Dago burped, clearly having eaten his fill, as he sat on the wooden stump.
“If this method works, I won’t have to worry about magic stones anymore,” he thought.
He stood up, walked into the Shelter, and opened his satchel.
Inside, moonlit flowers, the size of ginseng blossoms, were neatly stacked, emitting a faint, refreshing fragrance that invigorated him with each deep breath.
He counted six plants, each with six petals.
Indeed, he planned to concoct Mental Potions according to Rosalind the Wizard’s manuscript.
According to the steps in the manuscript, the first step was to air-dry the entire moonlight flower for one day...
It couldn't be exposed to sunlight during the day, and at night, it had to be placed under the moonlight of the Origin Moon to dry for one night.
Dago first placed the moonlight flowers, one by one, in a cool, shaded corner of the Shelter.
“I’ll deal with the rest tonight; for now, I’ll go cultivate to make progress,” Dago said, dusting the dirt from his hands.
He then left the Shelter and went to the open space outside to cultivate and gain progress points.
Time slowly passed under the icy wind, and the trees around the Shelter were more or less impaled with icicles, like an icicle hell.
Dago, however, seemed oblivious, meditating and casting spells mechanically.
In the evening, Dago finally exited his cultivation state to make a fire and cook.
With delicious food to comfort his weary body and mind, Dago slowly recovered his energy.
Unbeknownst to him, the twin moons climbed into the night sky, their radiance blanketing the Emerald Forest.
Dago returned to the Shelter, took out the significantly withered moonlight flowers, and placed them on a stone under the moon’s gentle light.
The moonlight from the Origin Moon caressed the withered moonlight flowers like silk.
Their petals seemed to be infused with magical power by the moonlight; the six pale purple petals plumped up again, emitting a faint glow.
Dago quietly admired this magical and beautiful scene for a while before turning to cultivate in the open space of the Shelter until he was tired and returned to sleep.
In the early morning, before dawn, the wooden door of the Shelter was pushed open by a sleepy, yawning Dago.
He hadn’t cultivated too late last night because he needed to wake up early to collect the moonlight flowers and protect them from sunlight.
Otherwise, it would severely affect the extraordinary substances contained in the moonlight flowers, leading to a lower quality of the Mental Potion.
Walking to the drying stone, he collected the six moonlight flowers; their petals were still plump, while the rest of their parts had withered and dried.
After putting them back in the Shelter, Dago went out again to prepare breakfast: simple noodles with stewed meat strips.
At the same time, he also prepared to collect “morning dew,” which was another ingredient for the Mental Potion...
The dew needed to be collected into a glass bottle under the first ray of morning sun.
The moment the sun rose was the most magnificent awakening of heaven and earth—darkness had not yet completely receded, but light, with its scorching power, had already broken through the clouds, illuminating the dew on the grass leaves, each droplet becoming a tiny sun.
“Gurgle gurgle—”
His small iron pot hung on a triangular iron stand over the campfire in the open space, boiling with his breakfast for the day.
Meanwhile, Dago was diligently collecting dew from the grass nearby, his backside sticking out, with three glass bottles full of morning dew hanging from his belt.
As the sun gradually rose, Dago stopped collecting, held his small iron pot, and slurped his noodles while pondering his next plan.
By the afternoon, the moonlight flower petals would meet the standard for concocting Mental Potions, and he still needed to collect some two-eared grass from the forest, which was relatively common there.
Then, all the magical materials needed for the Mental Potion would be gathered, and he could begin to try concocting it.
Dago didn’t think he was some genius potion master; he couldn’t skimp on any of the time that needed to be spent.
Around seven or eight in the morning, Dago walked through the quiet forest, looking for two-eared grass as if on a leisurely stroll, glancing here and there.
He occasionally shot an Air Bullet into the sky, using the sound to drive away small animals nearby, preventing them from disturbing his search for two-eared grass.
This magical plant had a very distinctive appearance, just like its name, growing two grass blades shaped like ears.
It took him about an hour to find this peculiar plant, and another ten minutes to collect and pack it into his satchel before he prepared to head back.
After returning to the Shelter, he put away the collected materials, washed the dirt from his hands...
He then turned and went back to the open space outside to cultivate diligently until four in the afternoon, having eaten a simple magic beast meat sandwich for lunch.
........
Sunlight streamed into the open door of the Shelter, illuminating the interior brightly.
Dago sat behind his newly built small wooden table, which was crooked and ugly but stable enough that he could even jump and dance on it without issue.
Neatly arranged on the small wooden table were the Potion Crafting tools he had purchased earlier at Academy Square: a silver crucible, a stone mortar, a glass pestle, a brass scale, and so on.
Next, he planned to use the cold brew method from his previous life to concoct the Mental Potion; this was a completely new attempt.
The cold brew method was mostly used for tea and coffee in his previous life, so Dago knew a little about it; after all, he hadn’t eaten pork, but he had seen pigs run, right? However, he wasn’t confident, taking it one step at a time.
The extraordinary substances contained in the moonlight flower preferred cold over heat; much of their medicinal properties would be lost under the scorching of magic flames...
Using the cold brew method, which utilized a low-temperature environment for selective extraction, should be more effective.
Based on Dago's research into the moonlight flower and Rosalind the Wizard’s manuscript, he believed this method could be magically modified for Mental Potion concoction.
First, he ground twelve pale purple moonlight flower petals into powder in the stone mortar with the glass pestle, then poured the powder into the silver crucible.
Next, he ground the two-eared grass into juice using the same method, then weighed an appropriate amount of two-eared grass juice and morning dew with the brass scale.
He mixed the three materials, poured them into the silver crucible, and stirred them. According to the Wizarding World’s method, the next step would be to apply magic flames to boil it and then send it to a condensing device for collection.
But Dago did the opposite; he planned to cold brew the liquid in the silver crucible with ice water.
A halo appeared and swirled in his eyes, using his mental power to awaken the dormant ice elements...
A small corner of the white glove floated out and fell into the mixed liquid in the silver crucible.
Dago slowly stirred with a glass stirring rod, gradually increasing his mental power output during this time, controlling the temperature of the mixed liquid.
As wisps of cold air drifted from the silver crucible, the mixed liquid inside gradually cooled, and Dago stared intently at the changes within.
The result disappointed him; he only got a single, rock-hard block of frozen mixed liquid. He had failed.
“Bang!” With a dull thud, the ice block shattered. The force was not great, causing no damage to the silver crucible, but splattering ice shards of the liquid everywhere.
Dago expressionlessly brushed the ice shards from his robe.
“What exactly went wrong?” Dago recalled his recent failure, analyzing the reasons for it.
He still had twenty-four moonlight flower petals left, meaning two more chances.
Dago took a towel and wiped away the melted ice water that had splashed onto his face.
He decided to try again, this time activating his mental vision to observe the flow of energy particles in the mixed liquid.
He ground the moonlight flower petals into powder, his mental vision emitting a faint silver glow.
The two-eared grass juice, ground into a paste, emitted a light green glow, and the dew contained faint orange light.
Mixing and stirring the three, a small amount of extraordinary substance with a purple glow slowly precipitated and dissolved into the water.
Then Dago’s ice elements mixed in, and as he outputted his mental power...
The ice elements became more and more active, the temperature dropped further, and the extraordinary substance emitting a purple glow became increasingly unstable until it spontaneously combusted.
Another “Bang!” The frozen mixed liquid shattered, and Dago picked up the towel again to wipe the liquid that had splashed onto his face.
Now he understood: the extraordinary substance with the purple glow became increasingly unstable in a low-temperature environment.
Indeed, none of the common magic potion formulas circulating in the Wizarding World had any superfluous ingredients.
They also knew that moonlight flowers would lose much of their medicinal properties at high temperatures. The Wizarding World’s solution was to add an additional material containing fire elements to increase the mixed liquid’s high-temperature adaptability of the extraordinary substances.
“Only one last chance left, otherwise I’ll have to risk my life again to pick moonlight flowers from Moonlight Lake.”
Dago sighed lightly; he didn’t want to risk his life there again anytime soon.
That dangerous lake where the moonlight flowers grew had been named Moonlight Lake by him, a beautiful name.
He hoped his last attempt would go as he wished.
The third attempt began. This time, Dago excluded the morning dew and directly mixed the moonlight flower petal powder and the two-eared grass juice into the ice water frozen by the Ice Crystal Technique.
This time, the silver-glowing substance in the moonlight flower powder absorbed the light green glow of the two-eared grass juice, but it couldn't integrate with the ice elements in the ice water.
Dago continuously controlled the output of mental power to the ice elements until an hour later, in ice water with a specific activity level of ice elements.
Just like the morning dew as a magic potion ingredient, his ice water containing ice elements of a specific activity level also counted as a magic potion ingredient.
Only then did the silver-glowing substance in the magic potion liquid absorb the ice elements, forming thumb-sized silvery-white ice blocks floating on the ice water.
The system panel instantly popped up.
【Detected cultivatable skill: <<Potion Crafting>>, do you wish to cultivate?】
Dago decisively clicked yes. He hadn't expected this could also be incorporated into the system.
He had been constantly expending mental power to control the ice elements, searching for a balance point, and by the end, both his mental and physical strength felt like they couldn't keep up; he was utterly exhausted.
He scooped up all the silvery-white ice blocks, put them into a glass bottle, and placed it on the small wooden table, waiting for time to melt them.
He, meanwhile, washed a towel, dabbed it with water, patted it on his face, and wiped away the fatigue from his brow.
