Chapter 18
She's Still Alive!
[Though you had never studied potionology before, the uncontrollable contamination value forced you to accept new knowledge.]
[You flipped through various books related to potionology and began experimenting.]
[The difficulty of potionology exceeded your expectations. Despite pouring in a great deal of effort, your academic progress remained stagnant. You felt as though you were completely wasting your time.]
[You began to feel lost, even thinking of giving up at one point, but ultimately, you persisted.]
[You successfully brewed a potion. Although the quality was far from ideal, your success rate for crafting apprentice-level resistance potions still reached 10%.]
[Devouring Contamination Potion (Uninitiated) → Devouring Contamination Potion (Basic)]
[Academic Points: 14 → 9]
Seeing the skill advance to basic level, Lucy’s face lit up with joy. The academic point cost was far less than she had anticipated.
Judging from the description, potionology required a large volume of experiments to accumulate data, but the consumption of academic points seemed relatively low.
Just as Lucy was about to exit the interface and attempt potion brewing by hand, she noticed that the evolving blue characters did not stop as they had previously, but continued to flicker.
[Your first success dispelled the gloom of previous failures, and your passion for potionology soared.]
[You continued to brew the "Devouring Contamination Potion", learning from both failure and success.]
[At last, your skills in potionology saw another significant leap. The success rate for the Devouring Contamination Potion reached 30%, with a 1% chance of crafting a master-level potion.]
[Devouring Contamination Potion (Basic) → Devouring Contamination Potion (Advanced)]
[Academic Points: 0]
Crash—
The chair fell to the ground as Lucy, having absorbed a vast amount of memories and knowledge, leapt to her feet in excitement.
Though her head throbbed with a stabbing pain, Lucy’s eyes shone only with exhilaration.
A total of 14 academic points had successfully advanced the “Resistance Potion” skill twice, raising its rank directly to advanced. The potion crafting success rate had soared to an astonishing 30%.
It must be known that a potionology-aligned witch only needed a success rate above 10% to ensure profit.
Her success rate was three times the average.
As for the 1% chance of crafting a master-level potion, it was merely icing on the cake something that might happen by chance but couldn’t be relied upon. Lucy didn’t dwell on it.
She reached out to touch the potionology instruments on the table. Though she had never used them before, a sense of familiarity rose in her heart at that moment, as if she had practiced with them countless times in her dreams.
With practiced ease, she divided the ingredients purchased by Talia into three equal portions. Taking part of one portion, she added the selected herbs into a beaker, followed by the appropriate amount of distilled water.
She activated the magical energy heating lamp, and at the same time, the two extractors beside her began operating.
Soon, the distilled water in the beaker started to boil, and the mixture of various herbs was reduced into a dark brown decoction.
Meanwhile, Lucy maintained her full mental strength, closely monitoring the operation of all three sets of potionology equipment.
Once half the liquid in the beaker had evaporated, Lucy filtered out the herb residues and then retrieved a vial of red extract from the extractor.
Using a graduated syringe, she drew out the extract and began to slowly drip it into the beaker.
Instantly, the previously calm dark brown liquid began to boil again. A large amount of gas burst from the potion, but Lucy remained unfazed and continued to drip the extract slowly.
After finishing the first vial, she immediately took out another vial of extract.
Adding it in the same manner caused the boiling to intensify.
Then came the purification and addition of the remaining ingredients, all performed in an orderly fashion.
However, just as the final vial of extract was added, the gel-like liquid in the beaker suddenly turned still, then rapidly transformed into a cloudy liquid as if an ice cube had been dropped onto a red-hot iron plate.
Immediately afterward, the liquid potion dehydrated rapidly and floated to the top of the beaker.
Lucy, holding the dropper, paused in surprise.
She extended her finger and scraped up a small clump of the brown potion with her fingernail, placing it on the tip of her tongue.
“Pleh. Looks like the temperature didn’t reach the required level, resulting in excessive moisture content at the end. That caused water-oil separation and potion deactivation.”
Relying on the proficiency brought by the deduction process, Lucy quickly identified the source of the failure.
“Didn’t expect to fail on the first try, but with a 30% success rate, that’s within expectations.”
Lucy dumped the deactivated potion residue into the trash and carefully cleaned all the potionology equipment.
After a hot shower to relax in the washroom, she returned once again to the table.
It was only ten o'clock still enough time to try again.
Lucy lifted her spirits and tied her waist-length silver hair loosely behind her head with a black ribbon.
Pressing her red lips together with resolve, she declared,
“Once more!”
The herbs were once again added to the beaker, the two extractors began their operation, and every step of the process proceeded exactly as before.
The only difference was that this time, the temperature of the magical energy heating lamp had been increased slightly.
Two sandglasses later—
When Lucy dripped the final drop of extract into the beaker, the gel-like substance inside showed no sign of separation.
She immediately increased the magical energy output of the heating lamp.
The gel-like substance in the beaker rapidly dehydrated and eventually solidified into a brown mass about the size of a ping-pong ball.
Lucy didn’t even have time to grab the tongs from her toolbox she reached out and directly removed the scalding beaker from the heating lamp with her bare hand.
Ignoring the burns on her fingers, she carefully poured the potion into the small vial she had prepared earlier.
Sensing the magical energy fluctuating within the potion and the lingering medicinal scent in the air, Lucy knew she had successfully brewed a "Resistance Potion".
This single potion could at least counteract 20% to 30% of a probationary apprentice’s contamination value. If sold, it could fetch over 15 magic stones.
More importantly, this successful attempt meant that the path of potion brewing was entirely viable. From now on, she could temporarily set aside her anxiety about contamination values and magic stones.
“There’s still one more set of ingredients. Even if I have to skip class tomorrow, I’ll get it brewed.”
Burning with enthusiasm, Lucy didn’t feel the slightest bit of fatigue. She immediately began work on the third batch of potion.
...
When Lucy stepped out of her dormitory the next day at noon, she felt completely refreshed.
Even the iron crows outside the window seemed more pleasant to look at.
It was all because her luck had exploded the previous night her 30% success rate had yielded a double success, and she had successfully brewed two vials of "Devouring Contamination Potion".
Lucy immediately drank one vial, and her contamination value plummeted from a critically dangerous 56% to 31% an impressive effect by any measure.
Of course, this was because it was Lucy’s first time taking a "Resistance Potion", and her body had not yet developed any resistance. Subsequent uses of the same potion would see significantly diminished results.
As for the remaining vial, Lucy planned to find a suitable opportunity to sell it.
Tomorrow was the settlement day at the morgue; she should be able to earn some magic sand as well.
The construction of the magical vein diagram for the "Cradle of Enchanted Human Offspring" had also entered its final stage. Everything seemed to be falling into place.
“The dissection table in the dorm needs replacing. A few of the scalpels have chipped edges and need to be swapped out too ideally for a higher-grade set of alchemical blades.”
“And the potion equipment if I could buy a wand, that would be even better... Looking at it this way, it seems like the magic stones still won’t be enough.”
Clutching the Black Book and her notes, Lucy mentally calculated the experimental tools and witchcraft implements she needed to purchase, stepping upstairs with a light and cheerful pace.
Before heading to the morgue, she planned to return Apprentice-Level Anti-Contamination Potion Studies to the library on the tenth floor.
Just as she entered the floor for advanced apprentices—
In the distance, a figure in a black robe approached her head-on.
The three silver trims reflecting from the cuffs and collar made it clear that this was a seasoned Tier-3 apprentice witch.
For some reason, Lucy suddenly felt a strange familiarity, as though she had seen this person somewhere before.
Unfortunately, the corridor was short, and they were about to pass each other.
Lucy stepped aside and bowed respectfully.
At the very moment they passed by each other, the black-robed figure abruptly stopped, slowly turning back with a look of disbelief, staring at the departing Lucy.
His pupils gradually contracted, finally turning into panic and confusion.
He had clearly stared into the aberrant, so why was a mere probationary apprentice still alive?!