[Eon's POV: ]
"Haaa…"
First, feel the aura that lies deep inside your mind, deep in consciousness, channel it throughout the body, take in other energies from Mana core and Solnova reserve, mix it to strengthen the Aura, take the strengthened Aura out, materialize it in a thin form, spreads it thinly in the atmosphere, grab the Mana in the surrounding with it, drag the Mana and move it towards the prepared material.
'Slowly…'
Feel the Mana that's being dragged with Aura, and twist it.
Make a thin string with this new waisted Mana and twist the string again.
Wrap the string around the container with the tempered powdered material, and without overlapping the strings, continue wrapping it around it.
'Good.'
Next, focus on the Aura that's dragging the Mana and passing the Mana through the container directly inside the material.
'Gentle pressure or there might be an explosion…'
Carefully as the wrapped strings of Mana covered by Aura pass through the container, slowly loosen the Aura wrapping around the Mana and let the Mana flow through the material.
'Good, good.'
As the powered materials get in contact with the Mana and Aura, the material will start dissolving, turning into a fluid form.
That fluid will be the final material of the last stage of the creation so I had to get this part right. It was the most important.
'Stop.'
I could feel the first material had reached the point of saturation and had started dissolving. So this was done.
'Now onto the second one.'
I had a total of twenty-four of these materials to prepare, and then mix two, do the same thing, mix two of them again, and repeat the process, do it one last time while under the white light of the catalyst, and the final three will be the end products with the most potency.
'Usually, I use it after dissolving it, but it is for the test so the last three will be the final products.'
Mixing the last three would give no actual retractions as all three of them would be the same product with the same quality so they would just mix in.
'Yes, they might lower the ultimate potency a little so keeping the three separate is better.'
'Good. Now onto the next one…'
I had a lot of work to do there was no time to even look around.
I knew I would take the most time, and probably finish on the clock, but that was a little price before what I was creating right now.
'Alright.'
I could feel the gazes on me and also the warm feeling Rein was feeling while looking at me right now but, even if I wanted to look at them, I couldn't.
'All four of us will be washed by a weird colorful foam otherwise so I had to focus…'
***
[Rein's POV: ]
'Good. This is great.'
[[ "Celes, Does the color of the things inside the pot look anything like green?" ]]
[[ Noooo~. It's still blue sister Elle. ]]
[[ "Alright, thanks." ]]
'Three more minutes.'
I was halfway done with my work so there was only the heating process and filtering process left.
'I will probably have enough time to put the final product in bottles and watch my dear darling do his cool work with that great focus~.'
And that bitch is going to lose. I knew she would because he was making one of his original potions.
'Not one of his nine ultimate potions but one of the original recipients that he sometimes uses to heal the people and creatures in emergency situations.'
It was a potion far better than the current advanced potions on the market and though not at the level of holy water, it was nothing less than that thing.
'But his ultimate healing potion sure is far, far better than any kind of holy water. That thing is practically miraculous.'
Anyway… focus.
'This is draining.'
Potion brewing touch was a skill that depended on one's proficiency with the environmental elements, the natural processes, and then ultimately on how much one wanted to sacrifice.
'The law of equivalent exchange.'
That was the alchemy in one word. You give something and you receive something of equal value in return.
'And I'm giving up my precious Mana right now which I was already pretty deprived of after that fight this morning.'
The amount draining from my body to continue this process was already more than my regeneration rate and if I had to keep this up for more than what I calculated, I would have needed a Mana potion myself. But thankfully, I would finish it before I had to tap into my first Mana reserve.
'Still…'
My darling looked cute, amazing, and beautiful as he was coved by all those colorful lights, that strangely colorful form of environmental Mana, and in the core of it, his jewel-like Aura.
'Only if it was his original Aura, it would have looked even more beautiful. But this isn't that bad either.'
This was pretty, and I loved his focused self more than his usual self so this was just pure bliss for me~.
And I did want to properly look at and admire this spectacle, but I couldn't divert my attention much with this process going on.
'Haaaa… damn.'
I wanted to finish this quickly but I also wanted to win against those pretty pointy ears. I can't slack off or make any mistakes if I wanted that win but the scene of my focused darling was rare too…
[[ Master. I think you should not think about anything. Just do what you are doing. The skill will work better that way. ]]
My old crow spoke up and his words definitely made sense. It was better to not think… actually, it was even better to go into ZONE and finish everything quickly.
[[ "Thanks Branwen~." ]]
[[ Ahem. That's what I do master. Besides, if you are thinking of going into ZONE, I would suggest you don't do it right now. Instead of wasting your mental energy while the basic process is still going on, do it when you are done using Potion Brewing Touch. ]]
[[ "Right! Thanks again Branwen~!" ]]
Having a smart crow was always a good thing~.
'Alright!'
I focused on my cauldron and increased the Mana output to quicken the process.
I won't have to worry about Mana when using ZONE anyway.
***
[Mia's POV: ]
A hyperactive gateway was an easy-to-use artifact. All one had to do while using it was calculate all the factors, errors, elements, and reactions that we wanted to happen, break down the structure of materials we were going to use on the molecular level and enter all the reactions we wanted to happen with them; and lastly, when we get the final product, put it through the refinement, purification, and condensation process.
Most of it was automatic, only requiring a good enough control of Mana, so it was a pretty easy process.
It was just a silly health potion anyway so winning against two people was naturally a piece of cake…
'That's what I thought until a while ago, at least.'
We are competing to see who would do better here, or more like who would get the higher score in our teacher's evaluation. And the criteria were either quality or quantity.
I was naturally confident in my abilities to make a better potion than any child here but…
'Who are these two? Where did they even come from? And how are they unknown even with all those talents?'
One thing I concluded after seeing how well she used the potion brewing touch and how he was using that strange Aura technique to practically change the very molecular structure of the elements, was that these two were no ordinary adventurers.
'I'm going to lose…'
I knew it. I knew just how much different a good potion like mine was from her absurd number of potions or his absurdly good potion.
I underestimated them, probably a little too much…
'And now I have to feel that disgusting self-loathing and humiliation of defeat once again. Haaaa…'
It was bitter, and something I didn't want to feel ever again. But maybe this time…
I looked at the two of them, one focused on the long and tedious process he choose to create some strangely extraordinary thing, while the other one, the cute girl that goes around warning the world how he was her fiancé and how he belonged to her, and an unexpected smile took over my face.
The defeat wasn't unfamiliar to me. If anything, in my long life, I had faced defeat, cusses, discouragement, separation, discrimination, powerlessness, and much, much more.
My life is better now, but it didn't use to be anything like this, far from anything like this actually… and reminiscing about that passed time is useless.
I wanted to never see the face of that cruel defeat again, but I knew I will lose now. And still, I'm not feeling that same… heaviness, as usual.
'If anything, I'm… excited?'
It was difficult to put this feeling into words, but I surely knew one thing here.
'The two of them are special. And maybe, spending time with them might give me the answers to the questions I have been searching for all this time…'
***
[OP: ]
Time passed and the students started raising their hands, indicating they had finished their work.
The first one to finish this test was their Med, and her work was splendid as she had produced nine basic Mana potions of perfect quality.
It was a pretty good result and the teacher was pretty impressed with the perfectly completed potions even though they were just the basic potions.
Not many could create stuff like that even while following the books word by word. But she achieved a good result and as the second line on the big board at the front said, he rewarded her with a little chunk of Mana crystal, something that would cost nearly thirty gold on the market.
She was actually surprised to receive something like that, however, denying a reward from their intimidating teacher was a bad idea in itself so she couldn't speak anything as he just moved to the other students.
He was a strange teacher, and after Med, he also gave many of the students present in the class a reward or scolding according to their performance.
His looks were intimidating as is, but his voice still contained that strange hint of gentleness that they only felt from people like their headmaster or vice headmaster.
It was strange, but getting those precious things for free wasn't something most of them present there would say no to.
And according to the work, the reward also varied…
There was a cheerful expression on everyone who got something and a sad one for those that didn't get anything and an even more devastated one for the students that got scolded so badly they were almost crying, but… all these three kinds of students were now looking forward to the three unique individuals that were creating those unique arts.
And though the last one to finish in the whole class was their vice-captain of Wisdom Phoenix, what he had created looked nothing less than the two ladies on each of his sides…
Uriel, after defying all the thoughts from the students, managed to create a whooping fifty-one bottles of Mana potion with a quality so good it was actually as good as intermediate-grade potions.
Mia, after finishing all her complex processes, produced a golden healing potion, something very different from the green one that others created. And simply looking at it was enough for them to know it was a product far above the simple intermediate level.
But still… that thing was still visibly inferior to the pure, transparent red potions that Lucifer had created.
And there were three vials of it, so even after not looking at their teacher's surprised, happy expression, they all knew who the winner of their little computation was…
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