Alchemist

"Alright here are some ingredients for a higher level potion. Lets see what you can do." Naaza sets down a couple plants I don't recognize and what looks like a monster claw.

"Why is there a drop item in this?"

"Well for one bones or claws get more common in higher level potions. Most plants with enough magic in them are too rare or expensive for common use so potion makers had to use what they had. With the dungeon right here that means drop items. This is a goblin claw. Not very useful for a weapon, but it's got enough magic in it to work for us."

"Okay but what's the recipe."

"Oh this one's simple. Just chop up the leaves into small pieces and grind the claw to dust. Add it all in and heat it up. The tricky part is getting the magic to mix well. That's where 'Mixing' comes in.

"Alright lets see how much I can do with just my magic, 'Chopped'." As I say that the leaves become finely chopped.

"Good now 'Powder'." The claw turns into a fine powder. I then use the chicken talisman to levitate all the ingredients into the prepared flask. Turning on the fire I wonder if I could use the dragon talisman to provide the flames in the future.

"Alright now normally I would start swirling the flask over the flame while using 'Mixing' to help me control the ingredients as well as add my 'intent,' but what do you wanna do?" I pause at her question. I have a couple things I wanted to try but lets start with the simplest.

"Well let's start simple." With an effort of concentration I try to swirl the ingredients in the flask at high speed.

"Too fast! Slow down!" I quickly stop the rotation and look at Naaza.

"You're trying to mix them not make them explode! If you do that kind of rapid mixing with high magic ingredients then the magic will become unstable and could explode!"

"Like an ignis fatuus?"

"Exactly like an ignis fatuus! These are too low level for that but it will still ruin them. As they are I'd be surprised if they aren't already ruined."

"Well let me try something then." I focus on the mixture and try to set my mental image as solid as possible.

"Potion!" With that the ingredients swirl together for a bit before separating into a blue colored liquid and the leftover solids. Unfortunately it leaves me with a mild headache. I take the flask off the fire and look at my handiwork.

"Wait that's it? What did you do?"

"I just tried to 'shapeshift' the ingredients into a potion. I could turn the wood into metal so it makes sense I could do it. After all this isn't something impossible or unnatural. Just me using my magic to do everything at once. Though don't expect me to do this everyday. That took more out of me than expected." Naaza looks at me with doubt before taking the flask and sniffing the contents. She gets a mildly shocked look on her face before taking a small sip.

"I don't think you understand what you just did. If this is what I think it is then you are a born potion maker."

"Well don't keep me in suspense. What is it?" I look at her tiredly as I try to fight my headache.

"You see potion makers are ranked based on how strong a potion they can make. Basically how much of the ingredients effects they can extract. Most potion makers can get around three fourths of the ingredients magic, but anything above that is difficult thanks to the frenzied magic. Sure 'Mixing' helps but you can't expect all of the magic to do what you want. That's where the makers intent helps. It leads the ingredients and magic into becoming what the maker wants." She pauses for a second to make sure I got all that. After she sees me nod she continues.

"This potion of yours is as strong as a master potion maker's. Without the mixing development ability you were able to get the same results as someone who's dedicated their life to this." She starts to get a little down.

"You might be even better than me."

"Now don't sell yourself short. The only reason I was able to do this is because I knew what the recipe was supposed to make. If you hadn't told me what the ingredients could make I don't think I would have been able to do that." She looks a little curious at my answer.

"What makes you say that?"

"You remember it took a ton of magic for me to turn that wood to metal right?" She nods

"Well after this try it took a large chunk of magic but it was a lot easier. Like I thought, it's a lot easier to change something in a way that naturally happens. The ingredients would naturally make a potion so it was something I found easy. A good example is making a sword rust. I could probably turn it to rust a lot easier than turning rust into a sword."

"Okay, but how is that related to this? Potions don't just naturally happen."

*sigh* "My point is if its something that I could do without my talismans it's a lot easier to do than if it's something I can ONLY do with my talismans. Look those ingredients could become a potion so turning them into one with my talismans is easy. If they were ingredients for something completely different then I would probably knock myself out and blow everything up before I got a potion. What I'm trying to say is that this method is really good for copying others or doing things in bulk, but it can't make something new. I still need you to teach me new recipes and discover new potions." I try give her a reassuring smile as I try to explain why she's important. It seems to work as she sinks into thought about how my magic will help out.

"So basically it's really good for making potions quickly, but only if you already know the recipe. It doesn't let you discover new things since it skips all the process and goes straight to the results. You don't get to see why it failed just that it did. In fact it might actually get in the way of you getting the mixing development ability since you don't actually learn how to mix the potion. You just jump right past everything."

"Right, plus it looks like it's a lot harder to work with magical items."

"Really?"

"Yeah, making this potion felt a lot harder than the first one. I think something about magical items resists my talisman powers. It goes along with why I can't just turn monsters into chickens or manipulate the dungeon walls."

"I didn't know that, but yeah if that makes sense. Still a shame, but I guess you'll just have to work on the low level ones till you level up. Though it's great that you can make tons of the low level ones now."

"Yup, just leave all the low level stuff to me and you go ahead and work on those high level potions!"