Wizards begin by accessing the Inspiration panel.

Chapter 117 Making Golden Horned Frog Eggs

The camp of the blind fishman tribe.

Inside Fingart's stilt house, in a newly furnished alchemy room.

Richard was at a long table filled with utensils, fiddling with a bottle of transparent test tube that was emitting a cold mist.

The test tube contained a sample of cerebrospinal fluid from a brain-eating monster, provided by Fingart. It was said to be the last sample of cerebrospinal fluid in the entire fishman tribe, which he found in the room of the deceased Dib.

Judging from the dosage, if there are no mistakes, it should be enough for Richard's needs for this medicine production.

Originally, he planned to learn the basics of merman potion-making through a few days of research, but it seems unlikely now.

Although Richard had been reading "The Blind Clan's Potion-Making Manual" for several days, a book on potion-making left behind by the former merman prophet, it involved many profound principles, and it would be difficult to grasp the basics in a short time.

However, Richard thought of another method. He remembered that when he was learning how to make alchemical bombs, it was the same. The entire field of alchemy was as complex and vast as the sea. To display the three big characters "Alchemy" on the panel was probably more difficult than practicing the Rodrigo Meditation Method.

I remember back then, I used a shortcut and focused solely on mastering the crafting steps of the Fire Dance Star Alchemy Bomb recipe. After getting the hang of it, I quickly improved through the Inspiration panel, thus achieving a very high success rate.

Of course, what is displayed on the Inspiration panel is only the control level of the Alchemy Bomb "Fire Dance Star", not the entire Alchemy.

This time, Richard also followed the same approach, focusing on mastering the creation of one formula within the field of Murloc Potionology, much like the Fire Dance Star and Silver Moon Dust in alchemy.

Of course, this method is not without its drawbacks. No matter how well Richard Fire Dance Star is made, it certainly cannot be called an alchemy master.

Because Richard specializes in these two alchemical bombs within the incredibly complex system of alchemy, he wouldn't be much better than an average novice at making other alchemical products.

This can be considered a shortcut, a way of taking shortcuts and being opportunistic.

Moreover, this method is something that others can't learn even if they want to, mainly because they don't have that many raw materials to waste.

But Richard is different. He can consume energy points in his dreams to generate a massive amount of inspiration, constantly try and fail, and repeatedly operate to ultimately increase his success rate. For Richard, the raw materials in his dreams are almost unlimited.

Therefore, his goal this time was very clear: to continuously try and improve the success rate by following the steps in the recipe.

He may not understand the principles for the time being, but he only needs to know how to operate it.

To truly master the entire Murloc Potionology system, it would likely take at least six months to a year of dedicated time and effort.

Fortunately, pharmacy is a discipline that emphasizes practical application and skill development.

This is similar to Richard's past life as a mechanic in a car dealership. He was skilled at repairing the engines of his own brand of cars, but he probably only had a superficial understanding of the principles and manufacturing process of engines.

But he can fix it!

In this respect, some university professors majoring in automotive manufacturing may have a theoretical level that far surpasses that of this mechanic, but if you ask the professors to actually repair a car engine, they might be completely lost.

The principle is the same.

The blind fishman's top-secret recipe—Golden Horned Frog Eggs—has an extremely complex pharmacological principle that Richard couldn't quite understand for the time being, but he could understand the production steps.

That's enough!

If you can understand the steps, you can get started making it.

The [Skill] displayed on the panel: Golden Horned Frog Egg Making (Beginner 1%) is the best proof.

The process of making golden horned frog eggs is quite complicated and can be roughly divided into two main stages. The first stage is detoxification, which requires extracting the egg fluid from the devil horned frog eggs and then injecting fresh water root grass juice into them.

The eggs of the devil horned frog contain a potent toxin, a protective mechanism for its offspring. Imagine how many fish, shrimp, insects, and crabs in lakes would covet and steal them if the eggs were non-toxic.

However, this places high demands on the apothecary, because the first step is to extract the highly poisonous egg fluid from the devil horned frog eggs and then inject it with the juice of another plant called water root grass.

If handled carelessly, the embryo inside the devil horned frog can be damaged, which will greatly reduce the medicinal properties of the resulting golden horned frog eggs.

The second major stage is awakening, which requires mixing the brain-eating monster's cerebrospinal fluid with golden fern juice, applying the mixture to the devil horned frog eggs, then chanting an incantation to awaken the latent life force within the devil horned frog egg embryos and quickly solidify them.

Of course, each major stage has several detailed steps.

Richard is now ready to begin the first major phase.

Richard first took out a devil horned frog egg the size of a red bean. He gently squeezed it. The outer layer of the egg wall was soft, smooth and elastic, similar to the salmon egg in Richard's previous life. The egg fluid inside was clear and transparent, showing no signs of being poisonous.

A tiny, worm-like devil horned frog embryo wriggles slightly in the egg fluid.

Richard carefully inserted a thin needle into the egg wall and began to slowly extract the highly toxic egg fluid.

[Host detected crafting Golden Horned Frog Eggs. Do/Do you consume energy to gain inspiration for crafting Golden Horned Frog Eggs?]

This time, looking at the numbers 1 and 11534 at both ends of the slider, Richard considered it for a moment, then dragged the slider to 6534 and selected "Yes".

As for why so many energy points were chosen, one reason was that Richard considered that the fishman's top-secret recipe was quite difficult. Based on his previous experience in making alchemical bombs, the more difficult the recipe, the more energy was consumed during the upgrade.

Secondly, Richard had virtually no background in potion-making, and the fish-men's potion-making system was completely different from the Ignis school. To achieve the same effect with such unfamiliar knowledge, he needed to consume additional energy points.

In an instant, Richard found himself in a dream space as if his soul had left his body. This space was also an alchemy room, and the items and furnishings inside were exactly the same as when he was in the outside world.

Immediately, he began the process of extracting egg fluid in his dream.

Unfortunately, when the needle was inserted for the first time, Richard accidentally brushed against the delicate body of the embryo, causing it to bleed, which essentially meant the attempt had failed.

The embryo of the devil horned frog is crucial to the efficacy of the drug; if it is damaged, the drug's potency will be greatly reduced, and further treatment would be pointless.

The second time, the needle didn't puncture the embryo during insertion, but during the extraction process, the loss of egg fluid caused pressure changes, turning the originally round egg wall into an oval shape, ultimately leading to the needle accidentally injuring the embryo again.

The third time, Richard's egg fluid was not completely extracted, resulting in a highly toxic final product.

Fourth time. There is still a small amount of egg fluid remaining.

On the 401st time, Richard finally nodded in satisfaction, having completed the step of extracting the egg fluid. The next step was to re-inject the juice of a water-root grass.

Before injection, the first step is to grind, filter, and purify the water-root grass.

Richard immediately began to carry out the aforementioned operations.

The first time, the particles were not fine enough and did not meet the standard.

The second time, there were impurities.

Tenth purification attempt failed.

After the 389th time, Richard shook the test tube in his hand, looked at the crystal-clear pale yellow liquid inside, and nodded in satisfaction.

"I've finally finished making the water hyacinth juice."

The next step is to re-inject the water-root grass juice to replace the egg fluid.

After thousands of attempts.

The first major step has been successfully completed; now it's time to move on to the second major step.

The second major step can be divided into four steps. The first step is to purify and filter the brain-eating monster's cerebrospinal fluid.

Next, add the juice of the fern fruit and mix it again. At this point, the perfectly proportioned liquid will have a beautiful golden color.

Then, the golden liquid mixture was carefully dripped onto the devil horned frog eggs and spread evenly on each one.

Finally, the incantation is recited to activate the life force of the demon horned frog embryo and solidify it.

After thousands and thousands of attempts.

Richard has finally made it to the final step!

Following the instructions in the recipe, Richard recited a passage from Akkadian.

The deep incantation gradually drew upon the surrounding dark elemental energy, and the energy particles, rising and falling like tides, began to gradually penetrate the egg and stimulate the life activity of the demon horned frog embryo.

Within each transparent egg, tiny tadpole-like creatures, which were originally calm, are now gradually beginning to wriggle vigorously, seemingly having had their most primal life energy successfully stimulated.

"Freeze!" came Richard's final Akkadian phrase.

As soon as the words were spoken, the devil horned frog eggs, which had been restless, suddenly became completely still, their intense life force remaining at its peak, as if time itself had frozen.

Looking at the golden "fried beans" emitting a strange aroma, Richard couldn't help but swallow hard, muttering to himself, "How can they be so tempting even in my dreams! I can't resist, I'll have a few to try."

Just as Richard was about to taste a golden horned frog egg, a dizzying sensation struck, and Richard instantly returned to his original form.

"Damn! I was just one second away from tasting it!" Richard said sullenly.

Upon opening the panel, I saw the following skill: Golden Horned Frog Egg Crafting (Mastery 83%).

This immediately darkened Richard's expression!

Richard was not satisfied with the progress he made, having spent over 6,000 energy points to only reach the mastery level.

Originally, he thought he could at least reach the level of a master.

As for the reason, Richard had actually guessed it somewhat. It was probably because he had too little knowledge of fishman potion making, which made it increasingly difficult to improve the production of this formula in the later stages, and the energy points consumed were enormous, but the effect was minimal.

Of course, another reason is that the recipe itself is extremely difficult to make.

However, regardless of the level of mastery in formula making, compared to the level of a murloc's apothecary, it is only equivalent to a high-level apothecary.

In other words, if Richard chooses to produce golden horned frog eggs now, the success rate is only about 15%.

(End of this chapter)