had identified the causes and proposed solutions.

Green frowned, dissatisfied with his performance.

Of course, only Green himself would say that. If anyone else learned that he had succeeded on his first attempt at making a potion—and produced one of good quality at that—they would surely think he was a monster.

An ordinary apprentice generally needed hundreds of attempts to make their first basic potion. Only as they gained experience would their success rate steadily rise. Apprentice potion makers rarely made timing mistakes like Green's. Most ran into trouble controlling their Mental Power.

Controlling Mental Power was no simple matter, and fine control was harder still. The slightest lapse in concentration could change its fluctuation curve and ruin the entire potion-making process.

With the Chip's assistance, Green's chances of making a mistake in controlling his Mental Power were vanishingly small. The greatest difficulty ordinary apprentices faced posed no challenge to him.

"Again!"

Green began another preparation, repeating the same process.

This time, with the Chip's assistance, Green made no timing mistakes, and his control of Mental Power was perfect.

"It's done! An excellent-quality Lesser Life Potion!" Smiling, Green carefully poured the emerald liquid into glass test tubes, filling ten with Lesser Life Potion.

"Just one little bottle of this potion can swiftly heal someone at death's door and restore some Mental Power, too. Even at ten Magic Stones a bottle, it's still extremely popular among apprentices."

Green gently swirled an emerald-filled test tube, as though he could already see himself growing rich.

And he was right. A success rate approaching one hundred percent would shake the entire Wizarding World. Until he possessed overwhelming power, Green would let no one know about it.

Over the days that followed, Green went back and forth between the laboratory and the Sorcery Testing Grounds, doing all he could to improve his chances of protecting himself during the coming sweep of the Pale Forest. Although the Chip could run simulations now, Green felt he still needed hands-on practice.