Chapter 21: The Taste of Progress

The shrill rattle of the alarm clock echoed through the workshop just as the last trace of golden light faded beyond the window. 

Serayne snapped her head up from her book, her ears swiveling toward the noise before she remembered why she’d set it in the first place.

Almost simultaneously, a soft golden gleam rippled across the surface of the brew, much like the shimmer from her first successful matrix activation. 

Setting the manual aside, she leaned over the cauldron to inspect the contents.

Eight hours had passed, and the appearance of the draught matched the concluding stage described in the text. 

Serayne snapped her fingers, sending a pulse of mana into the matrix, and watched with deep satisfaction as the flame winked out without needing a drop of water.

That alone made taking soot to the face a dozen times worth it.

She had no intention of pouring the liquid straight into test tubes this time, however. After her reading, she had a crystal-clear idea of how many steps she had botched during her maiden run. Reaching for her slotted spoon, she began lifting out the boiled remnants of the herbs.

She transferred them onto a clean cloth draped inside a funnel above a bowl, letting the trapped liquid slowly drain through before setting the cauldron aside to cool and let the finer dregs settle to the bottom.

There was no need to stare at the pot the entire time, so she slipped out of the workshop, ate a prepared meal, and stretched her shoulders - finding that even with a far more comfortable workstation, eight hours of babysitting the process still took its toll.

About half an hour later, she returned armed with a ladle, her jigger, and the first rack of test tubes.

She ladled the brew carefully to avoid stirring up the sediment on the bottom, transferring it into the upper chamber of the filter. Once only dregs remained in the cauldron, she gathered the sludge along with the boiled herbs and squeezed every drop through the cloth.

Avelra’s notes emphasized that a potent portion of the extract stayed locked in those soaked remains; Serayne wasn't about to toss it out just because it looked unappetizing.

The reclaimed liquid went straight into the filter as well. Only then did she set aside her soiled utensils and watch the clear draught pooling in the lower reservoir.

The finished yield came to roughly two liters - considerably less than her first diluted batch, but its clarity made her take that reduction as a badge of honor.

When the last drops trickled through the cartridge, she measured out ten milliliters, filled a test tube, and pressed in the cork. Almost immediately, she glided over to the console, cradling the vial as gingerly as if a sudden jolt might shatter its magic.

Her black ears swiveled toward the screen, even if reading an appraisal hardly required sharp hearing.

[Clear Mana Draught  -  E]

[Effect: Restores 5 Mana Points per second for 10 seconds.]

[Description: Standard apprentice-tier mana draught. Serving size is slightly larger than strictly necessary, suggesting the hand of a novice alchemist. Executed by the book, without flair. Competent, yet a touch boring.]

Serayne read the effect again, then scanned the description, her smile turning increasingly incredulous with every word.

“Without flair? What am I supposed to do next time, throw in confetti?”

One ear twitched sideways while the other remained stubbornly fixed on the display, as if part of her still expected a reasonable explanation.

Last time, the brew had been trash and she was told to review the basics. Now she’d followed the manual to the letter, and apparently the problem was taking the manual too seriously.

Fine, insult my artistic sensibilities all you want, as long as the numbers check out.

And the numbers checked out brilliantly. Fifty restored Mana Points was the exact benchmark she had previously only known from Avelra’s notes.

Her short rabbit tail gave a quick twitch beneath her clothes, betraying a thrill she could no longer mask behind mock offense. Taking the vial from the console, she held it up to the light with far greater pride than her maiden attempt had ever inspired.

In her palm rested a genuine, fully realized potion - crafted in her own workshop, atop a matrix carved by her own hand. No snarky comment about "boring execution" could take that away.

Bottling the rest would take around two hundred test tubes. After handling the first batch, the chore didn't feel daunting in the slightest. She returned to her station, adjusted her apron, and got to work.

She stuck to ten-milliliter measures despite the note about minor excess, deciding she could calibrate the dosage more precisely on her own time rather than experimenting on a commercial batch.

She didn't list the finished vials immediately, however; she had a promise to keep before opening shop.

Selecting ten vials, she pulled up her chat with Liora.

[Serayne Veyra: The promised bonus for the blueprint. By the way, where did you find it?]

***

Liora Hearthvale sat by her console, idly skimming the chat feed, when a blinking message notification made her rabbit ears perk upright.

With only one person on her contacts list, she didn't even need to open the tab to know who it was from. But the attached trade offer and the item description inside were a far bigger shock than the notification itself.

Accepting the delivery, she leaned over the vials, her eyes going wide as she read the appraisal readout.

[Liora Hearthvale: Fifty Mana Points?! Incredible, thank you! And I got the blueprint from a supply crate.]

Serayne read the message, then glanced at the empty crates that had piled up in her home over the past few days.

She already knew they could contain things far more extraordinary than bread and towels - books, sealing orbs, and the like - but the chance to pull crafting blueprints added immense value to foraging runs.

So not just food and sundries, but blueprints to expand my workshop. Good. Night runs are definitely staying on the schedule.

Before she could reply, Liora sent another text.

[Liora Hearthvale: Do you still need herbs? I have Serraleaf, Ambertail, Jadeveil, Thornspike, Stonebloom, and Duskpetal. Gathered quite a bit.]

[Serayne Veyra: Where did you get so many?]

She asked not out of suspicion, but genuine surprise. She recognized the names from her manuals as valuable E-rank reagents, yet she hadn't expected anyone else to bother harvesting a whole variety.

[Liora Hearthvale: My Talent helps with plants. When I saw you selling potions, I figured you could use them, so I started harvesting.]

Serayne propped an elbow on the edge of the console, staring at the screen for a moment before her ears swiveled forward.

Right… Why am I so stubborn about doing everything myself?

Serava was handling glassware and that arrangement ran like clockwork. There was no reason a similar partnership couldn't work for ingredients, especially if Liora could harvest them more efficiently.

[Serayne Veyra: Five hundred grams of useful herbs for one of the new mana potions. Sound fair?]

[Liora Hearthvale: Deal! Sending the trade over now.]

The botanicals weren't prepped for brewing yet, and storage outside an enchanted pouch might degrade their potency, but Serayne planned to inspect the shipment and process it properly rather than discourage someone who had taken the initiative to collaborate.

She could pour the saved hours into research, reagent refinement, and additional batches. With her station streamlined, she might eventually manage two brews a day - though she wasn't about to promise that to herself or her buyers just yet.

“An alchemist doesn't worry about reagents; reagents hold no interest for her,” she murmured with a soft chuckle, well aware of how brazenly she was twisting Avelra’s favorite adage.

In truth, reagents interested her immensely; she just loved the idea of receiving them without spending half her morning crawling through the dirt.

If Liora had come up with the idea on her own, perhaps other arrivals in the sector would follow suit - provided Serayne showed them exactly what she needed and what she was willing to pay.

Once the trade cleared, she selected representative specimens, opened the console’s camera tool, and took reference photos, capturing the distinct traits needed to tell each species apart.

Next, she added concise guides based on her manuals, noting physical traits, usable parts, and the required delivery condition - having zero interest in paying for a clod of dirt clinging to a pair of miserable roots.

She pinned the guides to her profile page, which other users could view by tapping her avatar, just as she had inspected Serava’s storefront earlier.

Most sector residents still didn't use the profile feature for much of anything, consumed by gathering materials and bracing for the end of the grace period.

At the bottom, she emphasized that she only accepted properly identified, healthy botanicals stripped of soil and rotten scraps, warning that attempts to inflate weight with mud would result in a permanent stall blacklist.

If I'm paying people to bring me reagents, I'd rather buy actual herbs than clods of dirty mud.

Only then did she draft her new listings, dividing the remaining potions between direct sales and barter trades so as not to promise more vials than she actually held.

She priced a single dose of Clear Mana Draught at sixty units of basic materials, alongside two barter options: five hundred grams of specified E-rank herbs for one potion, or one E-rank monster core for two.

The reaction on the Regional Channel was near instantaneous.

The previous Clouded Mana Draught had restored a meager ten Mana Points, whereas the new iteration packed five times the punch in the exact same window. For people reporting mana pools around fifty or sixty points, that meant topping off their entire reserve in one shot.

Not everyone shared those stats, but even for larger pools, the upgrade was massive enough that interest blew past casual curiosity in seconds.

[Are you kidding me?! I literally just bought ten of the weak ones, and she already has upgraded ones?]

[Then sell me your old ones if it bothers you so much.]

[Fifty mana from a single vial, you seeing this?]

[If you don't want it, don't buy.]

[Buy? The material listings are already gone.]

[What do you mean they're gone?!]

[Simple: sold out.]

[Only herb and core trades are left. Look at the other listings.]

[Five hundred grams for one? Sounds good, but how am I supposed to know what to look for?]

[She’s got pictures and descriptions on her profile.]

[Clean, no dirt, or get blacklisted. Wonderful, now we have to prep everything for her too.]

[Would you want half a kilo of weeds where half of it's mud?]

[Alright, fair point.]

Serayne scrolled through the chatter with deep satisfaction, watching demand for her potions redirect attention toward flora that most arrivals had walked past without a second glance.

Then, nestled between queries about her photos and stock levels, another remark surfaced.

[Wait a second. Earlier, ten Mana Points cost ten units of materials. Now fifty points costs sixty? Am I the only one who thinks the math doesn't add up?]