Will hadn’t realized that majestrix blood had a smell when he’d handled it before.

It was quite subtle, and he only detected it because of the great quantities pouring from the animal. The scent was like clear spring water, pure and light.

Extracting all the useful components from the animal was going to take a while, and result in numerous proto-substances. He would have to arrange a solution for transporting it all securely. They were already near capacity with their packing, and he hadn’t thought to bring more than a set of empty potion bottles. He would need to adjust the number of proto-substances accordingly, and maybe have them let go of some portion of their supplies to make room for the components that could not be immediately distilled.

Then, as he sat there watching a river of blue blood drain into his spectral cauldron, he had a better idea. A much better idea.

Why don’t I just make something right here? I have all the Class 2 reagents I could possibly need. I might not even need to supplement it with anything.

The choice was clear. He began honing his knife with a pocket whetstone. He needed it deadly keen. There would be a lot of cutting.

It was dusk, tree crowns awash with deep amber light. An auspicious time. It would serve him well, but he needed to hurry before he lost the light. The new moon did not carry nearly the same weight. Not for a substance made from a creature of this sort.

He wasn’t going to get all the blood regardless, so once he had filled most of the cauldron he skinned the animal and spread its hide out flat on the ground. Then he opened up its belly. As its pale intestines slid out onto the ground, he was once again met by that fresh, pleasant scent that did not put him in mind of a corpse at all.

Will sat back on his haunches and spent a moment thinking how best to proceed.

Lay it all out. Assess your options. Then start matching pieces.

He used Construct to make a large, flat board, then reached inside the animal and felt around in its wet innards. He used all his strength to snap off pieces of five ribs, both to allow for easier access but also because he wanted to see if the bones held any relevant property. He laid out the ribs on the board, then went back in and cut out the liver and spleen, and displayed those in similar fashion. Lastly, he pried out the heart—at least, the thing that should have been the majestrix’s heart. In its place, there was a fist-sized lump of pearlescent metal that he had to pry loose with the flat of his blade.

He turned over the bloody ore in his hand to examine it.

Starsteel.

Not useful for alchemy, at least the sort he was engaged in now, but an exceedingly valuable material for use in metallurgy. The metal was unmatched in its toughness, took enchantments with ease, and would even turn certain monsters and fellforms.

I had no idea majestrixes lugged around big chunks of the stuff.

They would probably be best served turning it into a weapon. Something for Bee. He could commission Bogleg to turn it into some special little killing tool once they got back.

The torso dealt with, Will had to turn his attention to the head, the part of the animal he was least looking forward to. The way it looked so human.

But it couldn’t be helped. He steeled his heart and got to work.

He cut out the tongue and carved out the eyes, then went and fetched the hatchet from camp to crack its skull open and extract the pure-white brain.

And there it was, all laid out. Liver, spleen, tongue, eyes, brain, tear, and blood. Those were his components. The rest of the animal did not interest him at the moment.

He couldn’t spare the AP to use Identify on the reagents one at a time to learn their humors, so he settled for a somewhat cruder method. He took the slippery liver in both hands, raised it to his face, and sniffed at it, paying attention to every minute detail of its aroma. Then he touched it with the very tip of his tongue, and smacked his lips at the taste.

It had a strong vital humor.

Will repeated the process with the other organs, as well as the blood. He couldn’t sample the tear, so he had to use Identify on that one.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

The blood had ardent and vital humors. The ribs had a vital humor. The tongue had a joyful humor. The spleen had an ardent humor. The eyes had tranquil and joyful humors. The brain had a tranquil humor.

And lastly, the tear had a sublime humor. One of the rarest.

Sensing the properties of reagents in this way was a trick he had picked up after years of dedicated practice. He looked for highly subtle undertones of flavor and scent, only detectable to him because of his high points in Senses. Even then, it was sometimes difficult to be certain.

But with these, there was no doubt. Their humors were so pronounced that they were rather more difficult to miss.

Vital goes with vital. Can’t let the ardent overpower it. Maybe tranquil to balance it out. Can’t dilute the sublime too much, have to let it shine through.

His Constructs were about to run out, so he re-upped them. The sun was going down. He had to work faster.

In a furious scramble, he boiled and chopped and mashed and mixed, discarding ethereal containers as they became obsolete and letting them vanish into the air. His body moved on its own. There was no need to think.

He already knew what to do.

<> Bee asked through their link. <>

It’s under control. Don’t have time, can’t talk.

Will mixed the spleen and eyes into one proto-substance in a wide beaker. In a second beaker, he mixed the tongue, eyes, and brain. And into the cauldron, he added blood, bone dust, liver, and tear, keeping it at a low simmer over a small fire of bundled twigs.

The sun was going down. He sensed the woods growing darker by the minute, hurting not only his visibility but also his hope of success. After one last swirl around to mix, he dumped the spleen proto-substance into the cauldron and let the beaker dissipate. Then, while slowly pouring in the brain proto-substance, he spoke:

“Amp: Seven. Dash of Love. Brew.”

He let his hand rub against the outside of the cauldron.

All at once, every sound cut out. He dropped the beaker, and his vision was smothered in a flash of white. He couldn’t even feel his body, everything gone numb. It was like he had been pulled out of himself, stuffed in a silent white box.

Then he came out of it. His sight slowly returned, and became aware of his hearing only as a loud squealing in his ears.

He found himself sitting slumped forward, blood running freely from his nose and staining his lips and shirt.

Bee was standing over him, keeping a hand on his shoulder to hold him upright.

“...happened?” she said, voice cutting in and out.

Will worked his jaw until his ears popped, regaining some hearing, and he managed to exert enough strength to raise a lead-heavy hand and wipe the blood from his mouth. More immediately came pouring down.

“What happened?” Bee repeated. “All your AP is gone. You really overdid it, didn’t you? Will, what did you do?”

White sparks popped off of Will’s hands, slowly ebbing out. He dragged himself forward and peered into the Construct cauldron.

Almost all of the thick slurry had evaporated. There, at the very bottom, lay a few drops of a perfectly clear substance. It reflected complex fractal patterns off the inside of the vessel, appearing almost like liquid diamond.

“I fucking did it, that’s what I did,” Will said, holding his shirt up to his nose so he wouldn’t get blood in the cauldron.

It was an elixir.

Not only that, but he had hit a flash of inspiration—his first one ever.

Mongrel was there, too. But neither he nor Bee were paying his success any mind. Their eyes were fixed on something else.

Will looked up at his surroundings. The clearing was covered in bits of discarded gore, blue blood flecking the bushes. The carcass lay skinned and eyeless, mouth pried open, viscera pulled out in a grotesque trail of deflated flesh. Looking down at himself, Will found that he was equally covered with gore, his arms and his clothes and even his boots soaked blue.

“I, uh…” Will cleared his throat. “I was in a hurry.”

Mongrel glanced back at him, a deep frown showing through his shaggy fringe. “Uh-huh.”

Whatever they thought of it, Will’s work wasn’t quite done. He had Bee go back for a potion bottle—he hadn’t brought any extra glass ones, so a clay pot would have to suffice—and poured the elixir inside. Mongrel offered to deflesh the majestrix hide to keep it from spoiling while Bee brought Will back to camp. There, she set him down and managed to put a stop to his nosebleed.

He was weak; shaky and cold, his vision blurring intermittently. He sat limply and let Bee wipe the gore off of him the best she could, then wrap a blanket around him.

He had been reading up on inspiration via the material he’d brought. Many of the pre-Fall thinkers were of the belief that inspiration was a function of divine will—that it happened when a mortal’s actions were in perfect alignment with the goddess’s wishes.

Clearly, that was not the case.

If Era were still alive, she would have turned from him in shame.

But he had done it. And that meant it was worth it.

A message flashed behind his eyelids.

Congratulations! You have reached Level 14!

Please sleep in order to allocate your rewards.

Another windfall. What an exceptional day. It couldn’t have gone better.

Just an animal. Nothing more.

Will didn’t sleep very well that night.