First success

It had taken roughly a year for Merlin to reach the level where he successfully brew his first potion. And it had been a fluke. It took him three years to reach the standard where he would start making a benefit out of alchemy. If not for Magus kroft guiding him and the Lylitell Magus Family backing him, he would have never reached his current realm.

And Merlin was not an average acolyte. He was known as a potioneering genius.

Back in the book, Leylin made it look easy. But even with the biochip's help, brewing a potion was much more difficult than expected. Not only did you have to control the flames with the fire stones, which required the use of magic power, all 72 steps of the [Spiritual Potion Recipe] had to be followed with minimal errors.

If you boiled an ingredient a minute past the indication, the brewage would be a failure, one that could potentially harm the consumer rather than recovering his magical power.

George was very persistent. He followed Kroft and assisted him in alchemy experiments on a daily basis. He even invested his 20 remaining magic crystals in ingredients so that he could get more practice. Adding to that his biochip's function, allowing him to simulate alchemy process, his success rate started to rise slowly.

Still, even if he completed the simulations perfectly, the reality was very different. The book had never depicted the true hardships of alchemy! It had only taken George a month to reach 50% success rate in his simulations. Yet, at this point, he could not even begin to hope to successfully brew a [Spiritual Potion].

After all, ingredients were often of poor quality, and a single mark, a single gram of starlight ore powder missing, would result in a failure. Magus Kroft often laughed at his eagerness to suceed.

Even if he completed the steps perfectly, alchemy required instincts and experience. Sometimes, you had to compensate the lack of a certain ingredient by adding more of another ingredient. It was especially true when several types of elemental plants were involved. If the fire grass was of especially high quality, then you would have to compensate by adding more spiritual water in the mix.

Three months after George entered the Abyssal Bone Forest Academy, a light could be perceived in the darkness. It illuminated Magus Kroft's laboratory. Inside, George was singing a song from his hometown: "Le Chant Des Commandos", a military song.

In front of him, there lied a translucent blue liquid.

[Spiritual Potion - Purity : 67%

An elixir brewed by George Lionheart with utmost focus.

Consuming this elixir will replenish the drinker's magical power by 3 points]

It was his first successful brewing! A choice was now being offered to George. Should he reveal it?

[Spiritual Potion brewing process has been recorded...]

[Current estimated success rate: 3.28%]

'Such a massive increase in the success rate...', George thought.

It must be said that the [Spiritual Potion] was quite a complex potion for a beginner, several times more difficult than the [Hemostasis Potion]. A hundred sets of ingredients only cost 15 magic crystals, yet one single potion could be sold between 7 and 10 magic crystals depending on the demand. In wandering acolyte organizations, such a potion with purity above 50% might even fetch for twice this amount, considering the rarity of alchemists not affiliated with Magus Households.

Even though George had taken three months to do so, he had successfully refined his first potion, and even if he tried to purchase his own sets of ingredients, he would already make a profit.