章 33: Mass Production
Eisen looked at Morrom with a smile while the Elf-Dwarf stepped through to the back of the shop. "Alright, we can do two things. Either, you spend the day leveling your Alchemy skill to Rank 2, and I can start teaching you how to change matter. Or, we move onto Enchanting and have you break through. My curiosity wants you to do the second one, but the choice is all yours. If you don't break through Enchanting today, then tomorrow, after all."
The old man scratched his beard and closed his eyes filled with thought. Maybe it would be a good idea to break through enchanting, finish the quest, and get that special class. For now, Eisen couldn't really think of any real reason to get an occupation, after all. He could obviously learn all the skills he needed without one, and having one might just limit him somehow.
Learning enchanting may be interesting, but it was also completely different from what he knew. Alchemy was quite different as well, from what it seemed like, but Eisen knew Herbalism, so it wasn't completely new to him.
Enchanting, on the other hand, seemed to be something that fully had to do with Magic, so Eisen had no way of learning that in the past, and it did intrigue him quite a bit.
But as of now, Eisen chose Alchemy. He knew it already, and he would rather want to get learning every base part of the Skill out of the way before doing something else.
He told Morrom so, and he nodded with a smile, although he seemed somewhat disappointed.
"Don't worry, I will try to reach Rank 2 as fast as I can so that you can teach me Enchanting tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow." Eisen laughed and followed Morrom to the workshop.
"Yeah, it's fine, don't worry. I think I know of a pretty good way to earn enough experience. Since you're still only rank 1, you can still earn experience by making things in bulk. From Rank 2 or 3 on, you can't do that anymore. You would only get a slight bit more than making a single potion, so it would be a complete waste. But for now, you could make large amounts of Low-Grade Mana and Health potions."
"I see. How many should I make, then?" Eisen asked while helping Morrom bring large quantities of Amran and Byron over to a table. The Elf-Dwarf thought about it for a bit and then responded. "The most efficient way would probably be about 20 at once. I'm guessing you need to repeat that about 20 times again, probably even more, so it's going to take a while."
"Got it. Should I use the same small mana crystals as with the others, or can I use bigger ones?"
"Ah, yeah, that would be a good idea. The small ones may be the ones I have most of, but still not enough to use on such a project. I'll bring the ones you can use, so you can go ahead and start grinding the petals down. Oh, and maybe use the Mythril Mortar and Pestle to get mana into it. Might increase the proficiency you get as well." Morrom explained as Eisen sat down at the table. The Alchemist and Enchanter brought his student large containers and a big distillation system fitting to those containers, as well as a large, red mana crystal.
Holding out that mana crystal, Morrom began to talk and Eisen took a break at preparing the dosages for the potions. "So, I think I need to explain to you how these work. As you know, there's an enchantment on them that lets it expel flames. The smaller one you've been using until now was a very simple one with not a lot of power, perfect for a small burner. But this one has a lot more power, so you need to be careful when putting mana into it. Start slowly, and just watch the size of the flame. It feels a bit awkward at first, but you should get used to it quite quickly. You're a smith as well, so I doubt I need to tell you how much flames you need to heat the mixture up properly. I'll get back to my own work, call me if you need any help or more ingredients."
Eisen nodded and smiled as he put the first dose of Amran into the Mortar, a slightly larger one than before due to the high amount of petals, and put his mana into it and the Pestle, letting it flow into the ground up red powder, which Eisen then poured into a large bowl, then grabbed some of the thumb-sized Mana Crystals from the buckets that Morrom brought over and prepared to grind them down.
After a few more minutes of this repetitive business, Eisen poured a large quantity of water into the bowl and began mixing.
"This is kind of relaxing, isn't it?" Eisen laughed out in a low voice to Bree, who, as if snapping out a trance, looked up at Eisen.
"Huh? Y-Yeah, really relaxing… But it's going to take a while for you to become Rank 2, right? Why not have your doubles do some of your work for you? That should speed things up!"
"Wait, you can do that?" Eisen asked surprised, and Bree nodded with a smile.
"Yeah! It doesn't give much proficiency, but it still gives half per double. It takes a lot of mana as well, so not many people really do that, but since I can help with that you don't have to worry, and at least for now you'll have to make them do it parallel to you, because they can't do complicated stuff on their own yet!" Bree explained, and Eisen stopped stirring the powders into the mixture, scratching his beard in thought.
"Interesting…" He muttered out and then nodded with a smile. "I'll do that from the next batch on then. Kind of wastes some proficiency per materials, but at least it doubles my speed. And Morrom did say he could use the low-grade potions as a base for something, so it doesn't matter if he has more, right?"
"True~!" Bree smiled, showing her pearly white teeth.
But for now, Eisen continued with the current batch. The mixture was finished, and Eisen could now pour it into the large glass flask that Morrom prepared and placed it on top of a metal tripod above the red mana crystal. He slowly placed his finger against it and pushed out just a little bit of mana into it, already causing a flame as big as the one from the smaller one he used for the other potions.
Slowly, he put in a little bit more Mana until he got a satisfactory flame and pulled his hand away. Morrom was right, it was a bit awkward to use, although not too bad. One would first expect a proportional growth of the flame, meaning if you put double the mana in you get a flame double the size, but instead, it was exponential, meaning that he had to put less and less mana into it each time to double the size.
As it would take a while for the water in the mixture to fully evaporate, Eisen decided to prepare for mass producing the potions with the help of his doubles. He stood up and looked for Morrom, who was more than happy to help set up workstations for the doubles.
After a short while, Eisen began preparing the different dosages for the large quantity health potions and placing them into the Mortars, before then summoning both of his doubles and telling them to stand in front of the stations, mentally commanding them to copy all that he does.
Keeping the Doubles in sight, Eisen activated his racial skills and began to work, while Bree started to give him a constant flow of mana.
Once more, Eisen ground down the materials he needed to and mixed them together in a bowl, making sure that the Doubles did everything right, and took a break to clear out the mana potions in the large flask.
Eisen grabbed a crate of the small glass bottles as well as a funnel and finished 20 of the low-grade potions within a few minutes. There were some small differences to the potions before that Eisen noticed when he looked at the descriptions of the potions. Instead of Rank 0, they were Rank 1, and instead of replenishing 100 HP they gave 200 HP.
He would have to test this out at a later rank, but from what it looked like, each rank would probably increase the healed amount by 100 HP.
Now that those potions were finished, Eisen put them back into the crate and made his Doubles pour their finished mixtures into the large flasks, after which Eisen went around to pour mana into the crystals to get the liquid to boil.
Before the effects of his racial skills ran out, Eisen hurried and prepared the next batches of the mixture together with his Doubles. By the time everything was ground up and mixed together in water, the water in the flasks evaporated fully, and Eisen moved onto filling the glass bottles and putting small corks on them, finishing 60 Low-Grade Health potions.
Eisen set them aside, and that was exactly when his racial skills ran out. For the next half hour, until he could use his skill again, Eisen would take it slow to make sure that his Doubles wouldn't make any mistakes and complete the potions in the highest quality possible.
This continued for a while until Eisen finished enough for 15 batches of Health Potions, totaling in at 300. Since the proficiency he got from the Doubles' work was about half of a normal batch he made, it was equivalent to 10 Batches that he would have made himself, finished in half the time it normally would have taken him.
Now, Eisen would begin working on Mana Potions. He swapped out the containers holding the distilled water leftover from the potions and then began to work.
He prepared the Byron, enough for five batches at each work station that he and the doubles were standing at, and then got to work grinding down the small blue petals and the mana crystals, mixed the two powders together and added water to the mixture, before pouring it into the flasks and beginning to let it boil.
This continued for quite a while, until Eisen finished 300 Mana Potions, bringing his Alchemy skill to 98%.
"Wow, that's a lot! How many potions are those?" Morrom asked with wide eyes as he looked at the crates over crates filled with small bottles.
"620. All Rank 1, Perfect Quality. Do you have any uses for them?" Eisen asked while standing up and stretching after the repetitive work of the past few hours, his joints slightly cracking. Morrom seemed to think for a bit, and then responded.
"Well, kind of? Not really, though. I used the potions you made before for some experiments, trying to get potent healing effects into items. It worked, not to the extent that I wanted it to, but they were just prototypes anyway. But that means I don't need so many potions, especially 600 of them. I could use them as a base for other potions, but there's not the need for that many of those around here. I do have another idea, though."
"Really? What idea would that be, then?" Eisen asked curiously, and Morrom smiled before continuing.
"You can use them for further practicing. At rank 2, you unlock transmutation, and part of that is hardening. Using that, you can turn potions into different, more easily useable forms, like pills for example. They're not as potent as liquid potions, but they're good enough, and it's easier to just throw them into your mouth that to open a bottle and down the drink." Morrom explained, and Eisen nodded.
"I see. Yeah, that sounds pretty useful! Thanks! Any suggestions on how to get the last two percent to rank my skill up?"
"Hmm… you can always even it out, and make another batch of Mana Potions. Or you can experiment a little bit. Making new stuff is one of the best ways to earn proficiency. And even if you fail, that still gets a fair amount. Failure is also a way to learn, after all." The Elf-Dwarf smiled and looked at the leftover ingredients.
"Just work on a few combinations of Amran and Byron for now. Should get your skill up fairly soon." Morrom suggested.
Eisen nodded and got to work, excited to find out what he can make.
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