D.E.M.O.N.S: Getting Summoned Weekly isn't so Bad

Chapter 2141: Chapter 2141 What’s in a Potion?

--- Lily ---

Lily looked down at the tar-like goop in her ’cauldron’ and was thoroughly disappointed. Whatever this was, ’healing potion’ certainly didn’t seem accurate. ”How did I mess this up so badly?” whispered Lily.

Appoline tapped her shoulder to remind Lily of her presence. Lily’s hearing was far too good to forget and the potion hadn’t been too hard... or... she hadn’t thought it was going to be too hard. ”A few reasons,” admitted Appoline.

Before the elf could explain properly, Lily cut in with. ”But... but I feel like I had MORE success with that scar potion. This was meant to be easier... and like...” Lily poked at the goop that stuck to her finger for a few moments even as she tried to pull it back. The liquid felt like it was one of those sticky putty things in liquid form. ”This is honestly kind of pathetic...”

Appoline gave Lily a few gentle pats on the shoulder. ”It’s perfectly fine. Most people don’t succeed on their first attempt at a potion and it takes far more practice then you’ve had to even get close to a perfect success rate, even with a recipe. In this case you added too much of your own mana and the shadow aspect of it overwhelmed things.”

”But... I felt like I was barely using any?” Lily questioned. ”And it wasn’t nearly this bad last time?”

Appoline shook her head. ”You need to stop comparing this to your previous attempt at brewing. That was a far more complex potion designed to have a more varied and, arguably, powerful effect. It could DRINK in the mana without issue. Plus, all the extra ingredients meant that there was more essence, more mana, that wasn’t yours in the pot. In this instance, it’s a ratio thing. Even if you used only half the amount of mana, ratio wise the potion received something close to ten times the amount...”

Lily winced at the numbers. ”It’s really that bad? Um... not to accuse you of anything but why didn’t you say anything?”

Appoline gave Lily a deadpan look. ”I did remind you multiple times not to use so much mana. While you did reduce the amount immediately after I mentioned it, you also slowly raised that amount back to roughly where it was before. At that point I decided it was simply better for you to experience some notable failure.”

Lily wilted a bit, her ears pressing down against her head. ”I really thought I was getting it correct... and why shadow anyway? I have three affinities and paper was my first one?”

Appoline shrugged. ”Perhaps it’s the most compatible with your potions? Perhaps the most compatible with your body? Perhaps you use it the most so that was the default? Perhaps it’s simply the most visually obvious? It could be all sorts of reasons but while I might be able to guess at how much paper attuned mana is inside the pot here... I can visually see the influence shadow has had on it.”

”Ah... yeah,” agreed Lily as she examined the potion once again. A single bubble had been growing for a few moments, about where she’d poked it. The bubble popped into nothing and the smooth inky blackness of the liquid was re-established. ”So it really is just a matter of having too much mana in this?”

Appoline shrugged, ”There were other issues as well but they are hard to see now that the potion has turned black. I’d say you didn’t convert all of your ingredients down into essence properly so there’s likely a lot of particulate. Due to the extra mana you probably put too much of that into the core. Remember, we only want things relating to the potion in the core. All of your extra mana is just a waste.

”Finally... once again, use less mana. Normally this is a potion you learn when you’re a lot weaker and you can put in ’more’ mana by comparison. Dumping half of a Rank 1’s mana into a healing potion won’t completely ruin it. Won’t be GOOD but it won’t simply destroy the thing. You on the other hand? Even ten percent of your mana pool, over time, is clearly enough to overwhelm the potion.

”Also, that ten percent is ten percent of your current pool, not all the mana you regenerate along the way, in case you were going to tell me that you haven’t even spent five percent of your mana,” added Appoline as a final point after pausing for a moment.

”Ah,” Lily sighed. ”I... I don’t really know how much less mana I can use...”

Appoline shrugged. ”You really don’t have any other options. I’m curious to see if you can manage it... but if you can’t then I’m not sure how many potions you can make. Even though the scar potion is more forgiving when it comes to mana amounts, there are plenty of potions that are LESS forgiving then healing potions. It’s an odd issue I hadn’t considered when it comes to teaching someone more powerful... but I can’t think of a better way.”

”Really?” asked Lily.

”Well it’s probably not going to explode no matter how much mana you put into it... that makes this rather safe. Plus I have plenty of ingredients of healing potions that you can waste if that’s what it comes to,” explained Appoline.

”Alright... ok... any advice?” asked Lily. ”Like to keep the mana input low?”

Appoline shook her head. ”That’s something you’re going to have to find yourself. Just... keep the output to a thin, consistent level. Don’t just add more to try and control the essence, make do with what you already have inside.”

”Alright,” agreed Lily as she got started on the potion once again. Lily... thought she did better? It was hard to limit the amount of mana she had while still ensuring that the core formed properly. It was constantly wobbling as if it would destabilise any moment but Lily fought back the urge to add more mana.

In the end though? Lily wasn’t sure that it had been enough. The potion was red... by technicality. It was a dark almost brownish red, and it certainly didn’t glow. The whole thing looked more like dried blood then the wonderful red healing potions Appoline had produced. Lily winced as she looked at it. ”How... is that?”

Appoline sniffed at it a few times, waved her hands over it, and eventually dipped a finger in, just for the briefest of seconds, and then nodded. ”It’s technically a healing potion.”

Lily sighed. ”Well... that’s sort of good? What problems do I have this time?”

”Massive waste of ingredients,” admitted Appoline. ”Nothing was properly ground down into essence and look at my finger.” Appoline held it up and Lily immediately picked out what she was talking about. There were small chunks sticking to it. ”This sort of thing? Not really acceptable. WAIT!” Appoline held up a hand. ”That’s in the long term. This is still technically a healing potion and only your second one ever.

”Just... keep in mind that these chunks? They make up close to half of the available essence that you simply haven’t added to the core of the potion. This isn’t the impurities that I leave behind, the ’essences of nothing’ what you have here are ingredients improperly processed. You also still might be using too much mana, but I hesitate to tell you to focus on that because the major problem with the potion is that you didn’t process the essence properly.”

Lily let out another long sigh. ”That’s... well I can see that you’re correct but I’m really not sure how I can break the ingredients down more without adding more mana to the potion. It felt like the ingredients were constantly slipping from my control, and I don’t have the mana control to break them down further once they drifted apart...”

”You could try being more thorough in the initial breaking down,” offered Appoline. ”You’re technique for that isn’t awful but it IS slow. Speeding that up should help with some of the waste though I’ll warn you now it won’t be all of it. You’ll need to ensure that you direct some mana to keep the ingredients all in one place to convert it all, or at least more of it, to essence.”

Lily nodded, ”Alright... I’ll try. Um... how good is this potion anyway? You said it was technically a healing potion?”

”I’d trust it to heal a papercut or perhaps a small cut made during dinner prep,” said Appoline.

”That’s it?” asked Lily with a long sigh.

Appoline raised an eyebrow at Lily, letting her stew in the gaze for a few seconds before answer. ”Yes. The fact that it can even heal a real wound is good. Nothing that’s been left longer then perhaps five minutes... but that’s fine for an early attempt. The wound should close up completely overnight.”

”Overnight?” whispered Lily in horror. She was pretty sure that if she cut herself like that it would be healed up overnight anyway. Not even going into Kat’s bullshit regeneration. What even was the point of a healing potion that wasn’t as good as her natural healing?