D.E.M.O.N.S: Getting Summoned Weekly isn't so Bad - Chapter 2132 Apprentice Test

Chapter 2132: Chapter 2132 Apprentice Test

— Kat —

Tweedle and Furen ducked inside to wash off the grey dust before returning. Tanisha and Appoline apparently didn’t care enough and it was interesting to see that Appoline’s was already vanishing simply from her moving around a bit to ready the cauldron once again for Tweedle to make an attempt. Tanisha just didn’t seem to care that she was covered. Perhaps she saw it as penance for causing the problem… or more likely she simply didn’t care.

Once Tweedle returned, Appoline gently guided her through the first steps. Though not without complaint. “Didn’t you say this was easier with a larger cauldron?” asked Tweedle.

“Do you have a larger cauldron? I don’t,” countered Appoline.

Which essentially ended the argument. Tweedle didn’t really want to fight Appoline regardless and oversized cauldrons were expensive. Simply due to the size and thickness. They were heavy chunks of metal and even if she did have one, carrying it out of wherever it was stored and into the backyard could take hours. It was already further into the night then she’d like, closer to midnight then six o’clock when they’d had dinner.

The process started the same, and Tweedle attempted to form the two cores, but already she was struggling. Even with Appoline watching over her… there was a rather hard and fast rule to alchemy. You could not mix multiple sapient individuals mana into the potion. Some exceptions existed, but only if one of the two was dead. Here, Tweedle had to stand on her own.

It was odd to watch actually, Appoline seemed to be able to indicate what needed to be done almost entirely with her hands. A simple gesture here or there, and… wait. *Is she mimicking what the cores FEEL like using her hands so Tweedle can watch and adjust as necessary?*

[I think she has to be. I can’t sense the potion all that well because I can’t push my own mana into the cauldron, and it’s actually a surprise Appoline can give such accurate feedback but… yes that does seem to be what she’s doing.]

Kat could visually watch as the two got closer and closer despite Appoline’s warnings about this being a bad thing to do… but it was equally as obvious that Tweedle was trying. She was already sweating and the cauldron seemed to be bubbling under her attention. At least until Tweedle was slapped on the top of the head. “No more mana, you’ll disrupt the potion.”

“It’s already close to falling apart though! How are you able to keep it stable with such little mana? I can barely keep it all in place and I feel like I can’t keep it in place,” hissed Tweedle.

“You need more SPIN. You have to let them circle each other, pulling in at the same time as you pull them away. You’re currently stuck trying to yank them apart, it’s not going to work. Gently guide them around in a circle. Don’t use any extra mana,” insisted Appoline.

Tweedle nodded and made a few attempts to try and get them moving. The first was almost catastrophic, only one core seemed to move when Tweedle pushed them, and soon they looked to be on a collision course with one running into the other. “Quick push the stationary one violently then try to keep them apart,”

Tweedle didn’t think she simply reacted, smacking the second one with a fist of mana and sending it away which of course had it circling the edge of the cauldron and it looked about ready to smack back into the other one but Tweedle knew what to do, she sent the other one circling soon after. They were uneven in travel speeds, with the second one moving a touch faster than the first but that was simple to change with a bit of correcting. Soon they were spinning in sync. Faster then Appoline’s but that was fine? Probably?

“Now, you’ve got them spinning properly, but you need to work out if you want to keep them as they are or fix things slightly,” Appoline announced, countering Kat’s thoughts.

“What’s wrong with them?” asked Tweedle.

“Well nothing technically, but you’ll have to form the rest of the core while they’re spinning at speed, and you struggled to even get them into a stable spot. Trying to form the core while they’re spinning at speed like this? It truthfully seems like it might be a bit much for your current skill level,” explained Appoline.

Tweedle winced at the subtle recrimination… but it wasn’t wrong at all. Her skills weren’t where she wanted them to be and trying to form even the net as they currently were. “Is it… safe to slow them down?”

“Of course… you just have to be careful about it,” Appoline answered with a smile. “Try and slow them down slowly, and at the same time. Just a little bit of extra mana in front of both of them and they should remain in a stable orbit.”

Despite Appoline’s words, Tweedle managed to make a mistake, nearly halving the speed of one when the other was reduced by barely a quarter. Tweedle quickly scrambled to recover things, but trying to further slow one of them just had the cores on a collision course. Tweedle swiftly sped them up once again, in that awkward way she’d used the first time. It did get them back to balance though, and without anything exploding.

Lily could sort of tell this was harder then it looked, but none of Kat’s senses could accurately measure what was going on, it was all filtered through Lily’s experience and that meant Kat was basically forced to agree with her perspective on things in this case. Regardless, Tweedle made a few more attempts, failing each time but managing to get closer. The problem was that the cores needed to be moving at exactly the right speed or it would all fail.

So Kat asked, “Why does this seem easier at faster speeds, and is there a lower limit?”

Appoline nodded, her hands still moving to mimic the cores and help Tweedle while answering the question. “If they aren’t moving fast enough the inertia is insufficient to keep them from slamming into each other. As for why it seems easier when they’re faster? It is because there is a higher margin for error. At lower speeds even being slightly off will soon send them out of sync but at high enough speeds as long as the difference is small it will correct itself without intervention.”

406

The explanation seemed to have given Tweedle enough time to put it into practice, she’d slowed it down considerably, slower then Appoline’s attempt, though that was likely due to the fact the elf didn’t NEED to leave it running so slow. There was even a reason Appoline was willing to point out. “You’ve got it about as slow as I’d recommend. When you get to the next steps you’ll need to make sure it doesn’t slow the cores down as much. Especially when doing the netting”

Tweedle looked like she was going to cry. “But you suggested I make it slower!”

“I did, and I stand by the statement. The increased difficulty of not slowing it down much further is far offset but the ease you gain from not needing to do the fiddly details while it’s moving so fast. This isn’t meant to be an easy recipe Tweedle, just one I think you’re capable of learning,” explained Appoline.

Tweedle immediately brightened up at this, and got to work on the next part. Appoline handed over the next two ingredients and Tweedle got to work. It went much smoother then the previous step and in no time at all the two cores had been coated in a solid layer of their opposing elements. There was a bit of instability, but Tweedle seemed to be able to calm them both quite easily.

“Hmm, seems you have a talent for this. Perhaps the duality? Or stabilisation? Interesting to see,” commented Appoline.

“But… but it still wasn’t as fast as you managed…” Tweedle murmured.

“Correct, but I have far greater practice and I was assuming this would take longer then five minutes for you to manage,” countered Appoline.

“Right but… well I have SOME practice with this sort of thing. Working on two cores at once that is. They usually don’t try to slam into each other so that was hard, but coating them both at the same time wasn’t too bad…” Tweedle explained.

Appoline let out a low hum, not commented further or revealing what she thought of Tweedle’s admission. Instead, she simply handed the next set of ingredients over and said, “In that case do you think I can trust you to get the netting right?”

“Um… I’ll try. Do the holes have to be consistent?” asked Tweedle.

“Yes but you have some small amount of leeway. They do need to closely match the holes in the opposing core though. So if you want to use a technique that’s going to get things mostly correct, try and ensure they’re ’mostly correct’ in the same way. Mirrored is fine too, but not necessary considering the cores are spinning,” explained Appoline.