"A Small Improvement to the Beginner Alchemical Formula for Black Powder" was the second paper written by Karin, a first-ring mage of the Sunfury family.
Unlike Karin's first paper, "A Detailed Description of the Original Spell Melf's Acid Arrow and Its Applications in Countering Troll Regeneration," this paper had not caused much of a stir in Quel'Thalas. Only a handful of visiting dwarf mages from Ironforge and Grim Batol had consulted and cited it!
Even so, the two papers had earned Karin more than forty gold coins over this period.
Quel'Thalas did a very good job of protecting spell ownership. Any paper publicly posted on an Arcane Exchange Wall received twenty years of ownership protection! During that period, anyone citing the paper, whether as an individual or on behalf of a family, had to pay a fee, which the Silvermoon Council then passed on to its author.
The intention behind this measure was to encourage the exchange of spells among mages and advance magical development throughout Quel'Thalas!
Research papers on spells of the sixth ring and above received even greater rewards... Every year, the Silvermoon Council set aside tens of thousands of gold coins to reward their authors!
Even so, very few papers on spells of the sixth ring and above had been publicly published over the millennia... Money simply held little appeal for mages at that level!
For Karin, however, things were different. Gold coins were still very useful to him.
A small vial of silvery liquid sat before Karin, giving off an enticing fragrance.
Looking at the potion, Karin felt both pleased and somewhat helpless.
The Lion's Strength Potion was one of the simplest potions in beginner alchemy! Its effect was straightforward: drinking it gave the user a very slight increase in strength for a limited time, with almost no lingering side effects. For physically robust knights and warriors, the improvement was negligible; for naturally frail mages and priests, especially those of lower rank, it could just about be considered useful!
The formula for the Lion's Strength Potion seemed extremely simple. Equal amounts of earthroot and silverleaf could be refined through several stages at different temperatures to produce it... That was what Karin had initially thought, but actually making it was another matter entirely.
The seemingly simple refining process was exceptionally easy to get wrong in practice. Either the heat was too low or the refining went on too long... A single mistake meant wasting an entire batch of ingredients!
To brew this tiny vial of Lion's Strength Potion, Karin had used nearly ten gold coins' worth of ingredients, and that was with the relatively low prices at the family's trading grounds... Yet the finished potion would fetch, at most, forty-odd silver coins on the market-not even half a gold coin.
No wonder that unnamed book on alchemy had mentioned toward the end that truly mastering the craft required a tremendous investment of effort and money. It had not exaggerated.
He could only hope that, after he left Sunfury Spire, the All-Knowing Eye could offer him some advice on alchemy and spare him a few wrong turns.
Karin sealed the potion with beeswax, slipped it into his pocket, and left the training grounds.
By coincidence, he ran into that familiar acquaintance again.
"Chief Tiffany, what a coincidence. We meet again!" Karin greeted her politely.
"Karin? Was that explosion at the training grounds four days ago your doing?" Tiffany glanced at him and suddenly remembered something.
"Well..." Karin remembered it too. He had apparently been testing the correct formula for black powder from his memories at the time!
"All right, never mind. We're mages, after all. There's no shame in causing a few explosions while you're still getting the hang of something!" Tiffany said casually. "From the look of you, you're planning to leave?"
"Yes!" Karin nodded.
"Why? Are you unhappy with the facilities or the treatment here?" Tiffany asked curiously.
"Not at all... I just feel that the conditions here are too comfortable. A proper mage needs to adapt to different environments in the outside world to improve himself..." Karin forced out a flimsy excuse.
"Is that so... You're as strange as ever, it seems!" The blue-robed mage shook her head, but she did not seem particularly surprised and simply strode away.
The Ghostlands.
Before the High Elves came to Quel'Thalas, the Darklands and Eversong Woods farther north had both been Troll territory, and Zul'Aman had been the capital of the Amani Trolls. Thousands of years ago, an allied army of Elves and humans had driven the Trolls from these lands, forcing them back into Zul'Aman and the surrounding forests. The Ghostlands had consequently become High Elf territory.
But the Trolls' ambition to reclaim their homeland had never faded, and their scouts had never stopped trying to infiltrate the Ghostlands.
A group of agile Elves raced through the forest... They were a Ranger Squad!
Along the long border between the Trolls and the Elves, a Ranger Squad was stationed in every stretch of territory, responsible for searching out Troll scouts and monitoring Troll movements.
The Ranger Squad soon returned to their camp: a hastily pitched tent.
"Miss Vereesa!" A female ranger who had stayed behind at the camp hurried out.
Vereesa Windrunner had joined the squad after the Midsummer Festival. In less than two months, she had earned the recognition of every member and become its captain. Of course, that might also have had something to do with her noble surname.
"What is it?"
"An urgent letter from Tranquillien, signed by General Sylvanas-your sister!"
The letter in the female ranger's hands was secured with a Longbow-Shaped Seal! Vereesa knew that seal well. If it fell into Troll hands, it would ignite on its own and burn the entire letter to ashes... A letter this formal clearly was not a family letter from her sister!
She solemnly took the letter and opened it.
A few minutes later.
"General Sylvanas has ordered all rangers to learn and become proficient in a spell called Melf's Acid Arrow within six months!" she told the squad members quietly.
"Learn a spell?" The rangers immediately began whispering among themselves.
Thanks to the radiance of the Sunwell, every ranger was the equivalent of a mage apprentice and could learn and cast some low-ring spells... Some high-ranking rangers even had greater control over magic than certain Third Ring and Fourth Ring mages.
Spending a good deal of time learning a simple second-ring spell was not particularly difficult... But making it a mandatory order was rather intriguing.
"Also, General Sylvanas pointed out that soon-within the next few months-every Ranger Squad will be assigned a mage instructor!" Vereesa continued.