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Emily pours two hundred and fifty millilitres of water into the empty cauldron before her. She sprinkles in a touch each of powdered light and wind crystals, turning the water a sparkling pale, lime hue. The fire beneath the cauldron quickly brings the water to a boil, and Emily drops in five strips of shadow boa flesh, fifteen fine, black scales, and two stalks of pulverised luminis.

Ivor stirs the mix as she deposits materials and, the moment she finishes, they shut the lid again. Exactly three minutes later, they crack it open and add in a few pieces of pop frog gallbladder and a drop of the snake’s venom. The moment the black venom hits the surface, Ivor drops the lid back into place and Emily lowers two tendrils of mana into the potion.

She uses one to stir it, fully combining everything as it all starts melding together in a violent magical reaction, and the other to disburse pockets of impurities building, allowing them to be devoured by the violent fire mana incorporated into the mix.

The reaction continues until, after exactly four painstaking minutes and twenty-three seconds, Emily removes her magical senses from the mixture and opens the lid. Ivor tosses in a whole ocelax tongue, and Emily quickly drops the lid back into place.

They wait with bated breaths for a few seconds, both holding high expectations for this attempt. They feel the roiling mana within the cauldron calm, and Emily receives a system notification.

ˉˉˉˉˉ

Quest completed: Alchemical Aspirations

[Alchemical Aspirations]

[Rank:] D

[Description:] You’ve joined the world of alchemy by following a known recipe. Now become a true alchemist and create your own!

Requirements:

-Create and successfully brew a new unique potion (Complete)

Rewards:

-Mechanic Knowledge: Chemistry

_____

A new flood of information fills her mind.

Woah. This seems helpful for refining my alchemical method. I can definitely weaponise this knowledge too.

She sets her second core to exploring every corner of the new knowledge for future use and keeps her main focus on her achievement.

They lift the cauldron off the heat, and Emily takes the lid in her hand.

“The big reveal,” she says with a grin, pulling it up sharply.

A faint, shimmering black mist rises from the cauldron, sliding down the edges and releasing a cool, welcoming scent. Emily looks past the mist into the centre of the cauldron at the swirling liquid, a shimmering mix of black and grey that plays tricks on her eyes.

She pulls on the system for the information about her completed potion.

ˉˉˉˉˉ

[Brew of Faint Presence]

[Rank:] E

[Description:] A potion based on the stealth powers of the shadow boa.

[Effect:] Upon consumption, reduces the presence of the consumer in the perception of others.

_____

What a terrible name. Can’t I rename it since I made it?

She tries willing the name of the potion to change, and it shifts on the screen before her from ‘Brew of Faint Presence’ to ‘Brew of Imperception’.

That’s a bit better.

She nods, turning her focus to its effect.

How strong is the effect? Only one way to find out!

She turns to Ivor, who is gaping at the potion with his mouth wide in shock.

“We really did it,” he signs in disbelief after making eye contact with her.

“Sure we did,” Emily says, knowing he won’t get to enjoy the achievement for long. “Want to see what it does?”

He nods enthusiastically, so they prepare a set of vials and scoop the liquid out into them, leaving a shrivelled black tongue in the bottom of the cauldron. Ivor grimaces at the grotesque sight.

“How did you even think to catalyse the reaction with the boa’s own venom? I would have thought you’d want such a volatile material as the base,” he signs curiously as Emily picks up one of the finished vials, swirling it before the light to admire the ethereal blend of colours.

“Just call it a spark of inspiration,” Emily responds with a wink. “Besides, it wouldn’t have worked if you hadn’t worked out the right separating agent.”

Not wasting any more time, Emily throws her head back, gulping down the contents of the vial without hesitation. The potion tastes strange: it barely has any flavour, only a slight salty tang, but it makes Emily’s tongue go numb.

The magical concoction is almost instantly absorbed by her body, and a strange change takes place. Emily feels a buzzing numbness spread across her skin in a wave, and looks down at her hands. She watches in fascination as the colour seems to flow from her skin, turning from a pale white, with bursts of colour around old scars and callouses, to a uniform dull grey.

She grabs a handful of her messy brown hair, that now hangs in the middle of her shoulder blades, and pulls it into her vision to check. It has also turned a strange greyish tone.

Ivor starts looking around startled as she admires the potion’s changes.

“I’ve lost you!” he signs frantically, intriguing Emily.

She reaches out and places a hand on his shoulder, and his head instantly comes to a halt, making solid eye contact with her.

“What happened exactly? Explain it to me,” Emily says calmly.

Ivor nods before tapping her hand to tell her to release it. The moment she does, Ivor’s eyes shift, fixing on the space beside Emily. She watches carefully as the mage seems to put his thoughts together before signing an explanation.

“When you drank the potion, I watched you changing colour. The second you finished changing, I blinked, and you vanished. Then you touched me and I could see you again. When you aren’t touching me, I can still feel your mana signature though, but it’s suppressed. I would think you’re a strong first circle mage at most from it.”

Emily nods thoughtfully at his explanation, though Ivor can’t see it.

“Can you hear me still?” she asks without touching him.

He nods immediately, his eyes flitting towards her voice then drifting away once she’s silent again.

So it suppresses my presence. If I actively do something to increase it like make noise, and I suspect cast spells, it weakens the effect, with physical contact breaking it completely. He seems to be looking away though, so maybe the spell is forcing him to keep me in his periphery and not register me as there?

To test her theory, she steps in line with Ivor’s eyes and watches as they naturally shift sideways to never look straight at her.

Neat, this will be very useful for moving around unnoticed.

Trying to stand in front of him a few more times, he doesn’t notice at all, so Emily moves on to her next test. She casts infra-sight, keeping her eyes shut to avoid leaking their magical glow.

“Can you see me?” she questions, receiving a light tap on her shoulder in confirmation.

She dismisses the spell, next channelling machina into the repaired Claws hidden in her sleeves, stopping before injecting enough to cause sounds. This time, Ivor doesn’t react.

Interesting, so using a spell with no obvious visual effects breaks it, but not using machina.

She pulls up a sleeve, revealing the weapon beneath, and increases the quantity of machina, turning the Claw into a crackling conduit of electricity. Following Emily’s expectations, Ivor reacts, zeroing in on her position again.

“I think I have a solid grasp of how it works now. Can you drink one please so I can test it against some detection spells?” Emily asks while flooding her system with mana and machina, cleansing her of the potion’s effects.

Ivor nods and grabs a vial, pouring it into his mouth. Emily watches him lose colour and vanish. Even when looking for it, she barely notices her eyes shifting away from him.

That feels weird. I know what I’m doing, but I still can’t stop myself. I don’t think I’d notice either if I wasn’t looking for it.

First, Emily casts infra-sight. As the shades of heat in the room reveal themselves to her, she tries to spot Ivor. Though she finds herself still unable to see him, Emily does notice small fluctuations of heat near where he’s stood.

“Infra-sights a failure. I can see some disturbance, but not enough to know what it is unless I know what I’m looking for,” she tells Ivor while dropping the spell.

Next, she pulses earthen detection and asks him to move. Once again there are a few small fluctuations, but not enough to seem like a person.

“Good. Now finally light!”

Emily releases a sparkling white orb of light, pumping mana into it and filling the room with light. This one does change something. Emily sees Ivor’s shimmering outline appear. He’s still hard to spot, but definitely recognisable as a person if you look straight at him.

Okay, there are some limits, but this will be very useful, especially if no one knows about it. Sorry, Ivor, but I don’t think I want anyone else to know about this potion.

With her decision made, she reaches into a pocket in her robes and activates The Clock.

***

Emily goes straight to the lab with Ivor after class, not collecting any materials this time. They instead spend the rest of the day doing a few final tests on the shadow boa’s parts, confirming information Emily already knows before writing up their final report. They also write a copy of their report for Oscar, which they bundle up with a small sample of the snake’s flesh.

After finishing their study, they decide to split the corpse, with Emily then buying Ivor’s portion off him for thirty points since he doesn’t have a use for it. They both leave satisfied and, after dropping off the report at Oscar’s dorm, Emily returns to her room.

The next day, Emily has an Artefact Crafting lesson in the morning. The lesson is taught by Elias Hawthorne, and Emily finds the lecture on the importance of matching opposing elements to balance artefacts interesting. However, it repeats some of the same points and theories she has already learnt from her reading in the library.

I’ll keep going for now, but I may end up dropping this class if Mr Hawthorne doesn’t give me anything more useful.

Midway through the afternoon, at the same time as she finished making the brew of imperception the day before, Emily is sitting in the library reading about ritual spells when a system notification interrupts her focus.

ˉˉˉˉˉ

Warning! Quest requirement for [Alchemical Aspirations] unmet in final timeline.

Please complete requirement:

-Create and successfully brew a new unique potion (Error)

_____

Emily frowns at the strange notification. And pulls out The Clock to glance at the time.

What’s this? Error? I wonder if it’s because I reset time, haven’t brewed the potion in this timeline, and it’s too late now to reset to before I got the reward.

She bites her thumb, dropping her book and drumming her fingers on the table as she contemplates the notification.

It doesn’t say there will be any punishment if I don’t complete it again. Can the system not take the reward it already gave away? Interesting! Let’s leave it twenty-four hours and see what happens. I can always reset to now if something goes wrong.

She dismisses the notification, continuing with her reading as time ticks by. A few hours later, Emily rises, stretching her arms behind her head and dropping the last books from her desk out of the barrier to be reclaimed by the magical stacks.

“Time for dinner,” she mutters as she steps out of the barrier.

A few steps down the aisle between the shelves of books, someone wantonly tosses a book out of their barrier, and it catches Emily in the side of the head with its corner. Emily flinches, raising a hand to rub her temple in irritation. She ignores this and moves on, reaching the transportation rooms just behind a small collection of other mages. After a rare, short wait to enter an empty magic circle, Emily finds herself in the cafeteria.

She glances around, quickly locating her friends and moving to join them. On the way, a full tray of food flying over her head shakes as it shifts to avoid a returning tray, dripping gravy onto Emily’s shoulder.

“Eugh,” she groans, casting cleanse as she slips into the barrier around her friends’ table.

“Did food just drop on you?” Tom asks incredulously.

“Apparently,” Emily grumbles, annoyed that such an uncommon mishap would happen to her.

“I didn’t even think that was possible,” Hester comments.

“I’ve just been hit in the head by a book in the library too,” Emily tells them, rolling her eyes.

“You’ve what?” Tom asks, even more shocked. “That definitely shouldn’t happen.”

“You’ve been cursed,” Juliana says with a teasing smile. “Who’d you upset this time?”

They all laugh and Emily half-heartedly joins in, distracted by a forming idea.

Is this related to the system’s warning? Am I going to be super unlucky till I brew the potion again.

She scoffs at the thought, pushing it to the back of her mind to enjoy her meal with her friends. After eating, Emily and Juliana leave to spend the evening together. On the way out of the cafeteria, though, as they’re walking arm in arm, one of Emily’s boots engages out of nowhere. The mechanisms inside whir into motion, flicking the sharp spikes on the bottom to full extension suddenly, catching Emily off guard and causing her to trip.

“The hell,” Emily mutters with a frown, glaring down at her feet.

“Are you alright?” Juliana asks, steadying Emily to help her stay upright.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” She uses a spark of machina in an effort to retract the spikes, opting to extend the other foot’s when that fails. “I repaired my boots after the expedition, and apparently I made a mistake, that’s all.”

I checked them with a machina scan though. There’s no way I made a mistake.

They head to Emily’s room, but as they pass Juliana’s room, they find a mage waiting for them.

“Juliana!” The tall, spindly man runs over the moment he notices them. “Thank Goddess I found you.”

“What’s wrong, Marco?”

“Margaret and Boris are both out of contact outside The Dome, and today is mandrake harvesting day! I can’t gather them all alone. Please help me,” he begs pitifully, falling to his knees in the hallway before them.

Juliana looks conflicted for a few moments, looking between Marco and Emily, before letting out a sigh.

“Sorry, Emi,” Juliana says as she turns and gives Emily a hug.

“It’s fine. I’ll just fix my faulty shoes while you’re gone.”

They part ways, Juliana leaving with Marco to go help in The Dome’s herb gardens, and Emily slipping into her room alone. She sits down at her workbench and removes her boots with a scowl.

Was Jules having to leave the influence of the system as well? Is it gonna keep annoying me until I listen?

Frowning at the thought, she performs comprehensive scans of her boots with machina, quickly discovering the source of her issue. A small steel pin that was holding one of the spikes’ tensioning springs in place has snapped, torn clean in half.

“It must have been damaged during the expedition and I didn’t notice,” she mutters, taking the boots apart and removing the pin.

After extracting the failed part, Emily fires up the Steam Source and gathers a few materials to machine a replacement part. As she’s cutting a steel rod to size on the bandsaw, she hears a loud metallic crack. Acting on instinct, Emily ducks, narrowly avoiding a shard of metal that flies out of the large machine’s body.

The saw peters out, slowly losing its momentum and gaining an unpleasant screech as the internal mechanisms keep partially working. Emily quickly deactivates the steam flow, closing a valve to the machine before turning off The Source.

“Was that the system too?” she questions slightly nervously, glancing at the fragment of metal chain, now embedded in her belt sander, that almost took her eye out. “This is going from annoying to dangerous.”

As if to answer her question, another system notification pops into view.

ˉˉˉˉˉ

Warning! Quest requirement for [Alchemical Aspirations] unmet in final timeline.

Please complete requirement:

-Create and successfully brew a new unique potion (Error)

_____

“Fine,” she growls. “I don’t want to know what it’ll do next.”