That's Not How You Make Ink!

The goblin first grabbed the two mana crystals. He tossed them up and down to get a feel for them. Together, they filled the goblin's palm.

Instantly, Rizz's eagerness deflated. 'This is the best you've got?'

'I'll have you know that these are top quality!' Elenia telepathically berated. 'My father only uses the best crystals available."

'That's sad to hear…' Rizz put the crystals down and lifted the jar of blood. He held it up toward the dim lantern hanging in the corridor. 'Hmm… This is pretty shit too.'

'These are truly the best materials possible. If you can't make anything out of these, then you are truly the lying fiend that my father believes you to be!' The young noblewoman folded her arms and glared at the imprisoned goblin. 'Stop making ridiculous excuses before I leave.'

'Hey, I just said that they're shit. I didn't say I couldn't make something with them.' Rizz mentally remarked, grabbing the bottle of solvent. 'It just means I'll have to settle for notable quality. Maybe it'll be rare, if I'm lucky…'

Elenia's eyes show wide open at that remark. Baffled, she accidentally spoke out loud, "Rare? You can make rare ink out of this?!"

'Shhhhh!' Rizz telepathically shouted while putting a finger over his mouth. 'Keep your voice down, or you'll alert the sleeping guard.'

Grrrowl…

The noblewoman shivered and turned around. 'What's that?!'

'The Frostcat your old man is probably dying to run tests on.' Rizz was already getting back to work. But first, Rizz flipped his over his bowl of sludge, letting it plop onto the floor in one cohesive bunch. 'I was hoping to use this ink to tame that beast, but I'll have to improvise.'

'To tame it?' Elenia brought her gaze back to the goblin, continually thrown for loops by his baseless confidence. 'You planned to tame that beast? I can't even see its level, and you planned to tame it?'

Rizz shrugged while opening the bottle of solvent. 'Why not? How else can I get out? Are you planning to escort me out of town?'

She shook her head. And before she could reply, Elenia was confounded by the goblin's antics. 'You're putting the solvent in now?'

'Yeah. What of it?' 

Rizz didn't slow down. He quickly dumped a quarter of the solvent bottle into the thin, dented metal bowl. The next step, however, shattered the noblewoman's world. 

'What are you doing?! You're wasting too much–'

'You asked for a lesson, and that's what I'm giving you,' Rizz telepathically grumbled, dumping all of the beast blood into the bowl without hesitation. 'It's your fault that you brought me low-quality shit. So I'm just making do with what you gave me.'

Elenia's mouth hung open in horror. Her gaze was glued to the unstirred mess of arcane solvent and beast blood. 'So much waste… What are you doing now–'

Tink, tink, tink.

One of the mana crystals was cut into perfect halves before her eyes. She couldn't bring herself to ask how, but Elenia was lucky to watch Rizz repeat the process with the other mana crystal. 

Rizz had spilled the jar of enchanting brushes while grabbing another one. 'I told you. Expensive brushes are best. The needle won't break so easily.'

On the back of the handle was a dial, which Rizz started spinning. A thin, long needle emerged from under the hairs of the brush. Then, Rizz held the needle against the crystal with one hand while hammering the back of the brush with the stone pestle, from Elenia's academy set mortar and pestle. He moved in a line down the side of the crystal till it cracked in two.

Tink, tink, tink… Tink, tink, tink…

Rizz used a few brushes to continue the process, quartering the two mana crystals in under ten seconds. No time was wasted as Rizz started pounding one-quarter of a crystal inside the mortar and pestle. 

'Since I'm only lv. 1, I'll just grind one piece at a time.' While mentally snickering, Rizz's tongue snuck out of his lips, dangling off to the side.

Elenia was mesmerized… Already, she'd learned a new way to cut mana crystals quickly and efficiently. That was enough to keep Elenia from complaining about the wasted beast blood for a little while. 

Very soon, Elenia was baffled yet again. 'Wait, why aren't you grinding them into powder? That's too thick–'

'Let me do my lesson. Then you can get mad about how much better my ink is than yours,' Rizz telepathically scoffed, pouring coarse bits of mana crystal into the solvent-blood concoction. 

Rizz got into the motion of crushing crystal bits with one hand while stirring the blood slurry with a couple of free fingers. 

'This… shouldn't work…' Elenia shared her thoughts with the goblin, stuck in disbelief in front of the unorthodox scene. 'Just because you're throwing stuff together doesn't mean you can make it work out in the end–'

'Hey, you wanted my lesson. And I'm nice enough to share it with you.' Rizz narrowed his gaze and frowned at the noblewoman. 'I'd like to see you make ink this fast with half as much quality in the end product. 

'Besides, it's time to heat it up. I'll need your help for this part.'

Elenia leaned against the back of her chair with a rattled mind. 'Heat it up? Don't you mean cool it down?'

As Elenia started to pull out some sort of cushion from her briefcase, Rizz stuck out a hand in rejection. 'No! This is my ink. We follow my recipe. You have to boil it for one minute, so just use your fire.'

'But that… You'll waste so many ingredients…' Elenia's heart sank into her stomach just imagining what her father would say after learning of all the squandered materials. 

'Just boil the ink while I stir it!' Rizz mentally shouted, throwing a brush into the banged-up bowl. 

'... Fine. I'll do as you say. But you'd best hope that something comes from this. Or I'm burning you along with all this waste,' Elenia sorrowfully threatened. 

She held out her hands as strands of fire left her fingertips to form fireballs under the bowl. And while the noblewoman fought the urge to cry, Rizz crossed his fingers and hid that hand behind his back.