Chapter 20: Now This Looks Like Alchemy

Serayne stared at the photograph for a moment longer - the image of her own silhouette terrorizing the residents of Hollowbriar Forest - before tilting her head back and letting out a long breath. The tension slowly drained from her shoulders, and her black lynx ears, previously pinned straight up, relaxed and swiveled sideways.

The whole situation was mortifying; she wasn't about to lie to herself. But relief far outweighed the humiliation, knowing that for the past few days, her greatest terror had simply been a girl hauling a wooden box.

Well, at least I know this particular ghost isn't out to kill me - unless one day it chokes on secondhand embarrassment and drags me down with it.

The forest remained dangerous, and the absence of a real specter didn't mean she could let her guard down, but the prospect of future excursions instantly felt far more inviting.

If she could haul in eleven crates in a single night while constantly scanning the shadows for a creature born entirely from gossip about herself, maybe she could bring back even more next time with a better-planned route.

Twenty or even thirty sounded tempting, though she quickly remembered the pouch’s limited capacity and the sheer awkwardness of hauling overflow. She decided to appreciate what she had already gathered rather than immediately scheming to relocate half the forest.

Closing the snapshot, she wiped a hand across her cheek, then looked down at the black smudge left on her fingertips.

“Right… that too.”

One ear twitched in annoyance as it dawned on her that the soot had probably gone a long way toward giving her that faceless demon look, especially from a distance in the green glow cast by the crate.

Tomorrow, I'll give the cauldron a proper scrub and get to work, but tonight I need to scrub myself down before someone snaps another glamour shot.

Fortunately, she didn't need to drag herself down to the stream this time. She drew water for a quick wash in her new bathroom, wiping the soot from her face and neck before carefully cleaning the soft fur around her ears - wincing slightly as damp fingers brushed over a particularly sensitive spot.

Both ears flattened away from the touch on instinct, acting as if they had a mind of their own and refused to cooperate - a reaction Serayne met with a heavy sigh before finishing up.

Refreshed, she gathered her dried things, settled into the upstairs bedroom, and read a few more pages. But when her eyes drifted back over the exact same sentence for the third time, she set the book aside and surrendered to sleep.

***

The following morning, she picked out a clean cotton top and matching shorts from one of the athletic sets. Then, true to her resolution from the night before, she gathered the cauldron, mortar, and utensils and headed down to the stream.

Finding a secure spot along the bank, she arranged her legs to keep from sliding into the current and set about scouring the stubborn residue, armed with a carefully selected scouring stone and a supply of patience that began running dangerously thin after fifteen minutes.

She paused periodically to rinse the vessel and check the surface, taking care not to scrape away the cauldron itself along with the buildup, her ears swiveling toward the forest at every rustle in the brush.

After more than an hour, both implements finally looked clean enough to face without being reminded of the review about "tasting like rust." Instead of hurrying back to more enjoyable pursuits, however, she turned to washing her hospital scrubs and the white sundress.

Her wardrobe had expanded, but it wasn't large enough to let soiled clothes pile up indefinitely, and the nocturnal foraging run along with her matrix trials had left marks on the pale fabric that needed far more than a dusting off.

In the process of rinsing, she splashed herself thoroughly; by the time she finally returned home, the damp fabric clung snugly to her small chest, and she was thoroughly fed up.

“Half a day just to reach the stage of a clean pot and clean clothes,” she grumbled, hanging the laundry. “Truly a spectacular career trajectory.”

She adjusted her rabbit tail beneath her clothes when a brief, irritated twitch reminded her she was sitting awkwardly, swapped her wet shirt for a dry one, and left the utensils to air dry.

Only then did she pull up to the console, browsing the market to pick up a few sundries that might come in handy in the workshop. Finding nothing else of note, she opened her pending friend requests.

Ever since she started selling potions, the inbox had been swelling relentlessly. Most messages still amounted to begging for free samples, demanding discounts, offering unsolicited life advice, or pitches where someone generously offered to "manage" her entire business for her.

Serayne stifled a yawn and dismissed another request, where a stranger explained in painstaking detail how desperately she needed a "strong business partner."

Naturally. Preferably one who takes all my materials and frees me from that terrible burden.

The next message, however, caused her ears to perk with genuine interest.

[Liora Hearthvale: Boss, do you need herbs? I've got about five kilos of various plants, and this blueprint: Filter (E). I can show you.]

Serayne glanced at the avatar - a young woman with a gentle face, brown hair, and rabbit ears - but it was the attached item link that immediately seized her full attention.

A filter?

She accepted the request and opened the chat immediately.

[Serayne Veyra: How much do you want for the blueprint?]

No reply came after a minute, nor after several more. That was hardly surprising - most people in the sector didn't spend their days with a console within arm's reach - so Serayne left the chat open and returned to prepping reagents.

Having read the manual, she knew that gathering the raw plant was merely the first step. She carefully inspected the leaves and root systems, trimmed away decayed sections, rinsed away dirt, and checked between the petals for tiny insect eggs.

In many ways, it resembled prepping vegetables in a kitchen, except here, sloppiness directly compromised the potion's potency. Serayne had no desire to spend another night wondering how much alchemical efficacy she had bled away before even lighting the fire.

She laid out the cleaned portions onto bamboo trays, taking care not to mix species, and consulted the recipe once more. One target dose called for ten grams each of Serraleaf and Ambertail.

Scaled up to a larger batch, that amounted to vastly more foliage than a tiny vial suggested. This time, she intended to match the base liquid precisely to her measured reagents from the very beginning.

With the cleaned vessel ready, she turned her attention to brewing mana water, following the manual's instructions to channel her own energy gradually into the fluid.

Rather than crudely stuffing it with mana to capacity, she worked to align and stabilize the ambient currents already present in the water. It required quiet, steady concentration; her ears went motionless, her gaze locked onto the surface.

Only when the liquid took on the faint azure tint described in the text did Serayne withdraw her hand and check her status panel, discovering the preparation had cost her fifty Mana Points.

It wasn't an expense she could shrug off lightly, but it was well within her capacity, especially if she used the remaining prep time to let her mana regenerate.

When she returned to the console, a reply was waiting.

[Liora Hearthvale: Would ten mana potions for the blueprint be fair? And do you want the herbs too?]

[Serayne Veyra: I'll take the herbs too. I still have ten vials from my personal stock; I can send them over for the blueprint now and add a bonus tomorrow. We can settle the plants separately.]

[Liora Hearthvale: A bonus? No need, ten is plenty for me.]

Serayne read the message, then glanced back toward the workshop where the clean cauldron and prepared water stood waiting.

[Serayne Veyra: Ten weak potions is practically nothing for a blueprint I desperately need right now. You'll get extra once I brew the new batch.]

[Liora Hearthvale: Boss, you're awesome.]

She had no urge to squeeze someone who came forward with a fair deal from the start. The filter’s utility was obvious enough that leaving a good impression mattered far more than nickel-and-diming for extra leverage.

She initiated the trade and retrieved the blueprint moments later, immediately opening its appraisal.

[Filter Blueprint  -  Rank E]

[Single-use blueprint permits the construction of one unit.]

[Materials: Wood ×50, Cotton ×5, Charcoal ×5, Sand ×10, Small Stones ×50, Fabric ×3]

[Effect: Filters solid impurities and reagent sediment from water.]

[Description: Less grit in your cup, fewer grimaces with every gulp. Note: Does not remove mana. Filtered water containing unrefined ambient mana may still cause acute digestive distress.]

Serayne nodded slowly. She understood why the blueprint’s owner might not have valued it highly, given that it didn't solve the burning issue plaguing everyone drinking straight from the stream.

For her, retaining the mana was the entire point. The last thing she needed was an apparatus stripping the very magic out of the potion she was trying to brew.

She already possessed most of the materials. Pebbles could be pulled from her riverbank haul, leaving only cotton as an obstacle - until she remembered a cheap plush teddy bear she’d bought alongside other sundries.

Checking the tag for the stuffing material, she popped the seam and extracted what she needed, gazing down at the deflated toy with faint, sheepish guilt.

“Sorry, bud. Matter of survival.”

One ear twitched as if mocking her solemn tone, but she set the bear aside and confirmed the build order.

The completed filter resembled a large wooden barrel split into two chambers, with a multi-layered filtration cartridge separating them and a lower reservoir to collect the purified liquid. Serayne inspected it with satisfaction before deliberating on the most practical spot to station it.

It lacked a spigot or any ornate touches, but after less than a week in Elyndra, she had learned to value tools for function over form.

Heading up to the terrace, where ambient moisture had dried from the leaves, she gathered her measured portions, making sure not to accidentally mix in herbs reserved for other formulas.

She still lacked a proper scale, so the measurements remained approximate. But this time she followed the manual’s visual markers and portion comparisons rather than assuming any random handful of weeds would do the trick.

She slipped into the red apron, tying it carefully so it wouldn't pinch her rabbit tail, and smoothed the fabric over her chest before unlatching the workshop window and setting the cauldron onto its new struts.

Serraleaf and Ambertail tumbled into the prepared mana water. Setting the empty tray aside, Serayne extended her hand and snapped her fingers.

A clean, bright flame blossomed at the center of the pedestal.

She gazed at it with such sheer satisfaction that her white tail twitched beneath her apron, her black ears perking high in quiet triumph.

Now this actually looks like alchemy.

The theatrical snap wasn't what ignited the fire, of course - channeling mana into the matrix did the real work - but after endless hours of drafting and repeated explosions, Serayne felt she had earned the right to a little flair.

Controlling the flame from a comfortable seat offered immense practical benefits as well. She no longer had to constantly haul herself over to an open hearth, fiddle with kindling, or guard her paralyzed legs while leaning over open fire.

Now she could focus on the procedural stages laid out in the recipe: reducing heat once boiling commenced, adjusting thermal intensity later, and maintaining a steady, controlled simmer that reduced the brew to its proper concentrate instead of merely scalding weeds in hot water for eight hours.

She set out snacks, drinking water, books, and her wound-up alarm clock. Once satisfied that everything lay within arm's reach, she settled into her workstation, watching the first ripples form across the liquid.

Eight hours was still a formidable stretch, but she had no intention of spending it fighting drooping eyelids this time.

She had reading material, understood the brewing kinetics far better, and could take brief breathers to shift her posture - monitoring the matrix without having to constantly churn a fallen branch.

Opening the textbook, her gaze lingered briefly on her legs, resting motionless beside the chair. And right then, the fundamental reason she burned to master all these arcane laws came rushing back.

Raw materials, an expanded home, and self-sufficiency were monumental strides, but beneath them lay a deeper hope - one she dared not voice aloud lest it sound like a promise.

Asterra's medicine had failed to restore her body, but here existed phenomena that her old world couldn't even quantify. She had already brewed an elixir that restored the very energy fueling magic.

That hardly guaranteed alchemy could heal her spine, but for the first time in five agonizing years, she held something more tangible than empty platitudes about accepting her lot in life.

It might take months or years of study. She might need esoteric lore found in no beginner's primer. But now, she could at least take the next step toward an answer - even if that step had nothing to do with walking.

Without Avelra's journal, she might have stumbled into another path, but sooner or later she would have clawed after anything offering a semblance of agency over her own life.

Had she been able-bodied, perhaps she too would have defaulted to chopping wood and leaving dense tomes for later, rather than obstinately dissecting laws most arrivals on the channel deemed irrelevant for now.

She refused to call that a silver lining, though.

Her ears drooped as thoughts drifted to her old home and both her mothers, her fingers freezing on the corner of an unturned page.

Given the choice, she would trade every single one of these supposed blessings for one ordinary day with them - for familiar voices calling from the kitchen and the certainty that when she looked up from her book, they would still be there.

She hadn't needed tragedy to teach her the value of life, and she refused to feel grateful for how much had to be ripped away before finding a way to rebuild it.