Chrysos used the soap to thoroughly clean himself. He finally took a bath because the old owner of this body never even bothered to take a bath.
The relief on his body felt very comfortable. He rinsed up afterwards and wiped his body with a towel.
"Hmm.." Looking at the mirror, Chrysos felt that his past self was too absorbed in his work that he even forgot to shave his beard.
With his habit of keeping good hygiene, he naturally couldn't let this stand.
He walked towards the furnace and used metal tongs to pick up a small metal cylinder. He used a drop of the incendiary potion to heat it up until it was hot red in color.
Next, he used Divinious for his ability "Skin Hardening."
His skin that used to be flesh, slowly turned into gray stone except for his hair. He gently placed the hot cylinder on his skin and then shaved his beard off using the hot piece of metal.
The hair was slowly shaved off. The hairs that touched the cylinder had parts of them glowing orange before fading away.
When the metal cylinder touched his skin, it felt warm for him. The heat couldn't really do anything to him and that's how the hairs were easily burnt off. Chrysos remembered from his past self's memories that he also used skin hardening for high temperatures when he's brewing.
After finishing up with a large pile of hair on the floor, he washed his face on the sink and looked at the mirror. So far, except the dark circles under his eyes, he looked like a decent man.
Looking at his face from different angles, Chrysos found out that this man's features looked quite handsome. He also wondered if he should cut off his long hair, but he decided to keep it because of how nice they looked.
His body was surprisingly well built, but it was still inferior to his earth counterpart's physique because he had access to many advanced gym equipment.
Sliding his fingers across his hair, Chrysos felt how smooth and silky they were. Mixing his hair's sharp look with his entire body, he looked fierce and awesome.
"Seems like this body isn't bad at all.." Chrysos pursed his lips as he nodded.
He dressed up and rested on his chair while reading books about alchemy. He kept reading until the sun came down.
Information was what he needed the most. And despite having access to some memories about the Divine Lands, it isn't enough. He had to know more if he wanted to adapt.
…
Some time later…
Chrysos felt his stomach grumble.
"Guess I have to get some food." Chrysos closed the book in his hands and put it back on a shelf. He looked at a cabinet and opened it. He grabbed a scent attraction potion and went outside.
When he got out, he spilled the vial on the grass, and after a while, hypnotized night cloud rabbits came towards the smell.
Chrysos picked three hypnotized rabbits that were too deep in their minds to even notice him. Before the potion wears off, he went inside and killed them immediately by placing them on a wooden stump and then stabbing them with a knife.
He prepared the furnace and removed the rabbit's organs, teeth and hide. He went to the furnace and grabbed some firewood. He used incendiary potions to light it up before grabbing a cooking pan.
While it was being heated up, he seasoned the rabbits with some spices and nutrient oils.
When the pan was heated up, he grabbed the rabbits and placed them one by one before cooking them.
Tsssss…..
The fresh aroma of the rabbits filled the room. He flipped it over after being cooked on one side, turning it brown.
After he was done cooking, Chrysos sat down on his table in the middle of the night.
Alone.
But despite the gloomy lighting in his house, he ate as if it didn't bother him at all.
After he was done, he nodded with satisfaction written all over his face. "Night cloud rabbits are nocturnal and they eat vegetables, fruits and sometimes even bugs… I sure do hope I didn't eat a cockroach." Chrysos laughed to himself.
After eating, he organized the rabbit organs in jars. He filled it up with water and splashed it with a few drops of a preservation potion and placed them in the cabinets.
After all of that was done, he prepared his bed and slept.
...
Next morning.
Chrysos began brewing a boar's muscle potion. This potion, just like the name suggests, will give you the strength of a boar through modifications of your muscular structure.
It sounds weird, but to people of the Divine Lands, it's pretty normal. After Chrysos' memories merged with his other world's memories, he also began to subconsciously think the way his Divine Lands counterpart acted.
Back on earth, he wouldn't like killing animals or even seeing them die. But as Chrysos, he didn't bat an eye. After all, it just felt normal for him.
Chrysos himself didn't notice this change at all.
...
He began preparing the ingredients as instructed from the book.
-1 Brown Forest Boar's tusk. (Extracted)
-2 Blood Sap mushroom caps.
-320g ground bones of a Brown Forest Boar
-1kg Intestines of Night Cloud Rabbits.
-5ml Yellow Tooth Fruit Tree Sap.
First, he drank a strength potion and ground the bones using a mortar. He then lit up the furnace and placed a flat pan on top of it.
He then grabbed two blood sap mushrooms and removed their caps. He threw them directly on the pan and the mushroom caps started shriveling and released blood red liquid.
Using Divinious, he extracted the boar tusk and was left with a jelly like version of the tusk. He placed the jelly on a glass jar.
Next, he removed the shriveled mushroom caps from the pan and sprinkled the ground bones of the boar. And just like a living thing, the blood swarmed the bone powder. But Chrysos knew it was just a chemical reaction.
He grabbed the jar of rabbit intestines from last night and used extraction Divinious while squeezing them on the glass jar of jellied boar tusk.
He used skin hardening and picked up the pan with his bare hands. He poured the pan's contents into the glass jar.
Next, he grabbed a bottle of the yellow tooth fruit tree sap and poured the right amount on the glass jar. Chrysos had years of experience. Accurately pouring the right amount of ingredients is a natural talent he developed over the years.
He then used his blending ability and mixed the potion. While mixing, he let a stream of Divinious merge with the potion as well. And not too long after, he got his potion.
He took a sniff and his eyes brightened. "Haha! I was lucky! It became a rare tier potion!" Without any hesitation, he drank the potion.
He immediately felt his muscles more invigorated and more powerful. However, Chrysos knew it was just an illusion. It didn't give his body instant strength, it just gave his muscles more potential.
Just like hot iron, he needed to hammer it if he wanted it to become stronger. But instead of hammering his body, he needs to work out and exercise. And soon enough, he'll have the muscular strength of a boar.
But Chrysos suppressed his urge to work out. He had to clean up after his mess first.
He grabbed a mop and a few towels.
...
After a few minutes, everything was clean.
He was about to lift some weights until someone knocked on his door.
Knock knock…
"Who could that be?" Chrysos searched his memories and remembered someone important.
"Oh right, him.." Chrysos opened the door and smiled. His entire aura shifted from the boring and quiet Chrysos to the cheerful and happy Gerald.
"Ah, I didn't expect you'd come today, Nadt." Chrysos saw a man around his twenties riding a horse pulling a wagon full of random stuff.
"Chrysos? Is that you?" Nadt was bewildered. He has never seen Chrysos so clean before. And not only that, he took a shower?!
"Of course it's me.." Chrysos shook his head as he leaned on the side of the doorframe. "So, what did you get for me this time?" Chrysos approached Nadt and patted him on the shoulder.
"Woah woah woah, dude you-" Nadt was just about to complain about how smelly he is until he noticed that not only did Chrysos look clean, he even smelled good! "Chrysos, what's gotten into you that you decided to take a bath?"
"Oh nothing. I just decided it would be nice to do that once in a while." Chrysos crossed his arms. "So, did you get those ingredients I asked for?"
"Yep, your potions sold like hotcakes! I earned quite a bit of extra profit because of it." Nadt smiled at his accomplishment. "Anyways, here's your ingredients."
Nadt got off his horse and grabbed a sack full of alchemy ingredients.
"I recommend you bring that in my house. I'll help you get them in." Chrysos opened the door of his cabin.
"I'm not sure that's a good-" Nadt was about to refuse when he saw how clean the house was. "Dude!? You cleaned up your house?!"
Chrysos looked at him with furrowed eyebrows. "Yeah, what's wrong about it?"
"From what I remember, it was so dirty back then.. How long did it take to clean this?" Nadt dropped a sack on a table.
"Hmm... five hours?" Chrysos answered with an unsure tone.
"F- Five hours?" Nadt couldn't believe what he was hearing. He was expecting that it would be a day at least. Since when did Chrysos become so good at cleaning?
...
The two finally brought all of the sacks inside.
"Alright, that should do it." Nadt smiled after he brought the last sack and looked around the house in astonishment.
Chrysos gave him seventy potions in leather containers. Back in his world, Chrysos thought that it was normal for alchemists in video games to throw glass bottles full of potions. But after becoming one, he realized that glass bottles are expensive!
No one in the right mind would throw potions around like crazy!
Nadt's smile grew wider after seeing the potions Chrysos had for him. "Alright, I'll be setting off now. Bye!"
Nadt rode his wagon away while waving back.
Chrysos waved back at him before entering his house. He placed his ingredients in jars as usual and preserved them.
After that, he began exercising.
...
The next day…
Chrysos began brewing potions once more.
"Hmm.. He asked me to make 20 swiftness potions, 20 strength potions, 20 healing potions, and 10 Divinious restoration potions." Chrysos looked at the list and nodded.
He has a personal recipe for each of these potions. After all in the Divine Lands, there are uncountable numbers of ingredients with different reactions and effects when brewed into a potion.
Some recipes achieve the right kind of potion but have weaker effects when consumed, some have lesser ingredients needed but complicated procedures in order to make the potion, and it's very unpredictable!
That is what makes alchemy unique.
Only through trial and error will anyone find out how to use different combinations of ingredients.
Chrysos started working on the swiftness potions. The ingredients are..
-1 crushed silver legged beetle
-2ml Pilaphate vine essence
-20g Wind snake grass
-35g crushed Aeran Ore
-10ml Windgrazer Wolf Blood
-2g windgrazer wolf flesh
-1ml honeysnake flower's nectar
These are the contents for one bottle. Since Chrysos is making 20 of these, he obviously used much more ingredients.
Chrysos began by crushing silver legged beetles by using the most efficient way possible. Crushing them all at once.
Then, he boiled water and tossed the wind eel grass and crushed aeran ore inside the pot. It's the same process as the water frog grass but this time, the wind snake's venom made the wild grass more attuned to wind.
While waiting for the wild grass and the aeran ore to boil, Chrysos put the windgrazer flesh and blood in the same bowl. He took pilaphate vines and extracted them. He poured the essence on the bowl and the pilaphate essence corroded the flesh, mixing it thoroughly with the blood.
After that, he grabbed the bottle of honeysnake flower honey and waited for the pot to boil. The honeysnake flower is a flower that looks like a real snake. It has a stem that looks like scales and the flower looks like a snake shedding its skin in five directions. The "shedded skin" is the petals. It may look dangerous, but the nectar is actually sweet as honey.
Once the pot boiled, he took a strainer and scooped the grass out. He began extracting them and poured the grass essence on the crushed beetles. He also poured the blood mixture and began blending them.
After a while, it became a red water like liquid. It wasn't at all viscous like you would expect, but instead it was just as similar to water's viscosity.
However, this red water is poisonous. He had to neutralize it. Good thing the honeysnake flower's nectar can do such a thing.
That's right! not only is it sweet, it's also used for venom and poison remedies. As long as the venom or poison isn't strong, it can neutralize it enough that you can drink it directly without suffering any symptoms.
When he poured the nectar, it changed from a red color to a vibrant green color. And he's done!
Now he got to work on the other potions.
It was a mundane task, but for someone who has never seen this before, Gerald quite enjoyed himself while brewing.