Now, Micah was thirteen and frustrated.

“So these come from ants?” he asked the woman standing behind the counter, holding a small yellow crystal in his hand.

He stood in the sprawling labyrinth that was the Climber’s Bazaar, almost an hour’s walk away from home. Every other moment, he would glance up at the Tower looming above them and catch glimpses of its essence, even in daylight. It looked so different up close. Much more like an actual existence instead of just a sight in the distance, a word in conversation, an idea in his head.

Before him lay proof of its spoils—crystals in all sorts of colors, stacked up in round boxes and jars. Micah saw yellow, orange, and two different shades of red, and there was purple, dark grey, and light grey. Most of them were as small as the one he had in his hand, but there were larger ones hidden away, too, on shelves behind the vendor. Some of those had different colors. The largest was green, but it didn’t capture his attention.

The dead monster parts did.

In this case, Micah’s eyes were drawn to the equally crystalline and equally yellow legs that supposedly came from monster ants. They looked bigger than his hands. He wasn’t sure from the distance. But then, as if reading his mind, the vendor took one out of its jar and showed it to him.

“Yes, from these,” she said, as if the leg represented the whole beast. “They’re called Honey Ants, because of the way they look? I’m told you can see through them because they have no organs or nothing. They’re just walking bits of yellow. The legs are supposed to be quite sweet when eaten, if you want to buy one and try it.”

She looked at him.

Micah was barely listening to that last bit though, lost in thought, and yet his eyebrows still frowned a little in subliminal disgust. He’d drunk failed potions with dead ants in them before, and they hadn't tasted good. No, thank you.

Ants, for example, can carry more than ten times their body weight, he heard his teacher say. He wasn’t even sure how he’d remembered it since he hadn’t been paying any attention anyway.

Now, Micah stretched up to get a closer look, and sure enough, the legs had bits of patterns running through them. They reminded him of endlessly marching ant columns, unlike the crystals. Those were just chock full of essence.

“How much for one?” he asked. “Of the legs, I mean?”

She told him a price.

Micah almost swore in response. Almost.

He briefly glanced at the other stalls and wondered if he might find a better price someplace else. How there could be so many people selling the same things in one place. They had to be competitive, right? But he wasn't hopeful. Micah knew from stories that things from the Climber’s Bazaar were expensive. And also, he didn’t really want to go to stall from stall to search for the cheapest ant legs. That would be both awkward and rude. He was just thirteen. He didn't want to haggle in an unfamiliar place.

He had been saving up his allowance for months now, ever since New Year’s when he’d spent all his birthday money during the festivals. Running the numbers in his head, he could buy about six ant legs. Seven, if he wanted to be penniless and dump a pile of coins on her counter. That meant seven attempts, right? They were pretty big though. He might have to cut them in half so they would even fit inside of his alchemy bottle. That made fourteen attempts.

Could he figure out how to make a potion with just fourteen attempts? He’d gotten better, sure, but still …

“If you buy six, I’ll toss in its crystal,” the vendor said, casually pulling him from his thoughts. “Then you got the whole ant.”

Experimenting with a crystal was something Micah had always wanted to do, or at least, ever since he’d seen one up close. He hadn’t planned on buying any today since they were basically just small sacks of essence and he needed patterns for most of his potions, but if she was going to cut him a deal …

“How much for a crystal?” he asked, holding up the one he had in his hand. What kind of essence was it filled with? He wondered. It reminded him a bit of honey essence, but not quite. He’d asked, but the woman just shrugged and said "magic". Essence wasn’t common knowledge, he supposed.

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“4 copper pennies,” she said.

Still expensive, Micah thought. That was a little less than his weekly allowance. Buying the crystal wasn’t really worth it in his eyes. He would rather take the deal for the legs, if anything at all.

“And alchemists use these for potions?” he asked.

“Oh yah’, all kinds. They’re supposed to make you strong if you eat them every day. And some use them in healing potions, I’m told. The nobles all make their children eat them as if they were greens.”

That settled the question if they were the right basis for a strength potion. Micah had thought those were only supposed to last for a few hours, but if what the vendor had said was true, there might be lasting effects?

But even if Micah had the legs, he would need other ingredients. Ones with essence to fuel the patterns and material to work with. What kind of ingredients would he otherwise need for a strength potion?

Definitely not regular bugs, he thought, since he would have to drink it. Otherwise … he was almost embarrassed to think it, but maybe milk? That was supposed to help you grow big and strong, after all. If only he could have seen a strength potion in person. Most alchemists worked on commission, though, and the potions sold in the Bazaar were Tower-made. They had no patterns.

Other ingredients … maybe some of his blood to adjust the pattern for human use. Peas? Other greens? Meat was supposed to grow muscles. He’d have to grill it first though and then mince it, otherwise, he wouldn’t be able to drink it and it would just make him sick. How was he going to do that?

Even if he could, he wouldn’t know if it was the right ingredient. He was no doctor, he didn't know how muscles worked.

Did he really want to do this?

He would only have fourteen attempts, tops. Seven, if he needed the whole leg.

It seemed impossible, and all of his ingredients suddenly childish. Micah frowned and stepped back. What was he doing here? He couldn’t waste months of allowance on an off-chance. He needed to find something else. Something safer.

“No,” Micah mumbled and put the crystal back in its basket. “No, thank you,” he said to the nice lady. She tried to convince him again, but he slowly walked away until she gave up and he ducked into the colorful crowd. Any longer and she might have convinced him into buying something after all. Vendors had Skills, too.

Micah kept his eyes down as he headed further into the Bazaar, watching the shoes and the dirty stones of the street. Everything and everyone brimmed with essence around him. Magic. It was distracting and gave him a headache if he looked too long. The people even looked foreign to him in his own city, walking around in armor or strange garbs, with their equipment out in the open, some even carrying familiars on shoulders, in pouches or woven around limbs. They hid them when guards walked past, though.

All that was reason enough for him to keep his head down, but the real reason was that he was disappointed.

Everything Micah had discovered about alchemy in the last two years, he had discovered for himself. Through heavy trial and error. From that, he had made a list of basic ingredients he could use and collect from inside the city, or even outside if he had time to make the journey on the weekends. There were things like fruits, honey, herbs, tree bark, leaves and blossoms, blood (which weirded him out), some spices, bugs (which weirded him out even more) and flour. He suspected he could use anything that had essence, which was everything, but there were limitations he did not yet understand. It was weird.

What weirded him out the most was that bugs weirded him out more than blood. Then again … it was his blood. Why should it be weird to him?

“Weird,” Micah said to get the word out of his mouth.

But all of these were basic ingredients.

No, he corrected himself, they were mundane ones, that with a little bit of help from [Infuse] could create mundane potions. Micah had created almost a dozen mundane potions by now and found himself wanting more. More advanced ingredients, more ideas, more time, more privacy. He dreamt of healing potions that could close wounds in an instant, Ironskin potions that could make people invincible, haste potions, even mana ones … the things of adventure!

If only alchemy ingredients weren’t so expensive.

He was stuck at level 3. He had been for almost a year now, ever since he'd gotten [Candle], and he wanted to level up so badly it hurt.

He wanted to buy more advanced ingredients, but he just didn’t have enough money. He couldn’t make a potion with just fourteen attempts.

His feet carried him into a side alley and further. At the end, he stepped into a massive open street and stared across the city.

Looming there in the distance was the entrance to the local Climber’s Guild. Above that, the Tower. Climbers were filing out of the building, ragged after a long day of fighting monsters. Some slapped each other on the back, some looked slumped and tired, others wore bandages that hid their wounds. None were crying, not today at least.

Micah eyed the heavy pouches in their hands and bit his lip.

How hard could it be?