Chapter 202: Alchemist |
Fulan looked at the potion bottle before her, now occupied by a sea of red liquid. She gave it a slight shake, infused it with Mental Power, and slowly stirred it.
Her hand was steady, so steady that not even the slightest tremor could be seen. Although the liquid inside swayed with the motion of the bottle, the surface of the potion remained level.
When Fulan sensed something, her hand suddenly stopped, and she set the potion bottle down on the table.
It was not that she sensed the alchemy had succeeded. Only a short while after she placed the bottle on the table did faint reddish crystals begin to precipitate within the red potion.
Even before those crystals had formed, a prompt had already appeared in Fulan’s mind.
[You have successfully conducted an alchemical attempt. Alchemy Proficiency +2]
Then, in the Skills section of her panel, the corresponding skill also appeared.
[Alchemy (Not Yet Initiated) (Proficiency: 2/10): A discipline for obtaining what one needs from all things.]
And that was not all. Along with the appearance of this skill, a profession appeared as well.
Profession: Alchemist (One Star)
Description: A profession that, in the eyes of others, always seems able to pull out some strange and unusual thing to solve a problem.
Conditions:
Successfully extract three substances of First Tier or above.
Alchemy must reach the Extraordinary level.
Create one First-Tier alchemical creation.]
Fulan looked at the potion bottle on the table and raised an eyebrow. The bottle she had used to practice this alchemy was still one of her old potion bottles.
By now, how could she still not realize that Alchemists and Alchemists had a very close connection?
What was more, in many classic settings from her previous life, the duties of a potion maker and an alchemist had greatly overlapped in the first place.
In this magical world, an Alchemist was actually the superior profession above an Alchemist, because Alchemists had almost monopolized all high-tier materials.
No matter where they were, ordinary Alchemists could only use low-grade materials to compound potions. Those high-tier materials never fell into their hands.
So although Alchemists were widespread across the continent, and even considered a rather profitable profession, they all but disappeared once one reached the higher tiers.
That was because the functions of the Alchemist completely overshadowed those of the Alchemist.
In truth, high-tier Alchemists also produced quite a few pure medicinal concoctions, and the effects of those concoctions far surpassed anything made by ordinary Alchemists.
For example, there was a Life-Replenishing Potion made from First-Tier materials. Its effect was to heal wounds and provide life force.
At first glance, it sounded similar to an Alchemist’s Healing Potion, but the actual difference in effect was enormous.
A common Alchemist’s Healing Potion drew a large part of its effect from the user’s own condition. The potion itself mainly served to stimulate and protect.
If it were used on a creature nearing the end of its lifespan, covered in wounds, and suffering from failing organs, then pouring a Healing Potion over it would have no effect at all.
A Life-Replenishing Potion, however, was different. Theoretically speaking, it was a potion that could replenish life without limit.
If that same creature used such a potion, it might even survive for a few extra weeks.
And if it were used as bathwater, perhaps one might even achieve “immortality.”
Of course, that kind of immortality did not come without a price. Excessive replenishment of life force could very likely cause a creature’s senses to fail permanently, or even subject it to unbearable agony.
True immortal alchemy had still not been successfully researched even now, but at the higher tiers, many methods for prolonging life had already been developed.
Still, all of that was rather far away from Fulan for now. What she most needed to think about at present was how to add the Alchemist profession to her panel.
“If I split the Three Laws of Thermodynamics into three separate papers and finish writing them, that should be enough to push my Alchemy up to Extraordinary.”
Fulan had already planned out what she would do next even before obtaining Alchemy. For a skill backed by theoretical knowledge like this, she felt extremely at ease now.
That was because she could extract some things from the “experience” of her previous life, and as long as she adapted them to the magical world, this skill could soar upward like a rocket.
That method would not work for combat skills, however. Even now, Fulan was still grinding away bitterly at practicing the Sunflame Knight’s techniques, increasing their proficiency step by step.
“Let me think. If I want to get the Alchemist profession, I should make a Mental Replenishment Potion.”
It sounded somewhat similar to the Energy Potion Fulan had used to earn her first pot of gold, but there was a qualitative difference between them.
An Energy Potion merely made a person feel more energetic, but that energy could not be used in place of Mental Power to cast spells.
If someone really tried using an Energy Potion to cast spells, they would just be waiting to suddenly drop dead from overexertion.
The Mental Replenishment Potion, however, was like the earlier Life-Replenishing Potion. It could genuinely replenish a mage’s Mental Power.
By the understanding of Fulan’s previous life, this was a true mana potion. It could really refill the blue bar.
“The process for making a Mental Replenishment Potion is way too complicated, isn’t it?!”
The moment Fulan opened the formula for the Mental Replenishment Potion she had bought at the Northern Society market, she was stunned by how troublesome the method was.
Unlike most places in the Alliance, the threshold for many things in the Northern Society had been lowered considerably.
Take the fact that Fulan had been able to buy the formula for a First-Tier potion at the market.
In other parts of the Alliance, where one could barely buy even a few apprentice spells, that would have been unimaginable.
Only after Fulan examined the production process of the Mental Replenishment Potion did she truly understand why people said the superior profession of an Alchemist was the Alchemist.
Take the White Star Sand project she had previously helped optimize. The White Star Sand she extracted was merely a material, not a finished product.
The difficulty of producing a material and that of making a finished product were not even on the same level. Take the Mental Replenishment Potion she wanted to make now, for example.
Although the final step in making this potion still returned to an Alchemist’s old trade of using the Harmonization Method to compound it, the true difficulty lay in the preparation of the materials beforehand.
“The three materials used to make the final Mental Replenishment Potion each have a time limit for how long they can exist in the Material Realm. The refiner must complete the process within the designated time.”
“It is hoped that the refiner will first carefully study the preparation times and methods of the various materials, and plan out a truly workable refining sequence.”
“Otherwise, I assume you do not wish to painfully extract useful ingredients from a pile of waste.”
Fulan carefully looked over the long string of refining steps written above. A certain material required two raw ingredients.
During the process of refining them into an intermediate product, another raw ingredient had to be added and mixed in, and only then could the final material for brewing the potion be obtained.
As Fulan looked at those densely packed steps, she frowned.
This was nothing like the way she had handled materials back when she was still an apprentice.
At worst, an Alchemist’s material preparation involved sprinkling on a special solution, grinding something into a particular shape, or wrapping it in some specific material.
So why had it become this troublesome once it reached the level of an Alchemist?