Upon appearing at the Pup Leisure Pond, I find Aster swimming circles in the pond… which has expanded again. It's now around one hundred and fifty feet at its widest and roughly one hundred feet at its narrowest. The expansion did eat into some of the plants which grew but fortunately, there are plenty more here than just what was around the pond.

"Having fun?" I ask Aster, who lets out a happy bark as he starts paddling over to me.

He exits the pond and shakes himself dry, the droplets heading in my direction vanishing before reaching me while the rest continue until they hit the ground.

"Thank you for your consideration," I kneel down and rub the pup's head, finding his fur as soft and dry as ever. "So you're able to do stuff like that, huh?"

"Woof!" His tail wags energetically.

"I didn't mention it before I went to bed last night," I pick him up and hold him in my arms, rubbing his head. "But Ash and I spoke last night and he mentioned some stuff. Becoming a Celestial is extremely painful, huh?"

Aster's ears droop and he curls up more as the sadness and fear enter my mind, radiated out of the little pup.

"It's okay, buddy," I stroke his back. "So you had my brother to help you out with things, huh? Ash wasn't sure how long you were a Celestial for before he became one, and you were the second. Want to share what kind of beast you were before becoming a Celestial?"

Aster shakes his head, and I give him a light scratch behind his ears.

"Don't worry about it," I tell him. "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to."

The pup rubs his head against my chest, then I set him down and start harvesting reagents. The Pup Leisure Pond has begun to grow some more magical plants which I can use in alchemy and I want to brew up more mana potions now rather than later. Having spent the last few hours getting driven around the city to clear up the three Monster Eggs within it made me not want to deal with the rest of the river and the lake itself today.

None of the trees here morphed into manapple trees and the current environment doesn't seem right for mushrooms to spawn so I won't have those two reagents. There are, however, two things which I can use in their place, and it still has the manasprigs that I prefer to use in my mana potions.

The first of the two substitute reagents is the manaberry, which is similar in size to a grape and blue in color, dark blue streaks swirling throughout them.

[Manaberry] Tier: 7 A berry filled with mana. Stored Mana: 64

This is the lowest amount of mana which a Tier 7 manaberry can hold, the highest amount being 192. There are plenty of their bushes here, so I'm able to harvest a decent amount of the higher values and there still be enough left over to be considerate towards whatever other inhabitants might spawn or show up in this small section of forest.

Manaberries can be substituted in for the manapples, while the other reagent here can act as a substitute for the manacap mushrooms. I carefully uproot a flower with a bunch of thin, branching roots. The roots themselves are pale, off-white with blue streaks running through them.

Those roots are also the reagent.

[Manakiss Root] Tier: 7 The root of a plant which draws in and stores mana. Stored Mana: 3,500

I could tell from looking at the richness of the blue in the leaves and stem of the flower that it would have a high amount of stored mana, and I make sure to only harvest those with the best. Not all of them have 3,500, the maximum they can hold at Tier 7, but they're all quite high.

One of the reasons they have to be processed with alchemy rather than just consumed isn't just to draw out some of their latent stored mana not mentioned in the description. No, it's also because of what earned them their name of "manakiss".

They're a fairly potent aphrodisiac when consumed raw. Alchemy will cause that property to be lost during the conversion process if there aren't other aphrodisiac ingredients included.

With my foraging complete, I pull some buckets out of my storage and fill them with clear water with a faint blue tint which pours out of the springs and into the pond.

[Mana Spring Water] Tier: 7 Mystical water infused with mana itself.

It hasn't gone up in quality since I last checked it but I'm not surprised by that. The amount of mana in the air and soil are increasing, but it's not too much yet. A lot more time and work will be needed before it increases quickly.

With my gathering complete, I make sure everything is stored back into my bracelets, then I return to my workshop and pull everything out. The moment I arrive, my phone pings to indicate that someone texted me while I was in the Mythic Forest.

I pull it out and find a text from Ryan.

[Ryan]: You said you're going to be brewing up potions instead of running the forest right?

[Ryan]: Too much to ask if I can watch I know we're going on our date later

The texts are from just a few minutes ago, and I really don't mind at all. Why he wants to watch is a mystery to me, but I can ask when he gets here.

[Evan]: Sure. Knock on the back door of my shop when you arrive.

I go about setting up for the brewing process, then wait for Ryan to knock on the back door. It doesn't take him very long, and he's changed outfits in the two hours since he dropped me off at home. Now, he's dressed in black jeans and a tight-fitting green-grey t-shirt, along with sneakers. He's styled his hair a little bit differently as well.

Already dressed and ready for our date, I'm assuming. He looks pretty nice in that outfit, though he looks good in everything I've ever seen him in.

"Hey," he pulls me in for a hug and a kiss after the door is closed. "Sorry if I'm intruding on this."

"If you were, I'd have said you can't."

"Okay," he chuckles. "I'm just a bit bored and it was either ask my boyfriend if I can watch him brew, play video games, or go swimming."

"I beat out video games?"

"Always will," he chuckles again and gives me another kiss. "You said you're only making mana potions?"

"Yeah," I answer. "Since the Mythic Forest probably won't have enough energy to return to normal functioning by Monday, it'll probably be better to have my shop closed this coming week as well, as much as I'd like to have it open. Since I avoid taking hits entirely, I don't really go through what health potions I have while I'm completely out of mana potions."

This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

"Alright," he says. "And you don't mind people watching your alchemy process? I know some alchemists are touchy about it."

Some alchemists like to keep their processes secret, as if what they do is truly unique. Some of them might have a technique that they came up with on their own and which isn't widespread, but I don't have anything like that.

"I'm making basic potions you can find the recipes for online," I tell him. "The most 'secret' part of my technique is how I manage to get precise effect counts each time with traditional brewing rather than modern. That's also not really a technique I'd want to avoid others stealing."

If others could use it, that means consistent brewing with large batches would become more plausible. That would potentially cheapen potions overall while making it easier to have a standard without dealing with modern alchemy techniques. Cheaper potions means a higher survival rate for newcomers.

"It's one others can't steal," Ryan says, probably remembering that I've mentioned to him before why I can do it.

Because of my ability to sense magical energies themselves, allowing me to perform minor tweaks to the recipe as I brew in order to bring the values to what I want. According to him and a few others I've asked – both gods and non-god reincarnates – my sensitivity magical energies really is unique.

Likely a result of me being a Rift Wolf.

"Even if it was a technique someone could steal," I tell Ryan. "I wouldn't mind others learning it. Anyway, you can sit at the table there, just don't know over the inkwells. Some of the inks can be fairly volatile."

"They aren't enchanted?" He asks as he moves to my scroll-writing table.

"They can withstand a lot of damage," I inform him. "But it's better to be safe than sorry."

"Ah."

As Ryan takes a seat, I begin working on brewing a batch of mana potion. The first step is lighting the cauldron I set up, followed by filling it with one hundred gallons of mana spring water. This is naturally-primed for brewing mana potions so I don't need to infuse it with essence crystal dust and instead begin working on mashing manaberries.

Once I've mashed up ten pounds of the berries, I set the bucket with that off to the side and begin chopping manasprig leaves. Eight pounds of the leaves are chopped, then put it the side so I can chop the manakiss roots. It's probably a good thing the manakiss flower grows in dense clusters, because I need quite a lot of their roots for the potion.

I begin adding reagents to the heated mana spring water in small amounts, one or two cups at a time. As I near the end, I determine that the potion is a little bit too weak based on its color and smell, so prepare a little bit more of the reagents and add them in.

"There we go," I murmur when it's suitable, then extinguish the crystals beneath the cauldron. "And done."

[Mana Potion] Tier: 7 A potion of liquid mana, which immediately restores the user's MP when consumed. Mana Content: 3,500 MP

"That's all it took?" Ryan asks as I start cleaning up while the cauldron of potion cools. "Brewing that was a lot more simple than I expected."

"Never looked into alchemy before?" I ask.

"Never needed it," he shrugs. "Can always afford to stock up on what I expect I'll need and then some," he pulls out a stasis storage bracelet from one of his bracelets. "This one is filled with potions and salves, just in case. Most Rank 5s who run Dungeons regularly have something like this, especially if they're past Level 5. Means we really don't need to learn the art ourselves."

That's pretty convenient.

"If you use your sense for energies to help you," he says. "What was the sniffing for? You did some small sniffs throughout and at the end, seemed dissatisfied before adding more."

"I judge the strength by color and smell."

"Not your sense of energies?"

"Not my sense of energies."

"Didn't you say you use your sense of energies to determine?"

"I do."

"But you just said you don't."

"I don't."

"Now I'm confused."

"It's not the same sense of energies I told you about," I tell him. "I can perceive them in different ways. The sense you're thinking of is technically through my eyes but isn't. It's more of one I feel through my existence, but it's easier to describe as 'seeing'. However, I can also feel energy flows through my skin, see energies with my eyes, hear them, taste them, and even smell them. The actual 'seeing' bit is different as it's more of registering how much is there rather than what is there. Same with all of the other physical sensory parts… though I can also sort of tell what is there as well through them."

"That's confusing."

"I can tell how much energy is in something at any given point in time just by looking at it," I explain. "That's normal, even standard. That's always on, not something I can turn off. It's like colors – most people don't really notice the color of something unless it's important but it's always there. In some forms, that energy is more clear than others. Liquid is one of them, though that's partly because the liquid itself also tends to be darker."

"Ah."

I don't think he fully understands, but it's not really something I can fully explain to him. After all, how do you explain to someone without a sense how that sense works? It would be like trying to explain to someone born without eyes what seeing is and how it works.

Aster jumps up onto Ryan's lap, startling the demigod as he hadn't noticed the pup's arrival. A moment later, Ryan's eyes widen and he starts looking around. His breathing quickens as if he's become overstimulated but is attempting to resist fidgeting around.

"By the Great Flow…" he looks at me and his eyes widen even more with his mouth agape.

When he starts to look down at Aster, he suddenly shakes his head and blinks a few times.

"No looking at you like that, huh?" Ryan raises an eyebrow.

"What happened?" I ask.

"I think he just let me experience what you're talking about," Ryan says. "All of my normal senses suddenly became able to detect the energies around me, even in the air. It was… intense. I thought you said Celestials can't sense energies?"

That was directed to Aster, who shakes his head.

"But you just let me?"

Aster nods.

"Same thing as me," I tell him. "It's my additional sense for energies that they can't do. He can feel energies around him, and maybe even their types, but not the energy flows themselves."

Not quite a good explanation, but this whole thing is already a bit difficult to explain in the first place. It's not as if I've ever had a reason to try and explain it to others before, so that adds to my clumsiness with this.

The pup seems to agree with me on that as he nods to Ryan.

"So it's how much is there," Ryan says. "With a touch of what kind, but not fully?"

"Something like that," I say as Aster nods. "You can kind of tell that there are different types, especially the more distinct ones there are. And it's a good thing Aster cut it off before you looked at him."

"Why?"

"Remember the difference between gods and Celestials?" I ask. "One transcended via mana, the other via aether. Both contain an unlimited amount of their related energy. You tried to look at an unlimited source of magical energy, Ry."

"Oh. Right."

His cheeks flush a little in embarrassment at the realization. He was already suffering from overstimulation at having a new aspect to five separate senses temporarily available.

Then he went to look at something those senses would go overdrive looking at.

Unlike myself or the Celestials, he's not used to such a thing. It would just be too much for him to handle.

"But I was fine touching him," Ryan quickly realizes, the red disappearing from his cheeks.

"Actually," I say. "You weren't touching him via your skin. Aster put a thin layer of magic over his fur and skin to avoid direct contact with you while he was letting you borrow his senses."

"Woof!" Aster confirms.

Ryan thinks about that for a few moments as he strokes the pup's fur, then he looks at me.

"When I looked at you with that sense," he says. "It was like… there was some sort of energy there that was… argh! It's hard to describe. But it's like it was more intense than others, even if not higher in quantity."

"That's my aether," I tell him. "Had always just assumed it was my life force when I saw it. Never bothered figuring out what the different energies were before and just assumed that since it was within me, that was why I could detect it when I couldn't in others."

Ryan snorts.

"What?" I ask.

"Nothing," he chuckles. "And if what I saw when looking around is enough to go by, then thanks, Aster. Looking at an unlimited source of energy probably wouldn't have been the brightest idea."

It would be like having gone from looking at a dying candle to looking at a sun up-close.

"Also," I add. "Some Celestials can sense the energy flows the way I can. Aster probably can't, but Ash, Griffin, and Aurora all can to some degree, even if not as strongly as me."

"Oh," he says. "So you're always seeing the intensity level of energies within things?"

"Yeah."

"And you didn't know Griffin and Ash were Celestials?"

"Ever put a coat over a lamp?"

"No, why would I"

"They're effectively doing that," I tell him. "It makes it seem as if they have no energy at all. They've figured out a way to completely conceal their energies – all of them."

When I asked Ryan about sensing Griffin's soul, I hadn't thought about the fact that souls are another form of energy and would've been hidden by that. This ability to sense energies through my five senses doesn't really let me know the difference between a soul and something else as it's just detecting energy.

"Anyway," I say. "Once I get this poured into some buckets and stored away, I'll head upstairs and change for the date."

"Want some help?" Ryan asks. "With the bottling, I mean."

"Sure," I answer. "Let me grab you a pair of gloves."