Anorak held his head in his hand as he sat behind his desk, poring over reports in his dim, candlelit observatory. They'd been flooding in for weeks now, but each one came back with negative results. He'd sent out hundreds of teams to the ends of the world, ranging from a dozen copper-ranked teams all the way up to a few gold ones. Every single one had gone out searching for the thing that Anorak had summoned. He was still waiting on a few more reports to come in, but he wasn't holding out hope.

In the beginning, he had been confident that they'd be able to find what had been summoned, he'd designed the locating rituals based on the unique energy given off by his summoning, afterall. That kind of ritual should have been more than strong enough to sniff out even the lowliest of non-magical beings, but that confidence waned with each subsequent report he read. Initially, he feared that perhaps some groups had done the locating ritual wrong, but when assigning the contracts Anorak had made sure that each team had at least one person knowledgeable in general magical theory, enough to read the results of the ritual. Those worries were also dispelled once he began sifting through the reports; each one was thorough, detailing the results of the rituals performed. So all that was left to do was to go through each report looking for any discrepancies that might indicate where the summon had appeared.

The only problem was that Anorak had no clue what he had summoned, not even if it was an object or a living thing. Many of his contemporaries would consider him one of the smartest men on the planet, at least when it came to ritual magic. It was the reason why he'd been allowed to occupy most of an entire tower at one of the most prestigious academies in the world. But when it came to the summoning circle that he'd used over two months ago, he was way out of his depth.

The ritual he'd performed was wildly complex and far beyond anything that should exist on Adona as a world whose magical density never rose above gold rank. It was to the point that he'd even used up almost all of his peak gold-rank mana and that of nearly a dozen gold-rank mana batteries. Many had seen the summoning circle and praised Anorak for his brilliance in devising such a complex ritual. The thing was, it wasn't his to take credit for.

Some years ago, he experienced a strange dream. He'd been placed in a disorienting nothingness when an unknown being of vast power had come to Anorak, instructing him on how to create the summoning circle. He had never heard the being's voice nor seen its form, the instructions and information on how to build the circle flashing before his mind's eye in a storm of confusing impressions not fit for the human mind, no matter what rank. Even long after he'd experienced that strange nightmare he could feel that immense presence lingering nearby whenever he closed his eyes. Images and diagrams constantly flashed into his mind, guiding and urging him down a path that led to the summoning of a creature or object of unknown origin and purpose. He didn't know what that thing wanted or why; there was never any conversation with that terrifying being. All he knew was that he had to complete the summoning as soon as possible.

The only thing that stopped him from freaking out over not being able to find what had been summoned was the fact that Anorak hadn't been visited by the presence since the summoning. He hoped that meant that whatever he had summoned was still out there, something he was happy to let happen. The last thing Anorak wanted was to be involved with that being again.

Shuddering at the memory of that vast and alien presence, Anorak continued to read through the reports, "Whatever it is I summoned, I just hope it's not as terrifying as that thing."

***

As soon as morning training was over, Lukas made straight for his as-yet untouched lab. Akira had shown some interest in what Lukas was planning, curious about what the alchemical process was like and how he'd improve his craft. That curiosity had quickly evaporated once Lukas began going on about the magical theory he'd been consuming and how it related to alchemy and other crafting classes. Though she did notice how much more talkative he was and how he opened up now that he was speaking on a topic he was interested in, compared to some of their other conversations. He even went so far as to invite Akira to watch as he crafted potions and poisons.

Akira had politely declined.

Entering the lab, Lukas pulled out his cauldron and sat at the lab table. Taking out his notebook from his inventory, he set it and the ingredients he'd be using later aside. Rubbing his hands together with anticipation, he got to work. He wouldn't begin experimenting right away; instead, he wanted to do some normal crafting to make sure he hadn't forgotten anything or gotten rusty. So, for the next hour Lukas crafted health, stamina, and mana potions as well as a few necrotic and hemotoxic poisons like he normally would.

Even without testing out his new theories, everything he made saw vast improvements compared to what he was producing before.

[Health Potion (Lesser)] - Restores 122 health points when consumed.

[Stamina Potion (Lesser)] - Restores 114 stamina when consumed.

[Mana Potion (Lesser)] - Restores 118 mana when consumed.

[Hemotoxic Poison (Lesser)] - Increases the bleeding of afflicted enemies, making injuries harder to heal.

[Necrotic Poison (Lesser)] - Kills off biological material in an affected area, making injuries extremely difficult to heal.

Before, the improvements Lukas made were small and incremental, coming as he became increasingly familiar with the process of concocting. Now, his progress was fueled by his increased magical knowledge, as well as the meditation and mana control techniques he'd been practicing. Granted, it hadn't been that long since he began learning and practicing, but that just went to show how little he knew and how far he had to go.

Now that Lukas was happy with his creations and back in the swing of things he felt ready to try out some new things. The only problem was that Lukas's inspirations required him to scrap everything related to the way he concocted his potions and poisons.

The basis for his idea was magical resonance, or the way magical elements interacted with one another. In rituals and arrays runes, sigils, and other patterns came together to create an effect, and what Lukas wanted to do was take that idea and apply it to his alchemy.

He wasn't entirely sure how he was going to do this, as he wasn't exactly an expert in magical resonance. All he knew was that the runes and other parts of a magical emplacement somehow interacted with one another, almost like they were connected by wires that controlled and regulated the flow of magic through said emplacement.

Previously, the way Lukas controlled the energies within a concoction was more similar to trapping the energies in boxes, putting holes in those boxes and allowing the energies to intermingle in a way that would allow the catalyst to do its work without being overpowered by the energies of the main ingredient. This was wildly inefficient, as it meant large amounts of energy within the concoction were sitting around doing nothing, slowly dispersing. The way Lukas's concoction improved was by making the process quicker so that less energy was wasted.

What Lukas wanted to do was create a way for the energies to meet naturally and quickly without going out of control. So far, what he had come up with was what could be described as piping or making a complex intersection that would let the energies travel and flow neatly. What came after that was figuring out the ratios at which the energies needed to be introduced. Was it a 2:1 ratio? Maybe 3.5:1? Then there would be bottlenecks that needed to be sorted out.

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

These were just issues he could come up with off the top of his head, and he was expecting plenty of other problems going forward. Lukas didn't mind, though, because he knew if his idea worked then he'd have a way to drastically improve his concoctions as well as something that could be improved upon in the future.

Excited to get started, Lukas began his first round of crafting and tried to employ his crazy new idea. Suffice it to say that he failed nearly instantly—which was expected. He had bottled up the energies of the main ingredient and the catalyst, then created tunnels or pathways with his mana for the energies to travel along. At first things seemed rather promising, but as more and more energy accumulated in the pathways it became volatile and began breaking down, in the same way two trains hurtling toward one another was volatile.

Lukas took notes on the results and threw himself back into it, wasting resources like it was nothing. The hardest part was figuring out how much of each energy was needed whenever they met and how to prevent more energy from dogpiling while it was still mixing. As Lukas kept experimenting, he added more pathways for the energy to travel through, making them wider or smaller, having them split before meeting again or just merging with other pathways. Eventually it just looked like a tangled ball of noodles, but with Lukas's connection to his mana he was able to keep track of it. Mostly.

After a few hours, Lukas finally had his first success. There was no epiphany or moment where everything clicked into place; instead, it was a happy little accident. Lukas created what he was beginning to call his webs of mana; this iteration was slightly different than the last in that the pathways that carried the main ingredient's energies were smaller and fewer than those of the catalyst. The merging of the two energies was still sloppy and messy, but it worked.

[Mana Potion (Lesser)] - Has been successfully crafted. Experience earned.

Elated with his first success, Lukas quickly bottled up the potions, getting four of them. Identifying one of the potions, he was a little disappointed, even if it was expected.

[Mana Potion (Lesser)] - Restores 62 mana when consumed.

It was worse than the potions he'd made earlier using his normal crafting method, but it was just the first success and there was plenty of room for improvement. Improvement that came with each crafting attempt. There were a few hiccups as he backtracked, but Lukas learned from those mistakes as he began to notice certain patterns in the webs that worked the best. He was able to pick them out with his Amber Eye of the Alchemist ability, and see that the flow of energies was more in line with what he was looking for and more similar to the mana flow of a ritual than anything.

It was an interesting discovery, and Lukas hadn't noticed it at first because he wasn't looking for such a thing. After all, why would the energies within an alchemical concoction flow like the mana in a ritual? The overlap was fascinating to Lukas and he promised himself that he'd look into it at a later point, sticking with his alchemy before he got too distracted.

With this new discovery, Lukas began looking for certain flows of energy and the signs that indicated they needed to be changed and how, something he had learned while practicing ritual diagrams. It was harder in his concoctions as he was dealing with a three-dimensional construct in his webs while ritual circles were two-dimensional. Still, the principles were rather similar and Lukas had a few tweaks to make.

Progress from there was a lot faster as everything began to come together. Each little adjustment in the pathways of the webs led to a slight improvement and increased efficiency until it finally happened.

[Mana Potion (Common)] - Has been successfully crafted. Experience earned.

"Fuck yeah! It's about time!" Lukas cheered.

After getting five bottles out of the batch, Lukas identified one of the potions and couldn't stop himself from smiling.

[Mana Potion (Common)] - Restores 200 mana when consumed.

It was a massive increase compared to what he was making before, likely a result of the increased rarity. Now he had a mana potion capable of restoring a fifth of his mana pool. It didn't seem like a lot, but Lukas was nowhere close to spending 200 mana on anything at the moment. All that mattered was the fact that Lukas had hit his target of making a common rarity potion, and with a look out the window, he could see that it was the late afternoon, giving him plenty of time to make other potions and poisons.

From there Lukas set the goal of making at least one common rarity potion and poison of each type, which was a harder goal to reach than he initially realized. He tried to use the mana web he'd used when making the common rarity mana potion when attempting to make health potions, but found that the concoction failed rapidly and explosively, leaving him with a few burns. This was how Lukas discovered that each energy combination required its own unique mana web based on the way the energies interacted. Like a fingerprint, every one was unique.

It was a massive pain in the ass, but also very interesting and served as a great new puzzle Lukas could lose himself in as he attempted to unlock the secrets of his new concocting method.

Following the same method of improvement and innovation he'd used when coming up with his mana web for mana potions, Lukas was able to get himself on the right track when it came to making a web for health potions. What Lukas found most fascinating about the process was how not every part of the web needed to be changed in order to suit the energy that came from the Blood Moon Lily. Some parts of the web needed little to no change, and while Lukas was far from being able to come to a solid conclusion on why, he suspected it was due to some kind of overlap in both energies.

Two and a half hours later, Lukas had his first common rarity health potion.

[Health Potion (Common)] - Restores 202 health points when consumed.

The rest of the day was spent piecing together the mana webs used for the other potion and poison types. And just like with the health and mana potions he found various overlaps between the different types of webs. Were these patterns similar to the way different rituals had similar runes and sigils? It seemed likely, though it was too early to tell, and Lukas was writing down detailed diagrams of the mana webs he was creating for later reference. It was difficult to put something three-dimensional down in two dimensions, but Lukas did it in a way that made sense to him so he could use the diagrams later.

The most challenging part of the whole endeavor was making the gaseous potions and poisons. This was due to having a third ingredient, the Caydum Powder, which itself had a strange effect on the way the energies interacted. Lukas still had no idea exactly what the Caydum Powder did to the distilled water, as it was a concept way above his head, but that was an issue for later as all he needed at the present was to figure out how to make webs for these gaseous concoctions.

The webs were quite similar to those of the normal potions and poisons, but off in strange and seemingly random ways. Unable to really understand the strange powder, Lukas just powered through and promised himself that he'd ask Sera about it some other day. But he struggled to get it done; he did manage it, but only after spending twice as long as it took to create his first web for the mana potions. There were so many small tweaks and changes that needed to be made, but could easily be overlooked if not careful enough.

Once he had them all down, Lukas checked all his notes and diagrams before taking a much-needed break. Those gaseous potions had been a real pain in the ass and he was just happy that he'd gotten it done.

When he was finished with his break, he'd go back and start pumping out common rarity concoctions, because he couldn't wait to test them out on some beasts tomorrow.

***

Seraphina had watched intently as Lukas spent the day in the lab. She knew that he had gained some inspiration for his alchemy from all the magical theory he'd been absorbing, because how couldn't he? The way he did alchemy was just terrible and his learning about even the most basic of magic theory would help him make connections to certain topics within alchemy and thus help him improve.

What she had not expected was for the little mortal to go make things harder on himself by trying to explore a form of alchemy she wasn't even sure she had seen before. The concept was interesting and novel, and she could easily detect the echoes of magical resonance within what he was doing, but he was doing it in a way that was separate from magical resonance altogether. There were no independent parts within the concoction that needed to resonate with one another, as it was all connected by the strings of mana he was using to control it all. Despite that, the effects and underlying patterns were still there in a way and clear to her.

Lukas's attempts were crude and fumbling at this stage, but what he was doing showed signs of promise going forward inside and outside of alchemy.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.