The One and Only Elixir

Once, a German pharmacologist named Amin Florian would invent an elixir that stood in a class of its own—far beyond any tonic that had come before.

An elixir that, like a buff spell, temporarily raised one's mana reserves and mana sensitivity. It would take its name from ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the man who created it: amine.

As of today, that name was going to change. Because I had already invented it.

"The subject of today's class is an elixir that accelerates your growth—in other words, a lesson on the one and only elixir of its kind in the world. Well? Doesn't that sound tempting?"

Naturally, not a single one of them looked convinced.

He's really laying it on thick today. Must've had a bad lunch. Can we just skip this and do combat already. A chorus of pure, undiluted skepticism spilled from the cadets' mouths—not so much as a whisker of anticipation among them.

I sighed and pulled a flask from the box.

It looked like glass, but its durability put steel to shame. Inside, a green liquid swirled and shimmered.

"I need a test subject—ah, no. An assistant. Anyone willing to volunteer? Nothing complicated. Just drink the elixir you see here."

"……"

"Hmm…"

The ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠cadets fell silent as if by prior arrangement.

Fair enough. If I were them, I wouldn't want that suspicious liquid anywhere near my mouth either.

"Relax. It's harmless to the human body."

Saying it out loud clearly wasn't going to earn me any trust.

Without hesitation, I uncorked the flask and downed it in one shot.

"As you can see, not even one percent harmful. Still no volunteers?"

Silence again.

Were these kids really aspiring heroes?

Left with no choice, I sweetened the deal.

"Extra credit for whoever steps up right ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠now."

Hands shot up all at once.

Among them, the one waving most frantically was Shin Na-yul.

"Shin Na-yul. Come on up."

The named cadet pointed at herself with a fingertip and tilted her head.

For all that passionate waving, she looked thoroughly flustered the moment she was actually chosen.

"Yes, you, Shin Na-yul. I'll pad your extra credit nice and thick, so get up here."

Shin Na-yul blinked a few times, then shuffled forward in awkward little steps.

I looked at the girl standing opposite me and asked,

"You can fire a mana projectile, right?"

The most basic application of mana—condensing it into form and launching it.

Any superhuman ought to be able to manage that much. Shin Na-yul nodded.

I shifted my gaze from her to the rest of the class.

"Lee Yeon-su. You come up too."

The extra cadet I'd called, Lee Yeon-su, sprang to his feet with bright enthusiasm. He strode over and asked,

"What do you need me to do?"

"Nothing major. Power this on and hang it on that wall."

"Ohhh. Seriously nothing, then."

What I'd handed Lee Yeon-su was a disc about the size of a pocket watch. At a glance it looked ordinary, but it was a rather expensive impact meter.

Think of it as a dart machine that could measure force as well as accuracy.

A dart machine that wouldn't shatter under ordinary mana and maintained an ironclad defense against physical impact.

Once Lee Yeon-su finished setting it up and returned to his seat, I told Shin Na-yul to fire her mana.

She clenched both fists and launched a mana sphere at the meter.

A fierce whistle of displaced air rang out, and the meter whirred to life with a noisy mechanical clatter.

A bullet's force registered around 200.

Four hundred twenty-six wasn't a particularly high number—but for the dead last in practical combat, and with attribute-less mana at that, it was nothing to sneeze at.

A few short gasps of admiration rose from the surroundings.

"Hehe…"

Shin Na-yul offered an embarrassed little smile, clearly flustered by her classmates' reactions.

I had her step back for a moment and said,

"As you can see, Shin Na-yul's accuracy is 67.3. Power is 426. Beating that without a buff spell is essentially impossible."

At present, no elixir existed that could raise mana capacity.

Which left buffs as the only option.

The cadets knew that well enough; they nodded vigorously.

"But what if we borrowed the power of an elixir? Assuming the one you see here raises mana capacity—"

"That's impossible."

The one who cut me off was a certain nobody whose name I barely knew.

Top of the theory rankings, and a sketchy Main underneath it all—Han Seo-jun.

He had his arms and legs crossed with thoroughly arrogant flair.

"You think mana is that easy to push around? Its very existence is a mystery—how is some artificially made elixir supposed to measure up to that? No matter how I look at it, it doesn't make sense."

"Shut up and listen, Han Seo-jun."

"……Okay."

Before I could even take him to task, Na Eun-sol stepped in.

"Uncross your legs."

"Uh…"

I looked at Na Eun-sol with a faintly surprised expression.

Apparently my gaze made her self-conscious; she averted her eyes.

"Ahem. Right. Cadet Han Seo-jun. I understand where you're coming from."

As Han Seo-jun said, mana was a mystery in and of itself.

Fifteen years on and it was still called uncharted territory—but that limitation didn't apply to me.

"Seeing is believing. Watch it happen in front of you and you'll change your mind."

A few of them had already pulled their eyes off me and were looking elsewhere.

Na Eun-sol seemed to have lost interest too; her gaze drifted to a problem set.

Intervening any further would just mean talking to people who weren't listening, so I decided to drop it.

I handed the elixir to Shin Na-yul. She took it and looked back and forth between me and the flask.

"This… do I really drink it?"

"It's fine. You just saw me drink it, didn't you?"

Of course, with no mana of my own, it had done absolutely nothing for me—but proving it wasn't harmful to the body was good enough.

For the record, this elixir fully exerted its effects even without attribute mana, so long as the drinker possessed mana at all—just like Shin Na-yul.

She swallowed hard, tension and spit going down together.

About a minute of hesitation passed.

Shin Na-yul squeezed her eyes shut and downed the elixir.

And the first thing she said after emptying the flask was:

"……It's good."

Insane. She thinks that tastes good?

I'd forced it down in one shot because it was so bitter.

I was so floored I couldn't even speak.

Shin Na-yul stared blankly at my blank face and asked,

"Ssam. Do I just do it like before?"

"In class, you call me Instructor."

"Ah, yes sir."

"For now, just breathe deeply for three minutes."

The time it took for the elixir to ride the meridians and spread through the whole body was roughly three minutes.

Until then, Shin Na-yul needed to calm herself with steady breathing.

When the three minutes were up, she stood beside the lectern and fixed her eyes on the meter.

Cadets who'd been doing other things snuck glances her way, curiosity getting the better of them.

"Ready…… fire."

At my call, a mana sphere shot forth.

Even at a glance, it was bulkier than the one before.

—BOOM!

A thunderous crash rolled out, and the meter kicked into gear.

Shin Na-yul's eyes went abnormally wide at the reading.

"W-whoa……"

She stared down at her own two hands. Is this really my power? The question was written all over her face.

Around us, a noisy uproar had already broken out.

"Holy……! What even is that!?"

"No, no, wait. Wasn't the last record four hundred?"

"Insane…"

Disbelief flipped straight into denial.

Han Seo-jun spat the words out like a man having a fit.

"Instructor. You cooked this up with Shin Na-eun, didn't you? There's no way a record like that comes out otherwise!"

I shrugged.

"If this is rigged, how do you explain the accuracy? Can the meter be remote-controlled somehow? And it's Shin Na-yul, not Shin Na-eun."

"I-it must be! There's no way Shin Na-eun's mana could be like that otherwise…!"

It's Shin Na-yul, not Shin Na-eun. He was grinding his teeth and ignoring the correction entirely.

I gave the thoroughly deflated Shin Na-yul a pat on the shoulder.

It seemed to help; the corner of her mouth twitched upward, just a little.

"All right, all right. There's still plenty of elixir left. Cadets who want to try it, raise your hands."

Hands went up the instant the words left my mouth.

They looked like puppies staring down a bowl of feed.

One, two, three, four, five……. Far too many people for the number of elixirs I had.

After sending Shin Na-yul back, I started picking through the cadets.

The very first person to raise a hand was Na Eun-sol.

Except she had one hand covering her face and the other only half-lifted, as if she were trying to avoid me.

Why does she always dodge me the second we make eye contact.

Was she scared of me?

Or was she still mortified over the coffee incident? Either way, it was getting on my nerves.

With that thought, I called on someone else.

"Lee Yeon-su, come up."

"Y-yes?!"

The one who answered when I called Lee Yeon-su was Na Eun-sol.

She protested with pure indignation.

"Hey, I raised my hand first! Why do you always do this only to me!"

"Oh, that was a hand raise? My bad."

"Yes! I was first!"

I should probably stop teasing her.

"Fine. Then you come up."

At my indifferent tone, Na Eun-sol's face lit up at once.

She came forward in quick little steps.

She walked out with a haughty air, as if ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠nothing were the matter—except her ears had gone unmistakably red.

Once she was up front, Na Eun-sol immediately fired a mana sphere.

Accuracy: 83.7. Power: 899.

She came back to stand in front of me and held out both hands—still avoiding my eyes.

"You're supposed to meet an adult's gaze."

"……"

Na Eun-sol turned her head with a creaking, wooden-doll stiffness.

I handed her the elixir and said,

"Don't squirrel it away. Drink it right now."

"W-why would I do that?"

Her pupils were glazed with greed. She absolutely would.

Na Eun-sol primly averted her eyes from mine.

Apparently she found me that unbearable; she turned her back to me to drink—and then, uncharacteristically, kept hesitating.

"Don't be scared. For someone who looks so fierce, what are you afraid of over a little—"

"I-I'm not! I'm not fierce at all, okay?!"

"Got it. Now drink already."

In any case, Na Eun-sol's results with the elixir backing her were as follows.

"Whoa……"

A full, beaming smile spread across Na Eun-sol's face.

Then she felt my gaze and wiped the smile clean off.

The deadpan way she managed her expression made me snort.

"You look better when you smile. Try unclenching that face of yours going forward."

"I didn't smile. When did I ever smile."

She said that, but a faint smile still lingered at the corner of her mouth.

After sending Na Eun-sol back, I swept my eyes over the room.

A few cadets still weren't buying it, but most of them had the look of people who'd started to trust me.

I raised the flask and began the explanation.

"This is an elixir that temporarily raises mana capacity and mana sensitivity—in other words, the power and accuracy of your mana. That doesn't mean drinking it over and over will make it accumulate in your body. Like a buff spell, the effect only holds for a set period of time."

Temporary or not, it was the first mana elixir in existence. An elixir no pharmacologist alive could produce had been born from my hands.

Which was why a roomful of skeptical eyes locked onto me.

"H-how did you make that?"

I told them the unvarnished truth.

"Would you believe me if I said Nightbloom was the ingredient?"

Sound cut out for a beat. Then laughter rolled through the room from every direction. They'd all taken it as a joke.

Unlike daytime air, the air at night carried harmful mana.

That was why superhumans tended to avoid training during certain hours after dark.

Of course, that harm applied only to the human body—not to the Nightbloom.

The flower absorbed night air in bulk and used it as nourishment to grow.

Because of that habit, it was nothing but a poisonous weed to superhumans.

But I had added the one and only herb that could convert that toxicity into something beneficial—and that was how we'd arrived at the present situation.

"Aww. You just don't want to tell us, right, Instructor?"

"I told you the truth."

I raised my hand while the mood was still loose.

"We'll start again now."

The moment of choice had arrived.

The cadets scrambled over one another, hands shooting up hard enough to punch through the ceiling.

"Instructor! Me, me! I believed in you from the start!"

"Please, me! Just pick me once, please!"

"Hey, move. I raised my hand first."

"What the hell are you on about—Instructor, I was the first one up! Me!"

This much passion for a class.

Hard to believe they were the same people from earlier.