Punk had purchased a run-down, small house covering an area of approximately 200 square meters for 70 gold coins. This house's location and condition were so poor that people might not even accept it as a free gift, let alone buy it for 70 gold coins. The previous owner may even wake up laughing from his sleep when thinking about how he fooled a fat sheep so easily.
As Punk stood there, he watched with disdain as a middle-aged man hurriedly handed over the ownership of the house, clearly worried that the wealthy mage, Punk, may regret this purchase.
Punk simply shook his head at the ignorance of the common people and began to inspect his new home more closely.
He hadn't anticipated that a dream he'd had on Earth could come so easily in this new world. But he couldn't shake off the feelings of insecurity and a lack of belonging that this purchase brought him.
"Is it because I haven't been living in a fixed place since I crossed over that I'm now used to it?" Punk couldn't help but laugh at himself.
Punk calmly cast several detection spells on the house, and after confirming that there were no issues, he stepped onto the old steps at the entrance of the house, which emitted creaking noises. Upon entering the small house, the first thing that welcomed Punk was a thick layer of dust on the floor, measuring more than a centimeter in thick, along with several large spider webs all over the the house.
When Punk opened the door, the dust in the house scattered in the air, making the whole living room look dusty and unpleasant. " "I paid you so much money, and you didn't even clean the house. No wonder you couldn't sell it," Punk remarked in disappointment.
Punk grumbled about the seller's lousy service, which wasn't all that different from people he'd encountered back on Earth. He then used a wind technique, significantly reducing its power, to clear away the dust and spiderwebs.
Even with the reduced power, as the mini-hurricane swept through every corner of the broken house, the rotten wooden structure couldn't even withstand it, and it began making harsh groaning noises.
This made Punk worry about whether the broken house would crumble and collapse in the next moment.
Punk sent the hurricane, which was now more like a dust storm, out through the door. The dust storm reached outside and covered the leaves of a small tree with dust.
Despite the house remaining in poor condition, Punk was quite satisfied after looking at the much cleaner environment.
Because there was no furniture, the space inside the small house was sufficient enough to set up an alchemy laboratory.
Punk didn't need furniture because, as a mage, he only required meditation instead of sleep, so he didn't need a bed. Furthermore, as a "Chef" who couldn't even make scrambled eggs, he had no use for a kitchen, as he intended to buy food from street vendors.
After establishing a few simple defensive spells, Punk entered a room located on the inner side of the house. When he opened the door, the entire room was in darkness, with faint rays of light filtering in through holes in the room's roof caused by insects. All of this created a ghostly atmosphere in this small room.
Punk chanted an apprentice-level spell – dancing light, and a bright ball of light, which was comparable to an incandescent lamp, emerged in his hand and then floated to the ceiling. The soft light emitted by the ball brightened the whole room. As a passive apprentice-level spell, this spell can be maintained for two days, so it can be said to be better than the electric lights.
Later, Punk also created a large table using magic. These basic magical spells could be altered and adapted to some extent by Punk, who is already at a trainee-level as a mage.
For example, a spell that originally created only a round table was modified by Punk through the system's analysis to produce a large rectangular experimental table. While this change may seem minor in terms of the spell's structure, it signified Punk's deepening understanding of magic.
Punk was now prepared to begin experimenting with alchemical potions. He carefully retrieved a set of alchemical tools, each engraved with faint magic lines, from his pocket. This particular set of tools wasn't the type of cheap, disposable items that could be easily purchased for just ten gold coins. Rather, they were limited edition custom-made products worth 200 gold coins, or at least that's what the old man had claimed when selling them to Punk.
This tool is made of high-quality materials and had some magic inscriptions added to improve the success rate.
Punk selected a light red, transparent beaker adorned with a delicate light yellow flame-shaped inscription. The beaker's sides gave off a mild warmth, similar to the flames shown in the inscription. This beaker is made of Fire crystal, which was not only very strong but also has the characteristic of slowing down mana dissipation. The beaker's sides gave off a mild warmth, similar to the flames shown in the inscription. It was absolutely an excellent piece of equipment that every novice Alchemy master/alchemist dreams of. However, it also immediately drained nearly all of Punk's recently acquired gold coins.
After arranging the alchemy equipment neatly on the experimental table, Punk took out the old and thin "night vision potion formula" and began to study it carefully.
The bag containing the alchemy materials was placed near Punk's feet, which is convenient for Punk to take out the materials anytime for comparison with the formula.
As time went by, Punk's understanding of the night vision potion's formula also deepened.
This potion uses a form of biological mimicry to achieve its effect. After undergoing the alchemy procedure, the potion transforms into a semi-quantifiable transparent liquid. Following this, the alchemy master must add a sequence of magical programs to it.
After someone drinks it, it will change form again and become a kind of energy that will quickly flow through the blood circulation and gather in the eyes, then the magic program that has been integrated with the potion will form a layer of light-sensitive energy film at the wall of the retina. In the case of normal light, the film will become transparent so that the light can pass into the retina, but once the light becomes dimmed, the transparent film will materialize and increase the intensity of light as much as needed and project it into the retina.
The principle was simple, but the process of implementation was very complicated and difficult.
Punk closed the book that had already been recorded word for word by the system and began to think deeply while rubbing the rough book cover.
The key to successfully making this potion lies in two aspects: one is to refine a variety of strange ingredients into a potion with unique light perception properties. The second point is to program the agent to automatically identify a human body's visual organs and create the energy film in the correct position.
The second point can be learned by reading other alchemy master's notes and with sufficient practice.
The first point was particularly complex and challenging. Initially, you had to extract the essence from the materials and then combine all those essences, ultimately altering the properties of the reagents. However, despite the materials being of the same type, their properties were different. Therefore, refining it not only requires extreme precision but also constant adaptation with the changing properties of the materials Many mages failed at these intricate and complicated operations.
Punk put down the recipe book and started to gently rub the side of his head between his eye and ear (temple) using his index finger. Even with the help of the system and a stronger mental capacity than usual, Punk still felt somewhat disheartened.
"No wonder there are so few alchemy masters!" Punk said to himself.
Now, Punk finally understood the meaning of the mocking expression he had seen in the alchemy puppet's eyes when he bought the formula.
"Looks like the cheap thing is not as simple as I thought."