Alchemy can be divided into two main categories; potioneering and enchantment.
Potioneering is an art of potion making from alchemy to brew a liquid with healing, poisonous or many magical properties. It a popular alchemy product sought by many.
Enchantment is a practice to imbued tools with magical properties. The weapon that enchanted with magical attributes is called a magic weapon. Mage level enchantment can create more amazing effects capable of casting magic spells.
Max planned to use both parts by concocting explosive liquids and use the enchanted tool as a weapon. The plan to create a bomb required a long process of trial and error and his current wealth cannot afford it. That's why Max planned to learn some basic potioneering and enchantment to increase his proficiency and sell the final products to accumulating war funds.
Max has left with a meager amount of magic crystals. He has spent most of it as an investment. If he succeeds in alchemy, he would collect much more magic crystals in return.
What followed next was that Max's daily routine had taken a similar route to how he had been in the previous world.
Every day, he was shuttling to and fro between four places; his room, canteen, Lecture Hall and library.
He always secluded inside his room doing alchemy experiments. He didn't feel awkward with his daily life but in fact, used to it because he did the same routine during the previous life.
Another month passed unknowingly.
Inside his room, standing in front of one side of a long wooden table, Max monitored the test tube at his hand changing color after shaking.
Apart from attending classes or goes to the library for Elder Milos's mission and reading, the majority of his time was spent in the room. SECOND has accumulated a lot of books regarding alchemy from library and Max spending the whole month familiarize with potioneering.
"Whew...I have finally understood the formulation of potions!" Max exhaled slowly.
Although Max has learned from Merlin some basic information about alchemy, there were many things that he needs to understand by himself. He learned things like terminology and symbols by himself from the data that SECOND recorded. If he needs an extra lesson for an explanation from Alchemist master like Merlin, he would need to pay a fee. However, it was unfortunate for Max that he had turned into a peasant that need to save every magic crystals he could.
Many apprentices who were planning on learning alchemy would frequent library more often but they embarrassingly always short of magic crystals. In addition, they do not possess a portal Artificial Intelligence like SECOND like Max, so they usually needed a dozen days to a month to find what they wanted in the library and that cost a lot of magic crystals.
As for Max, he had now recorded all the information that he could in the library already. He even made a search function for it, so the data would be at his perusal if he met any questions in the future.
Even so, just potioneering is a difficult topic to learn. Most apprentices like Merlin would spend most of their times studying alchemy and end up neglected their meditation. Max does not share the same problem as others due to he already created a method equal to constant meditation. His spiritual strength slowly grows while he dwelling on alchemy.
At least for now, when he got the foundation down just for basic of potioneering. As for enchantment, even he capable of multi-tasking, he only got one body. That will for later.
"My accumulation for knowledge already enough. I can start brewing potion right now."
Max looked at the list for potion recipes and choose Low Healing Potion among them.
"SECOND! Show the detail for Low Healing Potion!"
[Healing Potion,
Description: A potion capable of healing a minor injury. Can use to drink or apply to the injury.
Ingredient: 2x Green Herb, 1x Moonwort Bulb]
"The basic of the basic. Low Healing Potion. I can start with this. All the ingredients can be bought at Trading Post"
Max went to Trading Post and bought a couple set of ingredients and went back to his room. His room is large enough to hold a few experiments.
A large black colored wooden table occupied the room, Max's previously bought apparatus set had been placed on it.
Max took out the box containing the ingredients and he placed it on the table. The green colored herbs and moon shaped fruit appeared before his eyes.
Max's finger stroked the surfaces of these 2 items, "SECOND! Follow the procedure and establish a model"
[Affirmative! Task established! Beginning scan, gathering data, beginning construction]
"Begin simulation of the experiments!" Seeing SECOND complete its task, Max gave it another command prompt.
[Model simulation begin...Low Healing Potion...Estimated time consumed:45 minutes]
"As expected it possible!" Max related.
Even the same ingredient and same method used in the experiments, slight deviation would produce different results when doing alchemy,
As for qualified Alchemist like Merlin or Oswald, they must make use of their experience and know how to put theory into practice, then skillfully make adjustments to achieve the desired properties of the potion.
This field does not rely on raw talent but only need the accumulation of experience.
Fortunately, Max has SECOND. It was able to scan and produce the simulations, resulting in a success rate that was much higher than other apprentices. He didn't need the accumulation of experience and just follow the simulation by SECOND.
Max patiently waited for some time, and then heard SECOND's announcement.
[The simulation of the model is completed! Success rate: 85%!]
"That easy! The success rate is too good!" Max smiled.
"Probably due to Low Healing Potion is a simple recipe for the beginner. Even so with SECOND's simulation, I can easily brew a potion"
A regular apprentice will always fail on their first attempt except the few lucky one and they the lucky attempt cannot be repeated. It is extremely normal even for beginner recipes took tens of tries to succeed once.
"Beginning transmitting the process for the experiment"
[Affirmative! Beginning transmission of data]
A few images flashed inside Max's mind as if he already practiced making the same potion multiple times. Various scenario and their suitable responses, as well the correct preparation of ingredients were all inside his head.
"It time to start!"