"A ghost!"
A grown-up bearded man screamed at the top of his lungs inside the Crystal Dragon Inn.
It attracted quite the attention of the people inside as well as outside.
Gerald lifted his head towards the source of the commotion, but when he saw the terrified man pointing at him, he gave him an expressionless look while his eyes were saying 'Really?!'
Paf!
Another man near the first one slapped his friend on the back of his head and berated him, "Stop screaming like a little girl! He's obviously using magic, can't you see? Stop acting so rude!"
"Oh." The first man looked a bit closer and saw Gerald waving at him with the floating fork. "I see, I'm sorry for interrupting your meal, sir," he quickly apologized.
Gerald just waved it off with a "Don't worry about it…" and then returned to his food.
No time to waste on pointless human interactions.
A good while later he returned to his room at the Guild and sat down to reorganize his thoughts. Then suddenly, he jumped up with a realization, "Oh shit, my herbs! Please be alright!"
He scrambled to check on the contents of his pouches and found the herbs he received at the Golden Pouch. "Damn, they almost went bad! Another few days and they would be completely ruined."
Indeed the herbs were in a bad shape. Many of them completely lost the moisture content, while some of them started to grow mold and decay.
Luckily, it wasn't too bad. Only about 10% of the herbs were beyond saving.
"I need to quickly brew my potions, otherwise it would be too depressing if all my hard work was for naught."
He prepared all the necessary equipment for the brewing process. Before beginning, though, he had to remove the ruined herbs so they wouldn't contaminate the final product.
He then had to wash them thoroughly, but with only one hand, the process slowed down considerably.
Luckily the time he spent playing around with Telekinesis showed its usefulness at this time. Instead of using his hands to control the vials, knives, pestle and mortar, and such, he just used his mind.
Telekinesis was so cool!
The precision was still somewhat lacking, but it wasn't enough to prevent him from doing stuff accurately.
After a while, Gerald pulled out the Blood Codex just to make sure he remembered the recipes correctly. Making a mistake now would be too much of a waste. He could not afford to be careless.
"Fighting poison with poison, huh?" Gerald commented when he read the recipe for the Mana Elixir again.
God's Blood had to be combined with a few different substances and one of them came from the Demon Mushroom. It was an extremely poisonous ingredient and for some reason, it only grew around the Forbidden Lands. It was quite difficult to acquire.
Combining it with God's Blood neutralized both poisons and made it so that the more desired effects would prevail.
Actually, most potions were made with poisonous plants.
The Healing Potion, for example, was made with Healing Roots and they were extremely dangerous for small animals and insects.
The effect of the healing Root was to speed up the metabolism of a being that ate it. Small critters already had to eat their own body weight or more in food each day to survive, and with the increased metabolism from the plant, they would literally starve while eating.
However, humans were much bigger and the increase in food consumption could be easily ignored. On the other hand, the faster recovery that came with the increase in metabolism was quite welcome.
Similarly, there was a snake on Earth that had a powerful venom that could melt flesh. But instead of being afraid, humans started to farm those snakes and use their venom in small doses to make medicine that could thin the blood and prevent it from clumping up, saving the lives of many people.
There were many such examples across the world.
Gerald carefully measured the correct proportions of different herbs and mixed them in a beaker.
Alongside God's Blood and Demon Mushroom, there were a few extra plants that were added to increase the potency and shelf-life of the potion.
There were also some that could be added optionally, for better taste, but Gerald didn't have any.
Lastly, to complete a potion, he sprinkled some Pure Ether dust and used his mind to bind it with the potion in a specific way, according to the Codex.
"Phew," Gerald wiped the sweat off his forehead. "First Mana Elixir is done, finally! It took me almost an hour."
He placed the potion to the side and laid down on his bed. The work was quite exhausting since it was his first time and he had to be concentrating the whole time.
Now he had to meditate for a while to relax and also recover his Mana. The Elixir brewing process was much more demanding than that of the Swiftness Potion, for example.
After a short break, Gerald continued to brew more Mana Elixirs. With the herbs at hand, he managed to create five of them in a few hours.
It was not much, but it was a start. He was already thinking about how to get his hands on more ingredients in the future.
In the book, there was a warning stating that the Elixirs should be consumed once a day at most, for maximum efficiency.
It also said that the potion would lose its power over time as the person's Mana grew stronger. But that was far into the future and Gerald wasn't concerned with it just yet.
With the rest of the herbs in his possession, he created a few extra potions, but those were to be used in only specific situations and now it was not the time to do so.
It was already almost nighttime when he exhausted all materials for potions.
Gerald was quite tired, but the excitement was stronger so he sat comfortably on his bed with a Mana Elixir in his hand.
"I have waited so long for this! I just hope everything works as it should…" He opened the vial and chugged the potion all at once.
The taste was quite bitter, but that was to be expected since he didn't mix in any of the better-tasting ingredients.
At first, he didn't feel any different, but soon that changed. He felt a sense of happiness and comfort spread across his body, slowly nourishing his flesh and blood.
"Aaah," he lightly moaned. It felt like he had just come from freezing cold, into a warm bath, making his entire body relax.
The excitement and comfort were so great that he started to shiver as a smile hung on his lips. It was one of the best feelings he ever had and it was supposed to last for hours. He laid back with closed eyes and just enjoyed the feeling.
Gerald could feel his body slowly changing from the inside and his capacity for Mana slowly expanded. By his rough estimations, by the time the potion's effect ended, his Mana capacity should expand by 20-30MP.
"With five potions I can get at least 100MP and at most 150…" Gerald almost couldn't hold in his excitement as he thought of his increasing energy stores. With so much Mana he could make stronger spells and he could finally make use of the Stone Body Iron Heart Combat Art.
But then, as time went on, he noticed a weird anomaly. The pleasant feeling was slowly fading away, and it was happening much earlier than he expected.
Barely thirty minutes went by and he was already starting to feel sick. His stomach started to produce weird sounds and his gag reflex started to act up.
Bleagh!
There was a sudden urge and Gerald barely had enough time to turn to his side and vomit on the floor. The Mana Elixir was mixed with his stomach acid and it was giving off a quite repulsive smell.
Gerald frowned deeply. By now, the enhancement of his body was already over and it did not last even just one-tenth of what it was supposed to.
"What the fuck happened?" Gerald was flabbergasted. As he felt his Mana capacity he discovered a big problem. It did in fact increase, but only by about 1MP.
'A full potion wasted for 1 MP?! How?! Why?! What did I do wrong?!' Gerald screamed internally. He could not understand how did things turn this way.
It was all going well at the beginning until suddenly, it didn't. He scrolled through the Blood Codex in hopes of finding an answer, but that was just wishful thinking.
He knew the entire book like a palm of his hand, from beginning to end, and something like this was not among the possible side effects. There was no explanation for the event.
"How could this be? It's not like I drank poison, for it to be rejected so forcefully…" Then a sudden realization hit him.
"Nanites!" Gerald opened his eyes wide in horror, "It's the Nanites! They can't differentiate between harmful and beneficial chemical compounds! Noooooooo!"
Now it all made sense. Now he understood why it seemed like the potions had an extremely short duration on him.
Even just the Swiftness potion lasted three times longer if it was consumed by a normal person.
The weaker the potion, the milder the effect of neutralization.
For a few potions, he didn't even know they were getting forcefully neutralized in his body, as they were expelled in a normal way, just as the rest of the food and drink he consumed.
But, strong poisons and potions like Mana Elixir, for example, had a more radical effect on the body and so they were barfed and coughed out as well as getting neutralized at the same time.
Nanites were a double-edged sword. They protected him from harm, but at the same time, they prevented him from growing.
All of his plans and sacrifices were meaningless. All of his work, ruined!
When Gerald realized all of this, the world suddenly spun in front of his eyes as he collapsed down on his knees.
"I'm doomed!"