"Wizard's Oak, huh? Interesting. It says it's 'Lowest-Grade', so it should be able to take in even more mana than this…" Eisen muttered in a low voice as he looked at the light-colored wood in his hands. "Bree, do you think this works to make a wand out of?" the old man asked curiously as he handed the Fey-Kin girl the block of wood.
She closely looked at the wood and twisted and turned it a few times, before slowly nodding. "I think so, yeah. I doubt it can make a staff that really has a lot of, or rather any, effects, but it should work to make a simple wand. But I think most actual wands are made out of at least Low-Grade magic wood… That should take maybe another day at this speed?" Bree said while handing back the piece of wood to Eisen, and he nodded in understanding.
"Got it. I'll wait for that then, but first I'll make a prototype to see how this works, and how well this works." Eisen said quietly as he sat down on the carriage's bed-turned-bench after grabbing his carving knife. "That's all I need to do, right? Just carve it into the right shape?" He asked as he began to get to work, immediately noticing that it was actually quite a bit harder to work with this than regular oak, and Bree quickly nodded.
"Mhm, for basic wands and staffs, yeah… but if you want some for specific types of magic, like for a specific element, then you need to add other stuff into it as well. Like certain gems or plants." She explained as Eisen continued carving a simple staff.
"Thanks. Hmm, now that I see all these wooden shavings… I wonder what would happen if I smoked meat with this?" After Eisen muttered this out lowly, he chose to make some magical applewood as well at some point. Applewood in general was his favorite thing to smoke meat with, so he wanted to know if its magical version would give smoked meat some special effects. But that wasn't Eisen's priority at the moment, just some simple curiosity.
For now, Eisen simply continued carving for a little while, until he was holding what was basically just a straight stick with a relatively smooth surface. After all, a simple wand didn't look any different to this, right?
But after that, Eisen simply sanded down the surface a little bit, treated the wooden surface in the way that he always did, and then set it down to let it dry. As long as Eisen could see that this was accepted as a wand, he would be happy. He would make proper wands and staffs later, once the wood in the tube absorbed more mana.
Which also meant that Eisen needed another thing to make today, or else he would simply be wasting time. Either way, once the wood completely dried, Eisen grabbed the wand and acknowledged it as finished, after which the information window popped up.
[Simple Lowest-Grade Wand]
[Quality – Perfect][Rank - 2]
[Description] A simple wand made by the Omni Craftsmaster Eisen. It has been made out of Lowest-Grade Wizard's Oak, so it has only minimal effects on magic
[Effect] +1 INT
Eisen smiled as he looked at the description floating in front of his eyes before waving it away and looking at the wand in his hands. "Alright, perfect! This worked out pretty well, huh? It can't do anything special, but I didn't expect it to, really." He muttered to himself as he then looked over to Bree.
"So, how do you use this now?" Eisen asked her, before she swiftly explained. "Ah, I think you just need to cast magic through that wand now! I mean, that should be it at the very least. I don't really use staffs or wands all that often, because they're really expensive."
Eisen looked over at the tube in the corner as well as his soul generators, before slowly nodding. "Yeah, I can see why that is. But don't worry, I'll make a staff for you at some point, once the material is a bit better. And I'll make a new hammer for you as well, of course. The one you've been using up until now doesn't seem to be in great quality, to be honest."
"No, it's fine! It's great, I like it, don't worry…" Bree slightly protested as she looked at the large hammer standing in the corner, and everyone in the group looked at her and Eisen confused.
"Wait, that's Bree's? That… does not fit all that well…" Komer whispered to himself with a frown, and Eisen simply chuckled. "Yeah, I can see what you mean. But it is pretty good for her. Out of her physical stats, her strength stat is the highest, so something with brute force is great as a weapon. And since she can't use combat magic, she has to defend herself with a physical weapon if necessary." Eisen explained as he got items and materials ready for what he was about to make next.
"Now then, Komer, do you want me to teach you about some crafting methods again? I wanted to do some things with alchemy." Eisen explained, before setting everything up on the worktable once he made sure everyone was done eating, and Komer nodded happily before the rest of the group chose to go to their 'posts' as well, meaning that Kiron sat down on the roof while Bree and Sky chose to start driving again after hooking Cabarum back up to the carriage.
"Alright, the basics of alchemy are just that, basic. It's nothing hard, really. It's just grinding things down, mixing them with water, and then boiling that water away, that's about it. To make it really work, you need to mix whatever herb you ground down with mana crystals that were ground down as well. Depending on the ratio, the end product's state changes. Sometimes it's Jelly, sometimes a liquid, and sometimes a gas." Eisen explained as he began grinding down a small quantity of dried amran petals, with the same amount of mana crystals, so that he could make just a small batch of one potion. After mixing the two powders with water, he then began distilling that water away, saving it in a regular bottle. Even though he didn't directly have a use for it at the moment, there was no need to waste it in the end.
After the potion was then finished a few minutes later, he poured it into a small wooden bowl before grabbing some more amran and mana crystals, before grinding them down in a ratio of 1 to 3 of amran to mana crystals, to make a thick healing jelly.
A few minutes later, he had both of these variants in separate bowls, and turned back over to Komer. "What I want to make is a simple balm. I know it may sound ridiculous considering that we have these potions, but they're actually not omnipotent. You can replenish HP and heal shallow cuts, but deeper injuries, such as broken bones, strong bruising, or deep cuts can't be simply healed like that. You need something that constantly heals you over time. I applied some jelly like this to the wound of a Hobgoblin before, and it seemed to help, so I wanted to make something specifically meant to be put on for some time."
"Ahh, got it… But why did you make two different things then? Will you mix these together now or something?" Komer asked, and Eisen simply shook his head.
"I won't, no. I just want to see what actually works. You see, the more solid the end product through alchemy is, the better it can treat a specific area. For example, health mist can give a small healing effect to a larger area as long as everyone breathes it in, health potions can heal small injuries on your hole body if you ingest it, and health jelly can heal a specific part of your body by being absorbed over time. So I want to see what's more effective, Jelly or Potions, when used in making a balm." After Eisen explained this, he pointed over to a small box in the corner.
"Can you grab that over there? It's Beeswax, we need that for the balm."
Immediately, Komer jumped up and grabbed the box filled with chunks taken from not only the Mother Hive where he found Melissa's egg, but also different smaller hives that he destroyed in different areas before then.
While Komer grabbed the box, Eisen got out a small metal pot, which he then placed above a flame-enchanted mana crystal with the help of a metal tripod to melt the beeswax down. "And now?" Komer asked curiously, while Eisen simply poured the regular health potion into the pot with the molten beeswax, properly mixing both together and letting them sit over low heat for a while, during which he looked over at Komer.
"Usually, what you would do to make a balm is to mix the herbs that you have with oil, let that sit for a few weeks, and then mix the pure oil with beeswax, but what I want to do is just transform something that I know works incredibly well into something that can be easily applied to your skin, so I do it this way. I might try doing it the classic way as well at some point, but for now, this should be more effective." Eisen explained, and Komer nodded after listening closely to everything that he had been saying.s
"Got it! And how are you going to mix the other one with the beeswax? Can you melt that down too?" The young merchant asked as he pointed at the bowl with the health jelly, and Eisen shook his head.
"I doubt I can. I'll just use 'softening' to make it as liquid as possible, so it should work then." He explained, before holding his hand over the bowl, letting the jelly slowly turn into a thick liquid that would just barely be passable for using for a balm like this.
Once the first balm prototype was finished, Eisen placed it into a small bowl again, before making the second balm from the health jelly instead.
After a few minutes, this was finished as well, and Eisen placed this into a different bowl to compare the two products, simply looking at their descriptions at first.
[Healing Balm]
[Quality - Low][Rank - 2]
[Description] A Healing Balm made by the Omni Craftsmaster Eisen. It is basically unusable as a balm since it needs to be ingested to work, but due to the crafter's rank, it still has a minimal healing effect when applied to bare skin.
[Effect] Heals shallow cuts within 1 hour when applied to skin; Heals 200HP when ingested
[Healing Balm]
[Quality – Perfect][Rank – 2]
[Description] A Healing Balm made by the Omni Craftsmaster Eisen. It has a strong healing affect when applied to skin, especially when done so regularly over a longer period of time.
[Effect] Heals deep wounds over time
With a loud sigh, Eisen nodded while trying to think about what to do with the healing balm now. It seemed to be worse than a regular potion when ingested as well, so it was basically useless.
"Alright, seems like the one made with the potion is absolute trash, so I'll make the one out of the jelly again." Eisen told Komer as he turned over to him, grabbing the materials while he was at it.
"Really? It looks basically the same though…" Komer said with surprise as he looked at them both, and Eisen nodded. "Yeah, they're both technically Healing Balms as well, but because you need to usually drink potions, that same thing has been taken over by the balm. So that it works best, it needs to be ingested, and even then it works worse than a regular balm. But because jellies are already absorbed through the skin, it works a lot better. I figured this would be the case, but I wanted to make sure."
After Eisen explained this, he spent the next while making these Health Jellies, and turning them into balm.