Chapter 292: From Now On, I’ll Call You Senior! Senior Xiao Han!
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 292: From Now On, I’ll Call You Senior! Senior Xiao Han!
"No stock? Then... Senior, you can take a custom order, right? I don't mind waiting a few days," I said. "After all, a shop owner shouldn't turn down a customer's request, right?"
"Of course~ I wouldn't dream of refusing such a reasonable request from a cute junior. But how much do you want to buy? This stuff is a luxury item, you know. It’s quite pricey."
"Hmm... roughly how much are we talking about?" I asked tentatively.
Senior Gongxi Huanxin had repeatedly emphasized that it was expensive and a luxury. I had already braced myself. Since it was a private recipe, a high price was understandable. As long as a single dose didn't cost several Orichalcum coins, I could probably accept it.
If it was a bit pricey, I’d buy a small amount to test it out. If it proved worth the cost, I’d come back for a bulk purchase.
"Well... let's see... for one portion, based on the cost of materials plus labor... let's round it to one Red Copper coin. And I only accept transactions in Red Copper. If you buy in bulk, I can shave off the change for you."
"How much? Just... one Red Copper coin?" My eyes widened in disbelief. Had the prices of the things I’d been dealing with lately skewed my perception of reality?
Then again, if I bought a large quantity, it certainly wouldn't be cheap.
"Naturally. Some of the raw materials have to be purchased with Red Copper, so the barrier to entry is a bit higher."
"Fine! I'll take a month's supply to start with." Since the Senior mentioned the optimal usage period was one month, I’d try that first. Even a month's worth wouldn't cost that much. Perhaps this was the confidence that came with being a "little rich girl"...
Still, the costs of living and studying were exceeding my expectations. I really needed to find a way to make some money.
As for that part-time job at the bakery... honestly, even working a full day there didn't pay much. Maybe my previous way of thinking was wrong. You only truly realize how important money is when you're running low on it.
But I still had to buy high-quality incense. Save where you can, spend where you must.
If the money is spent on the right things, it’s not really gone—it’s just staying by my side in a different form.
"A month's supply?" Gongxi Huanxin was a bit surprised. Such an amount wasn't much for a typical shop with high foot traffic, but it was a different story for her. However, she wasn't so greedy that she’d lose her head over it.
"Yes. Is that okay? How long will it take? Do I need to leave a deposit?"
"It’ll take some time to prepare. Give me a few days. As for a deposit, yes, that’s standard—though I don't think a junior like you would run off."
"I’m not the type to break my word. How about we just sign a trade contract? It’s safer that way. I’ll pay the full amount now, and you can... have the goods delivered to my place?"
"Oh? That works. In that case, I’ll draft the contract now."
After a bit of busywork and settling the payment, I left with a few portions of incense for immediate use and a specific aromatherapy blend Senior Gongxi Huanxin had recommended.
Back on the bus, I found myself thinking about alchemy again. Incense was also a product of alchemy... and compared to buying from others, I preferred using things I’d formulated myself. It’s always more reassuring to use your own work.
I was going to try refining a Wound Healing Potion with Betty today. If it went well, I’d ask her if she had any good incense recipes. If she was interested, I could use her equipment to practice.
When I arrived at the teaching area, I followed the location Betty had sent me. It looked like the right place. Since there was still some time before our appointment, I pulled out a book to kill time.
I took the opportunity to familiarize myself one last time with the methods required for brewing alchemical potions.
In alchemy, the most important method—the "Refining" ritual—came in many forms. Some required runes to outline a specific refining array, while others required chanting, incantations, and so on.
Chanting and incantations were simply another way to manifest the effects of runes—expressing them through sound. Runes didn't actually have corresponding pronunciations, only linguistic descriptions. Chanting was a process of trial and error, using sound to constantly resonate with the rune ritual, eventually resulting in a convenient shorthand for utilizing them.
After waiting for a while, a few minutes past the agreed time, I finally saw a hurried figure get off the bus at the nearby stop. It was Betty, the "genius" of library theory and practice.
After stepping off, she scanned the area, looking relieved as she walked straight toward me.
As she got close, her gaze swept over me briefly.
I realized then that she hadn't recognized me.
"Betty~" I spoke up first.
"Huh?" Suddenly hearing a stranger call her name, she instinctively went on guard and looked at me. "Who... who are you?"
"It's Moon. You already know I'm Yang Yuehan, right? You don't recognize me just because I changed my clothes?" I snapped my fingers, briefly shifting into my white-haired form before changing back.
"Eh? Ah! Little Moon!" Betty finally reacted.
"Call me Xiao Han. That's what most people call me," I corrected her.
"Right, right, Xiao Han. Sorry, sorry... I kept you waiting. You're here so early! I’m never even this proactive when my mentor gives me an assignment..."
"That just means your lifestyle is very relaxed. My biological clock hasn't adjusted yet, so I ended up being a bit early~"
"Whatever the case, now that you're here, let's go. I'll take you to my mentor's lab. But Xiao Han, I feel like you've changed quite a bit. Did you decide there was no point in pretending anymore?"
"Yeah, I suppose so." I nodded. While I knew she was referring to my "Moon" persona, I was also referring to the mask I had been wearing for a long time.
I followed Betty upstairs into a formal laboratory. Compared to this place, my Room 8401 felt more like a converted classroom.
"Here we go~ This is my mentor's lab. Be careful, don't touch the precision instruments, or my mentor might actually skin me."
"Don't worry, I understand." I nodded.
"Good. Basically, even if you break the glassware, just don't touch the things that look complicated. Come on, follow me over here. This is the space my mentor cleared out specifically for me. It’s not big, but the instruments are kept far away from here. We’ll start here."
Betty led me to a separate area. One look told me the equipment here was several grades lower—the clear difference between a mentor and a student.
"Uh... I bought these myself. I blew through the set my teacher gave me. Glass is just too fragile; one vibration and it cracks. I felt like I was going to crack right along with it."
"And some of the test tubes and beakers got stained by my finished products, and I couldn't wash them out. Alchemy is just such a hassle."
"I see." I nodded, feeling a headache just listening to her. "Wait, even a Cleaning Spell couldn't get them out?"
"Nope. Couldn't even scrape it off with my nails." Betty walked to the bench, picked up a beaker that seemed to have been left in a corner, and held it out to me. "Look, I missed one. You can try."
"What on earth did you do to this?" I asked with a wry smile, but I took it anyway. I could feel the fluctuations of transcendent power in the residue on the glass.
Sure enough, after I cast a Cleaning Spell, the grime didn't budge. A Cleaning Spell can remove most stains, but its effect clearly couldn't handle stains imbued with transcendent power. To clean this, one would need a more refined method to disrupt the stability of the transcendent power within the stain.
But then it hit me—Senior Betty was a talent in her own right if she could create stains that even a Cleaning Spell couldn't touch!
"See? Won't come off, right?" Betty took the beaker back, shattered it with a spell, and tossed it into the trash.
"It really won't. I feel like you could partner with a dye manufacturer. A potent dye that even a Cleaning Spell can't remove would probably be a huge hit."
"Alright, stop teasing me... Oh! Aaaah! I forgot again!"
Just as Betty was trying to drop the subject, she let out a shriek that nearly jumped me out of my skin.
"What's wrong?" I asked, confused, but Betty had already bolted to the lab door.
"I forgot to do the dust-free treatment again... If my mentor sees this, I'm getting a noggin-knocker for sure..."
"Dust-free... oh."
I nodded. Like a sterile room? Clearing out dust to prevent minute environmental factors from affecting the experiment. That Transcendent Witch was certainly rigorous. Even in alchemy, where the precision is at the level of transcendent power, ordinary dust usually doesn't cause much interference.
"Here, Xiao Han, put this on. It generates a dust-removal effect. I need to quickly clean the path we walked in. I hope she doesn't notice..."
"Okay." I caught the object Betty threw at me. It was a device similar to a bracer. Looking at the internal runes and the flow of transcendent energy, it was clearly an alchemy item enchanted with a common spell.
Judging by the wear and tear, it had been used many times. I slipped it onto my wrist, and after a bit of fumbling, I successfully activated it.
Since it was a low-level alchemy item, it was at most slightly more complex than a small spellbook. Once I understood the basic structure, I knew how to use it.
I even had the fleeting illusion that I could modify it. But it wasn't a spellbook; I’d probably need to master some specialized techniques to modify it. No—if I mastered those techniques, I could probably just make these simple alchemy items myself.
"Phew~ Okay. I hope my mentor pretends she didn't see anything. She hasn't hit me in three days; she shouldn't hit me over something this small..." Betty sighed as she walked back to me, apparently finished with the cleaning.
"Is your mentor really that strict?" I couldn't help but ask.
"Why else do you think I keep running to the library? If I don't stay there, I have no legitimate excuse to get away from her... Ahem, I mean, she’s actually a good person. I just have trouble keeping up with her train of thought. Maybe it’s because I’m a bit slow? I have a few senior sisters, and the mentor really likes them."
"Anyway, let's not talk about that. Let's get to the point. I'll find the recipe and forward it to you."
"Okay."
I nodded and opened my phone. I wasn't just waiting for Betty's recipe; I opened the Online Library to search for information on Flesh Healing Potions.
After I hit search, the sheer volume of results and pages made my eyelids twitch. The recipe Betty said she "got a hold of" seemed a bit... cheap. There were mountains of data, countless different versions and derivatives of the Flesh Healing Potion, some even including detailed steps and theoretical analyses. I was just skimming through when Betty sent over a document. I opened it. The content was extremely simple: name of the potion, required materials, technique, refining ritual, steps... It was worlds apart from what I had found in the library.
"Wait, Betty... is this all there is to your recipe?"
"That's it. My mentor sent it to me and told me to try it out. She said my current knowledge base should be enough... probably..." Betty was starting to lose her confidence.
"By the way, have you ever searched for related materials in the library? Regarding the Flesh Healing Potion?" I looked at this bare-bones recipe. If she tried to figure this out on her own, how many materials would she waste?
"Huh? Does the library even keep records of this stuff? I never really noticed. To get this recipe and the specific operational details and rituals, I specifically went to ask one of my senior sisters for help."
"I think you need to go to the library and look at the professional versions," I said with a straight face.
"That... I'd have to make a trip to the library... it's so far..."
"Use a flying broom. It's not far from the teaching area to the library."
"I... I never got my flight license. I didn't care about it for the first two years, and by the time I took it seriously, I didn't have time to study... I even failed once. Total waste of money. I think taking the bus is... just fine..." At the mention of the flight license, Betty looked like she had a migraine. "Besides, I'm a bit afraid of heights. I failed during the high-altitude flight portion..."
"Fine. But can't you just log into the library on your phone? Why don't you try that?"
"Wait... you can do that on a phone? Um... quick question, is reading the books on the phone free?"
"How could you possibly freeload? You definitely have to pay to read the full text. Wait, don't tell me you didn't know?"
"Uh... I really didn't. I'm sorry! Waaaah~ I've disgraced the title of Senior! From now on, I'll call you Senior! Senior Xiao Han!"