"Huh? What's that?" I asked while holding my armor. Soul took the lead and walked over to the store and its big glass windows that held a giant pot behind them. It looked pretty confusing, but she seemed to know a lot about it.
"That's a cauldron! It's for potion crafting... did you not know about it? Maybe we should get that for you." Soul stated.
"What does it do? Produce them at higher quality? I can already do that." I told her. Soul shook her head as she opened the door for me. It was rickety, just like the blacksmith's door. I was also getting really tired while holding my new armor, so I wanted to put it on.
"Do you have a back room I can change in?" I asked the shop owner. He slid a cup of coffee off of his mustache and waved his hand toward a room with a curtain on it. I thanked him for his kindness and quickly put on the new shirt, storing my other one in my inventory. It wasn't nearly as heavy once I started wearing it, but I noticed my stamina points dropped by a hundred. That must've been the drawback, but I couldn't complain about that.
My mana capacity was already reaching over the maximum and I watched as the elixirs on my hips began to fill to their maximum capacity as well. I regenerated mana at a ridiculous pace, so they would almost always be full. At least I had a failsafe now. I walked out of the room and everybody was talking near the metallic cauldron.
"Oh! Anima, you look so good!" Ruby said while clapping her hands together and leaning her head.
"It's just a shirt, but thanks. How would we even move this thing around?" I asked everybody. Soul sighed as she pointed to a sign right next to the cauldron.
"Not to scale..." I said. Huh? Was the actual thing even bigger?
I opened up a box nearby and saw a cauldron about a tenth of a size sitting next to the giant one on display... but I could store this in my inventory! I asked Soul how I would use it, then moved to the store owner once she said that she didn't know.
"Huh? Oh, you just put your potions into it and it makes two, but it also decreases the effectiveness in half as well." He said. Decreases huh...
"Do you mind if I try it?" I asked the man. He nodded as soon as we negotiated and I told him I would be buying it either way. I tested it, hoping that when my potions split they would still have the same effectiveness...
But it didn't work.
I silently cursed this damn cauldron as it spat out my potion from the rear and I picked it up while looking at the durability of it. It could've been lightly tapped and completely ruined it was so weak, and its effectiveness wasn't half, it was a fourth.
I put three gold coins on the counter and took the cauldron.
"What the hell is up with this place? This suit of armor for me costs one hundred gold, but this big metal whatever is three? I hate New Olympia. I commented, absorbing the cauldron into my inventory.
"Don't be so down about it! I'm sure it has another use we weren't told yet... so, what should we do know?" Ruby asked everybody.
"No clue. There's a lot we can do, but what we need to do... I want to give you all enough potions to keep you alive as long as possible. If you had inventories, I would be talking about a hundred each. I want you all to have three potions at all times and I'm going to be storing two hundred in my pockets. So, we need to make more potions. Can you guys get me that New Olympia flower while I get the other ingredients?" I asked them. Soul, Tama, and Ruby all gathered up to go look for flowers on the outside of our home.
"We just started the day and I don't feel like doing anything else... hey, Ipa, Ken, do you guys have a small knife on you?" I asked them. Ipa threw one into the wall right next to me while staring out of the window again.
"Hey, edge lord, you put a hole in the wall of our rented property. You could've just handed that to me. What's up with you?" I asked him.
"Doesn't this all bother you? Why are we still walking without any punishment from Zeus? Is he really that powerless? No, I feel like something bad is coming, I just know it." He told Ken and I.
"Well you're probably right, but we shouldn't be skeptical about it and just accept the fact we have a chance to do whatever we want at the moment. And stop throwing knives!" I yelled at him again. I cut the top of my finger and let out blood into another glass jar, crafting a singular potion from a flower I had left in my inventory.
"Woah, that's how you make your potions? Maybe it's your blood that's potent and not your potion crafting skills." Ken suggested.
"Don't be ridiculous, I hardly think that's..." I paused for a moment while looking at my blood drip into the jar.
"My blood is the potent thing? Woah... that doesn't sound far from accurate. Every potion I've made requires my blood as an ingredient... and Lolofaruba taught me that, so did she know about my ability? No no, that can't be it... Could that be why Shima was attached to my body? My potent blood saved her? If only you could talk, Shima." I sighed in irritation.
"Hey, Ken. That's not a bad idea. Should we try to prove it?" I asked him.
"Sure, but I don't know how we're going to do that." He explained to me, but I already had a plan.
"It's easy. I'm just going to cut myself and drink my own blood." I told him. I did exactly what I proposed and once I put a droplet of blood into my mouth, the potency almost made me puke.
Ken was right! He suggested something that was almost a hundred percent accurate! It tasted like concentrated sugar when I put my blood in my mouth!