Rick felt a little embarrassed to sit closer to the half-wolfkin, not because of any racism, just his usual shyness. So, he moved from his usual spot to the right end of the bookstore.

His patron, the storeowner, had declared the task of learning from the syllable as easy, be he doubted those words had the same meaning for both of them. Every day, after helping his father, he would come to the bookstore and launch himself in the effort of learning. He even tried to write and copy the words of the book as Anne advised him to. But somehow it looked like it was making the learning more difficult.

Yet, he continued to study tirelessly, and it paid off. He could now understand most of the words in a single glance, and the times that he couldn’t were becoming less and less. Next, he would try to read the beastiarium.

Actually, he wanted to read it sooner. Even if he couldn’t recognize all the words he could look at the pictures and magic experience. Unfortunately, even studying the book at the bookstore was expensive. He understood that everything would come at a price, and Anne explained the costs of restoration and maintenance. Books that had magic effects would require repair after being ‘read’. It’s like drinking from a cup, after you do it, the cup is still usable but you need to refill it with water.

Anyway, he finally felt confident enough to read the beastiarium. The fox he exchanged with the storeowner would only give him one time to study the book, so no wasting was allowed.

Barely containing his excitement, he ran all the way to the bookstore and asked for the book even before offering his greetings. After apologizing for the rudeness, he gulped down the miraculous cup of tea and threw himself in the study of the book.

He flipped through the pages gently, looking for the beasts that he saw on this side of the mountain. Since he couldn’t use the book indefinitely, his plan was to focus on the information that would come in handy. Once he learned how to deal with the beast on this side better, he would move deeper into the forbidden forest while trying to find a better path through the mountains.

Before, he didn’t want to admit his shortcomings and the mountains were the perfect scapegoats. However, when he accessed the information on the beastiarium, he realized that even the weaker beasts on this side were beyond him. Now, the path was clear, he only had to walk it prepared.

When he found a familiar beast, Rick would pick up the blank scroll and pen to start recording the relevant information. This would delay him considerably, but he had already verified the benefits of taking notes. Initially, the storeowner’s suggestion seemed stupid and redundant; why record the information again? But soon, the benefits became obvious, it made learning easier. He could select the relevant information and access it at any time.

The last task before moving to another beast was experiencing the virtual model. The whole thing was incomprehensible to him, as most spells were. Anne had explained that the imprinted model, which represented the specialist knowledge, could be virtually experienced by the reader. The higher the understanding of the beast, the more complete would the experience be. Well, he tried and it was very helpful. So, he would keep using it regardless of how it worked.

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Rick was advancing very fast until another customer arrived. He knew that it wouldn’t take long for the town assets manager to come to bother him. Initially, the old dwarf would treat him with disdain. Thankfully, the nosy man started to respect him once he recognized Rick’s efforts.

Surprisingly, this time Dorgh didn’t notice the young hunter sitting at the furthest table. Today was too important to notice anything that wasn’t related to mystic brewing. For the last month, the man drilled on the information about the craft, but the lack of proper materials was preventing him from actually experimenting with it.

Depressed, the dwarf continued to study and look for the materials through his contacts. Fortunately, the day he dreamed of has finally come. The town courier had brought the expensive package directly from the province capital, but he suspected that part of them had come from Riverend Town. Gods forbid the mayor learned about it; he would be lucky to keep his job. Anything that could help the rival town prosper was banned and criminalized by that crazy elf.

After checking the contents, Dorgh decided to come to the bookstore and study the original ‘Kasar’s compendium of mystic brewing’ again. The book was also a codex, as Anne had called it, so he could use the magic models on it to experience both the ingredients and resulting brews. It was just too helpful. Really, he couldn’t understand how the so-called bookmancy had been deemed obsolete and disappeared.

“Miss Anne, I finally got the materials needed for my first brew. I want to check the book again before trying…” Dorgh said excitedly after exchanging some greetings. Of course, he didn’t forget to accept and taste the tear first, it had become a ritual of his visits to the bookstore.

“Is that so? Why don’t you talk to Ceres about it? She has been collecting books for me, that’s why she returned so soon. Hopefully, in the future, we can have a stronger route for trade…” Anne said while pondering something.

Strangely, the dwarf didn’t pursue the subject and just left for an empty table with the book. He was too anxious to engage in discussion. It didn’t take long for him to find the intended recipe, the ‘iced mind relaxing brew’. The drink was classified under easy recipes but had high requirements for temperature control. Fortunately, it only required four ingredients and four steps.

First, he would do the usual grain mashing process. The mix was up to him, but winter barley was mandatory. Then he could move to the most delicate step, the brewing. That’s when the expensive frost lotus came in handy. By adding the freezing flower while heating the mix, he would be able to control the temperature and achieve cold-brewing.

The fermenting process wasn’t so difficult, it only demanded time and the use of ice yeast. The last part would be filtration and storage, which required the constant addition of any cooling aromatizing herb. Dorgh decided to use cold rosemary for it due to its affordability and harmony with the brew.

If the temperature control and ingredients balancing was done properly, the brew would potentialize the cold effects of the ingredients and make them more absorbable to the body. The major expected mystical effect was mind relaxation, but depending on the quality of the ingredients and brew combination it would develop some additional effects, such as mental recovery and extended mental protection.

While experiencing the virtual model of the ingredients, Dorgh realized his understanding of cold essence materials was too shallow. So, he steeled his heart and asked Anne for another book on the subject. Five minutes and three silver later, he was flipping through the pages of the common tongue translation of ‘Compendium of elemental essences: Cold edition’.

What Anne loved most about research, was that one book would take you to another book, and then another…