Two weeks went by in a flash, as everyone pushed themselves to their very limits.
Percy didn’t actually get to spend much time with Nesha. Even when the two got a few minutes together, they were typically too tired to talk. From what little they did speak, however, he understood she was already well on her way to mastering Circulation.
He knew she had already cleared her remaining channels a long time ago, as merely opening them didn’t require her body to be trained. That said, she wouldn’t be able to temper them, nor could she experiment with her mana flow until her physique was fully honed. Admittedly, this was still a few months away, despite all the time she’d saved with Baldy’s help.
As for Percy, he’d also made a ton of progress on multiple fronts. Not all of them, though.
“I… don’t think… this will work...” he spat between pants, droplets of sweat dripping off his chin one after the other.
“Percy… Don’t be too greedy now. You’ve done remarkably well given your grade. I doubt there are many Yellows who can resist even the most basic domain. Let alone an Orange hoping to withstand mine.” Galahad consoled in a manner somewhat atypical of him.
Percy sighed, knowing his uncle was right. Despite all his hard work, the best he’d managed to accomplish was to remain conscious for a prolonged period of time. Still, he couldn’t even twitch a muscle after all these gruelling sessions.
‘I guess this is all I’ll be able to do before my next advancement.’
He only hoped his efforts wouldn’t be for nothing, even if their results weren’t immediately obvious.
Percy turned around to leave, when his uncle’s next words froze him in his steps.
“I am sorry for the way I treated you, you know.”
Looking back at Galahad, Percy caught a fleeting hint of sadness – regret, even. One he’d never expected to see in the man’s expression.
“Heh. Don’t get all sentimental on me now.” he chuckled. “Cold indifference suits you better.”
“I’m sure it does.” Galahad replied, letting his lips curl upwards. “I just want you to know that House Avalon was lucky to have you. It’s not an easy thing to admit – especially not for an aspiring leader – but I honestly believe we’d be better off if I hadn’t contributed in pushing you out.”
Percy remained silent for a couple of seconds, letting the words sink in.
It was true, Galahad was quite influential in the family. While Percy’s decision to leave had ultimately been his, things might have been different had Baldy agreed to give him the elixirs he’d needed back in the day. Had that been the case, he might have sought out a different solution for Micky too, and never gone to the Alchemists’ Guild.
But it was too late for regrets. Two doses of elixirs weren’t remotely enough anymore. Percy currently needed 22 of them! Per day! There was no way they could possibly justify such an outlandish expenditure to the rest of their family. Not without spilling all his secrets. Maybe not even after doing that. Not to mention the mess he had raised back in the Guild. The Divine Root was bound to come for him sooner or later. Right now, every second he spent with his family was a risk for everyone involved.
“No sense in regretting the past, Uncle.” he said. “If I hadn’t left, I wouldn’t have met Nesha. The Aurora Dew might have never come to be either. It’s impossible to say which way is better.”
The last thing Percy heard was a sigh, as he closed the door behind him, leaving the training room. Galahad’s words swirled within his mind for a few more minutes, as he walked over to his lab. But he shook them away by the time he arrived. He still had some work ahead of him, and he couldn’t afford to be distracted.
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Fortunately, his other projects had been a lot more successful. His scythes had been ready for a while now. In fact, he’d even recycled them once already, a couple days ago. His alchemical ventures had progressed just as smoothly too, if not better. To his great joy, Percy had finished converting his remaining elixirs to Aurora Dew, and three clones’ worth of mushrooms into healing potions. By now, his spatial amulet was packed to the brim with supplies, the excess already handed over to Baldy.
‘The only thing left is to make the final push for the other potion.’ he thought, his eyes burning with determination.
Closing the curtains, he took out his equipment, preparing everything. He’d already familiarized himself with most of the steps in his free time. He’d practiced extracting both of the mushrooms’ essences separately, as well as deattuning and mixing them together.
Admittedly, it wouldn’t be exactly the same when he did everything in the correct order. That said, he was at least confident his only potential point of failure would be the pacification step – which he hadn’t had a chance to practice like the rest.
“Here goes nothing.” he said, pouring four vials of healing potions inside his cauldron.
Next, he grabbed a handful of white powder, adding it to the concoction, before turning the heat up. Percy had actually mixed the crushed pale carrots with the moonflower petals, to end up with a more homogenized resource. A rather bold move.
Normally, adding multiple secondary ingredients during the same step was ill-advised. If Orin was here, he’d probably want to slap him. After all, introducing too many variables drastically reduced one’s yield. However, Percy estimated he was better off doing this, ensuring that all three of his attempts were as similar to one another as possible. Using a different reagent each time would likely hurt him more.
‘So far, so good.’ he thought as he played around with the enchantments, responding to the concoction’s whims.
Objectively speaking, the session was going terribly, as he’d already ruined a third of the ingredients less than a minute in. He wasn’t deterred in the slightest, however, his enhanced eyes gathering valuable feedback with every passing moment. Information that would help him greatly in his next attempt.
‘Not a single drop…’ he smiled bitterly, staring at the inert sludge inside the cauldron.
He’d known not to expect anything from the first batch, though he’d secretly hoped to salvage at least some of it. This was just a single step of pacification, after all. Nothing too revolutionary.
‘It is what it is. I just need to make the last two batches count.’
Washing his equipment over a wooden basin, he left everything to dry by the window for a few minutes, as he allowed the gentle breeze to soothe some of his fatigue away. It wasn’t until an hour later that he was in the right headspace to give this another shot.
This time, Percy was better prepared right off the bat. Avoiding some crucial mistakes he’d made early on the previous time, he preserved a lot of the ingredients as he progressed through the session. That said, he didn’t allow himself to relax for a second, knowing he was still doing far worse than he would be with some proper practice.
‘180 drops.’ he estimated, distilling the foam inside a couple of vials.
Shaking them a little, he spent a few moments appreciating the pale green liquid swirling within them. These were essentially regeneration potions now. They could be more useful in a fight than regular healing potions under some circumstances, but he figured the potions he actually wanted to brew would help him more.
Mentally calculating what this output meant for his yield, Percy soon grimaced. Nearly two doses were infinitely better than zero, but he’d still started his attempt with four vials of healing potions. Had he been better at this, he should have preserved more than three quarters of that.
‘And I’ll still lose more in the next steps…’
He shrugged. The only thing he could do was to try and improve from here on out.
The third attempt got him around two and a half vials of regeneration potion, bringing the total to just over four. Still not perfect, but good enough. There were some inevitable losses during the final two steps too, though not nearly as many as before.
By the time he was completely done, Percy had collected two and a half vials of a brown syrupy liquid. Its appearance somewhat resembled the rejuvenation potion he had used before, though its colour was a little closer to yellow. It smelled of mint, yet it also left a lingering burn in his nose, subtly hinting at its spicy flavour. Some bubbles faintly fizzed through its volume, as the fluid struggled to contain the magical fury sealed within it.
‘This should barely be enough to affect my body for a few minutes.’
He could probably withstand a little more than that, thanks to his second core and his boosting art. Well, assuming the recipe worked in reality as it did in his mind. Still, it was better not to drink too much on his first try, since he wouldn’t have an opportunity to actually test the potion’s effects before then.
Pouring the three vials inside a small leather flask – for easier access – he hung it to his waist, nodding in satisfaction. Hopefully he’d never have to use it, but just having it with him already made him a little more confident in leaving the mansion without his trusty armour.
He knew what to call it too, having settled on its name a long time ago.
The trollsfury potion.