Edart returned safely to the hut, but if one looked at his face, one would see how worried he was.
'Maybe this feeling coming from the mountain will make the bear not come near here.' That was his hope.
While thinking about what he saw in the forest, he began to prepare his food.
Eris was worried about him, but she didn't know how to cheer him up. Seeing that he was still doing his thing, she kept quiet for now.
Preparing lunch didn't take long. In addition to gathering wood for the fire, Edart took his spears and skewered the rabbit meat on them. With everything ready, all that was left was to light the fire.
Today, he would try something new. Rummaging through his backpack, he soon found his newest fire core.
—"Let's see if it works." Holding the red core in his hand, Edart began to channel his mana into his hand. As before, he created a small crack in the core barrier that kept the mana inside.
Suddenly, a flame appeared and rose to the sky. Edart quickly reduced the size of the crack in the core. With that, the flame also decreased in intensity.
—"Perfect!" Edart said, seeing the small flame that seemed to come from a blowtorch. Slowly, he brought the core closer to the fire, which immediately caught fire.
As soon as the fire stabilized, he placed the skewers on the fire and waited for the meat to be ready. This was the perfect moment that Eris found to talk.
— ["Edart, are you okay?"]
— "Yes." He answered in a low voice, still looking at the fire.
— ["And what we found in the forest. Aren't you worried?"]
For a moment, silence took over, until Edart answered.
— "I am." That was all he answered.
Eris's concern began to increase with his answers.
— ["We can overcome this, we don't know what happened there, but I doubt the bear will come here. So, there's nothing to fear and, by being careful, we can avoid it when we're passing through the forest."]
— "Yes."
— ["Then, don't give up. With me around, I won't let anything bad happen to you."]
What worried Eris was the curse of the abyss on Edart. She had seen him paralyzed with fear before, if that happened in the middle of a battle, it would be the end for them.
So, to prevent that, she was trying to create a point for him to stand on, so that he wouldn't be paralyzed again and would have someone he could lean on in his worst moments.
— "Yes, I'm counting on you to help me in the days to come."
— ["That's good, so what are you worried about? Is it about the bear? You can talk to me."]
— "Ah, no, that's not it. I was just thinking about how I could get stronger. There must be a way to increase my strength at a faster rate."
Seeing that his concern was something else, not related to the bear, she felt relieved.
She was afraid that he would be so scared that he wouldn't be able to move forward. Knowing now that he was looking for ways to get stronger, she raised her expectations for the future.
— ["I believe we'll find a way soon."] She said excitedly.
— "Yes, there must be a way."
Taking a look at the meat, Edart realized that they were already at a good point. Putting his worries aside, he began to enjoy his lunch.
…
— "Eris, can you see any difference in the amount of mana in the water in this bottle?"
After eating, Edart and Eris met in the hut's laboratory. It was time to work on producing some potions.
— ["Yes. Despite only having spent a few days. The water has lost about a third of the mana it had when it was created."]
— "I see." Edart said thoughtfully.
The water vial in question was one he had filled with water created from the mana of a water core. He wanted to see what would happen to this mana, since, unlike the water found in the stream, it contained much more mana.
— "At least it will serve as purer water. I hope that this will improve the result."
Edart began to search the laboratory for equipment. After a while of searching, he found everything he needed.
— "Very well, let's begin."
The day before, he had collected some 'Silver Moon' petals, which in total gave him enough to make 20 'Life Balls.' First, he separated the best from the worst. Having formed 4 piles of 20 petals each, he began working with the worst ones. Since he had no experience with this work, it was better to lose his worst petals than the best ones.
Taking 5 petals, he threw them into the pestle and began grinding them. Soon, a pulp formed at the bottom of the pestle.
— "I think that's enough."
Taking a vial, he poured all the pulp into it. Then, he took a water core and filled it with water. He took a cork and covered the top of the vial.
Holding it with both hands, he shook it for about 5 minutes and then used 'Identify' on the vial.
— "You've got to be kidding me."
— ["Name: 'Silver Moon' Petal Juice.]
— ["Description: Created by an inexperienced alchemist, who didn't know what to do. Simply mixing a pulp with water doesn't seem like the most efficient way to extract its essence. In the end, he created a juice with a suspicious taste."]
— ["Effect: Heals 10 health points when ingested."]
— ["At least the amount of healing has increased."] Eris commented and Edart swore he could hear a low chuckle at the end.
'I knew it wasn't ready, I just wanted to see if there was any change. I didn't expect anything like this.' He cursed in his head at that description.
—"Let's heat it up and see if we can get anything." His idea was to boil this juice like tea or coffee, where the hot water would extract the essence of the plant.
Grabbing a stand, Edart fixed the balloon-style bottle to it.
— "Eris, I'll count on you to take care of the fire."
— ["Leave it to me."] She spoke confidently.
Edart looked for some equipment that could be used to heat things, but even after much searching he couldn't find anything that would work.
To solve this problem, he would use the fire core, where he would create a small flame like a blowtorch and use it to heat the flask.
Positioning the core under the flask, he said.
— "You can start, since we have no idea how this will work, we will start slowly. Create a small flame and gradually increase it."
— ["Ok."] She replied.
Without delay, a small flame appeared under the flask, gradually increasing it. Until the entire bottom of the flask was covered by the flame.
Seven minutes later, Edart asked her to stop.
It took the water in the flask 2 minutes to start boiling. After that, he let it boil for 5 minutes. Well, he guessed that was more or less it. Without having any precise means of counting, he could only guess.
— "It's fine like this." Not wanting to wait for it to cool down, he used 'Identify' on the vial again.
— ["Name: Life Potion (Weak)"]
— ["Description: Created by an inexperienced alchemist who didn't know what to do. By boiling a pulp of Silver Moon petals, she managed to extract a greater healing potential from the petals. It's not much, but it can help in times of crisis."]
— ["Effect: Heals 30 health points when ingested."]
— ["Duration: 10 days."]
— "Hehehe!" Edart couldn't help but let out a soft laugh.
With just one extra petal, he had gained 24 more health points. It was a huge improvement, however, he believed he could do better. Remember, these weren't even the best petals he had.
Unfortunately, it still had an expiration date. Even so, that time had increased by 5 times, which was great.
— "Let's continue," Edart said excitedly.
Using a sieve, he extracted the pulp from the potion and threw it away.
The next thing he wanted to try was to reduce the amount of liquid. The current bottle wasn't small, which would be a problem if he carried a lot of potions.
Heating the bottle with the potion again, Edart waited for the water to boil, hoping to reduce the amount of water but maintain the same effect.
When he thought it was good, he turned off the heat and used identify again. Seeing the information, he was a little disappointed.
— ["Effect: Heals 23 health points when ingested."]
Apparently, in addition to the water, the healing effect had also disappeared. He couldn't tell if it was because the water had decreased, if it was due to the heat, or for some other reason.
— "Well, we still have enough material for more tests." Undaunted, he continued to test ways to create potions.