Demon's Virtue

785  Potion Brewing

"Alright, so, what can that eye actually do?" Partax leaned forward with a curious grin, taking a closer look at the demon's third eye.

"Well, frankly, basically all the things a regular eye can do, and a few more. I can basically turn different 'functions' on and off," Eiro explained, "Beyond the regular light receptors, it has a sensory organ that turns the mana in its field of view into visual information. The eye also has a double-layered lens, and the lens in the front can be moved forward slightly, so that causes a telescopic effect to help me view things a bit clearer, though it's not like I really need that. And then there's of course the mirror of duplication that's built into one of the lenses, which has an effect that I can just trigger whenever I want to anyway."

The halfling listened curiously, jotting down a bit of information, "Do you think you could get me a copy? To study."

Eiro let out a slight sigh. He pushed his fingers onto the eye on his forehead, carefully placing his fingers around its edge. As if he was plucking it, he pulled the eye out of its socket, though of course that wasn't the real eye. Instead, he had pulled out a duplicate of the eye, which he then quickly gave to the old man in front of him, "Happy? Just don't do anything weird with it or I'll take it away. Oh, and you only have a couple more hours, I'm heading over to the monster town in a bit."

Partax, who was almost salivating in excitement as he was looking at the orb laying in front of him, snapped his head toward the Demon, "Wh-What? But I can't make any progress in a mere few hours! Shouldn't you stay here, for your... uh, for your classes?"

"It's Friday afternoon, all the classes are over. Even most afterschool societies are over by now, so stop complaining. I can make you a new one when I'm back tomorrow, but I just have to bring some of the stuff Boju asked me for when he gave his last report," the demon explained, and Partax grumbled slightly to himself. His spider-like mechanical mount moved over toward one of the nearby tables, and Partax quickly grabbed a clean scalpel.

"Fine! Then I'll have to hurry it up!" he exclaimed, and quickly started taking the eye apart. To ensure that all the functions would be available for Partax to research, the eye was sadly still connected to Eiro, so this was quite uncomfortable for him. Getting wounds in the eye was always something quite uncomfortable for him, even if his senses would allow him to navigate even without sight, just as Jura had done.

To just sort of push this sensation into the back of his mind, Eiro turned around and made his way into the gardens to finish preparing everything that was needed in the monster town. At this point, they were luckily self-sufficient enough to not need Eiro's help, which was great considering the time of year. It was close to deep winter, and it was getting colder and colder every day. Actually, it was so close to winter that Eiro should head back and meet with the Lady of Winter when she came back around. With the mess that the new guide had made the last time Eiro was there, he should take a look. Plus, checking on the domain that he placed there wasn't a bad idea either. By now, it must have grown quite powerful.

He should head back around the time of the winter solstice. Luckily, Skyhart was a country that celebrated the solstice as well, so there weren't any classes around that time and Eiro should be able to take the time that he needed off without any issues.

That was why before then, Eiro needed to make sure to bring the rest of the supplies that the monsters would need over the winter to town. The things that they needed were materials that were more specialized, things that the monsters needed to do a bit more levelling up and learning for. Things such as potions, medicine, very specific types of clothes, materials that they couldn't harvest in that area that they needed, and things along those lines.

Most of those things were stored in a warehouse behind the main building right now, and Eiro wanted to go through everything again and check that there were no damages, and then start loading up the carriages. Walking through the rows in the workshop, filled with all the different items, Eiro just scanned over the objects. Most of the potions that were here were actually made by him as part of his alchemy practice. Nôv(el)B\\jnn

At the same time, there were some parts that he was pretty annoyed with when it came to the process of alchemy, particularly because of Partax's precise requirements. For the purpose of practicing, Partax purposefully tried to change the flame temperature while Eiro was distracted, or add materials that would force the demon to extract the faulty substances. While it did help Eiro grow a bit, it was still more than annoying.

Eiro stretched out his hand toward one of the bottles. There was a small crack in it, so he should at least fix this up or swap out the bottle. But just as he reached out, something happened with Eiro's eye; the one that Partax was experimenting with. The halfling was currently trying to test the flow of a particular magic wavelength into the mana sensory organ, and somehow, the connection that was created between the demon and the eye made that one of the painful things that Eiro has experienced in recent memory. It was like having someone try to tear out an exposed nerve, just that it was the equivalent on the soul level. That was why Eiro's physical pain resistance didn't help here all too much. Of course, it wasn't a massive pain, and Eiro could hold out well enough, but it was just enough to make Eiro flinch for a moment.

That flinch, with Eiro's natural speed and strength, was sadly enough to shatter quite a few of the potion bottles.

With a loud groan, the demon flicked his wrist and scooped up the shards of glass. If these were anything but potions, he would have just put the spilled liquid into new bottles after getting rid of any dirt, but the impurities immediately destroyed the potion integrity.

"Great," Erio sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. He had all the materials that he needed, but the potion-brewing process took literal hours. At this point, he might have to delay the journey to the monster town, but he promised that he would come at this date. Plus, he had plans on Sunday that he promised the kids he would be there for, so he didn't want to postpone that either. Of course, Eiro could just bring a second batch of potions later on, but this was still quite annoying.

The demon glanced to the side at the system log. Just in case, he kept it open all the time. Scrolling through, Eiro had noticed quite a few messages that gave him hidden information, often related to the other royal monsters or even the monster king, so that wasn't anything Eiro wanted to miss out on again. But as he looked at the window, Eiro wondered about something.

He already knew that it was possible to move items in and out of what was effectively his soul; that was his treasury. Plus, he knew that the system windows were connected to his soul and could directly access that same space, that was proven through the card binder function that Eiro added the other day. So... what if Eiro was able to just brew potions inside of his soul, using the system as a conduit? It would definitely make things easier. Plus, maybe he could use the Stopwatch's power to increase the brewing speed a bit that way too, even if it wasn't instant.

"Alright..." Eiro let out a deep breath. He had analysed things a lot more recently, and particularly the patterns that came from the invisibility potion's card could be useful for this. Curiously, Eiro opened another faux system window, summoning the author's pen. He quickly started drawing the symbol for potion and then brewing, and continued the patterns on naturally and instinctively. A few moments later, the symbols dissolved into the arcane screen, and a message appeared in front of him.

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[New personal System function has been created – Potion Brewing]