With a smile on his face, Eisen nodded and looked at the equipment in front of him. There were four main parts that seemed important. A Mortar and Pestle, a bowl, a glass flask, and a simple distillation system.
Morrom placed a small linen bag on the table that gave off a strong herbal scent. "Alright then, the first step is to choose the proper ingredients for the potion you want. Right now we will be working with Amran, a common plant that accelerates healing by a tiny amount if ingested naturally. Through alchemy, it's possible to take those healing properties and turn them into a potion. As a note so you just know that already, in higher grade potions you usually combine a few plants with similar properties to create more potent potions. However, if you're not careful, instead of a potion you get poison. Anyway, start with grinding down the dried Amran petals into a fine powder. Use the whole bag, it's already been measured."
After Morrom's explanation, Eisen nodded and poured the whole bag into the mortar and pestle, and then slowly began grinding down the vibrant red petals. After a few minutes, they were a fine powder similar in substance to flour.
"Now, pour it into the bowl, and then we'll grind down the next ingredient," Morrom said and took out a few small, rice-grain-sized crystals. "Again, these are Mana Crystals. These come from very low-level Rank 1 Monsters. There aren't many uses, but they're more than enough for a low-grade potion. Grind them down until they're of a similar consistency as the Amran powder."
Curious about the effects of the potion he would make and excited that he was learning something relatively new, Eisen simply ground down the Mana Crystals and then added them to the bowl. "And now?" He asked with a smile.
"Next, we add water to the bowl, and then make sure that the powders mix into the water properly. Then, that mixture will be put into that glass flask." Morrom said and leaned against the wall, carefully looking at what Eisen was doing, while Bree was excitedly watching Eisen's process.
Eisen nodded and did as Morrom explained and added some water from another bowl into it, and then carefully stirred the powder into it, slowly turning the water into a light red bordering on pink. After that, he poured the contents of the bowl into the flask, and then looked to the side to wait for the next step.
Morrom noticed this, walked up to the table and placed the flask onto a small metal tripod. He then hooked the top of the flask into the distillation system made up of simple glass tubes leading into another glass container. Underneath the flask, Morrom placed a small, red crystal and infused some mana into it, causing a small flame to shoot upward.
"Now, we wait. The water inside the mixture will begin to boil and evaporate, leaving a thick substance in the flask, which will then be put into a small glass bottle, and the Potion will be finished." Morrom explained, and Eisen smiled. This was a nice, relaxing process to him, watching the liquid in the bottle slowly bubble up and steam fill the tubes, dropping down water into the container at their end.
After a few minutes of this, only a thick, deep red liquid was left in the flask. Following Morrom's instructions, Eisen grabbed the flask and poured the potion into a small, thumb-sized glass bottle, and then put a small cork on the opening.
[You created a Low-Grade Health Potion]
[Low-Grade Health Potion]
[Quality - Perfect][Rank - 0]
[Description] A simple Low-Grade Health Potion made of the Amran flower.
[Effect] Recover 100 HP
"Perfect Quality, huh? I'm not surprised, really! Both the Amran powder as well as the Mana Crystal powder ended up very uniformly, and the grain size of both of them was basically identical to each other. When mixing the Powder into the water, you made sure that it truly integrates with it, instead of just stirring the water a little bit. You did everything right instinctively. Great work, Eisen! As expected of you!" Morrom exclaimed and smiled brightly, causing a notification to pop up.
[Quest Successful - Alchemy Tutorial]
[Description] You asked Morrom Marson to teach you Alchemy, and he told you to create a simple health potion to start off with. Follow his instructions to the best of your ability.
[Reward] Alchemy Skill; Experience; Increased Reputation with Morrom
[Failure] You will have to try again
[Time Limit - None]
[Bonus] Significant rise in Reputation with Morrom Marson; Unlimited access to Everything Magic's Workshop; Bonus Experience
[You have earned 500 Experience]
[You are now Level 9]
[Alchemy Skill Learned]
Eisen smiled and read through the messages, put three of his new stat point into WIS and the other two into INT, and then looked back at Morrom. "Thanks! So, I guess at the start the only things I can make are Low-Grade Potions?"
The Elf-Dwarf nodded and began to explain. "Yep, exactly. Rank 0 work is really just grinding things down, mixing them together, and boiling them. They are fairly simple processes, and as you just saw don't require the Alchemy Skill in the slightest. At Rank 1, the need for you to start using your mana will come up, so once that happens, let me know. For now, just make Health and Mana potions, they're the easiest, and I've got a huge supply of Amran and Byron. 10 of each should get you to Rank 1. And I'll pay you for them, they are a great base for other high-grade potions."
[New Quest - Health and Mana Potions]
[Description] In order to get you to Rank 1 in Alchemy, Morrom suggested that you make 10 Health and Mana Potions each.
[Reward] 5 Copper per potion
[Failure] You have to pay for the wasted ingredients
[Time Limit - None]
"Sounds good. So I need to repeat the same thing I did for the Health potion for the Mana potion, and just replace the Amran with Byron?" Eisen asked and Morrom simply smiled and nodded.
"Yep. Oh, and once you're done with one potion, just clean the flask with some water. And save the water that has been distilled out of the low-grade potions. I recommend doing all Health potions, pouring the water into some other container, and then do the same for the Mana potions. I'll explain why later once you're done with this."
"Haha, well, that makes me quite curious. But I'll get to work then. Ah, also. Do I just need to put mana into that crystal down there to light it up?"
"Hm? Oh, right. You probably never used one of those. It's a simple mana crystal that has been infused with a flame enchantment. I'll teach that to you when we get to Enchanting as well if you want me to."
"That would be great! Thanks!" Eisen smiled and scratched his beard, while Morrom placed three bags on the table. "There's enough for 10 doses in each of the two herb bags, and the other one has enough Mana Crystals for 20 doses. Just split it up. I'll be up front, I'll take today to read up on some of the basics again, it's been a while since I've done low-rank stuff. It's getting me excited, haha."
Morrom laughed and made his way back to the front of the store, leaving Eisen, Bree and the two Doubles standing there alone.
Eisen and Bree each grabbed a chair and sat down, while Eisen began making having the Doubles do tasks to give proficiency to the skill. One thing that Eisen found the day before, was that especially having them use strength for whatever reason gave a lot of proficiency. So, one thing that Eisen thought would be a good idea, is having them use strength against each other. He had the Doubles grasp each other's hands and push forward with all their might. Of course, since they had the exact same amount of strength, neither could overpower the other, but that didn't change the fact that they needed to use strength against each other. And while it didn't give a lot of proficiency, it gave a steady amount and didn't require too much Mana from Eisen, allowing him to continue his work without worrying about running out.
First, Eisen began to split up the ingredients. He emptied the bag filled with the dried Amran on the table and split it up into ten piles, and did the same for the Mana Crystals, splitting them in half first, and then one half into another ten piles, putting the rest back into the bag.
Eisen started grinding down one portion of the dried Amran petals and then put the powder into the bowl, ground down some of the Mana Crystals as well and added them to the other powder. After that, Eisen added a little bit of water and made sure the powders both managed to mix into it. Once that was done, Eisen poured the mixture into the glass flask and placed it on top of the metal tripod, connecting the opening to the distillation system, and then looked at the Red Mana Crystal underneath.
He placed his hand next to the Crystal and began concentrating, pushing his mana out of his hand into the crystal, and a small flame sparked up and began to heat up the mixture.
Taking the time it took the mixture to begin boiling, Eisen decided to prepare the next mixture, grinding up the ingredients and properly mixing them together inside of the water. Once he was done with that, the Water in the flask had been fully evaporated and Eisen could boil away the water in the next mixture, of course only after cleaning the flask.
He repeated this process until all the materials for the Health potion were used up, and then moved on to the Mana potions. He emptied the bag containing the Byron on the table. While the Amran petals looked a lot like rose petals, as they were red and about their size, the Byron petals reminded him more of those of a Blue Hydrangea.
After grinding up those dried petals, mixing them with ground up Mana Crystals, and mixing them together with water, Eisen exchanged the container filled with the distilled water with a new one and began to boil the water out of the mixture. After about three hours, Eisen was done and had 20 small glass bottles standing on the table in front of him, half filled with vibrant red Health potions, while the other half was filled with vibrant blue Mana potions, and just as he put the cork on the last one of those, he got some notifications.
[You created a Low-Grade Mana Potion]
[Low-Grade Mana Potion]
[Quality - Perfect][Rank - 0]
[Description] A simple Low-Grade Mana Potion made of the Byron flower.
[Effect] Recover 100 MP
[Alchemy reached Level 100 in Rank 0, upgrading to Rank 1]
[It is now possible to use your mana in the creation of Alchemical Products]
[Due to Ranking-up your Alchemy, you gained +1 INT and +1 WIS]
Eisen stood up and grabbed some of the potions, telling his Doubles to grab a few as well, although not as many as himself since the danger of them dropping the potions were significantly higher, and Bree was more than happy to take the rest of them.
They brought the glass bottles to the front and placed them on the counter in front of Morrom.
"Finished, eh? Did everything work out properly?" He asked while closely inspecting the different potions, placing them into a small wooden box one after another.
Eisen smiled and nodded in response. "Yes, everything worked. There wasn't much to mess up after all, haha."
"I guess so, but still, I know a lot of people that somehow messed up. Sometimes they accidentally added impurities, or somehow got the measurements messed up. But yours seem pretty much all perfect. Good job! Here's your payment!" Morrom smiled and handed Eisen a silver coin, which he quickly put into his own purse, which also completed the quest he got.
"So, was I right? Did your Rank increase to 1?" Morrom asked while placing the box of Potions underneath the table, then walked up to the door leading to the Workshop.
"Yeah, actually. Pretty much perfectly so! And what do we do now?" Eisen asked curiously and excitedly. Since his higher Rank now allowed him to add mana when using alchemy, he was sure it somehow had to do with that.
"Now, we… well, make more potions. But higher Rank ones. With a pretty specific goal in mind, actually. You're a Limitbreaker, right? Up to where did you get your Title? Two, or Three, even?" Morrom asked curiously, surprising Eisen immensely. He wasn't sure where Morrom was going with this, but he definitely wanted to know.
"I'm at the Third version, right now." The moment that Eisen said this, Morrom's eyes began to glitter. Smugly, Morrom crossed his arms and continued speaking.
"Perfect! You see, I'm actually also a Limitbreaker! And I need your help with something!"