I'm a proper student; I only take nine kinds of potions every day.

Chapter 104 The Dilemma of Dealing with Failed Potions (5k views, please vote)

In the dim light, the bird's wings folded, and a young man's voice was heard.

"Connor Elton died on your turf, anything to say?"

The voice was young, yet it carried an arrogance that was incongruous with its age.

The middle-aged man in the chair looked up, revealing a pair of grayish-white eyes.

There was no pupil; the entire eyeball appeared a ghastly white.

Totally blind!

But the way he sees things clearly doesn't require eyes.

"He was taken to the hills outside the city," the middle-aged man said calmly and unhurriedly.

The paper bird tilted its head and asked, "By whom?"

The middle-aged man shook his head and said, "It's an aura I've never seen before; it's completely unfamiliar."

"The aura came from Building 45, where a former drug trial student of Bartlus lived."

"He has now become a witcher in Adolf's faction."

"Intense magical energy fluctuations often emanated from that room. That novice seemed to be tinkering with something on his own, but his technique was quite crude."

"There was no ritual, no spirituality, it was so stupid that I wanted to beat him up several times."

The paper bird was silent for two seconds, then took flight from the middle-aged man's shoulder and disappeared.

Guding Street.

The paper bird landed silently on the broken window frame.

The windows, temporarily sealed with newspapers and wooden boards, had considerable gaps.

It poked its origami head inside, and the eyes made of folded banknotes darted around in the darkness.

Inside the room, a young man lay face down on the bed, breathing long and even.

He was caught off guard and slept soundly.

The paper bird's gaze swept across the entire apartment.

Just as the middle-aged man said, he was so stupid that you wanted to kick him in the butt.

The scent of the potion in the air had faded considerably, but it was still faintly detectable.

However, there were too many smells to count them.

"No defensive rituals, no spiritual arrangements —"

"He smelled strongly of potion."

It then looked at the marks of the battle on the floor: a broken wardrobe door and several deep scratches on the carpet.

"There was a fight, but the original body is gone, so we can't see anything more."

The paper bird turned its head and took one last look at the young man who was sleeping soundly.

"However, it is certain that the target is physically very strong. The fact that he could fight Connor's bronze statue in this unprotected environment at least indicates that his physique is not low."

"But it's unlikely that a novice witcher could kill Connor; there must have been someone else involved."

The paper bird folded its wings and silently retreated through the crack in the window.

It flapped its wings in the night wind and flew towards the hills on the outskirts of the city.

"Let's go find the body first."

"The whereabouts of the expert who killed Elton are still unknown. Let's wait until daytime to take action."

Elton's death was too sudden, which is why the young man used a bird.

Who knows what the guy hiding here is up to?

"Have someone arrest this guy at daybreak and interrogate him."

Ivan slept soundly all night.

At seven o'clock the next morning, the secondary brain returned to its post through the crack in the door and re-integrated into his body.

The moment the consciousness link was established, the surveillance footage from the previous night was quickly replayed.

The secondary brain has no vision, but it can sense spiritual fluctuations and physical vibrations.

At 2:17 a.m. last night, a very faint presence approached the window, lingered for about 30 seconds, and then left.

There was no attack, just observation.

"It seems that the factory owner was indeed an organized figure; even after he died, there were people following up on the investigation."

Evan sat up and scratched the back of his head.

"And my tactic of pretending to be Tang seems to have been very successful."

"9

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There were no defensive rituals, no spiritual arrangements, the room reeked of residual potions, and there were signs of a fight on the floor.

By all accounts, it seems like a rookie witcher who just started out got caught in the middle of two big shots and suffered an undeserved misfortune.

A victim is at most a witness.

He definitely doesn't qualify as a murderer.

He got out of bed and put on the dark gray three-piece suit he had brought back from New Haven.

He put the newsboy cap on his head, pushed open the door, and went downstairs.

7:30 a.m., Lucky Bee Restaurant.

The restaurant was already half full, mostly dockworkers and factory shift workers heading to their early shifts.

Ivan sat down in his usual spot by the window and waved to the plump proprietress behind the counter.

Five-pound dark bread, cut into thick slices, spread with a layer of butter, and eaten one slice after another.

Two large bowls of thick pea soup, the bottoms of which he had wiped clean with bread, followed by four fried sausages and five boiled eggs.

A total of sixty cents!

Evan discovered that with his blood quality doubling and his body mass index soaring to 11.6, his basal metabolic rate had become ridiculously high.

This body consumes a huge amount of heat every moment to maintain its strong function.

The good news is that you can eat whatever you want without gaining weight.

The bad news is that he eats too much!

Rip, the dockworker sitting at the table opposite him, couldn't help but open his mouth when he saw the mess of empty plates in front of Ivan.

"Kid, this isn't a competitive eating contest, don't get an upset stomach."

Ivan looked up, his lips still stained with pea soup, and grinned.

"Uncle Rape, I'm getting ready to participate in a competitive eating contest!"

A young worker named Pick, dressed in oil-stained overalls, turned around and smiled.

"Remember to call me when you participate in the competition! I'll bet everything on you to win!"

Ivan smiled, gave a thumbs up, downed the last sip of coffee, wiped his mouth, got up, and went out.

At the tram stop at the intersection of Guding Street, he jumped onto a tram heading towards the North District.

The instant his foot touched the step of the carriage, he felt a gaze fixed on his back from about forty meters behind him.

"They must be from the factory owner's side."

"Even if I acted stupidly, I might still have had contact with the murderer."

"They may not necessarily suspect me of doing it, but they will definitely want to get something out of me."

"I'll think of what I'll say first. Anyway, with the panel keeping me alert, I'm not afraid of any mind-reading tricks or anything like that."

The tram clanged and clattered northward along the tracks, passing through three blocks, requiring a change of train and another ten minutes.

At 9:00 a.m. sharp, Evan stood under the porch of the Medical School of Sage University.

Forem's office.

After a few days apart, this kind-hearted expert still had that gentle demeanor, radiating approachability.

He looked up from behind his desk and glanced at Evan.

"He seems to have gotten stronger again."

Evan grinned and patted his chest as he spoke.

"They're young, they're still growing!"

His demeanor remained that of a seemingly naive, straightforward, and somewhat silly sunny boy: "I ate a sixty-cent breakfast this morning! Eating that much will definitely make me stronger!"

After hearing this, Forem smiled and didn't ask any further questions.

He stood up from his chair, walked to the iron door at the far end of the office that was always closed, and took out a brass key from his waist.

The lock cylinder turned, and the iron door was pushed heavily inward.

Behind the door was a short corridor, and at the end of the corridor was another door.

The material of this door is clearly different; it is as thick and heavy as a bank vault door, and its surface is undecorated, only a uniform dark gray.

Forem pushed open the second door, and the two went inside together.

A completely enclosed room.

There were no windows, no ceiling, no four walls, no floor; everything was completely sealed off by a dark gray metal panel.

"This is my potions lab." Forem casually closed the door, the door panel making a muffled, isolating sound as it closed.

"The entire perimeter was sealed off with lead plates."

"This ensures that the extraordinary aura of any potion will not leak outdoors."

Ivan blinked the moment he heard those words.

Images of his apartment on Guding Street flashed through his mind.

He hurriedly asked, "Doctor, what if I don't have lead plates at home?"

Forem was opening a dark-colored storage cabinet against the wall, speaking without turning his head.

"In that case, the leaked potion scent will be detectable by other superhumans even from dozens of meters away."

He took several glass containers from the cabinet, turned around, and had a slightly mocking smile on his lips.

"No one would be that stupid, right?"

Ivan laughed and scratched the back of his head.

"Yeah! That was incredibly stupid!"

At the same time, the question in his mind about how the factory owner had precisely targeted his home finally had an answer.

It's neither some advanced tracking technique nor some mysterious divination method.

He himself was the one who let the aura of the potion emanate like a chimney, pointing out the way for others.

While Forem turned his back to prepare materials, Ivan casually asked again.

"Doctor, my senior colleague has mentioned to me several times that capitalists are very powerful. Don't they have any weaknesses?"

Forem moved several glass bottles and a copper crucible to the central stone workbench, answering as he did so.

"Yes, the most obvious drawback of the three golden professions is that they cannot live forever; everyone's lifespan is locked at seventy years old."

He then gently placed a small bottle containing an amber liquid on the table.

"Once you're over seventy, you die instantly."

"Moreover, none of their three professions have conventional characteristic condensations; instead, they consist of assets and positions, and the successors vary greatly."

Ivan asked, taken aback, "Are they all short-lived species?"

At the same time, the question of not finding sweet potatoes yesterday was instantly answered.

Forem nodded and said, "Yes, besides this shared flaw, each of the three professions also has a unique weakness —"

He waved his hand halfway through his sentence.

"Let's not talk about that for now. The first step in making potions is to have a cauldron that you can use comfortably."

He pushed the bronze crucible in front of Ivan.

The thing was bigger than Evan had imagined, about the size of two heads side by side.

The outer wall is densely covered with intricate inscriptions, each line imbued with the spirit of repeated use, polished to a patina-like sheen.

"Copper has the property of conducting energy in alchemy, so the crucibles for potions are mainly made of copper."

Forem gently stroked the outer wall of the crucible with one hand, as if petting an old cat he had raised for many years.

"Don't change the crucible easily. Like the magic workshop, the longer you use it, the deeper your spirituality and power will be absorbed into it, making it easier to use and increasing the success rate of crafting."

Ivan stared at the crucible for two seconds, and an idea suddenly flashed through his mind.

"Doctor, wouldn't the Healing Church's copper-transformation ability allow them to directly create cauldrons using their own body material? The resonance would definitely be better, right?"

Forem looked up, a deep admiration flashing in his eyes.

"The fact that you thought of this step shows that you have a strong ability to think divergently."

He held up one finger.

"However, the essence of extraordinary characteristics is spirituality. After the bronze limbs leave the body, due to the dissipation of spirituality, they will generally return to their normal form within half an hour, turning back into ordinary flesh and blood tissue."

After listening, Ivan nodded with a look of understanding, but another thought immediately popped into his mind.

The copper-plated limbs will return to normal after being removed from the body.

But rust won't!

Every Monday morning, those copper rusts that randomly form on his body surface!

They will not recover; they will only exist permanently in the form of rust.

If we collect all that rusted copper, melt it down, and cast it into crucibles—

That was a special crucible made from the extraordinary materials of his own body, resonating naturally with his spirituality.

"Isn't this just taking off already?"

Thinking of this, Ivan gave himself a big thumbs up in his heart.

In the following time, Forem began a formal demonstration of potion-making.

Since Evan had already memorized the complete recipe and steps from Richard last night, he was essentially doing a preview.

On the worktable, the materials are neatly arranged.

The main ingredient of the monster: a grayish-white brain tissue soaked in formaldehyde, with dense folds and dark red blood vessels on the surface: water ghost brain.

The aura emanating from that mind was cold and damp, making one instinctively feel uncomfortable.

Additional ingredients: a small handful of fresh mint leaves, a few roasted coffee beans, and a glass tube containing white powder.

Base: purified water.

Finally, Forem took out a thumb-sized glass bottle from the locker, which contained a thick, amber-colored liquid.

Forem shook the glass bottle and said, "This is the buffer, five dollars a bottle."

With all the materials in place, Forem placed them one by one into the crucible and then lit the alcohol lamp under the table.

The blue flames continued to scorch the bottom of the crucible, and the outer wall of the copper began to heat up slowly.

"The temperature and time involved in this process depend on how well you work with your crucible," Forem explained as he slowly stirred the liquid in the crucible with a stirring rod.

"There is no fixed standard. Everyone's feel is different, the thermal conductivity of each crucible is different, and even the activity of each batch of materials has slight differences."

"I'm going to demonstrate to you now the Concentration Potion. The core ingredient is water ghost brain, and the auxiliary ingredients are mint, coffee beans, and phenobarbital."

Ivan watched and listened from the side, and then hurriedly asked after hearing that familiar name.

"Wait a minute! Normal food and regular compound medications can be used as excipients?"

Forem smiled and nodded, saying, "Of course! The essence of auxiliary ingredients is to help the main ingredient amplify its effect. As long as its chemical properties or symbolic meaning are consistent with the direction of the main ingredient, anything can be used."

"Peppermint refreshes the mind, caffeine stimulates the central nervous system, and phenobarbital calms the nerves. The combination of these three, along with the core characteristics of the 'water ghost brain,' can maximize the effect of focus from different angles."

Ivan silently memorized this rule; the selection of auxiliary ingredients was much greater than he had imagined.

Under his watchful eye, the entire cooking process lasted about ten minutes.

The liquid in the crucible gradually became cloudy from its initial clarity, and then began to glow with a pale blue light.

The moisture was slowly evaporating, and what rose up was just ordinary water vapor, without any extraordinary aura leaking out.

Ivan noticed this and asked, "No medicinal properties evaporated during the brewing process? All that came out was water vapor?"

Forem nodded and said, "Brewing potions is not dangerous in itself. Bestiality is insoluble in water and will not escape with the steam."

He turned the flame down a notch and slowed down the stirring speed accordingly.

"The only risk in the whole process is the failure of the product."

Evan asked curiously, "What happens if it fails? Will it not work?"

Forem's expression darkened, and he said in a serious tone, "No effect is the best outcome!"

"The failure of the potion means that the beastly nature has been unrestrained, and the unrestrained beastly nature will lead to many consequences."

He tapped his knuckles on the table and said emphatically.

"Beastly rampage, the drug maker is poisoned and out of control: the toxicity increases dramatically, and the finished product becomes a potent poison; the beastly distortion activates the magic potion itself, turning it into a kind of monster that will actively attack living things around it."

"Every failure requires a different coping strategy. Loss of animalistic control requires additional spiritual neutralization, while increased toxicity requires expensive reduction agents to restore the drug's effects to an ineffective state."

"Activating the beastly nature requires additional materials to lock it down, and then it needs to be sent to the Holy Furnace of the Healing Church for processing."

"The simplest way to deal with it is to put it away when it loses its medicinal effect, because it means that the animalistic nature has lost its supernaturalness and has become a pile of ordinary organic waste. Just throw it into the furnace and burn it."

Ivan stared at the pale blue liquid in the crucible, which was gradually becoming viscous, and remained silent for two seconds.

"What if you eat it?"

Forem paused in his stirring motion, looking at him with an almost scholarly gaze.

"I'm curious about what's in your head."

37

There was a strange sense of confusion in his tone.

"The first reaction of a normal person to this kind of waste, which is like garbage, should be disgust and stay away from it."

"How did you come up with the idea of ​​eating it?"

Ivan grinned, revealing his signature sunny smile.

"After all, I spent money!"

'

"The cost of materials and cushioning will easily be over ten dollars. It's such a waste to just throw it away like that."

Forem: "???"

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