Among the tallest tower in Angstrom City, Grand Duke Edwina pushed open a wooden carved door gently and looked at the elder female elf who was using a strange device to observe the sky, her hair was pure white, and her face was old with lots of wrinkles.
"Good morning, Master Mara!" Grand Duke Edwina greeted.
"Duke Edwina, the star this morning shines particularly bright. It's indicating that today will be a lucky day. I suppose I should be making my "soul enhancing potion" later, then.
"It's been two years since you tried to develop the soul enhancing potion. How is it progressing?" Grand Duke Edwina asked. After hearing that Master Mara was going to make the brew based on her own luck, things were probably not going too well for her.
Master Mara shook her head, "Duke Edwina if I manage to make it before the day I pass away, I will finally live up to the title the elves have granted me."
Master Mara was an honorary master, which was because the alchemists didn't have a real "master" rank. There were two ways to become an honorable Master. The first way was by fusing master class alchemy items. Such an approach would be centered around doing research on particular items. Thus, a large number of formulas and materials would be required. The cost could be tremendous, but one could be recognized as a master alchemist even if she was to have a very low success rate in her work.
Another type of honorary masters were the ones who contributed to inventing or upgrading alchemy recipes. Master Mara belonged in this category. Throughout her career, she developed a variety of some very practical recipes for the elves. Her specialty was in the field of potion fusing. Whilst being sponsored by Grand Duke Edwina, she got the chance to investigate into making soul enhancing potions. If she were to succeed, the druids would make a lot more progress with their training routine.
"Master Mara, please have a look at this." Grand Duke Edwina took out a bottle of a blue elven perfume. It's one of the forty bottles that Carrie delivered to her early in the morning
Master Mara took the blue "elven perfume" and observed the liquid in the bottle, "This is a normal elven perfume. There's nothing special about the way it's made, or what it's made of."
Master Mara gently opened the bottle cap of the blue "elven perfume" and sniffed it in front of her nose. After a while, her face was full of excitement, and it seemed like she had found what she was pursuing.
When she put the lid back on, her eyes became sharpened. She turned and looked at Edwina, "This potion has a soul purifying effect! I need to know who made it! What kind of talent do you need to have to make ordinary potions have a soul purifying effect?"
Duke Edwina asked instead of answering the question, "What did you find in this bottle of "elven perfume"? Tell me everything that you knew about it."
While Master Mara was eager to test the potion as well, she still let Grand Duke Edwina make her decision at first, "You'll have to wait, Duke Edwina. I'm going to do the testing later. But are you sure that you want this to be tested? I'll have to use up the whole bottle then."
"Master Mara, just test as much as you want, if there was not enough, I still have more!" Said Grand Duke Edwina with a careless wave. Since she could tell how happy her eldest daughter was in the morning, she must've known that Abel has made enough blue potions for everyone.
Master Mara took the elven perfume to the alchemy table, poured one of the elven perfume into ten crystal test tubes, and dripped different liquids into the crystal tubes. She then applied "quick fermentation" to each crystal test tube, and soon the ten crystal test tubes showed different colors.
"No, this is impossible!" Master Mara shook the crystal test tube in her hand vigorously, as if she was not satisfied with the result in front of her. She dipped the liquid in one of the test tubes with her finger, put it in her mouth, spit it out quickly, and picked up another crystal test tube.
Duke Edwina found that Master Mara was in a bad mood, and said softly, "Master Mara, if you have trouble with the test, you should test it slowly, there is no need to rush."
"Duke Edwina, please hand me another bottle of elven perfume !" Master Mara demanded as she put down her test tube.
Duke Edwina said she handed another potion to Master Mara, "There was enough for you to test. If you have any questions, I can call the alchemist who made it and have him come here in person."
"I wouldn't dare to, Duke Edwina!" Master Mara said as she continued her testing, "Whoever's done this, he's already a much, much better alchemist than I'll ever be! Please, instead of letting him come to me, I'll show him my respect by visiting him myself."
Grand Duke Edwina seemed to underestimate the blue 'elven perfume,' which she thought was helpful for the research. Perhaps Master Mara saw something that she didn't see. There was only one master alchemist in this room, after all.
The second test did calm Master Mara down a little. She drained the liquid from the crystal test tubes and then started to clean the crystal test tube carefully. During the cleaning process, her expression became calmer and calmer. After cleaning all the alchemy utensils, she was back to her calm, wise self.
"Grand Duke Edwina, this master is incredible. From what I just tested, the materials he used were the most common ones, but he was able to utilize the full potential of each of them. Actually, not "fully." He might just have just exceeded their potentials. Could it be.... Did he increase the required quantities of each ingredient?"
Master Mara wasn't sure if she was accurate. If the person who made this recipe actually changed the number of its ingredients, he would not only have to change the proportion of the materials that were added, but he'd also have to restart the entire recipe from scratch. And if that was the case, then what she was looking at now was a completely new recipe.
By increasing the level of the potion recipe itself, the materials used to make it are also upgraded. However, that didn't explain why the potion had a soul purifying effect to it.
Master Mara paused and asked, "If I may ask this directly, Madam: Who made this?"
"His name is Bennett, a junior alchemist who just learned alchemy." Grand Duke Edwina replied. She did not want to reveal Abel's identity, so she only introduced his pseudonym.
"How could that be? If he was a junior alchemist, how did he manage to do all this? How did he use the materials? How did he learn to readjust the formula?"
Instead of actually demanding an answer from Grand Duke Edwina, Master Mara continued to ask, "Where is he? Can I meet him?"
The Duke of Edwina nodded and said, "Yes, I have arranged a place for him to live in the city. You are free to visit him at any time."
Grand Duke Edwina did not tell Master Mara about the dozens of bottles of blue 'elven perfume' in the package. She didn't want to tell her that Abel made forty bottles of them in one night, either. Judging the way Master Mara reacted just now, she would probably have a heart attack if she were to know what Abel was actually capable of.