Seeing as its words might have been misinterpreted to mean that what Kaltyr had accomplished wasn’t a big deal, Sir Quiggly-Do the Fifth had spent a minute assuring her it was a great feat to learn it on her own and that it was going to teach her that just a little later.

After the girl completely finished carving a cauldron out of the stone, the next few hours flew by like the praying mantis did when she struck it. The process of concocting pills and potions—collectively known as elixirs—was easily summarized to her within a minute by her guardian spirit, after which Kaltyr beamed with pride for having already completed the steps regarding bending the elements to her will. She was first made to scour the land surrounding her territory until the sky changed colors at least once, sending out her spiritual perception at full power at all times—an exhausting task—to find and pick every plant containing even a tiny bit more magical essence than the rest of its environment.

Like that, Kaltyr had obtained a few pocketfuls of “spirit herbs”. But before making her way back to the cauldron she required a few more things, and so returned to her territory. There, after shooing away more birds that had gathered, she used a random spear to dig up the dirt in a specific spot near her personal lean-to—a difficult task to accomplish with only a single arm—until she saw the fur of a wolf’s skin. In preparation of the disappearance of the invisible barrier that kept beasts out of the clearing, the lass had buried her store of phantasmal goo. In addition to phantasms trying to eat them, she’d also learned that beasts were attracted to them. Whether it was to consume the jellies or out of curiosity, she didn’t know because she killed the beasts before they could touch the jellies, but she wasn’t going to take the chance. Her jellies were precious. She hoped to, eventually, be completely stacked with Perfect and Complete enchantments because if Good-quality goo was already so useful to her…

After moving the jellies into the deerskin bag and bringing them with her to the stone bed, it was finally time to begin experimenting with concocting medicine… If only the rain would stop pouring, because it didn’t. The storm overhead raged just as ferociously as before, and while Kaltyr didn’t mind being drenched by the rain, her cauldron just kept filling up with water, which hindered the refining process. She considered attempting to make the pills while constantly draining the cauldron, but Sir Quiggly-Do the Fifth informed her that she wouldn’t be able to do so quickly enough, nor would she be able to light a fire. The girl then moved her thoughts toward preventing the rain from entering the cauldron in the first place by building a roof from sticks, mud, leaves, and animal skins like she did for her lean-tos. However, after taking the violent winds into account, it became obvious that such a possibility was impossible. She couldn’t even anchor that kind of structure well because it would have to sit on the bed of stone, which couldn’t be so easily dug into to make footholds like with dirt.

That was when an epiphany struck her: if she could manipulate water well enough to empty the cauldron with ease, could she take it one step further and use her mana to shield the area around her from the rain altogether?

Sir Quiggly-Do the Fifth did not comment on her thought—its silence effectively meaning that it recommended she try…

Kaltyr had immediately faced a few issues. To begin with, she walked the path of the warrior; sending a single mana strand out of her body to empty the cauldron was simple, but sending several out to around a meter away from her body for them to all simultaneously repel rain that came at her from all directions… Suffice to say that when her nose began bleeding it was clear that she had overwhelmed herself.

The lass panicked for a moment, but the blood stopped flowing as soon as she retracted her will and stopped trying to influence the rain. She hadn’t even fully protected herself. The defense she’d erected was shoddy at best with countless holes and gaps that rendered her efforts pointless, the effort of which left her breathless. Besides, Alchemy was a skill for External Mana Manipulation specialists, since one was required to control the fire used in the concocting process through the external control of their mana. Even if Kaltyr’s 7 points in external manipulation were enough to fully protect herself from the elements, she’d have no mental resources left to guide the rest of the alchemical process.

After regaining her breath she tried once more to surround herself in a bubble of safety where the rain could not penetrate—this time only a few centimeters from herself. The task was much easier, feeling less like having her mind and body crushed from every direction, and more like trying to hold onto an umbrella during a thunderstorm. Of course, the umbrella immediately broke, but at least this time she was neither in pain nor running out of mental energy so quickly. Water continued pitter-pattering against her frame, but she was making progress, at the very least.

Then, Kaltyr released the rain from her mental hold and hit herself with the seventeenth facepalm. She’d wasted so much time and effort trying to keep herself dry in the midst of a powerful storm when there wasn’t a need to! Shaking her head with disappointment in herself, the girl extended a few strands of mana toward her attempt at a cauldron, then encased it in a small bubble of influence just large enough to make a seal. Bingo. After emptying it out one more time, there lacked any rainwater in the cauldron.

Sir Quiggly-Do the Fifth congratulated her on her success before elaborating on the recipe she needed to follow. Of the piles of phantasmal goo and spirit herbs she had with her, she needed only one goo and three stalks of herbs—belonging to two different types of plants. The guardian spirit informed her that the quality of the goo affected the quality of the medicine, but that she shouldn’t waste any of the better-quality ingredients on medicine that she could take when she was somewhere safe. The good stuff should be reserved for emergencies to give her the best shot at surviving whatever perils she may face in the future.

Having taken out several Inferior-quality jellies and several of the stalks required—one plant was a blue grass stalk as long as her finger while the other herb was solely the yellow flower of a common vine she’d found everywhere—it was time to practice the, potentially, most difficult part of alchemy.

Kaltyr took out the soaked box of matches from one of her cargo pants pockets, placed it into the sphere of influence covering her cauldron, and did her best to pull out its water content with her mana. When she was satisfied with the box’s dryness, the girl set the box down, carefully removed a match stick, then picked the box up again. Eyes focused and intense, she pressed the matchbox to her palm with her pinky finger and held the stick between her pointer and thumb. With great difficulty, her fingers scraped the stick across the box’s red side, producing a flame.

Exhilarated by her success with lighting the match with only a single hand, Kaltyr expanded the sphere of dryness enough to make a spot to place the lit match and matchbox. Single-handedly lighting the match wasn’t as difficult as she’d expected, but now came the real issue: she needed to control the match’s fire like she did the rain.

Unfortunately, she was handicapped by the fact that she specialized in Internal Mana Manipulation, and she had no choice but to attempt alchemy beneath a furious storm. If her concentration wavered too much she might let water into the bubble of influence, which could put out the match… And it almost happened several times, because Kaltyr found that controlling the fire that danced on the end of the match stick was several times more difficult than even keeping the cauldron dry. She asked Sir Quiggly-Do the Fifth about if she was limited by a lack of talent or if fire was a step above water, but alas, it did not comment, instead using its silence as reassurance that she would reach the answer herself.

But after another few minutes and another few close calls where the rain almost splashed against the match, the girl was actually considering begging her guardian spirit for help. It was simply too difficult a task! While she seemed capable enough with water, the fire was an entirely different story! She extended her mana towards it and attempted to take control like she did with the water, but it was as though she were trying to lift a dumbbell with solely her pinky finger! She made some progress, but it was clear that her pinky lacked the muscle mass to lift so much weight! Did she need to be of a higher Life Level, or something?!

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Could Sir Quiggly-Do the Fifth have been…wrong?

Kaltyr used her limp right wrist to wipe the rain and long hair out of her eyes before turning to face the darkness puppet. She opened her mouth to speak when… What the hell was it doing? Sir Quiggly-Do the Fifth’s puppet was still floating beside her, but it wasn’t keeping still like before. Its form swayed exaggeratedly from side to side, its stubby arms over its head. Was it trying to dance? To what music? To the beat of the raindrops colliding with the forest floor? Maybe it liked the howls of the wind?

The girl had no idea and was, frankly, a little scared to ask. She turned back to her makeshift cauldron, her lips pursed, lamenting over how she was going to be stuck there for hours, relighting the match after it…burned itself out until she got…the hang of…controlling…it…

Kaltyr’s eyes were drawn to the lit match that lied beside the pit she dug. The fire on the end of the stick flickered and…danced, as a fire should. It constantly exploded forth in an expression of its freedom, attempting to escape its shackles. But it could not. It was bound to the wooden match stick it burned from. Chained to it, despite its entire essence wanting to erupt in a splendor of red glory…

She looked at her guardian spirit—which still swayed from side to side—then back at the match…

She muttered the words, “Oh… Thanks.” before closing her eyes and performing another attempt. She succeeded that time—it was all about the nature of the element she was messing with—her mana successfully working as a conduit for her will so she could guide the fire. She took away most of the flame from the match, leaving some behind so the stick could burn brightly again after another fire took root.

Sir Quiggly-Do the Fifth ceased its funny swaying and repeated the medicine recipe, which Kaltyr soon followed. She took out an Inferior-quality jelly—she wanted to go straight to at least Decent-quality but due to the fact that she was new to alchemy she needed to verify the difficult of the concocting process—and got to work. She tossed the phantasmal goo into the rough stone cauldron and followed it with the small fire she carried, pressing it against the blue substance. To her surprise, the jelly instantly melted upon contact with the little red flame, creating a small, blue puddle within seconds.

That was step one, and the next step involved taking out one of the blue grass stalks and two of the yellow flower buds from the vine. As with everything else, they were soaking wet, requiring the girl spare another strand of mana to dry them, after which she crushed them. She first used her fingers to grind one of the yellow buds until it was in too many pieces to count before tossing them into the cauldron. The bits of yellow flower petals—and whatever else a flower was made of—mixed with the puddle of phantasmal goo, but nothing happened until she stirred the substance with a stick she prepared ahead of time. Upon being stirred, the petal bits dissolved into the goo, changing the blue just a bit so that it was a tad closer to green. Then she followed it up with the blades of grass, crushing them up and unceremoniously dropping the shredded remains into the cauldron before stirring. The process repeated again with the second yellow flower bud.

With the herbs taken care of, the fire Kaltyr carried with her mana came into play once more when she placed it in the center of the now-blue-green liquid and stirred. Somehow, the phantasmal goop—which Sir Quiggly-Do said it was called after being melted—didn’t put out the fire. Instead, the goop evaporated from its outside edges, becoming a strangely colored steam that rose into the air until only a small fraction of the original mass was left. Kaltyr nervously gulped, as it looked like the ingredients had gone to waste, but knew exactly what was happening and what to do. She removed the fire from the cauldron, stopped stirring, and waited. Slowly...incredibly slowly, the few drops of blue-green medicinal goop came together in the center of the cauldron and solidified. The process took an entire, very boring, five minutes until a single, completely solid pellet lay at the bottom of the cauldron, but it had worked.

……

Kaltyr held the blue-green pullet up to the sky—a sphere the size of her pinky’s fingernail—and scrutinized it.

“It was really that easy?” She asked the darkness puppet floating to her side, a smidge of astonishment in her voice.

[Do not hold the pill too high unless you want a bird to steal it. Additionally, if I had not acted as your teacher to explain the entire process, you would never have figured it out on your own in these woods.] It replied, gesturing at the trees around it.

“Yeah yeah, but…this thing will heal my arm?” The girl lifted her useless arm up at the figure made of shadows.

[Not by itself.]

She lowered the pill, a sudden wave of irritation washing over her and causing her lip to twitch. “Wut?”

[If you were a single Life Level stronger, not even Complete-quality medicine made with the recipe you used would have an effect on your body. Your level is at the very limit of what that pill can affect—five levels. Your Life Level 5 mana affects its medicinal properties, which cannot be avoided due to the fact that mana is required to activate the effects of elixirs.] Sir Quiggly-Do the Fifth stated matter-of-factly with no room for discussion.

In response, Kaltyr clenched her teeth, asking, “This is a level 0 pill? And I need more? Why didn’t you tell me how to make more than one? Or a better-quality one, at least?” Her brows furrowed, she waved the limp arm around, adding a pinch more of frustration to her voice. “Healing is my number one priority!”

The atmosphere suddenly grew chillier, and it didn’t miss a beat, immediately turning away from the girl before saying, [Still complaining about the free guidance you received? I could simply take my leave.] The puppet emphasized its point by causing its form to slowly unravel from the feet up.

Seeing her guardian spirit/teacher taking its leave so soon after speaking rather than giving her time to think, Kaltyr indignantly blew air out through her nose at the same time as a pang of guilt struck. She was angry…but it was right. It had mentioned before that it had the option to simply not assist her if she was ungrateful, but somehow, the girl hadn’t learned. Yes, being in the situation she was in was stressful, but Sir Quiggly-Do the Fifth had only helped her. It didn’t deserve to be talked back to. Back in the clearing under the lean-to, that was playful banter…but this was hurtful, and from the heart. She was too quick to blow up and use a harsh tone paired with unkind words.

Her only ally in Manic as of yet—in a world where everything, so far, wanted to kill her at first sight—and treated it with disrespect.

“You’re right… Please don’t go.” She said to the fading form of darkness, her eyes softening. Yet, the girl’s pride still held some sway, and the words it deserved to be told only left her lips after it completely disappeared. “I’m sorry.”

Only the storm heard, and it buffeted her with lashes of winds and peltings of rains a little stronger than before. The girl felt as though Mother Nature was punishing her for her misdeeds, and she did not defend herself. Her mana was completely retracted, and the cauldron was refilled by the rain.

She sighed before turning to face the cauldron, wondering if her hypothesis regardi—suddenly, the same shadowy form from moments earlier blocked her vision.

“Ah!”

Kaltyr fell backwards onto her bum and almost dropped the pill she’d just refined.

[You better be sorry, because I do not feel like letting you struggle. Now, hurry up. Set everything up again to make some more of the same elixir. There are still things you need to learn.]

Her backside aching from landing on solid stone rather than soft dirt, Kaltyr eyed the puppet questioningly.

“But…didn’t yo—”

[Yeah yeah, I took my leave and came right back. What I said was necessary to force you to think introspectively. You are a fine person, but you have the tendency to flare up if you are stressed—not a good personality trait to have, but not uncommon. It was allowed in your world for various reasons, but you could get killed for something like that here in Manic. You need to learn to contain your outbursts until you are more powerful than those who make you angry.]

Kaltyr opened your mouth, feeling the need to interject, but held herself back at the last second when even more guilt piled up. There was no need to argue with it…because it was correct. She needed to learn self-control at all cost—wait, what did it know of her world?

“How do you know anything about my world?” The girl’s brows furrowed with uneasiness. Hearing about how she came from another world, without having any actual memories from there, put her on edge. She was supposedly stuck on Manic, but what if…

[I was informed of who you were in the time before you were brought here, and that is all I can tell you…]

The inflection of Sir Quiggly-Do the Fifth’s mental voice changed at the end, signaling it had paused.

[Besides that you will, eventually, definitely find the answers for yourself. Now, get back to work.]