The Newt and Demon

6.5 - It Won’t Explode. I Promise.

Fenian didn’t care so much about Theo’s journey. They sat down for drinks and food in the alchemist’s manor, but the elf only seemed interested in telling his own story. As always, it was more about the aspects of adventure than anything of substance. He left out everything about his plot to kill the king and the reason behind it. But the alchemist had to admit it was nice to have his friend back.

Theo now sat in the Dreamwalk, looking over the flat area outside of Broken Tusk and wondering what he should do next. Progress had been slow over the past few days. Despite that, he had made strides in his newest cores. His Zaul core was already at Level 9, while his sorcerer core was at Level 8. Nothing had changed with his newest mage core, though. He expected the effects of the Drogramath Dedication skill to take over by now, but nothing had happened. It didn’t evolve into something more interesting.

During his time helping with the city, he didn’t have enough time to work on his other cores. And his other cores were capped to the level of his Drogramath Alchemy Core. Except for the Tara’hek core, of course. That core had rocketed to Level 33 in the past few days. Once he and Tresk started working on the city project, they had seen a massive increase in experience. But now was a time to focus on alchemy and herbalism, cores that had become more difficult to level in recent times.

“Where do we go from here?” Theo asked, sighing as he reclined on the soft grass.

Alchemy had become more important as time went on. He had gone from brewing powerful potions to brewing even more powerful potions. And he was now on the forefront of what a Drogramathi Alchemist could do. He was certain there was no one at this level alive, and it was unlikely any alchemist in history could rival his production. Except for one man. Drogramath himself. This is where Theo decided what the next frontier of alchemy would be. Tier 4 potions should have been within his grasp, so he started there.

With a thought, Theo summoned an arrangement of alchemy equipment. He had faked a fourth tier potion before. Using a suffuse potion meant he could bind two properties together to create a new one. If he brewed that potion as a third tier—using the bound dilution method with Zee alcohol—he could combine those things to make a fourth tier potion. It did not gain the fourth tier prefix, but was as powerful as one.

Theo started by imagining the things he would need to brew his standard third tier potion, settling on a simple Greater Healing Potion. The process was simple enough. Binding it with a dilution meant that he used the alcohol to remove almost all impurities. If he considered that fact, third tier potions were as pure as they could get. They were at a percentage of purity approaching one-hundred, but not quite. He studied the resulting potion, probing the Greater Healing Potion with his senses to find some flaw. Visual inspection revealed a perfect sample. No cloudy sediment with a perfect color. Even the reaction had gone off perfectly, producing almost no smoke.

So that was the question. How could Theo take a potion that was perfect and push it a step further? He started by considering other potions he had created, and the interlinked nature of his herbalism and alchemy skills. One thing that had been vital to creating potions at a higher tier was better reagents. Low-quality reagents were unstable, making it difficult to extract. Theo took an example of the Spiny Swamp Thistle Root, imagined from the garden he had back in the mortal realm.

This had been a question resting on the alchemist’s mind for a long time. “Are all reagents created equal?”

If one were to take two samples of wild reagents and compare them, they could have unique attributes. The system would claim that they had the same properties, but that wasn’t accurate. The quality of those properties was different. Theo had blasted past this problem by cultivating his reagents, forcing them to be better than they were in the wild. Taking that into account, perhaps his approach to plant care had been wrong.

It was time to study the reagents he used every day to gain a better understanding of how they worked.

Theo found Tresk and Alex training. As always. He joined them, practicing his throwing with unenchanted daggers. The marshling didn’t like when he dropped in on them, tossing daggers imbued with Toru’aun’s power. That made things unfair, according to her. The alchemist let his mind go silent as they fought, finding it easier to battle the armies of horned serpents that she brought forth. When dawn finally came, he ate breakfast as quickly as he could and headed out. While Sarisa and Rowan had created some delicious food, he could only think about reagents.

Salire was already in the Newt and Demon by the time he got there. She was always working on a side-project. She was working on more Cleansing Scrub for the city.

“Want to go on a field trip?” Theo asked.

“Of course!” Salire said, looking around the lab. She pointed at things, muttering something. “Yeah. They need to cook for a while.”

Salire joined him, heading out from the lab. But they didn’t go to visit the greenhouses behind the lab. Theo didn’t want to use cultivated reagents as his example. He needed wild samples that hadn’t been steered down a path.

“So, what are we doing?” Salire asked, following close behind as they headed for the western gate.

Theo explained his theory about reagents. Salire got excited, withdrawing her notebook and jotting things down. She always got excited when they pushed into uncharted territory.

“Have you harvested Spiny Swamp Thistle Root from the wild?” Theo asked, nodding to a guard as they pressed into the swamp.

“I’ve seen it. Haven’t put much stock into wild reagents, though.”

“That might be my fatal mistake.” Theo let out a breath, but he couldn’t blame himself. The man with all the answers had tea with him just yesterday, and had chosen not to say anything. The alchemist thought back to the trip he took to Drogramath’s realm. Was he trying to tell him something about reagents?

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Drogramath’s realm was a confusing sprawl of glass worlds floating in a void. Thinking back on it, Theo didn’t remember seeing large farms to produce reagents. If that was a hint, it wasn’t a very good one. The pair trudged through the swamp. Sarisa appeared from nowhere after a while, glowering at Theo as her clothes and armor got muddy. While he could have taken the portal to Xol’sa’s tower, Theo wanted to scan the area for reagents as they walked. As expected, the area close to town had little to offer.

The swamp was worse near the town. The waters were deeper, and more snappers spawned. Theo had understood this as a feature of the river, which leeched water into the soil. But it could have been magically generated water—he couldn’t tell. But the area closer to the dungeon had a lot more islands. Even that wasn’t his target, though. Theo forced his group to push even deeper, until the mountains to the west were visible in the distance. This area was dotted with muddy islands and Ogre Cypress trees. The monsters were dense here, but it seemed like the perfect place.

“Let’s inspect the reagents that grow here,” Theo ordered, gesturing to the clumps of plants growing everywhere.

Theo and Salire cataloged every reagent they could find. They used an island in the swamp to deposit their collected Spiny Swamp Thistle Root, spending hours finding them and arranging each by size. That didn’t represent quality, but was the best way. When the collection was done, they gathered to inspect the results.

“This is already concerning.” Theo looked over the fifty-some samples they had retrieved. His plan was to decompose each for inspection, but it hardly seemed necessary.

“The rarity on each is the same.” Salire walked to the end of the line, turning her head to watch Sarisa and Rowan dismantle a turtle. “But I feel something from this end.”

The pair had collected the reagents by pulling them up, leaving the top portion visible. The samples Salire had gestured to were the same on the top. Only the roots underneath appeared different. Theo felt his cores draw him to those samples. Sure enough, they were still Common rarity.

“No one without an herbalist core would notice this,” Theo said, kneeling to inspect the larger roots. “You have Rare Material Handling, right?”

Salire nodded.

“Rowan,” Theo called, beckoning the adventurer over. “Hold this for me.”

Theo shoved a root into the half-ogre’s hand, standing back to observe. Rowan took the root and stood there, awkwardly looking around. “Is something supposed to happen.”

“Note the sizzling,” Theo said, pointing at the root. It had begun to steam in his hands. “And now…”

Rowan was propelled back by the force of the blast. Salire yelped in surprise and Sarisa rushed over to help her brother. A common rarity reagent wouldn’t have packed much power, but the half-ogre wasn’t expecting the blast. Theo tossed a Greater Healing Potion over to cure whatever minor wounds he received.

“Now hold this one,” Theo said, offering Rowan another root.

“Uh... No.”

“It won’t explode. I promise.”

Sarisa snatched the root from Theo’s hands, glowering. She held it out, right near the alchemist’s face. But nothing happened. He had given her the smaller root. One that a person didn’t need Rare Material Handling to touch. It was far less reactive than the last one. Theo could kick himself for not noticing this sooner. He had given the people of Broken Tusk a quest long ago. They harvested Spiny Swamp Thistle Root from the swamp. But back then, people didn’t venture that far. They never had a chance to get blown up, which would have shown him something important.

“I’ve been too focused on cultivating reagents. I never considered that the magic out here would do a better job,” Theo said. He saw Salire take notes on that.

“Are you sure?” she asked.

Theo wasn’t sure at all. The difference between the roots was clear. He didn’t need a system message to tell him that. But without the system, he needed to categorize these reagents and determine their impact on potion crafting. It had been an oversight, but the alchemist wouldn’t have discovered this by accident. Behind this discovery was skill, core influence, and luck.

“Let’s grab some samples,” Theo said. “Whole plants, of course.”

“As long as you don’t blow me up again…” Rowan was clearly wounded.

Theo and Salire collected more samples, only stowing the largest samples into his inventory. It was his inventory, because he had another plan for his return to Broken Tusk.

“I’m off to test these. I’ll meet you guys back in town,” Theo said, feeling himself fade into the void.

“You’re gonna make us walk!” Sarisa shouted. “You son of a—”

Theo fell through the void, using his Tero’gal Dreampassage skill. He felt a flash of anger from the Bridge of Shadows, but Uz’Xulven still let him pass. The grasses in his realm bent under his feet. Another day in the mortal realm meant another passing of fads within this realm. Things had looped back to cross-country racing, which was exciting to see. The alchemist had created a series of trails for the spirits here for that very purpose.

Most times he came to the realm, there wasn’t much that needed his attention. But today, there was a procession of souls that needed his attention. Perhaps there was a delay from when a soul entered the void to when they could find a realm to settle in. The alchemist felt the brush of senses against his aura. Eager spirits wanted to know when they could join Tero’gal. Those extended senses came with a familiar signature.

Half-elves were a weird race within the world. Theo didn’t know the full story, but they weren’t really humans. A more accurate description was proto-elves. Except the flow of evolution had gone in the other way, elves serving as the base to create something more human-like. But these were the people that called Veosta home.

“If everyone could just form a line,” Theo said, gesturing vaguely toward the road. “Try not to block that. I think there’s a race going on.”

There were 292 souls as permanent residents in Tero’gal. The line that stretched far into the distance held an uncountable number of souls. Theo couldn’t count them, anyway. The line wound in a way that didn’t make sense to him, so counting wasn’t possible. Instead, he started the interviews.

Most souls that found their way to Tero’gal were innocent. It was hard to hide one’s intentions when one was boiled down to their base parts. Cloud passed over the fake sun overhead. The Simulated Reality upgrade was supposed to add a day and night cycle, but the alchemist had blocked that part of it. He allowed his grasp on that slip and the world slipped into night.

“Hey! We’re trying to race here! Turn the light back on!”

Theo sent the world back to daytime, laughing when he spotted a tangle of mostly-formed spirits in what looked like sweatpants on the road. The nearby souls looked on with interest, but didn’t form thoughts enough to express what they were feeling. The alchemist went through each soul, a process which took a while. He couldn’t define the amount of time it took, though.

Of the souls that the alchemist interviewed, he only rejected five. Tero’gal leveled to 34, but missed the 35 mark. There would be no upgrade available this time. The alchemist picked himself up from the bench he had been sitting on, rolling his shoulders to work out a kink. The other gods had already arrived within his realm, and were sitting around the table in the cottage. He planned to join them, but would be happy to let his mind wander. The puzzle of powerful reagents might be easier to solve in the presence of Drogramath.