Magic Workshop (Part 2)

"Feiqiya, you're too polite," Alec said with a smile. "That would cost you too much. Only fools go to places like that."

"It's only proper, only proper," Feiqiya said with a smile as well. "Then it's settled. I'll be leaving first."

"I'll see you out." Alec followed him.

"No need, no need." Feiqiya waved his hand. "Romon, you must learn more from Mage Alec."

"Brother Feiqiya, I will." Romon bowed to him.

After Feiqiya left, Alec returned from the workshop entrance.

"Romon," he said, pointing at the young people in several cubicles, "these are your companions. They're working right now, so I won't introduce you. You'll get to know them anyway. I'll show you to your room."

Romon nodded silently. Alec then took him to see the room. It was not large, but the bedding and everything else were neat. There was a small table with a little lamp on it, also a magic item, permanently enchanted with a Level-Zero Light Spell.

"You know how to use this thing, right?" Alec asked, pointing at the magic lamp.

"I do," Romon replied. He had seen one in the Temple at Rika Town. It was a convenient little item for spellcasters; a faint trace of magic power was enough to activate it for a period of time.

"As for lunch, it'll be delivered from Old Vilen's place." Alec smiled at Romon, his smile carrying a hint of ambiguity. "Yvette is a good girl, though her temper is a little fiery."

Romon lowered his head.

Alec assumed he was embarrassed and burst out laughing.

At last, Alec led him to an empty cubicle in the workshop. "This will be where you work from now on. Do you need me to demonstrate how to prepare a potion?"

"Yes, please. Sorry to trouble you." Romon drew a breath and tried to focus his mind.

"Wait here." With that, Alec left. Before long, he returned carrying a small glass bottle and a box.

Alec sat beside the workbench. "Look, Romon. Since a Solidifying Agent does not remain active for long after it is prepared, my teacher divided it into two parts." As he spoke, he opened the small box, revealing a pill inside. "Using it is simple. Drop the pill into the glass bottle containing the liquid. Once the pill has completely dissolved, that is when the Solidifying Agent is at its most active. Do you understand?"

"I understand clearly," Romon replied, though he felt a chill inside. He had heard Jefa and Ansen discuss methods for judging the activity of a Solidifying Agent. The word that appeared most often in those methods was "experience." Yet according to Alec, one merely had to observe the pill's degree of dissolution with the naked eye to determine the agent's activity level. Such a simple design demonstrated Sackville's achievements in alchemical potions.

"Then, Mage Alec, how long does it take for the pill to dissolve completely?" Romon asked.

Alec frowned at the question. "My teacher once tested it. The result was fifty-six magic seconds. But knowing that won't help you, since you don't have an accurate timing tool."

Who says I don't? Romon howled inwardly. I've got a stopwatch in my Shennong Horn Space!

Still, he put on a curious smile. "Are timing tools expensive?"

"Very expensive. I'd like one myself. Experiments would be much more convenient." Alec wore a wistful smile.

I'm not giving you mine, Romon thought.

"All right, may I begin the demonstration?" Alec asked.

"Please wait a moment longer." Romon closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Then his consciousness entered the Shennong Horn Space and found the mechanical stopwatch.

Romon opened his eyes. At the same time, his right hand had already gripped the stopwatch within the broad sleeve of his druid robe. Good thing I dressed formally for today's meeting, he thought.

"Please begin."

Alec smiled, removed the bottle's cap, and tossed the small pill into the colorless liquid. Romon secretly pressed the timing button.

The pill gradually dissolved, and the potion began to turn red. Alec's expression became solemn as he started chanting, his hands forming the corresponding spell seals.

Romon also focused all his attention on Alec's actions.

At the instant the pill in the bottle completely dispersed, the final note of Alec's chant ended exactly as Romon pressed the button in time. At the same time, through his Aura Vision, Romon could clearly see a glow gradually appearing within the bottle. The spell was being stored by the Solidifying Agent.

This continued for a brief while. Then, visible to the naked eye, the potion suddenly flashed with golden light.

"It's done." Alec let out a breath. "Then I should sign my name." He pointed to the blank space on the bottle's label. "After that, you hand it to me for inspection, and I'll determine the potion's quality on the spot. Finally, I'll pay you according to the result."

"I understand."

"All right. Once you've made a potion, ring the bell on the table and I'll come collect it. Here are two portions of Solidifying Agent. Use one first to get some practice." Alec took out two portions and set them on the table, then left.

Romon watched him go, entered the cubicle, and closed the door. He took out the stopwatch hidden in his sleeve. It read fifty-five point four seconds. It seemed that magic seconds matched Earth's seconds exactly.

A smug smile appeared on Romon's face. With this, preparing potions would surely become much easier.

A week passed quickly. During that week, Romon got to know the apprentices working alongside him: three mages, one druid, and himself, five people in all. Their ages were close, as were their backgrounds and experiences. Most had no fixed mentor, or had one but received little favor from them. At the same time, all of them had some direct or indirect connection to Sackville and had come to work in the workshop through letters of recommendation.

The entire social structure resembled medieval Europe. Apprentices learned under masters through guarantors; open recruitment, common in modern society, did not exist, and self-recommendation was even rarer. This was still a society built on networks woven through acquaintances. Though the power held by a few spellcasters was no weaker than that of modern times, spells and Divine Spells remained privileges enjoyed by only a small minority.

Having experienced the age of information explosion, Romon's insight into this society was extraordinary.

However, even Archimedes needed a fulcrum to move the Earth. As a First-Level Druid, Romon currently devoted most of his attention to potion preparation. With his remaining time, he monitored the plants in the Shennong Horn, and practiced martial skills with Yvette, who often came to deliver meals.

Romon's life was now quite comfortable. He had even come up with an idea for repaying his debt after no longer having to see Bakasi, the Rika Town tax officer, with his corpse-like ugly face. He only needed to wait for the right opportunity. He had focused that opportunity on Yvette and deliberately become closer to her.

But others formed a different impression of Romon.

That week, Romon set all three of his daily First-Level Spell slots to Cure Minor Wounds. This was completely different from that idiot Jacob, who wasted his First-Level Spell slots on Flame Palm merely to show off.

Then, in everyone's eyes, Romon displayed astonishing talent for making alchemical potions. His success rate in producing Cure Minor Wounds potions was second only to Alec's. Out of roughly nine attempts every three days, he only failed once, and even then the result was always a defective potion rather than a complete loss. Such defective products, equivalent to the Level-Zero Spell Stop Bleeding, could still be sold in the shop out front. Therefore, Romon did not need to compensate for the Solidifying Agent—though that was naturally the result of his own control.

Faced with his colleagues' jealous gazes, Mage Alec's praise, and Yvette's clearly changed attitude, Romon's answer was simple: "I'm very sensitive to the passage of time."

Thanks to the stopwatch's power, Alec had even sighed to him once, "Romon, if you chose the path of a mage, I think we could work together on some research."

Romon remained unruffled by all of it. So what if they were jealous? No one dared to do anything in the workshop. Outside it, Romon's life was highly regular as well. At most, he went out to practice swordsmanship with Yvette. Before he knew it, their relationship had grown increasingly harmonious.

More importantly, his colleagues had endured many hardships because learning their trades had been difficult, so they acted with exceptional caution. After all, mediocre people made up the majority of the world. They did not dare make a move.

That day was Sunday. At noon, after sitting in on Sackville's lecture, Romon strolled out of the shop. He had half a day off today. Ordinary apprentices naturally did not receive such treatment, but Romon and the others had spellcaster status, so their treatment was entirely different from that of ordinary shop and workshop apprentices.

Then he saw Yvette standing prettily outside the door.

The girl wore long, wavy golden hair that glittered in the sunlight. Her nose seemed sculpted from fine jade by a master craftsman, small and delicate with a faint upward tilt. Two dove-like mounds rested quietly upon her chest, outlining the graceful curves of a young girl.

Romon suddenly recalled an ancient poem from Earth:

A gentle maiden, lovely and fair, waited for me by the city wall. Though she hid herself from sight, I scratched my head and wandered in hesitation. A gentle maiden, beautiful and bright, gave me a crimson reed. The crimson reed gleamed brilliantly; I delighted in the maiden's beauty. She brought me tender reeds from the fields, truly lovely and rare. It was not the reeds that were beautiful, but the gift from the beautiful one.

A ripple stirred in his heart. Since he had vaguely revealed the news last time, she had waited three days before coming to see him.

Though they were not close enough for such deep words, he could not worry about that now.

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