Mike had made it back to Thudfall in record time thanks to his new skill upgrades. Since each blast step was significantly cheaper than his burst steps had been, he was able to put more mana into each use of the skill while not significantly draining the resource. This resulted in him tearing across the landscape at breakneck speeds. He had accidentally overshot his target by a thousand or so feet, having shot directly over his village. When he finally came to a stop and landed, Hobbes was right there waiting for him.
“Welcome back sir.” He said.
“Thank you. Let the council know we have a potential solution to our problem. Also, can you commission some crafters to add an enchantment to some metal cubes that saps the mana of whoever is holding it?” Mike asked.
“Of course sir.” The man didn't even question what had been said, instead walking off to carry out the instructions.
“Wait.” Mike said, remembering something. “You said some crafters wanted my help with a project, where can I find them?”
Soon after, Mike found himself knocking on the door of the building Hobbes had directed him to. He was fairly surprised when he arrived and saw the building coated with strong magical wards, preventing any mana from getting in or out. The door opened, and a thin looking man wearing a mask poked his head out. “What do you want?” The muffled voice of the man asked.
“I am Mike, I heard you wanted some help on something you have been working on?”
“Finally! Come in, come in.” The man waved him in, and closed the door behind Mike. They walked into a room with two other people inside, wearing identical masks to the man who was leading Mike. The room looked exactly what Mike imagined a chemistry lab should look like. Black floor, stone walls, black top tables, and far more cabinets than any other type of room would need. He could smell the odor of some kind of cleaning solution that had been used to sterilize the surfaces of the room. “We have been working on making potions and poisons, but we needed your assistance for a specific toxin we are developing. Here, put this on before we start.”
Mike put on the mask he had been handed, and was beginning to get a bit nervous at what he was about to see. He felt the air he was breathing in was purified, and didn't have the same smell to it that the rest of the lab had. “Is this safe?”
“Not at all, don't take the mask off.”
“Can I at least get your name before we start making murder juice?”
“I’m Alex.” he pointed to a woman in the corner. “That's Jessie.” he pointed to the other woman in the room. “And that is Malia. Now, let's get to brewing.” He opened a few cabinets, pulling out several herbs, some bottles, an eye dropper, some flexible tubing, and a large metal flask that looked like it could fit a basketball.
“What do you need me here for?” Mike asked. He had next to no chemical knowledge, if that would have even applied to what was going on here. He had nearly flunked out of the class in highschool due to how boring it had been.
Alex explained as he was setting up the various beakers, bottles, and tubes. “This specific poison we are making is one that is meant to sap the mana around it, absorbing it and making itself more potent. We thought it could be a great counter to magically focused monsters, but we have hit a roadblock while making it. We have yet to figure out exactly how to keep it from excluding ambient mana, and since the village aura is filled with mana that is of your affinity, it keeps destroying any of our attempts to make this poison.”
“So you want me to keep it from doing that, sounds easy enough.” Mike said. He manipulated the mana around him to slowly push away from the room they were in, and after a few minutes of work, he managed to get every trace of his mana and the village aura outside of the building. He set up a quick and thin barrier of mana to keep more from entering, which he created directly on top of the already in place wards. When he released his grip on the mana, he felt confident that none would be leaking back in soon. He looked back to the group, and they were all staring at him. He couldn't tell what facial expressions they had, due to the masks they wore, but each of them had wide eyes behind the glass paneling on the masks. “What?”
“What do you mean what?” Jessie exclaimed. “You just moved a ridiculous amount of mana out of the room. Do you realize how valuable of a skill that would be if you were an alchemist like us? I mean seriously, the mana in the air has been a hindrance for us since day one!”
“It wasn't that difficult, and it is aligned with my own mana as well which makes it easier than moving ambient mana.” Mike left out the fact that while what he said wasn't a lie, it still wasn't a small thing to move that much mana that hadn't come from him. Sure, while it was his own affinity, it wasn't as subject to his will as the mana that came from him was. If he didn't have a legendary skill backing him up, it would have been a fruitless endeavor trying to clear the room like that. Even now, he saw the value the skill held as the ambient mana was now fueling the very barriers holding it back, sustaining them without Mike needing to continue upkeep.
“Well if you ever get bored of smacking metal over and over, I highly recommend you consider alchemy as a new profession.”
“I’ll think about it.”
Mike looked at the several herbs that were set on the table, identifying each of them.
Venegeer (Rare)
A poisonous plant that gets more potent when fed large quantities of mana.
Sapping Ivy (uncommon)
Pulls in neutral mana in its direct vicinity, allowing the plant to grow.
Cleansing Lily (Rare)
Converts nearby mana into neutral affinity mana, cleansing it of affinity and intent.
“That looks like an expensive spread.” Mike noted. “Where did you find all of these?”
“We had to buy them from other villages, except for the Cleansing Lilies. Those come from an undisclosed location we found. It does cost us roughly 8 silver each time we want to try and make this though, which added up before we realized what was causing our attempts to fail.” Alex said.
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
“Must be making some good money off of those potions if you can afford trial and error like that.”
Alex smirked at that. “We only recently became profitable, but the gold started rolling in when people began buying our potions.” He tossed one to Mike. “Try one.”
Health Potion (uncommon)
Restore 5345 Health
“What am I supposed to do with it? I’m not hurt.” Mike looked at the man, at a loss for what to do with the potion. Malia spoke up for the first time, pulling a crossbow from another cabinet.
“I could shoot you if you’d like.” She said, loading an arrow into the crossbow.
“How much shit is in those cabinets?”
“Just a few of the necessities.”
“Whatever. Sure, shoot me.” Mike held a hand up and off to the side. He removed his gauntlet, not wanting the armor to get damaged, plus he also didn't trust that the arrow would even pierce the armor. While it seemed dumb to get shot in the hand willingly, he was too curious about what the potion did to care. Nothing that arrow did would match what the sand elemental did anyways.
Malia readied the crossbow, aiming at Mike's hand. Evidently, her aim wasn't very good, and she missed. The arrow flew straight for Mike's wrist, and he adjusted his hand slightly to take the hit. It pierced only a quarter inch into his skin, which made him identify the crossbow and realize it was only a common rarity, barely enough to scratch him.
“Oh for Christ's sake.” He muttered, grabbing the arrow and jamming it the rest of the way through his hand, pulling it through to the other side. He gritted his teeth a bit as the pain hit, though it wasn't as bad as he had expected it to be. Pain didn't really affect him as much as it had before the system, but he hadn't lost the sensation entirely. He drank a sip of the potion he had been given, and his wound began to close significantly faster. In only 10 seconds, the hole in his hand closed completely. He looped a strap in his armor around the neck of the bottle, securing it to his waist.
“Impressive, though only 5000 health doesn't seem like much.” Mike said. He himself had a bit over 20000 health, so while the potion could help him in a fight, it wouldn’t turn the tides of a battle completely.
“That is the strongest one we have made so far.” Alex grumbled. “You just have a lot of health.”
“Well what is stopping me from just downing bottle after bottle to stay alive?”
“You can only drink so much of the potion in a short period of time before you get diminishing returns. In fact, you don't really get any benefit past restoring half of your health if you try and drink a bunch at once. So if somebody with 1000 health drank the entire potion we just gave you, they would still only receive about 500 points of healing, though their body would likely be mended at a really quick pace, considering that the potion is so overkill for them. At that point, their natural regeneration can take full effect since it doesn't need to spend the time repairing your body. It takes about 100 minutes before your body can use the potions at peak efficiency again.”
“Good to know.” Mike said.
He watched in silence as the three alchemists began mixing the herbs in various ways, mixing them with liquids, running them through tubes, heating the liquids up, and several other things that Mike didn't know the exact purpose of. He had only stayed because he was very curious about the process, and he was very happy to see his curiosity get satisfied. The end product was a brown liquid that looked to be really thin, as it flowed around easily through the tubes and into the bottle that had been prepared. Mike gave it a quick identify.
Unrefined Mana poison (uncommon)
He couldn't see the exact details behind the poison, but he was shocked to see the rarity. Two rare ingredients had been used to make this, and it had somehow been lower in rarity than both of them. He would have thought it a complete failure if they had stopped there. Thankfully, they didn't seem to be done just yet.
They transferred the liquid from the bottle into a bowl that Mike saw several enchantments on the surface of. They began infusing mana into it, and Mike could feel them manipulating it through the bowl in various patterns and into the poison. They seemed to have a good grasp of controlling their mana, but Mike did notice one or two slip ups. He almost had to hold himself back from speaking up, as he wanted to point out how they could refine their control, but he held his tongue.
When they were finished, the brown liquid became a much more golden brown, and gas was coming off of the mixture. The gas was filling the room as they hurriedly put it in a bottle and sealed it off, preventing the gas from escaping anymore. He identified the new poison, and was impressed at the improvements that had been made.
Mana Poison (Epic)
He already knew what it did, as it had been explained to him, but he had not expected the final product to be of epic rarity. Sure, he had made something of heroic rarity, but people who could make epic rarity creations were still quite rare in the village.
“And that right there is why we have the masks.” Alex said, gesturing to the gas all around them.
“How do you get rid of it?” Mike asked, looking through the fog that was now in the room.
“We usually just leave the door closed and inhale it over time, since it is far less potent than the liquid. This time though, we can't do that. Even though it is weaker now, it was still from an epic rarity poison.”
“You would inhale it! That sounds wildly irresponsible.”
“Oh relax, we were never in any real danger doing it. Besides, we all have poison resistance, which helps us power through. If we vented it outside, then some people who don't have that protection might be killed.”
“You couldn't think of any better way?”
“Not yet, but we are working on it.”
Mike sighed. He was trapped in this room until they figured out a way to clear out the poison. Mike thought about taking the mask off, and just inhaling it all himself. His constitution was at 960, how bad could it really be? He could also just use his own mana to destroy the poison, since it would rid it entirely of its mana, likely rendering it inert.
“Well what's the fun in that?” He muttered quietly to himself as he began reaching for his mask. He held the health potion he had been given in his other hand as he removed his mask, taking a shallow breath to test the waters. It burned his throat a little, similar to when he caught second hand smoke from a couple of people smoking cigarettes outside of his local grocery store. The poison itself wasn't too potent yet, as it hadn't absorbed any mana to get stronger yet. He could see the looks of horror wash over the faces of the three alchemists as he let out his first cough. He coughed several more times before the poison began to absorb his mana.
The second the substance tried to leech his mana, its doom had been spelled. His mana destroyed any trace of the substance, rippling outwards and getting rid of the entire cloud that filled the room. He had been actively pushing more mana into it to speed the process along, and clearing the room had taken a tenth of his mana pool. He coughed a few more times as he looked at his health points.
Health: 21386/21620
In that short period of time, the weak version of the poison had managed to drain over 400 health from him. It only took about 15 seconds for his regeneration to bring him back to full health, as he hadn't been physically injured from the damage, but he was still impressed.
“Problem solved.” Mike said, looking at the alchemists. They each took their masks off, staring at him dumbfounded. To that, he had just one question. “How much do you charge per potion?”