Delicious Potion Learns from Failure

"First attempt at the Delicious Potion..."

Manus lit the fire beneath the cauldron and recorded the experiment aloud. Beside him, the Self-Writing Quill was transcribing his words into a paper experiment log in the notebook.

It looked like an utterly serious and formal Potions experiment.

However, if one widened their view, they would see that the table before Manus, where all manner of Potions ingredients ought to have been laid out, currently resembled a kitchen prep station, covered in ingredients.

There were cut-up bones, meat, and organs; washed and chopped vegetables, fruits, and mushrooms; shrimp, crabs, shellfish, and jellyfish still giving off a chill... Even the bottles and jars in the corner of the table contained not common Potions ingredients like beetle eyes and Shrivelfigs, but oil, salt, soy sauce, vinegar, herbs, scallions, ginger, and garlic.

Looking elsewhere in the Potions room, one could also see more shelf-stable ingredients stored in crates against the wall: smoked meat, ham, sausages, dried fish, dried scallops, rice, flour, and more.

No matter how one looked at it, this was more like a large-scale cooking operation being carried out in an ingredient warehouse.

"First step... add the Re'em tenderloin."

Into the empty cauldron, Manus added neither water nor any other liquid. Instead, he directly grabbed a fresh, bloodied strip of beef tenderloin and dropped it in. It had come from a Re'em that had died only recently, and was fresh enough that the muscle fibers still twitched faintly.

The raw tenderloin sizzled as it pressed against the heated inner wall of the cauldron. Without the lubrication of oil, the meat's surface immediately stuck to the cauldron. If this had been grilling, it would absolutely have been a failed first step.

Without changing expression, Manus added a spoonful of honey and injected magic into the