Chapter 94: Intensive Training

By dawn that day, the sky was already paling. With autumn’s arrival, the cold bite of morning and evening had begun to settle over Sevendon.

In the new headquarters of the Rayman Chamber of Commerce, seven or eight Light Spell sigils had been fixed into the ceiling of the new laboratory, bathing the entire room in brilliant light.

Under Borne’s direction, Rayman and the others began their alchemical experiment.

“Habwick, take sixty grams of silverleaf herb and crush it quickly...”

“Lilith, use the smallest dropper. Watch the markings carefully—don’t overfill...”

“Blake, stir faster. We let you eat all that meat, and your arms are still so skinny you can’t even stir a stick properly...”

“Rayman, pay attention to the fire-element refinement. Don’t burn it down to ash. That one batch alone costs more than eight thousand gold coins in materials...”

Nothing had been wrong at first, but at Borne’s words Rayman’s hand jerked in fright, nearly letting go altogether.

He swallowed hard, feeling a thin sheen of sweat break out across his back.

Borne glanced at him sidelong and muttered inwardly, “Pathetic.”

The others, hearing Borne’s instructions, also quickened their hands.

Slow, gradual instruction was simply too inefficient. Borne did not have the time to wait for them to grow into the work. The Rayman Chamber of Commerce looked flourishing on the surface, but in truth its cash flow was already stretched thin.

The gold coins temporarily borrowed from the count were almost used up. He had not expected to run so far over budget; it had taken him by surprise.

And that did not even include the alchemical materials currently being used for the others to practice with. Those were drawn from Borne’s own private reserve.

“We have to achieve mass production of alchemical potions this winter. Next spring, the military will definitely make a move!”

Borne knew that his grandfather had been taken away by Hussein, and that the entire Nether front was now in full retreat. Some outlying villages had been abandoned completely; otherwise the country-side forts would not have burned during the fighting. The line kept contracting for one purpose only: to drag the humanoid races migrating northward until winter ended.

They meant to use nature itself as a weapon and whittle this alien horde down. Of course, they would not all freeze to death—half would be about right. After that, Nether would surely launch a full-scale counterattack.

The villages surrounding Nether would suffer terribly for it. No one knew how many people would be left homeless this winter, or even freeze to death by the roadside. But the upper ranks of Nether clearly would not concern themselves with such things; allowing refugees into Sevendon was already the greatest mercy they were willing to show.

Borne had already received word from his grandfather that supplying the war ministry with magical potions was basically settled. After that, everything would depend on the Rayman Chamber of Commerce’s results in quality and output.

That was the advantage of having someone in power. Borne had not even planted the magical crops yet, and the alchemy workshop was still nearly empty, and yet he had already secured military orders.

And all of it had been approved on the count’s word alone. No one in the military had even seen the product. Ridiculous as that sounded, it had truly happened, and Borne could not help but sigh at how wonderful it was to have connections.

Every day, Borne set aside part of his time to train the four of them. The planting and cultivation of magic herbs required long, repetitive labor and could be handed to others.

The Rayman Chamber of Commerce did not have as many spellcasters as Gilles Academy. There were thousands upon thousands of varieties of magical plants, though Borne did not need anywhere near that many—only a few hardy, widely useful species.

The reason he had Rayman take in so many street children was precisely so they could help with the cultivation of these magic herbs.

After the initial screening, the remaining children with talent and good behavior could, after some simple training, each be assigned a few varieties for detailed cultivation.

As for child labor and such matters, simply being able to eat a meal was already fortunate enough. If Borne had not taken in these hundreds of children, it was uncertain how many of them could have survived the winter at all.

Borne sat off to the side with his legs crossed, watching the four of them practice. Thanks to the chip’s constant monitoring, he only needed to warn them when they were about to make a mistake. Even so, a good deal of precious material had still been ruined.

But the effect of pouring money into it was obvious. After a few days of intensive training, the four of them could already begin preparing the potion’s raw base.

This raw base was like a mother liquor, part of the core formula.

Such a formula had to be mixed only by one’s most trusted inner circle, because Borne could not possibly stay in the alchemy workshop forever.

An alchemy workshop was not a laboratory. Its purpose was to mass-produce practical low-tier magical potions, so the process did not need to be complicated. In fact, the simpler the better.

After working through the possibilities with the chip, Borne broke the core technology of the potion into separate parts.

The large number of repetitive semi-finished steps, requiring little skill, would be handed over to the chamber’s staff. Those steps did not need spellcasters at all; as long as they followed standardized procedures, anyone could do them. Foolproof, assembly-line work.

As for the most critical part—the activation formula—that would be handled by Rayman and the others. Without the “activation solution” they prepared, even if someone obtained the peripheral techniques and craftsmanship, production would still be impossible.

Although this method would increase material loss by thirty percent, Borne still felt it was well worth it.

That was true core technology. Magical potions were a rich and tempting prize, and for some top noble families, recreating an Arcane Garden would not be terribly difficult.

An Arcane Garden was only a source of magical plant materials. There were many special regions on the continent where magical plants could grow, especially in the Underdark. There were many such unique places there.

For example: Earth Nodes.

Earth Nodes drew on the natural reservoirs and currents of energy flowing through the ground below. Most ordinary people, and even many spellcasters, could not perceive such energy at all.

Only those born with exceptionally keen senses could detect them: these gathering points, known as node domains, held immense power, capable of strengthening spells and producing other magical effects. Earth Nodes were a rare and precious part of the Underdark, and those who discovered them guarded their “treasures” with great care. Yet many Earth Nodes without natural exits still remained undiscovered, though some were simply unknown to the Underdark creatures living within or near them.

The phaerimm were hiding in such a place, and there was also a node beside the Black Road of Nether.

The cities of the Underdark were basically built upon Earth Nodes; Menzoberranzan had been founded on one as well.

And the alchemy workshop would not be limited to a single branch. This was only bait—a very sweet and tempting lure.

“Ha... I wonder how that cheap father of mine is doing with those talks. More than a month has passed, and not a single one has come!”

Borne sneered. “A bunch of old foxes. They outsmarted themselves. When there’s a front-row seat, they refuse to take it and insist on waiting for the wind to pick up. Fine—let them eat dust in the back.”

Although the money had not yet arrived, Borne was not worried in the least. If it came to it, selling one or two shops would be enough to tide him over for the moment.

At first, everyone had been eyeing Borne’s land and storefronts. But when Viscount Gordon came to recruit franchisees, most of them immediately lost interest. They were completely unmoved by the rosy future Gordon boasted about. Anyone who mixed in noble circles was a shrewd old hand; how could they be fooled so easily into coughing up a hundred or two hundred thousand gold coins? Of course, a small number were tempted and still watching from the sidelines.

After all, the alchemy workshop was Borne’s own invention. Most people did not know how it would turn out in the end. The safest course was surely to wait for the results. It would not be long anyway—by next spring, they would know. No one’s money grew on trees; one or two hundred thousand gold coins might well be the entire fortune of some lesser noble house.

Although Viscount Gordon had failed to bring in customers, the rumor had already begun to spread, and the land around the Rayman Chamber of Commerce headquarters had risen in value again.

Since one sheep could be herded just as well as two, Borne decided to bring all four of them along at once and teach them together. Besides, the four of them were all part of his own core foundation.

“Once you finish, switch roles and do it again. Make sure every step is engraved in your bones. Calcination, liquefaction, separation, combination, corruption, condensation, addition, sublimation, fermentation, enhancement, multiplication, and projection—these twelve steps, you must remember them all. Every procedure of alchemy is in here.”

Borne paced around once. After confirming there were no problems, he set the thornflower in his hand aside, then picked up a purple herb leaf from the other side and placed it in his palm. A faint thread of magic surfaced over his hand and quickly faded.

This was a new function of the biological chip. Borne had discovered that by touching an object with his limbs, the chip could analyze the object’s information. The data it produced was even more detailed than what his Appraisal Spell could reveal, and it delighted him beyond measure.

The more information he had, the more detailed the data, and the faster the chip could simulate and extrapolate afterward.

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