SWNOVELXO Chapter 14: Potion-Making
As soon as Merlin sat down in the center of the hoop, he flicked the wand in the air one more time.
The magical hoop’s mechanism started working; colorful rays rotated systematically. The magical power started to form and expand.
The energy flow became denser and wider and some of it began to flow into Merlin’s body.
The energy gotten from sunlight helped him increase his power almost twice more than normal magical-power absorption.
After three days, Merlin finally felt the new Qi’s core inside his body. The seventh Qi pillar was building up, radiating a powerful aura out of his body like crashing waves.
Then the air around him constantly made a buzzing sound.
To build a Qi accumulation’s foundation, a practitioner needed to, first, accumulate Xian vital essence in order to build the nine Qi pillars inside his or her body.
After that, he or she would have to build the Qi foundation on those nine pillars.
Having finished the Qi foundation, he or she would be called a stem builder. The nine Qi pillars were like the piling work of the practice.
Chooo…
At that moment, Merlin's body changed.
During this critical point, his skin was drying out. The water in his body slowly vaporized. He felt the burning inside as though his blood was boiling.
Suddenly, steam seeped out of his pores. His body started to shrink until there were only bones left because the fat under the skin was distilled and evaporated.
Ahh…
Merlin moaned unaware when, at one point, the steam formed up again. And this time, it packed together like a cloud.
In the blink of an eye, Merlin felt like his body was touched by water drops. Water drops that were pouring down on him like rain. The bony, wilted skin that was now plumping up again.
His body was constantly revived.
Hong!
Just like ocean waves, his Xian vital essence rippled and splashed out approximately fifty meters away.
The trees nearby were shaking. Xian vital essence spread out, showering the whole place.
From inside of his dantian, a light was shining out brilliantly.
And inside the Qi ocean, there emerged a pillar soaring to the sky. It was a pillar diffusing such powerful Qi energy.
Firmly, the seventh Qi pillar had been finished.
Merlin could feel that he had perfectly built the seventh pillar in his Qi ocean.
Opening his eyes, Merlin felt fresh. His skin was glowing even more than before. His body had truly transited into level seven of Qi accumulation.
Achieving level seven at the age of nine was dreadful. Certainly, he would not be able to do this in his former life. But this world was different.
After achieving Qi accumulation’s seventh level, he obtained an ability superior to any ordinary beings for he no longer needed to consume anything until he died.
A few drops of water could already freshen him up. As long as he had Xian vital essence, he could distill it into his life energy to survive.
Like the saying of ordinary people, “A Xian lives on nothing else but the air; he needed not to drink or eat.”
Merlin worked on balancing his power for a while.
After that, he flicked the wand at the intricate magical hoop.
Suddenly, the energy of the alphabets he drew disappeared.
A wand!
A magical ring!
How did he obtain these things when he was merely a poor servant?
That wand was popular among the alchemists. It was unsuitable for fighting because its property was to help frame up the magical power.
It was different from a magical cane that could contain magical power inside. So, its property was to endorse the magical power being released. Therefore, it was suitable for fighting, unlike a wand that was only equipped to draw magical hoops.
There were not so many alchemists, so the wands were not widespread among magic practitioners.
Nonetheless, they were still expensive because their materials had to be made from certain types of beasts’ cryptic souls. The ones that could induct the magical power.
Aside from the magical wands, the rings were also pricey. How could a servant have such things?
……………….
Back to two years ago, again
After Merlin acquired Lemegeton Eye, he still worked as Arthur’s server and lived a simple life.
He had learned about the cryptic soul; it could endorse human’s magical power. However, it was very expensive.
As a poor servant, he surely could not afford it!
After estimating his financial status, Merlin was considering an alternative.
Merlin found that since he had gotten Lemegeton, learning Book One granted him three abilities. The first was remembering everything from just one look; he could record things into his brain.
The second was “observing.” His eye had improved a lot in accuracy. He could spot the strengths and weaknesses of everything by looking.
And the last was “encyclopedic knowledge.” As a known fact that Lemegeton had given him a considerable amount of this-world knowledge. He could activate it just by thinking of things he wanted to know then the library in his brain would open and provide him with the information.
After opening up his world by living in this city, he came to understand that alphabet users were like gods for the merchants.
The alphabet users’ strength was not only that they had better fighting abilities or superior magical-power skills than normal people, but also, their true power was their identity.
An alphabet user could summon even a supreme wizard.
And if an alphabet user was pestered, he or she could persuade a wizard or a supreme to clear things up. Every individual desired to please them.
That was one of the reasons why everyone was scared and did not risk provoking them.
Financially, alphabet users were considered gods of wealth.
The tools carved with magical alphabets were very valuable. In general, they could not be easily produced. For instance, to own a magical container ring, one needed to be rather rich because the price of each ring was high, and they were rare.
It was fortunate that Merlin had Lemegeton Eye. The knowledge about magical alphabets in that eye automatically made him qualified as an alphabet user.
Merlin used some of his spare time to seek new knowledge in the school library. And of course, as Arthur’s follower, he was allowed to get in, on one condition: he could only get into the first section of the place. And the first section kept mostly basic knowledge. But that was enough for him.
Merlin had read almost every book in this first section. Most of them were related to common education and did not teach about the high spells.
With the gift from Lemegeton, scanning the books quickly, he could remember everything on them. It was not an overstatement to say that all the thousand books in the first section have already been copied by his eye.
And right there, Merlin found a basic spell book on how to use magic without the in-body magical power.
Merlin’s eyes shone up because it was very helpful for him.
The book talked about magical-power induction using a medium, then releasing it out without keeping it inside the body. This brought him to use a wand.
The fact that his body did not store magical power disabled him from using magic.
So, this science gave him hope. Writing simple magical alphabets did not require much magical power; therefore, it was perfect for him.
Knowing that, Merlin borrowed some money from Arthur; and absolutely, he got scolded a bit. But Arthur was generous, at the end of the day, he lent Merlin the money.
Merlin used that amount to buy a wand and some low-quality herbs.
His first step to becoming an alphabet user was potion-making which was a science of the alphabet users. He chose potion-making because in the past he used to run away to become a low-profile physician. So, he still had some knowledge although not as skillful as someone who did it professionally.
Merlin bought some of the blue herbs, red herbs, and yellow herbs.
And during that time, Merlin practiced using the wand until he became well-equipped. Trials and errors from alphabets-writing happened all the time. Finally, Merlin was able to draw simple elemental alphabets like earth, water, wind, fire, darkness, and light out as hoops.
Merlin applied the knowledge from the Lemegeton encyclopedia and the school library. And at one point, he could use them to create synthetic magical hoops to make potions.
But it did not mean Merlin perfected it in one try. He had gone through countless attempts to make potions; finally, he succeeded.
Merlin drew each alphabet of the hoops in the air, tons of them. Certainly, he spent months practicing before he could do this.
Although he was able to draw tons of magical alphabets, there were still some flaws because the magical power of making these alphabets was borrowed from the outside. So, the alphabets that he drew did not last long.
Finally, his path to potion-making in this realm began. The boy in shabby clothes started flicking his wand, skillfully.
One after another blue alphabet appeared in the air.
When the magical alphabets were stable, suddenly, they turned into a magical hoop.
These hoops were not very complex, but just enough for his needs.
Merlin used his Xian essence forcing some herbs to fly up in the air.
Then, he forced each magical hoop to cross one another by using his wand, touching and moving them in the directions he wanted.
When each magical hoop was at their right places, some herbs would be drawn into the center. And then the mechanism of each hoop would start.
Merlin tried to transfer magical power into the hoops continually. The hoops’ lines shone up brightly.
Those lines rotated systematically; their mechanisms were connected and working continually. Colorful beams leaped out from the hoops, turning into energy beams that cut through the herbs.
Merlin directed the roles of those colorful beams; they cut through the herbs again and again. And every time the beams touched them, they changed.
Sometimes, they got bigger and sometimes they shrank. Now and then, they turned into dust. But at last, they gathered back together.
These processes happened over and over. The alchemists called the thing he was doing, herb-extracting.
Eventually, Merlin got to the final part, distilling herbs.
Multi-colored beams came together in one spot.
Those six beams’ action resulted in the flaky, dusty herbs turning into a small pool of liquid.
It slowly expanded much bigger than its first size.
The thumb-sized powder suddenly turned into a fist-sized liquid.
After the distillation, the hoops disappeared.
There was only some liquid left floating in the air.
Content, Merlin lifted a smile while moving the tips of his fingers to control them into the bottles he had prepared.
His tiny hand picked up a potion bottle and looked at it with joy.
Merlin immediately used Lemegeton Eye to check its property.
Just then, he realized that the potion in his hand was called “a high-magical-power-restoring potion with a latent property.”
A high-magical-power-restoring potion! And it also had a potent property.
Not only could this potion restore the magical power, but it also had the ability to shorten the duration of spell-casting.
How so? How could such basic herbs produce such high-level potions?
And finally, he came to the conclusion that he could make high-level potions with very common herbs because of the power of the magical alphabets.
As a known fact that an alphabet user’s power could increase the properties of an item, including herbs. Those beams could endorse or change the herbs’ qualities.
So, it was possible that distilling common herbs using magical alphabets could produce a potion with greater quality than it was supposed to be.
Astounding!
It was fearsome what an alphabet user was capable of; it was no surprise why people in this realm looked at these people as figures superior to any other.