Desari read through the alchemical book infront of her, her finger tracing through the recipe.

“Air based potions?” Egrin looked over her shoulder, understanding what she was looking at with just a glance. He was no slouch in the alchemical department, and his strongest magic was based in elemental theory and synergistic casting.

Desari put a bookmark into the book, she wasn’t the kind of savage to fold the page back to keep her place, and flipped back to another bookmarked section.

“I found a potion that is sure to be of interest to students.”

“As much as the fire powder that you shared?” Egrin asked, amused.

“Some will like to make something a bit less dangerous,” Desari said.

Egrin tilted his head in agreement. “Torin has heard of the powder and is looking into his own applications as well. Though why do you think an air potion will interest them so?”

“Mya will pay for the ingredients and two hundred gold for every potion that they can make. If they supply the ingredients she will give them six hundred gold,” Desari said.

She moved aside, Egrin leaning forward to read the potion.

Zephyr’s Embrace

Description: Wind will press upon whatever material this is applied to with greater force than natural.

Grade: Uncommon

“If it covers one side of say sails, then it will capture more wind and be propelled forward at greater speeds,” Desari said.

“Though it will be a constant effect.”

“Yes, but when the sails are packed up their surface area is much reduced and there is less natural wind that will press upon it. There must be at least some wind for the effect to happen. Though if you were able to wave a fan at the sails, it would capture all of that wind and create more.” Desari frowned her mind taking it down another path.

“If that’s the case you could create a type of fan that blows more wind, attach it to say one of those mana engines that rotate, then you’d get a much greater force. Could apply that to ships crossing the water planes. Or the ones moving over the molten Sea.”

She frowned, her mind working beyond the book. “If you were to create a fan that moved underwater and was made or treated in such a way that it pushed against the water more?” She grimaced. “Its surrounded by water though, so it would be pushing water away in every direction. I’m sure it would be possible but tricky.”

“Just put it on the rear of the fan blade?” Egrin said.

“Quite,” Desari let the word roll off her tongue, gaining uninterrupted seconds. “Though what if you made a path for it? Have the water come in, then go through a tube that pushed the water faster and faster, shooting out of the rear?” She took out a note book and started jotting down notes. “It would be like the pressure systems that Kirtana used to force water out at speed to move their city.”

“Though you would not need to store the pressurized water, just activate it with mana.” Egrin said. “Would it work with the air too?”

Desari added another note.

“Though you’d have to work it into the hull of a ship,” Desari shook her pen between her fingers. “Though if you were to make individual units that were able to draw in and push out?” She tapped the back of her pen against the paper.

“Ones that you could attach to an existing structure?” Egrin asked.

“Right,” Desari nodded. She turned her notebook, adding in lines and partitioning what would go into the ‘tube’.

“If you used Zephyr’s Embrace to pull in a concentrated stream, it would create a pressure imbalance that the rest of the air would try to fill. Then you could funnel that in. You’d need it to be moving fast enough it bypasses the zephyr covered apparatus and enters the acceleration tube, line up series and sections of enchanted parts along it and then it throws it out faster than it came in, creating thrust.”

Desari drew on her knowledge of air, and the ‘feel’ of it, half of her thoughts instinctual over numerically based.

“Repeat it the same way with water too,” Egrin said.

Desari finished up some more notes on the idea and pushed it over to Egrin, he scanned over it, taking the offered pen and added his own notes before handing back the pen.

“Well I think it’s a good idea,” Desari said.

“Me too. Should offer it to the shipyards, see if they’d be interested in developing it.”

“That, wouldn’t be a bad idea.” She wanted to jump into it and work on it more, find the problems and smooth them out. Though time pulled on her.

She flipped through the pages in the notebook, back to the notes she’d made previously.

“So the Zephyr’s Embrace should be useful. The other potion I’m interested in, is Wind Caller’s Tonic.” Desari flipped to her other bookmark, the page she’d been reading when he arrived.

“A potion to increase the effectiveness of air spells?” Egrin surmised.

“Right. Though I want to modify it. I don’t want to increase the effectiveness of my spells. I want to increase my sensitivity to the air element.”

“Okay,” Egrin said, searching for more information.

“I was once told it was not about casting the biggest spell, but the smartest spell.” A smile touched Desari’s lips.

“Sounds like a wise teacher,” Egrin stroked his beard.

“It was true. With my increased senses of the elements I—well,” Desari fought to turn it into words. “Its like smelling or seeing for the first time. There’s such a level of knowing. With this kind of potion a lot of my air casting I did before will come back to me easier.”

“I have not personally made a contract with an elemental as you know, though I have communicated and come to understand a great number of them in my pursuit of knowledge about elemental magic and their synergies. I’d be personally interested in such a potion. Though how do you want to go from Wind Caller’s Tonic to this new version?”

“The potion creates a greater resonance between the user and the spells they cast. I need to isolate the ones that allow the caster to connect to the air element deeper, then create a potion from that. Instead of resonating with the casting, I need it to resonate with perception. Like a tremor sense potion, or a night-sight potion.”

“Why the Wind Caller’s Tonic specifically?” Egrin asked.

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“We have all of the ingredients, which is helpful. Also there is the recorded side effect of people getting disorientated if they take too much of the potion. Based on the accounts, the disorientation is actually them sensing through the air around them and the new sense overwhelming them.”

“Quite,” Egrin nodded. “Sensing through the elements can take someone years to master.”

Desari nodded. “I theorize it is harder for adults than children because adults are used to perceiving the world in one way. While children’s senses are still changing.”

Egrin looked at her, seeing the truth in her eyes before looking away. “Understandable, children learn so rapidly to adjust to the world around them. Okay, so any other potions?”

“Just basic things, healing potions, water breathing ones, stamina and antidote potions I know to counteract scorpion poisons and a high level general antidote I came up with.” She took out sheafs of paper and handed them to Egrin. “Things I think that you and the rest of the council should get.”

Egrin took the papers. “I still don’t like it, but only an idiot doesn’t understand the world and situation he’s in.”

“You’ve adjusted better than I thought you would,” Desari said.

“Thank you. I’m not so stuck in my ways.” Egrin chuckled. “Now what do you need? I’ve got another two hours before my next class!” He clapped his hands together, eyes shining in excitement.

“First ingredients, and then testing.”

Desari tested each of the ingredients, then went through preparing the concoction, testing the solution at every step to sense when the potion started to increase perception of air.

“Okay so we know it’s the Willow Moss and the Green-purple rock grass.” Desari leaned on the table looking at the two ingredients.

“The two of them don’t work together though,” Egrin said.

“Going to need different reagents to strengthen their underlying properties and combine them,” Desari said. Looking at the other ingredients. Using them as a base of understanding she could find other ingredients.

“Ah, well I will leave you to it, I have lessons to attend,” Egrin said.

Desari blinked looking up at the clock, two hours had passed so quickly.

“No worries I’ll work on this some more,” Desari flashed him a smile. “Thank you for your help.”

“Its always fun chasing down a lead and learning new things,” Egrin said, heading for the door.

Desari turned back to her table as the door closed behind him.

She worked with the two ingredients, using mediating ingredients to bring them into harmony. She finished a solution, creating a potion of gradating blue to white in distinct bands.

She wafted the potion and examined it with her complete senses. Safe, pulls on the air element. Desari took out a small pipette, taking out some of the solution. She cast sensing spells over it, then different simple spells, Earth was unaffected, fire flickered away, water was drawn towards.

Desari pipetted a squirt of the solution into her mouth and swallowed it down.

She studied herself in the mirror, seeing the potion as it entered her body, running mental tests and checking the time.

“Forty seconds..” Desari trailed off as she moved her hand through the air, breathing she felt the eddies and currents created by this simple action.

She closed her eyes and reached out to the air, she felt it around her, how it rested upon her enveloped her. Not strong enough.

She opened her eyes and smiled. “Well at least we’re on the right path now. Going to need something that kicks in faster and higher effectiveness.”

Desari sucked in a breath, already the senses of the room behind her were fading. Where she could feel the temperature variations throughout the room. The smallest tremor on the ground allowing her to pick up all the feet that moved across the floor she was on, as well as those below and above. Even those that had enchantments to contain sound.

The faint moisture in the air, concentrated within people and the different solutions an ingredients, weaving through the taps and sinks like the building’s blood vessels.

As she’d grown these senses had as well. It had been overwhelming at first.

“Okay, some more tests.” Desari had different part of the potions components halted at various stages, allowing her to continue testing without having to repeat the entire process again.

She altered the composition, tried different ingredients combined in different ways test after test went into her book. Solutions came out of it, those that were useful went to one side, failures went into inert sand.

A kick of essence spread through her core, much more than she’d got for the other versions as she drew a potion of shimmering orange and pinks.

It looked like someone had thrown in the paints of sunset and spun them together. Desari ran her tests once more and then consumed some.

Her senses snapped through the room, through the building, to beyond, into the air and down to the ground, all of the space for air in the various sewers and pipes. It wasn’t just all the pockets of air, it was its motion, the way it shifted as someone walked, or breathed.

Each movement, each breath a press upon her mind. Desari let it run through her, stopping herself from casting any spells. There we are. She concentrated the cold in the room and drew on the air, having it blow on her, chilling her down.

She could feel the potency of the different potions. “Okay, well that ones a bit too strong.” A potion that enhanced her strength, as strong as they come as it would augment her own. With enhancing her own senses, too much and it just became overwhelming.

She looked at the spell weaving the elements together. She hadn’t needed to cast it, it was powered by her, but it wasn’t projected by her.

The spell weaved together, spread through her channels and nodes, then it reached out and passed through the elements, using them as nodes, resonating with them.

She was giving them instructions in this case, but the casting, it was instinctual, mixed with the understanding.

“That potion is way too strong, though I could need it in the future.” Desari said as the potion wore off. “It also wears off really quick and.” She grimaced against the pressure in her head. “Feels like my head is in a damn vice. Yeah too high and too fast.” She pressed the palm of her hand against her eye.

Right, going to need something that brings up my senses a bit but spreads it out. She worked through the headache checking the ingredients, new formulations and combinations coming together.

She worked to make the potion last longer, doing so having the effect of decreasing the potency. “Lets see if I can clear up the aftereffects a bit more too.”

The headache had disappeared after some time but it was not fun and if she could get this potion working, the shorter the after effects, the faster she could take another one and regain her senses.

The testing continued until she reached a peach orange-red solution and even more essence than the high grade rare potions settled in her core.

“Hello Epic potion.” Desari turned it in her hands and paused, she was yellow mixed with green. The Air Sense Burst potions were all of high rare.

“If I make a few more then I can cross over to green, if I can get just right before I cross into green and then I make another epic grade potion then it’ll jump me further into my green core, though I’ll lose the bonus for making a higher-grade potion.”

It had taken her years to reach this point before, now with her knowledge, with her new and old experiences she’d climbed so high so quickly.

“Sometimes caution is needed, first lets test out this potion and see what its abilities are.” She ran through her checks carefully then took a sample.

“Ten seconds to kick in. I can sense around ten meters in every direction accurately, fuzzier out to fifteen.” She nodded to herself as her senses remained that way. “I would guess the efficacy would double when taking a whole dose.”

She wrote down her observations waited a few minutes. “Okay, lets start on those Air Sense Burst potions.

Four potions later she he wiped her hands on her pants. Her core had but a glimmer of yellow around the exterior.

She checked the time, the Epic Air Sense Potion still going strong. It had helped her with the potions to create them uniformly, allowing her to understand the power held within each on an instinctual level.

“Okay, here we go.” She recreated the Epic Air Sense potion. A feeling of fullness spread out from her core, becoming solid green. Her channels and nodes grew, spreading through her body as she felt the strength spread through every fiber of her being.

The pain was but an afterthought as she held out her hand, orbs of wind, fire, earth and water orbited, each shifting, each in harmony.

The orbs faded from existence as she looked at her setup.

“Well, that should only last about eight hours. So three for a day and a minimum of ten days.” Desari tilted her neck from side to side, cracking it. “Well it’s a good thing that increasing my core dealt with any lasting fatigue.”

She checked her equipment and set up several different reactions to make different products needed for her final potion. It just felt so damn good to be back in the alchemy lab.

A smile played on her lips as she adjusted her tools. A comforting sense of familiarity over it all.