Chương 185: Chapter 180 - Real Potions

When Alric finally sat down in his room, it was already late evening. Brannick had arrived earlier with the two potion sets. Each was packed into a leather pouch with small compartments; Brannick had immediately packed the compartments with more cloth. Each leather pouch had small loops on the back that could be threaded through a belt or strap, which seemed convenient and caring, until Brannick told him the adventurers made the pouches.

There were four potions in each set: one health potion, one stamina potion, one antidote, and one mana potion. Brannick would carry Alric's set on his behalf, which seemed smart. Mara would carry her own set, minus the mana potion; she had no use for that. More importantly, however, the mana potion was in Alric's hand. He turned it slowly in his hand; the whole thing was ridiculous. One gold and four large silvers.

Fourteen wagonloads of grain, roughly twenty-one tons of grain, or fourteen thousand street stall sausages. Alric had expected the potions to be expensive; everyone had warned him about that. What he hadn't expected was for it to look like this. There was no bottle. Just a waxy blue lump, as if someone had tried to make a potion and a candle at the same time and then developed deep commitment issues. The potion, if it existed, was covered in a blue wax substance.

Thick enough that there was no way to tell the top from the bottom. One section was slightly narrower, but it was anyone's guess. Alric rolled it across his palm and pressed his thumb into what he assumed was the side. It felt like wax. Not candle wax; it was harder than that, but he couldn't think what else to call it. He rubbed his thumb and finger together and felt no residue.

"Hmm…." He turned it around again. What he wanted to know, however, was how much mana was in the potion; he extended his mana sense to the potion. And felt the heavy, familiar recoil. His arm jerked, but he managed to keep hold of the potion. He held it away from his face, eyeing it warily. He knew that feeling.

"Wickleaf rejection?" he mumbled to himself. He brought the potion closer again but still eyed it suspiciously. He lifted two fingers from his other hand and tried again. Extending a small amount of mana toward the wax. The rejection was immediate. It was less violent than fresh Wickleaf, perhaps, but still present. Alric frowned at the lump in his hand. No mistaking it. Not getting any mana into it or through that. Alric sat back, stared at the wall, and considered the reasons. Insulation maybe?

Keep the mana inside? Or prevent outside mana from interfering? I mean, protecting the bottle is a nice bonus too, I guess. Whatever it is, that is definitely Wickleaf. The rejection comes off in the oil, and salt helps. Mix in some animal fat or beeswax, and you have this? Or something close to it. He turned his attention back to the potion, turning it more slowly now. There were faint lines on the surface, but he had no way of knowing if that was something that happened during transport or manufacture.

No seam, nothing jumped out about how it was applied or made. He held it closer to his eyes and narrowed them. The room had just enough light to avoid tripping over anything, provided he remembered where he'd left it. Not enough for potion inspection, though. He leaned sideways, reaching for the candle he usually used for such things, then paused.

"Not doing that." Wax, potentially flammable. Potion, expensive, potentially flammable. Potentially explosive. He used his item box instead to pull out the mana potion he made instead. He set the little inkpot on the desk, removed the stopper, and charged it fully. Light blue light spilled out of the opening. Alric nodded at it, satisfied. The blue wax coating was much easier to see under the light. He turned the potion slowly, trying to study it from all angles. Looking closely at the ridges and scuff marks.

Most of it looked the same until he turned the bottom around. He stopped and repeated the motion. Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. One small patch of the coating was a slightly lighter shade; he only saw it when it caught the light. It glowed slightly as light entered it. He rubbed his finger over the small patch; it felt the same. He studied the lump to try to figure out where the lump was relative to the rest.

It was on the opposite side from the tapered side. So, bottom? Maybe? He extended his mana sense to the small patch, the lighter patch on the bottom. And sensed mana on the other side.

"Wha?" He extended his mana sense to the surroundings and felt the familiar rejection. Then he went back to the patch and felt his mana sense enter. He repeated the process a few more times and found the same.

"To hell with it, I can't exactly ask anyone about this." He said, reaching for the tapered part he considered the top and twisting it. It resisted slightly before the wax coating began cracking and coming away. He frowned as he pulled; the wax from the rest of the potion cracked and pulled. Perplexed at the mystery, he kept pulling until, "OH, it's cloth." He said when a large enough patch came off. Trying to keep the wax together, he worked the cloth loose; finally getting it free, he studied it.

It was just hemp; he threw a bored expression at it before he considered his own expectations and shrugged. It wasn't even good hemp. He carefully kept the bottom patch aside as he unwrapped the bottle. Finally, the bottle came out. It glowed faintly; the bottle was a dark green with a cork stopper. He placed it next to his own potion and worked the cork loose. The amount of light was significantly less. He crouched over, comparing the two. His was maybe a fifth of the volume.

He lifted the alchemist's bottle and inspected the glass. It was thicker at the bottom and had small ripples. It didn't strike him as badly made, so much as cheaply and quickly made. Carefully, he extended his mana sense to it.

"That's… it?" Alric said, frowning. It held less than a quarter of the mana his own potion held, at maybe five times the volume. He sniffed the potion and was struck by a strong scent of burning or burnt grass. He wrinkled his nose at it. The wax, he decided, was more interesting. He began gathering it up and keeping the bottom patch separate. Now free, he began working the mana-rejecting wax into a small ball. He was about to extend his mana sense to it when he noticed something else.

The alchemist's mana potion was leaking mana. Changing his mind, he extended his mana sense to the mana potion; it was definitely leaking more out the top. Carefully and quickly, he worked the mana-rejecting wax into what was essentially a hat and put it over the opening. The potion stopped leaking mana in that direction. It was still leaking out the side, however. He removed the wax hat and replaced the stopper before studying it again. It was slowly leaking everywhere.

Alric turned to his own to try to find any leaking. It might have been leaking, but he couldn't detect any. So, mana insulation then. Alric nodded, looking at the wax. He picked it up again and began pulling the shape. This was similar to what they do with the brewery's heating stones. Except they had used adamantite. Could we use the oil, maybe? He considered the idea for a while. It was possible, but he would need to see how it performed when heated.

He was absentmindedly gathering all the wax into a ball before he remembered the other waxy material. Wait… He reached over to the small lump, lifted it, and pushed mana straight through it. He tried to flatten it and stick it on the side of the mana-leaking potion. It continued to leak through that part. He could push his mana through it easily. Taking a small blob of the mana-rejecting wax, he rubbed it onto the side of the glass like he just did with the bottom wax blob. The leaking stopped on that side.

Alric tried to extend his mana sense to it and hit the same rejection. He grabbed the cloth and attempted to wrap it back as best he could. Turning it over, he saw how all the corners came together at that length. The small ordinary wax blob must have been used to hold the cloth together. Surely? Then the entire arrangement would be dipped in the mana-rejecting wax; it would bind to the cloth to hold it together. That made sense. That would leave exactly one spot uncovered.

So, they use the normal wax to bind the cloth. That's probably where they hold it when they dip it. That would leave one bottom spot uncovered. Hang on, why use ordinary wax there at all? Surely use the mana-rejecting wax too? Peeling all of it off the bottle, he held it up to the light. The mana-rejecting wax was not as transparent as the other. It was the reason he noticed it in the first place. Alric paused, looking at the flickering candle for a while, trying to understand.

He shook his head slightly and brought the candle closer. Alric glanced around, looking for something to use in the next experiment. He turned to his item box and found a small piece of scrap copper. He put the normal wax on top of it, held it over the candle, and slowly watched as it melted around the edges. He nodded, having expected that result; he scraped it off into the wax catcher at the bottom of the candle. He then took the blob of the mana-rejecting wax and repeated.

An arid, burnt-grass scent came from it.

"Hmm... Magical burnt cabbage, now I'm hungry." Alric felt his fingers warming up but kept watching. Slowly the edges of the wax softened and turned oily. He pulled out a small bottle he had stolen from Margaret, turned it on its side, and poured the small bit of wax onto it. He watched it run down, leaving a trail and hardening. He gathered the wax from the wax catcher and repeated the same test. It did the same thing and performed the same way.

Just to be sure, he tried to push mana into both and found the same result. That must be intentional? It must have been slowly leaking through that small wax blob, that small spot from the moment it was made. The alchemists made a potion and deliberately left a spot for it to leak mana slowly. Alric tried desperately to think of any reason for the ordinary wax. Was the mana-rejecting wax brittle when first applied? No, he had just melted it. Maybe it wouldn't stick to glass or hemp? No, it had done both of those.

Maybe it's so expensive… No, Wickleaf was not that expensive, and this potion cost so much already. I can think of no other reason. They want that thing to slowly drain its mana. The question is why?