Chapter 26: Alchemy
The night vision potion formula's main ingredient is nightshade grass, which is also the most expensive and rare one.
Punk carefully picked up a small, fingernail-sized leaf with alchemy tweezers. The grass blade was dark purple with a faint red-light spot on it. Small lines were distributed in a spiral shape, and a slight chill emanated from it.
This small leaf is worth five gold coins, and this is only the lowest level of apprentice-level materials. The raw materials for any alchemical potion were very expensive, but this is not the sole reason the finished potion is so precious; another main reason is the scarcity of alchemy masters. There were also other factors, such as increased demand and limited supply, and so on; these are the reasons why alchemy potions were priceless.
There are also valid reasons why the alchemy materials are so expensive; Let's take the nightshade grass for example, the main reasons it is so expensive were- rarity and transportation.
On the one hand, Its growth is very slow and needed a cold, humid, and dark environment to survive. And Konola city has a warmer climate; So the nightshade grass didn't grow around here.
On the other hand, it has a short storage time. If it is not used within a month, it will lose most of its efficacy.
In a world like the Pheren plane, where there's no reliable infrastructure or safety measures, any journey can take months or even years to complete and is extremely dangerous. Punk gently touched the grass blades, noticing faint, intricate patterns. He suspected that these grass blades were supposed to be delivered to Konola quickly by professional, But still, these nightshade grass should have been picked up a long time ago, and their medicinal effects may have already spilt a lot.
This undoubtedly again increased the potion-making process.
But, as Punk looked at a a small bag of alchemical materials sufficient for refining ten night-vision potions, he gathered a little more confidence.
"Nothing is impossible to a willing heart. Right?"
Punk just hoped that he can refine one or two potions successfully, so at least it can cover the cost for the ingredients.
In the world of Pheren, the alchemy level depends directly on the Mage's level, because the process of extracting the essence/energy from materials needed to be done via a magic spell
For example, Punk is now casting a trainee-level spell "energy extraction" on the nightshade grass, with the mysterious Byron language. Then a small group of deep-bright colored lights completely enveloped the nightshade grass, and the dark purple color on it gradually faded away, until finally, the grass blades almost became completely transparent, the essence from the leaves turned into a mixed greenish-yellow color essence ball and started to float next to the husk of the grass blade.
Seeing that the remaining one-fifth of the essence can no longer be extracted from the grass blades, Punk was a little dissatisfied.
Even though Punk knew this was an excellent result for a trainee-level spell, he realized that using the energy extraction spell again wouldn't produce any significant results. If he wanted to extract 100% of the essence from an ingredient, he needed a higher-level energy extraction spell.
"Maybe I have to wait until I reach the official level (level 10) to avoid wasting energy."
Punk thought while casting the same essence extraction spell again.
The next step is to extract the essence from all the other auxiliary materials one by one.
In the end, numerous energy beads were floating inside a disc-shaped alchemy container, that is capable of isolating interference from external energy. These brightly colored energy beads moved along the intricate silver lines engraved on the golden disc, and any interference between them was nullified by a unique energy field generated by the golden disc.
Next, Punk began infusing mental power into the golden discs, guided by the system's detailed instructions. Upon entering the disc-shaped container, his usually erratic mental energy became steady and began synchronizing with the container's structure. With this newfound stability, Punk controlled the energy beads and then performed the trainee-level alchemy spell, "energy fusion," to merge these beads one by one.
At the microscopic level, invisible to the naked eye, a sort of magical filaments began gradually blending various energy particles. Simultaneously, they emitted subtle wave fluctuations to neutralize the radiation caused by the energy fusion.
Though Punk couldn't see these filaments, he could sense their presence when fully concentrating using his trainee-level mental perception.
Countless magic filaments were simultaneously executing the fusion process, completely ignoring the fundamental laws. Sometimes the filaments were forcefully fusing the energy particles that were repelling each other, and also sometimes splitting mutually attracted energy particles.
During this process, there were occasional bursts of intense energy fluctuations, but these were consistently countered by the surrounding force field.
As time passed little by little, the energy ball in the center of the disc-shaped container began to show a liquid trend with no color.
The liquid potion in the center of the disc-shaped container gradually stabilized, and the final energy radiation ceased, indicating the near completion of the fusion process.
Then... Failed...
The initially stable translucent liquid suddenly started to generate high temperatures and transformed into a pulsating pink energy ball.
"Damn!"
Punk, who felt that the energy ball began to release radiation to the surrounding area, hurriedly grabbed the energy ball with his hands, Although Punk is not that worried about his safety because he is protected by the trainee-level mage armor (upgraded version of secondary mage armor),but he is afraid that his expensive alchemy equipment might not be able to stand the high temperature of the essence ball.
Feeling the sense of danger, the Mage armor instantly emerged from Punk's body and covered every inch of his body, including clothes, with a layer of transparent energy film. On the left hand, which is holding the essence ball, the mage armor blocked the invasion of high temperature and radiation.
The Mage armor began to glow brighter due to energy conflicts, turning Punk's left hand into a colorful light bulb. Gripping the hot energy ball tightly, Punk decided to make a quick exit through the room's wall to ensure the safety of his alchemy tools.
Although Punk wasn't as physically strong as a Knight, it was easy for him to break through a thin, decaying wooden wall. When confronted with an unexpected situation during an experiment, a Mage's usual response is to get as far away as possible from the source of danger.
After reaching a safe distance and casting defensive spells for protection, Mages would typically use a prophecy spell to assess the situation inside the laboratory.
Although Punk isn't a reckless person, he still held the source of danger in his palm to keep it as far as possible from the alchemy tool.
Because on the one hand, Punk doesn't have the money to buy another set of alchemy tools. And if he really destroys this set without refining anything, he will really become penniless.
On the other hand, Punk felt that the energy ball in his hand is not strong enough to break his armor anyway, even if it explodes.
Punk didn't have time to go through the door, so he had to go straight forward.
After banging big holes in the walls one after another and passing through three rooms, Punk stopped!
"Well, this time I really messed up"!
Punk whispered, then leaned against a rickety wall and reluctantly started to chant a spell while enduring the burning pain in his left hand...
Weekly Power Status
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Ranking 
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