Chapter 15: Potion!

And like that the week passed by. Percy spent most of it learning sets of potion ingredients and then having Hecate test him on them.

Hecate also taught him the basic concepts of potions, what tools to use, why the were used and such. She even went in depth to why it was needed to be specific when stirring clockwise or anti-clockwise.

It took a long time and Percy had to do a lot of essays on their effects and such, but luckily the blood band worked. Percy's ability to learn skyrocketed.

It was now one week since Percy traveled back in time, and he had just completed the latest test Hecate had prepared for him.

"Please let this be the last one," Percy groaned as he passed the paper to Hecate who started her correction charm on it.

It took a moment but eventually Percy's score popped up, '98%'. Hecate looked impressed, "good job Jackson. Your first step to becoming a full fledged wizard has been achieved. I still have a few issues, but we can get to that later. Now, let's get to the fun stuff."

Percy groaned, "more potions?! I swear if I ever see another plant I swear I will kill someone!"

"Relax sea brain, this part you are going to actually like," Hecate quickly brought out a cauldron and walked into the kitchen. She put the cauldron on the stove and turned to Percy, "now, fill it with water."

Percy looked surprised but did as she asked. He reached into the pipes and slowly turned the tap in the sink on.

But before he could do manipulate the water Hecate stopped him, "no, not with that. Use your powers to draw the water out of the air. Use the moisture in the atmosphere."

"What? Why?"

"Why don't you answer that yourself? I covered the basics, what makes a potion powerful?"

"Well...it's because of the magic the maker unconsciously drips into the potion," Percy answered and then frowned, "so if I gathered water using my magic the potion created will be more powerful, as even the water I use will be coated with magic."

"Excellent! Five points to you Jackson!"

"I'm sorry what?"

"Oh right, you don't know. Never mind, I'll get to it later, now chop chop, water," Hecate pointed at the cauldron.

Percy sighed, he quickly gathered water from the air around them and poured the collected water into the cauldron. He smiled, the pot was almost half full. He turned to the goddess, "alright, what do you want me to do now?"

"Make me a potion that can...help me cure boils."

Percy frowned, "well… I mean you could just use lionfish scales for that. Make it into a paste, it's a pretty mild substance, very effective over the direct effected area."

"Good Percy, I see you actually know what you are talking about, but that's not I want. I want you to make a potion, and I want it to react quickly and all over my body. So...what do you use to make such a potion?"

Percy hummed, "well then I would first use some Rike seeds, for the quick reaction. And of course you could have horklump juice for the whole body effect. Plus it has healing property, so it could couple with the lion scale's positive effects. But the potion might become a little unstable, rike seeds don't mix well with horklump juice, so maybe I can heat the potion up and mix in some gulf? Maybe a few clockwise spins to neutralise the whole thing."

Hecate raised an eyebrow, "you confident about your little potion recipe?"

Percy looked curiously at the goddess but nodded, "yeah, I am."

Hecate shrugged, "alright, get to it. Impress me."

Percy sighed, he quickly got to work. Hecate had transferred all of the potion ingredients he listed to the counter for easy access by Percy. Percy first quickly opened the window for proper air circulation, don't want to choke on the rike seeds reacting with the horklump juice.

He added the horklump juice first and then mixed in lionfish scale giving the potion a green hue.

Percy then began to heat the whole potion up and quickly crushed the rike seeds removing the seed out of it's husk obtaining the pure brown seed within.

Percy then crushed the seeds once more until they were dust and poured the dust in with the now boiling potion.

The potion began to boil violently, Percy however didn't panic as he quickly added some gulf and took a stirring spoon stirring the pot clockwise until the potion settled down.

Percy then waited until the potion turned from green to red, indicating that the rike seeds had reacted properly. Percy turned off the stove and poured the potion into a vial presenting it to the goddess.

Hecate looked at the potion and frowned, "do you know what you have done?"

Percy gulped, "did I do something wrong?"

Hecate looked up from the potion and meet his eyes. She didn't display any sign of her emotional state as she snapped her fingers smoothing a piece of parchment, "this is the proper recipe for the potion I asked you to make."

Percy took the paper and read it. His eyes shot open, the recipe was nearly identical to what Percy had suggested, only here they told to add a few extra clockwise rotations and a clove of pixe flower for added strength.

"The pixie flower is useless, just used to make the potion seem better to drink. And the extra clockwise spins actually dilutes the potion," Hecate picked up the potion and examined it under the light, "the colour for a normal potion is purple, for master grade is maroon red, what you have created surpasses even that due to the extra magic you pushed in by conjuring your own water base. Congrats Percy, you have the makings of a potion genius."

"Woah, seriously?" Percy asked in awe, "holy shit this is awesome! I actually did it! I made a potion!"

Hecate grinned as Percy started dancing throwing his hands up in joy, "you felt it didn't you? That joy in creation?"