After finishing breakfast, Mariela started working immediately. (TLer note: Potion Bottles refers to chapter 15)
She began collecting the stones in the surrounding in order to build a small furnace. At the top, there was a small platform to put materials and heat them from below.
She built the furnace thick enough to contain the heat, filled the gaps between the stones with mud from the forest, and dried it using the <Aridity> skill. On the top platform, Mariela placed the melting pot she had brought out from the junk box. She tilted it on its side and positioned it diagonally. Over the top of the melting pot, she positioned a casing with a pull-out drawer on one side and made another opening to add materials to the pot on the opposite side.
Working with two people made the work end faster. While Mariela was building the furnace, Sieg took the Yagu and went to fetch some firewood.
Mariela took off her cloak, shoes, and pouch, and then grabbed her hemp sack and spade and headed to the waterfall.
The waterfall was quite impressive. It was as tall as five Captain Dick’s standing on top of each other. (Tler note: Yes this is in the raws, dunno why the author made Captain Dick a form of measurement)
At the top of the waterfall, a large boulder came thundering down onto another boulder causing a large splash of water.
“It’s still here. Thank goodness.”
Between the rocks that just came crashing down in the waterfall, there was a narrow gap just large enough for Mariela to squeeze in. Inside there was a slightly wider passage that went uphill from the entrance towards the back. There were rocks protruding out from the crevices leading up that Mariela used as footholds to climb up the waterfall.
In this small crevice, the roaring water was repelled by an outcropping above her. The walls were still wet though, and moss was growing everywhere.
“Oooh! Big catch! I haven’t been here for over 200 years. You’ve been growing like crazy.”
The moss was called Planada, and the tip was slightly pink. This moss required clean water and moderate sunlight to grow. Even in the most favorable environment, it grew slowly. It was an extremely rare ingredient. It is said to restore fatigue accumulated in the body and restore one’s diminished lifespan. Trading prices are expensive and is rarely available on the market. This place was her secret. She only took the exact amount of moss she needed and left the rest to let it continue growing.
She picked the moss she needed off the wall and went down to exit out of the small crevice.
The area the moss grew in wasn’t very difficult to reach.
She carefully lowered herself down the wall and found her way back to the gap by the waterfall.
“Oh, this is a great find!”
Although Mariela didn’t notice when entering the crevice, there was a small alcove near the entrance to the crevice, and in this crevice, there was a large amount of white sand gathered.
This sand was ideal for potion bottle ingredients.
Downstream from the defensive city, there was a certain point along the river that allowed for the creation of high-quality sand necessary to make potion bottles. Even though it was of good quality, it contained some impurities as it was a natural product. The gathered sand is then separated from its impurities using special facilities. It’s then added to a furnace, where other various raw materials are added, the impurities are removed, and the refined sand is converted into glass for the potion bottle.
Using the alchemy skill, Mariela could even produce this glass using the simple furnace she constructed, but the glass would be of low-quality if the raw materials weren’t good enough.
The sand Mariela found was of top quality. She came here knowing she’d find high quality Planada moss, but was also able to find one of the ingredients she needed. It was like opening a treasure chest and discovering the sand and moss. She was so happy she felt like dancing. She didn’t know why this was so. Among everything that came flowing down the river and fell down the waterfall, only this sand gathered in this alcove. For the first time in 200 years, Mariela had gone out trying to gather this rare sand, and she somehow managed to discover an area that naturally gathered it.
There was too little for her to gather and sell on the market, but it was more than enough for her personal use.
The waterfall was still splashing down behind her. Both her hair and clothing were soaked at this point. The feeling of her wet clothes clinging to her body was unpleasant. Occasionally, grains of sand would get caught up in the splashing water and land into her eyes. It was annoying, but she had to bear with it. This was for the potion bottles, after all.
She shoveled some of the sand into her hemp bag.
She gathered as much as she could fit in the bag, tied it off using her mouth, and slung it over her back.
“Whoa…it’s heavy. I think I got too much.”
“Mariela-sama.”
Sieg appeared at the right time. Wait, how? Even if he was thin, he’s still much bigger than Mariela. She didn’t see how Sieg could fit through the gap.
“Huh? You’re on the Yagu? How?”
When she turned to face him, she saw Sieg sitting on the Yagu.
He told her he had heard her from above and used the Yagu to climb down the cliff’s face.
Well, Yagus were great rock climbers.
She tied her bags to the Yagu and let it climb out from the top.
The Yagu climbed the wall in just a few quick jumps while still carrying Sieg. Yagu was amazing, but Sieg’s also amazing.
It returned immediately and allowed Mariela to climb on it this time. The waterfall itself was only the height of ten Captain D****, which was not very high, but it was quite scary when the Yagu climbed it in quick jumps. Mariela cried, ‘Kyaa,’ and clung onto the Yagu. When she got off from the Yagu, it seemed to almost laugh at her with a short snort from its nose. (Tler note: Yes this is in the raws, dunno why the author made Captain Dick a form of measurement)
“Let’s take the sand back. After that, I can dry our clothes.”
There was firewood already piled up next to the furnace. Mariela dried it using her magic. It didn’t take long for there to be a roaring fire at the base of the furnace.
After spreading the sand over the flat stone beside the furnace, Sieg went back to fill the hemp bag with more sand.
“<Aridity>, <Aridity>”
Mariela dried herself with her magic and put her cloak and shoes back on.
Mariela removed the Torona ore purchased from Gark’s herbal shop, white powder – that was more than half solidified – from junk box, and a powdered substance that appeared to be metal. Powdered mana stone.
The white powder was a lamb stone; it had been as such left for a long time, so it reacted with the components in the air and could not be used as it was.
<<Training Space, Pulverisation, Heating>>
Heat to a lower temperature than a candle flame, much higher than hot water.
She also added the necessary amount of Torona ore and continued heating it in the same way.
Next was sand.
<<Training space, pulverization, a drop of life, fixation, mixing>>
After crushing the dried sand and soaking it in the drops of life, treat the lamb stone, Torona ore, and manastone powder in the same way. This completes the raw material.
Mariela began to make a few preparations. She must finish the process without stopping, so she decided to eat lunch even though it was a little early.
Sieg returned quickly. He had two pouches bulging with sand tied on the Yagu. He had brought up more while Mariela was preparing the raw materials, so there were now five bags in total. Mariela knew that was more than enough for what she needed.
Lunch was sandwiches with a cutlet of orc meat. The sun was shining brightly with no clouds in sight. It was a nice experience to eat lunch while listening to the singing birds. It was a place where Mariela wanted to take a nap leisurely after eating lunch, but she could not do that. She had to finish the bottles by evening.
Mariela also dried the sand that Sieg had gathered, and treated them. All the lamb stones were now gone.
“From now on, I will be focusing on this for a while, so you can take a rest, Sieg.”
Sieg seemed happy to sit and watch this time as well. Somehow, it also seemed that the Yagu was also watching. He should take a rest, too.
Mariela added the raw materials to the melting pot. Since hot air had accumulated in the casing, she used the training space to add the materials to avoid burning herself.
Firewood was burning with great vigor, but of course, sand doesn’t melt at such temperatures. It was necessary to raise the temperature more, but the alchemy skill could only raise the temperature to that of a lit candle. She added the powdered mana stone to the fire.
<Spark>
She used her alchemy skill to ignite the powdered metal and add air to the furnace. The fire radiated an array of bright lights and started making sounds.
<<Come forth, Spirit of Fire>>
She placed a piece of paper with a magic circle on the fire. If one possessed the ability to use spirit magic, they could call for spirits to aid them. Mariela did not possess this ability, but she could still request the spirit’s aid by offering it this fire created from mana stones. Although, such a small fire wouldn’t be capable of summoning a powerful spirit.
The flames began to swirl around before taking the form of a small lizard.
(A salamander. How rare.)
The Salamander is a famous fire spirit, and there are no known cases of them existing in such a small fire. A spirit like this would usually form contracts with the most talented of dwarf blacksmiths. Considering how small the fire was, Mariela expected to only hear faint whispers from a spirit.
Crunch Crunch~, the Salamander was crunching away on the sparks.
<<Sparks>>
The Salamander looked happy as it gorged itself on the sparks created by Mariela.
“ Hey, Salamander, can you lend me your strength?”
Mariela hoped that the Salamander could understand her, but she was worried that it wouldn’t lend her much power as she had only offered it a few sparks. However, when the Salamander heard her, it strengthened the fire tremendously.
The sand in the melting pot slowly began to melt into glass.
<< Training space, Removal, Cooling, Processing – Potion Bottle, Cooling>>
<<Training Space, Material Injection, Stirring>>
<<Sparks>>
As expected of the Salamander, it had amazing firepower. It would not only produce heat just enough to quickly melt the sand, but also prevented any hot air from hitting Mariela.
More importantly, the Salamander would consume the sparks quickly, so Mariela needed to continually add more. If there were not enough sparks, the firepower will fall, and the Salamander may even disappear. The amount of sparks was more important than the amount of powdered metal. Mariela focused on adding more sparks to the furnace, and the Salamander responded happily each time she did.
Oh, the firewood is going to burn out. Suddenly, Sieg added firewood. Nice assist. The Salamander happily spun around in circles.
After getting several potion bottles of low, intermediate, and advanced quality near completion, she didn’t finish the process. She took a globule of molten glass and completed only one potion bottle. With so much going on at once, she couldn’t mould all of the bottles at once. She wouldn’t need the fire to finish molding them, so she could take care of that later. She only needed to use a little of her mana to lock the molten glass in an isolated space so that it wouldn’t lose its form.
Adding material, spark, melt, add firewood, take out, spark; put the material in, spark, melt, add firewood, remove, spark; add material, spark, melt, add firewood, take out, spark ………
Mariela noticed that all raw materials were consumed.
The sun was still high in the sky. It seemed that not much time had passed.
“Thank you, Salamander.”
While saying thank you, Mariela added more mana to the fire to create more sparks for it.
The Salamander looked around as if to say, “Finished already,” before eating the remaining sparks.
“Amazing. It ended in no time. It was really helpful.”
Is this what people that are used to working with the Salamander experience? It may be hard to tell what it was thinking because it looked like an animal, but the way it acted was cute.
Ring-a-ling
The Salamander spat something out of its mouth before disappearing and taking the flames with it.
“….A ring?”
The Salamander had spat out a simple ring shining a brilliant myriad of colours. Mariela understood that the Salamander must have hardened the metal powder in the fire but didn’t know how it had achieved these wondrous colours. As expected of a spirit. Mariela wondered if the Salamander would come again if she had this ring.
The ring fit snugly on the middle finger of her right hand. It was pretty beautiful. She was grateful for it.
The remaining molten glass was molded into the necessary potion bottles, and after cooling down, Sieg added them to the hemp bags.
There were so many bottles. The two hemp sacks were filled to bursting. In total, there were nearly three hundred potion bottles.
Even after all this, Mariela’s mana hadn’t decreased much. She had used <Sparks> countless times and had even managed to summon a powerful spirit like Salamander. She never remembered having this much mana. Mariela felt that her mana had increased substantially while she slept. She planned on buying a appraisal paper to find out for sure.
The sun was still high in the sky, but their baggage had increased beyond Mariela’s imagination. On the back of the Yagu were two hemp bags packed with glass and a hemp sack filled with Planada moss. No matter how strong the Yagu were, it would be impossible for this one to carry all of this and two people.
They decided they’d gather whatever else they could on their way home.
There seemed to be no other people in the forest around here, and mushrooms, medicinal herbs, and nuts grew abundantly in this area. When they returned to the city, the sun was just starting to set. The guards at the northern gate seemed to remember them and said, “Hey, that’s a lot! We were getting worried because it was getting late.”
Sieg and Mariela split up after returning to Yagu’s Bridge Inn. After having unloaded the luggage at the inn, Sieg went to return the Yagu while Mariela headed for ‘Gark’s herbal medicine shop’ to receive medicinal herbs.
The adventurers on the way back to the labyrinth were walking along the street, and it was more crowded than usual. ‘Gark’s herbal shop’ was still open, and Old Man Gark handed Mariela fresh medicinal herbs for her wounds. Mariela tried to hide them with her sleeve, but there were scratches on her arms. It most likely happened when she was collecting herbs. Next time, she’ll be sure to bring ointment.
She thanked him and left the store.
A group of what seemed to be adventurers sat at a table in a sidewalk cafe. The delicious smell of their food was almost enough to draw Mariela into the cafe.
Mariela thought they may have similar injuries as her. People with major injuries wouldn’t be seen on the streets, but there would still be plenty of people with minor injuries and these people would need an effective medicine.”
(I wonder, should I open a drug store?)
While considering such a thing, Mariela went back to Yagu’s Bridge Inn.
