Next day, on the roof of the castle,
Verum was standing there with a lot of different things, to be precise,
1 Cauldron,
10 buckets,
2 Differently sized sieves made of wood,
3 Different sized mortar and pestles,
10 stone bowls,
5 stone pots of various sizes,
3 wooden spoons of various sizes,
3 trays filled with leaves of different colors, white, blue, and green,
A ton of wooden bottles placed on a table.
"Alright, let's try this again." Said Verum, as he picked up some leaves from the blue pile and put them into the medium size mortar and pestle and started grounding them. He did this for five minutes, then he took it, and put it through the smaller sieve, into the cauldron.
"Time to add water." He took some water from the nearest bucket using one of the pots, then carefully, drop by drop, started adding the water to powdered leaves.
Drip, drop, drip, drop, drip.
'Just a little bit more... Now!' He pulled the pot back to stop it from dropping any more water than was already present, then he put the pot away, and picked up a spoon as he used magic to ignite the dry wood underneath the cauldron. Then he started to slowly stir the concoction with the spoon.
'Slowly, slowly, we don't want a repeat of that time.'
Verum had been trying to make a successful potion since he woke in the morning, and so far, he had only managed to make one bowl of mana recovery potion, that too a badly diluted, and inefficient one.
In his venture, he frequently misjudged the volume of water needed, putting too much of it, and diluting it. Sometimes he also stir it too hard, making the brew lose the mana that was in it, and reducing the potion to a weirdly flavored drink.
Once or twice, he let it stay on the fire too long, making the water along with the mana to evaporate, again failing the process.
The other two trays of leaves were used to make healing potions, and so far, he had been wildly successful in making them, only failing four times before he got the ratios and times right, and started producing good quality potions.
To make the healing potion, he first turned the green leaves to powder and set them on the cauldron, and let them be for about ten minutes. Then he added the white leaves, which he powdered during the duration, and the ratio of green leaves to white was 3:1, which he made carful note of.
After adding the white leaves, he stirred it at a medium pace for three minutes, and then let it sit on the fire for a minute and a half before taking it off, and viola! The potion was ready.
His luck did not last however, as the mana potion was seemingly much more difficult to make than the health potion, and so here he was, trying again to make it.
'Alright, that should be enough.' He thought, as he pulled the spoon out in one smooth and swift motion to avoid disturbing the brew too much.
'Now to wait, and see.' He sat down on a small chair that was placed there, and started watching the potion-in-making.
Over time, the color started changing slightly, and Verum leaned forward in anticipation, 'Almost ready.' He thought, and got ready to put the fire out.
.
.
.
"That's enough." He spoke, and extinguished the flame, then he took a spoonful of the brew, and directly opened True Observance to see whether the mana was sufficient or not.
"Haha, Yes!" He shouted, "It's a success!" His joyous laughter was heard by all those in the castle as he celebrated his success. "Finally! Whoo!"
He calmed down a bit, and then took a sip from the spoon, and his face contorted. "Ugh! Still tastes bad though, I hoped that it wouldn't, but hey, can't have everything." He said, and started scooping the potion into the small wooden bottles on the table, two spoons each.
It did not take too long for him to finish the brew inside the cauldron, but there were still quite some bottles left that were empty. "So five herbs worth of leaves is worth 20 bottles of potion, eh? That's not a bad ratio!" He exclaimed, and put the bottles into his inventory as he walked down the stairs, to the courtyard, and went to the warehouse.
After checking it's contents, Verum smiled before walking to the middle of the courtyard, and then speaking out loud.
"Upgrade Castle to Intermediate!"
[Castle upgrade requirements: 500 wood, 2000 stone, 10 silver]
[Upgrade unlocks: Stable, Workshop, Guardian altar]
[Confirm?]
"Confirm."
As he finished uttering the word, the castle was enveloped again, but this time, Verum just closed his eyes, and waited for it to finish.
Soon enough, he heard a 'Ding!' sound, and so, he opened his eyes again.
The changes became immediately apparent the moment he did so, the castle was taller, there was more space in the courtyard, the walls seemed to be more sturdier, and there were some big empty spaces around him, presumably for the buildings.
[The altar is now ready to summon troops again]
[Troop quantity: 20 units]
'Huh! There's a bonus like this as well? Not bad at all! I will gladly accept this gift.' He thought, changing the direction he was facing, and walking towards the altar, which was not any different than the previous times that he had seen it.
He reached out his hand towards the middle, and touched the circle, immediately a panel popped into existence in front of him.
[Summons remaining: 20]
"Summon: Scientia Warriors!"
[Confirmed, please select the amount of units you would like to summon]
"All twenty of them, if you don't mind"
[Confirmed, Please wait, Summoning now...]
Verum took a step back, he turned around to see that many of his men were coming towards him, led by their captain, Jason.
"Ah! Jason! You're just in time! These new people will be under your command!" Verum spoke, while his hand gestured at the twenty people behind him who were looking around in curiosity.