The Newt and Demon

There was something strange about the way the mana infusion worked with third tier potions. Theo did a run of their standard second tier restoration potions… a tiny run that really didn’t stress the artifice. Doing such a small run allowed him to watch the reactions with his stunted magical senses, observing all the invisible stuff mixing together and doing their thing. Of course, his powers were driven by Shadow—formerly Zaul—to allow him to take a look behind the veil.

Interactions with Shadow’s powers were weird at the best of times. They were built on a foundation of aura manipulation—a concept Theo wasn’t completely familiar with yet—and the infusion of one’s willpower into that aura. That infusion was similar enough to the way the essence was infused with mana during the third tier process. There was something there. Theo was certain of it.

“You sure are concentrating over there,” Salire said.

Theo shook his head, stepping away from the still for a moment. “I’ll be working on this for a while. I’m not sure what your take is on the interaction between the essence and the mana, but I’m curious. Would only Tero’gal mana work?”

“That’d be my guess,” Salire said with a shrug. “I saw it more as a bridge than anything. Something to go from here to there.”

Theo shook his head. They didn’t agree on that. “This is more like an infusion, where the pieces of mana are introduced to the essence and fill the gaps.”

“Yeah, like a bridge,” Salire said.

Theo blinked a few times, but shook his head. They were talking about the same thing in a different way. “Right, so if the mana makes up for what the essence lacks, what else could it do?”

Salire stood beside the still, tapping her foot. "You're talking about infusing something into the essence itself, instead of bridging the gap with empty information," she said. "You want to do so with what? Other properties?"

"Maybe other properties, or maybe concepts," Theo said, stroking his chin. "The very start of a plan is forming in my head, but I don't have enough information to make it happen. What I need to do is some experimentation. I need to figure out how receptive the essence is to change while it's in the mixing chamber first."

"Which means you need to take this thing out of the lab before you blow us all up. We both know what happens when we start experimenting."

Theo simply nodded. Of course, she was right. It wasn't likely that he could do much here. And even if something did happen, it could have explosive consequences. When he was finished with this run of third-tier essences, he placed the result in the building’s storage and took the entire device into his inventory. He then set off to find a nice field to do his experimentations in. Tresk was still running the dungeons and having a lot of fun with Alex. The Aquamist began his testing by emptying the essence container and the mana container. Then he got to work.

Starting with tests on the pliability of mana, Theo attempted to introduce different things to it. He started with other essences, which caused some magnificent explosions in the open field. Fortunately, they lacked the force to destroy any of the equipment, but they produced a splendid plume of black smoke that rose high into the air. Next, he tried to manipulate the state of matter the mana was in, finding that he could only produce it in liquid and gaseous form. He was close to making it solid, but then realized that wouldn't be of much use.

"What exactly is he trying to do?" Sarisa asked from under a nearby tree.

“Gods only know,” Rowan grumbled. The black clouds still hung overhead and his eyes were locked onto it. "Let's just hope his powers of future prediction are strong enough to make sure we don't die."

"See, I think he's trying to change the way his mana works," Sarisa said, tapping her chin. "Seems to me like he'd be better off infusing it with something that comes from his chest, you know?"

"Well, that's where the mana comes from, isn't it?" Rowan asked. "What else is formed in that man's soul?"

“I think the aura comes from the soul, right? But I've heard the local wizard talking about forming spells there. Maybe he can make a spell into a potion? How would that process work?”

"Too bad Theo's spells are based on his potions," Rowan said. "So what would happen if he made a spell potion? Hold on, I'm getting a headache."

"That's not as stupid as you two might think," Theo said, nodding along as the two bantered. "I think I could infuse some mana with the concept of a spell, but you're also correct in assuming that my spells are based on the properties within the essences."

"Hey, did we actually figure something out?" Sarisa asked.

"We're a lot smarter than you think, sister. Theo will realize that one day.”

"Just like you might realize," Sarisa said, humming to herself, "since he has extracted the properties from reagent to spells and turned them into spell forms, he could use those to create potions. But hey, I'm just a stupid half-ogre. What would I know?"

Theo turned, giving Sarisa a severe look. She withered slightly before her pride kicked in, and she thrust her chest forward, prepared for combat. He had no plans to fight her or say anything to her, not until he was sure that idea would work. But it was true: he could extract properties from reagents and use them to create spells. This had been moderately useful for his mage's core to create wards. The issue was that the effects typically weren't incredibly powerful. They required infusion with an absurd amount of willpower.

Theo held his hand out, watching as it filled with mana from his chest. His mana glittered a peculiar shade as he held it. There was a silver sheen on top, and the contents within seemed to shift with prismatic colors. The only way this would work, though, is if he could brew something with a blank base, or maybe…

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"You idiots just gave me a really good idea," Theo said, setting up the essence side of the still. He withdrew a bottle of Searing Regeneration essence from his inventory and placed it into the essence container. He then held his hand over the mana container.

Each property that Theo extracted and turned into a spell form had a certain feel. It was like a piece of a poem, according to the old dronon form of magic. When he transitioned to his own type of magic, based on Tero’gal’s will, it changed slightly but mostly remained the same. He felt the meaning of a property and allowed it to flood into his mana. That part of the process was far simpler than he had first imagined. The mana dripped into the container, forming a shimmering pool at the bottom.

"This is a cheat," Theo said. Closing the top of the container for both the Searing Regeneration essence was Tier 2, and technically his mana was Tier 3. But that was only technically. He didn't really know how to classify it.

Mixed together, these two things should have exploded. The binding medium that normally held them together was the suffuse potion, but it was lacking here. Instead, it would be bound together with the concept of two or three essences, and he wasn't certain if that was good enough. Still, he locked the mechanisms in place and started the brewing process. Of course, he created a wall-like shield to keep himself and the other two safe if an explosion occurred.

"I'm always instilled with the greatest confidence when you put a shield up like that," Sarisa said, petting Theo on the shoulder.

Theo was busy watching the reaction. He observed as the mana and essence were vaporized and then sent to the mixing chamber. Once they were combined, they were pumped into the condenser coil, which allowed them to drip into the flask he had placed on a table. To his surprise, the resulting mixture looked strange. It took him longer than he would admit to realize that a brood potion, rather than a distilled essence, was being produced. It might have been the first time he had witnessed this process without the help of a catalyst. It shouldn't have been possible, but a lot of things about this shouldn't have been possible.

"Why is this working?" Theo asked, taking mental notes as he watched. "Everything should have exploded by now, and we're getting a refined potion at the end.”

The good thing about the mana mixing apparatus was that it could work with incredibly small amounts of essence—down to a single unit if need be. That's exactly what Theo had done. Even though he had designed it to run on a very small amount of essence and mana, it still took about an hour for the process to complete. He watched, rapt with attention, as the drips slowly came.

"That's a potion," Theo said, watching as the machine finished its work. "This thing made a potion instead of essence. That goes against everything I know about alchemy."

"Is that good?” Rowan asked. “You basically skipped a step."

Theo wasn't certain if it was good. It was fine, as long as the resulting potion was usable. This was uncharted territory, so he approached the potion with caution, looking into the future to ensure he didn't blow himself up. He intended to pick it up, swirl it, and watch himself do it in the future. Nothing negative happened, and the potion appeared to be a normal Reforge Soul potion, so he walked up to it and inspected the resulting potion.

[Infused Lesser Reforge Soul]

[Potion] [Infused Potion]

Legendary

Created by: Theo Spencer

Purity: 98%

Imbibing this potions reforges the drinker’s soul. This process reverts the drinker’s soul back to a base state. Once the transformation is complete, any system-related changes are then re-applied. These conditions are only persistent ones driven by class cores, etc.

Infusion Array;

[Soul]

"That's not right," Theo said, narrowing his eyes as he read the description. There were several things that seemed odd about this potion.

The first strange thing was the title, and in more ways than one. First, it had taken tier 2 essence and downgraded it to a first-tier potion. Second, it was called an "infused potion," which he had never seen before. That was strange enough for the title, but then he looked at the description.

"The text on this potion is completely different from what appears on the one made by normal means," Theo said, gritting his teeth as he reread it. "And there's a very frightening bit missing here. The original one only allows the potion to work on mortals, but this one doesn't have that restriction."

"Wait, so you're saying a god could reforge a soul?" Sarisa asked. "What does that mean?"

"I'm not actually sure," Theo said, shaking his head. "The reforging process is entirely different. This one is basically a factory reset for people, rather than a restorative potion."

"Alright, alright," Rowan said. "Why don't you distill that down for us?"

Theo didn't even have the willpower to glare at Rowan right now. He was thinking about all the ways he could make potions different. "We can make infinite suffuse potions, so long as we have one part," he mused. "I'm very interested in trying this with mana on both sides, but I don't think that would work."

"Does this mean Tresk didn't have to steal all those flowers?" Sarisa asked. "That would be a shame."

"No, we still needed the flowers, but yes, this could be big. It'll change the way we make all our suffuse potions, but I don't know. We need to do more testing."

As far as Theo knew, nobody on the planet had done potion infusion. This was a new frontier, and he considered it an extremely advanced technique. It was hard to place it into the tiers because the skills required to manipulate mana were immeasurable when infusing his mana with the concept of a property. He had used no small amount of willpower, and for a person with willpower that might rival the gods, he doubted most mortals could access this technique.

“If Kahar had access to an Alchemist class when he was on the mortal plane.” Theo started tapping his foot nervously. “I doubt he would have been able to perform this.”

"Wow, don't get too big a head now," Rowan said, chuckling nervously. "Oh, I think he's serious.

“Yes, that's his serious face," Sarisa said with a scoff. "Is this one of those world-shattering revelations you have every so often, Theo? If so, I'd like to be appropriately nervous."

"Yeah, you guys might want to start crapping your pants," Theo said, as his mind spiraled out of control. He thought of the different ways he could use this technique to make potions. If he tried hard enough, he might even be able to learn spell forms from different schools of magic. Right now, he had only focused on creating spells based on his essence properties because that was easy. But why should there be a limit? If he could learn and understand a spell, he could technically infuse it into a potion. That would open up a world of possibilities—infinite properties he could infuse into base essences.

"You don't actually want me to crap my pants, do you?" Rowan asked, looking around nervously.

"He'll do it if you tell him to," Sarisa said, turning to her brother. "Go on, poop yourself."

"See, I'm not going to do it if you tell me to do it," Rowan said, folding his arms. "Theo has to tell me to do it."

Theo turned, giving Rowan a flat look. "Please don't poop your pants.”