Chapter 32: Alchemic Extravaganza

Chapter 32: Alchemic Extravaganza

Chapter 32

After waking from a wondrous nap, there wasnt much time left in the day. Kai helped his mother cook dinner and spent the rest of the evening with his family.

Alana had brought Kea around to witness different jobs, but she didnt show interest in any of them.

Dont worry sweetie, there is still time, Alana said. Kai could clearly see that her reassurances were making Kea more anxious. Their mother was doing what she thought best with the options they had.

It was unfair to put that pressure on a child, but this was how things worked in the archipelago. If you decided late, your odds to get a good profession would plummet. The earlier she got started the better. The only other option was choosing for her, which was what happened in most families.

He wasnt the only one seeing Keas distress. Eleni moved the conversation away from the topic to what she did that day. Kai was not sure how much that helped, considering she started talking about her apprenticeship.

Pearling was a very interesting job in the Baquaire Archipelago. The Shallow Sea's low depth and the powerful tides created a unique environment. If the tideseers kept the closest eyes on the cycles of the sea, pearl hunters were a close second. That was also how Alana met Eles mentor and got her an apprenticeship.

Each time the waters retreated they presented several possibilities. Be it reaching depths previously impossible, exploring underwater caves or just frantically searching the exposed seafloor. The low tide was so convenient to hunt for pearls, there was little point in going out any other time.

Eles mentor was teaching her the tricks of deep diving. But until she got a profession, she mainly hunted on the exposed seabed, since it was much safer.

Why dont you use Mana Sense? Kai asked.

Ele talked about several searching skills, but no Mana Sense. It was weird. What better way to find rare treasures than with mana?

Eleni smiled at him, Not everyone is as good as you with mana skills, little brother. I dont have the skill.

Oh Kai said, embarrassed.

He forgot how hard it was to unlock the skill without the right conditions. You could also unlock it through the use of evolved skills that used mana, but they were not easy to obtain. Even if his older sister was very mature, she was thirteen. She didnt have the time to evolve many skills yet.

Ele didnt seem offended, but he felt bad for asking. Sorry

Dont worry. My mentor doesnt use it either. She says it requires too much training for it to become useful. Plus not all pearls are mana-rich treasures. The largest part of a pearl hunter's earnings are through common pearls. Mana pearls are valuable, but finding them is up to chance. You cant rely on them.

Kais hand unconsciously moved to the green pearl at his wrist. Instead of feeling better, he felt worse. He had known the bracelet she gifted him for his seventh birthday was precious, but not how much. Then an idea hit him.

Kai turned to look his sister in the eye, Hypothetically speaking if you had Mana Sense right now, would you use it?

His sister looked at him curiously, thoughtful. She was considering the question seriously, My mentor doesnt use it, but she got the skill too late and now has her profession to help her. If I had access to Mana Sense right now probably I would use it.

After a short pause, she added, But I dont think its worth asking your teacher for such a favor.

She easily guessed where he was going, but his sister misunderstood his intentions.

I think I can help you without asking for any favor, He said in a confident tone.

At his proclamation followed an awkward silence, the whole family had a skeptical look on their faces. Alana was hiding it well, Kea not at all, but no one seemed to believe him.

Ouch my pride

It was only a half-baked plan, but he had a plan nonetheless. If the best way to get Mana Sense was being exposed to different concentrations of mana so you would notice the difference. Why couldnt he use his own mana to achieve the same?

To be honest, it was a bit of a stretch. He had no proof that it would work, but why not try? People with Mana Manipulation were pretty rare. Maybe it was a common way to get the skill in other places.

The testing of the thirteen new processing ideas proceeded smoothly. It wasnt like he could truly fail while using stable pseudo-mana herbs. The success hinged more on how much better or worse the final result was compared to using standard methods.

He had two mild successes, seven failures and four cases where his new ideas made no difference. Kai was okay with the results. His aim to integrate Inspect in his Alchemy had been a full success. Even when he failed, he felt he learned a lot and understood why it happened thanks to Inspect.

Writing down his discoveries on the decreasing pages of his notebook, Kai was ready for round two.

After a brief lunch, Kai rushed back to his room to continue. He had reached the fun part: attempting to modify five recipes. They had more steps than simple processing and were very demanding on his concentration and mana, but he hoped to try each of them at least once today. He didnt want to get to the evening with no more mana left in the tank.

This morning Kai had tried to restrict his use of Inspect, now he stopped holding back and tried to observe everything he could. The longer and more complicated the process, the more things could go wrong. Even just finding where the mistake lay could be a challenge.

As the hours passed he discovered two things: one good and one bad.

The bad one was that he might have been a bit optimistic with the mana required. With proven recipes you didnt even need to intervene at all if you did things correctly. When you improvised and tried new things, the story was entirely different. Put simply, things tended to go wrong. A lot. And you needed an equally big amount of mana to salvage things.

On a more positive note, this brought him to the good news: he wouldnt need to practice Mana Manipulation exercises today! He had no more mana left in the tank and was already below 60%.

There was no moment when something wasnt going differently from what he predicted and he had to crudely use his mana to prevent the concoction from imploding. It felt like trying to stop a house from collapsing with duct tape and prayers.

Whenever he managed to stabilize something, something else started going wrong in a never-ending cycle. Most of the time he didn't even know why or what had gone wrong, only that something most certainly had.

Testing five modified recipes in an afternoon? His mad scientist persona needed a big reality check. He barely managed to try two and they were the easiest.

His mind was completely spent. He had once again pushed Inspect beyond the limit. His only wish was to lie down and wake up in a week.

With a last effort of will he wrote down his observations while they were still fresh in his mind. He had so many questions and wished Dora was here to explain to him what he did wrong.

Kai had known having a master alchemist watching over you was a great blessing, but he had not realized how much. How many times Dora had slightly nudged him in the right direction and made him avoid pitfalls without even letting him know? He had to make sure to tell her how much he appreciated her when he got back.

***

The next few days proceeded more or less in the same fashion. Kai continued his experiments. He had nightmares of peacefully brewing over his cauldron when something went wrong. He didnt know what, but everything he tried only made the situation worse until it exploded in his face and he woke up in a sweat.

Usual stuff.

Stupid mind, youll have to do better than this. Im going to have my mad scientist phase whether you like it or not!

He had planned to try and sell his potions and remedies at the market to buy more herbs and continue his experiments. But nothing could ever be easy. Who could have predicted that people were very skeptical when a child tried to sell them suspicious-looking potions they brewed themselves?

Being a child really sucked.

His marketing strategy needed a few adjustments. First, he was only the mailboy of an old and wise apothecary who couldnt be bothered to go to the market himself. It wasnt a great story, but it was the best he could come up with. He hoped that it would become believable enough after people saw his potions worked.

Second, he changed his experiments towards the products with the highest demand: healing balms and remedies for fevers and infections. Poison to get rid of pests was also very popular with the farmers.

It wasnt easy to deceive seasoned merchants, but a bit of acting and using old Selly as an intermediary, helped him sell things at only a small price loss.

He wasnt the only apothecary in town and people preferred a reliable source when they bought their medicines.

If things went according to plan, he would start earning soon as he improved and became more efficient with the brewing. So he could leave the money he earned to his family when he had to go back to the estate.

In the meantime, Kai continued to try help his sisters get Mana Sense. They had no luck so far, but he was confident they were getting closer.