The next morning, Wulf woke up early—well before the wakeup bell sounded, when the sun was only just rising—and got to work.

  He wasn’t tired, not really. This younger body was better at sleeping than he ever was in his fifties and sixties, as if somehow, it had less burdens on its mind. Or maybe he was just excited to work on more potions.

  Ján still lay on his back, sprawled across his bunk, arm out to the side, staring up at the roof, snoring. Wulf tried to be as quiet as possible, but it didn’t stop his flasks from clinking as he pulled them from his haversack.

  He downed the rest of his sleep potion, and the drowsiness returned for a few seconds, but he kept his eyes open and resisted the pull of his bed.

  The aura fuelled his storage pendant, activating it, and he drew the opening large enough to step inside. At the moment, he didn’t have a strong enough aura to keep the door open for long, so he gathered his equipment and brought it out, then saved the rest of the aura for finishing his first potion.

  He attached his flasks to the rack, lit the burn-box and placed it beneath the first flask, then got to work, using only a handful of his enhanced grass.

  The [Grass] condensed just like [Dandelion] leaves, turning into a green slurry—or juice, as the Field labelled it. It was High-Wood quality, but when he flooded it with the rest of his aura, trying to turn it into a magical object, it only became Low-Wood.

  Understandable. He didn’t have much aura left from the sleep potion.

  He just hoped, crossing his fingers, that this new potion was one he could drink large amounts of without hurting himself. Otherwise, he’d have to use his own mana to make the next potion.

  Blindness Potion (Low-Wood Quality)

  Applies a mild blindness effect to the user. Lasts ten seconds.

  [By crafting a potion, you have increased your mana. Advancement progress: 30%]

  Good enough. Even if it made him completely blind, which it probably wouldn’t, considering how weak it was, it was only ten seconds. He set the flask aside and poured water from his canteen into the second flask.

  A potion like that wouldn’t be effective as a weapon, either, unless he could convince someone to drink it. There were ways to craft area-of-effect potions that worked upon splashing someone, but he didn’t know how yet.

  For now, he just needed to increase his tier.

  He moved to his second flask, hoping to create the best potion he ever had. Everything lined up now.

  He put a little more [Grass] in the flask and distilled it down to a dark green fluid, stirring constantly with his quill, until finally, it thickened, and he had a High-Wood quality juice.

  Then with the help of half of his blindness potion, he flooded the potion with his aura, and the glass chimed. Though his vision blurred slightly, and darkness crept in from the edges (the blindness’ doing), he could still see the potion change. The liquid within glowed lavender, with faint bubbles swirling up from the bottom, and the glass chimed in a high pitch.

  He pressed his hand against the still warm glass, and when the blindness wore off, he assessed its strength:

  Fate Potion (Low-Coal Quality)

  Increases the user’s luck for ten minutes. Poisons the user with nausea for thirty minutes.

  [By crafting a potion, you have increased your mana. Advancement progress: 40%]

  Making a stronger potion afforded more advancement progress, huh? Wulf nodded in understanding, then placed the potion down on the desk. That one would be useful.

  Luck as a Field-granted effect never interacted with the real world. It couldn’t increase one’s chances of winning a game of dice. But when it came to Ascendant Skills and Marks, some of which depended on chance, luck was incredibly effective.

  He transferred the rest of his blindness potion to his canteen, then worked on his next flask. He had to take a break and refill the flask, but when he returned, Ján was still asleep, and the sun was only barely above the horizon. Wulf had a little more time.

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  He applied the same principles as he had to the luck potion and used the same techniques, and eventually, almost completed his potion. With a hesitant sip, he used the luck potion, and a powerful aura sprang up around him.

  Immediately, his stomach churned, and he held back a retch. Despite his poison resistance, Low-Coal nausea was a lot more than he’d been expecting.

  Woulda been worse for someone without any resistance at all, though, he thought.

  He focussed, pushing through the churning of his stomach, and directed his aura into the last flask.

  This time, no matter how warm the flask was, Wulf kept his hand on its side, excited to see the result. His skin protested, and he ignored it.

  The liquid, he noticed, began glowing before it shifted colour. For a brief moment, before his ability took effect, the enchanted parchment on his bracer described a mild ‘Wind-Aspect Amplification Potion’ before shifting—wind-aspect amplification being the regular potion fescue grass made, according to his alchemy textbook.

  After a few seconds, the ink on his bracer reformed to read:

  Balance Potion (Low-Coal Quality)

  Improves the user’s balance and strengthens their stance. Effective for thirty seconds.

  [By crafting a potion, you have increased your mana. Advancement progress: 50%]

  No negative effect whatsoever. That had to be the power of the fate potion.

  But now, with all his flasks full, he was starting to see the bottleneck. He needed more equipment, more flasks, and eventually, he was going to need more materials.

  By his estimates, he had about an hour before the wakeup bell sounded and they had to be at the mess hall for breakfast. That meant plenty of time to gather more equipment. He pulled on his uniform’s shirt, fixed the collar, attached his rank badge, then set off. He descended through the dorms with his haversack over his shoulder. His storage pendant hung around his neck beneath his shirt, cold against his chest, and his potions clinked in his haversack, but not so loudly that anyone would hear if they weren’t listening closely.

  When he exited the dorm building, he cracked open his alchemy textbook and read as he walked (today, he aimed for the mess hall—he didn’t need solvent flasks specifically, so long as he could fit it in on his holding rack).

  He flipped through the first chapter once more. Aside from the concept of distilling herbs and other inorganic materials, the chapter also described using solvents like harsh alcohol and vinegar to further purify and concentrate the ingredients. An alchemist could soak an ingredient in solvent, using it to draw out more of the material into the liquid—the active ingredients. He’d have a syrupy tincture. It’d make it much easier to strain out the remains, increase the quality, and overall improve his potions.

  And for that, he’d need the kitchen.

  First, he stopped by the back door of the mess hall and scanned the patches of weeds along the back of the building.

  In the dim light, a few feet to the left, his Mark made a patch of weeds shimmer and glow. They were bloodwort, with a red stem and leaves that had crimson veins through them. By feeding on the remains of the enhanced food and mana-water, they’d grown to be Middle-Wood tier.

  Wulf plucked them and stuffed them into his pocket before sneaking into the kitchen.

  The back door was open a crack, probably to let cool morning air into the kitchen, but Wulf pushed it open just enough to slip through, then darted behind a brick stove.

  It was smokey and hazy inside the kitchen, and a troop of non-Ascendant cooks shuffled around, cracking eggs into pans, placing bread into ovens, chopping onions and frying bacon, and Wulf's stomach growled.

  He clenched his gut. Had to keep quiet.

  The cooks, busy on the other side of the room, weren’t watching. He stayed low, then crept across the room and ducked behind a counter. He rolled his feet, keeping his footsteps quiet on the flagstone floors.

  When he reached a cabinet, he pulled it open. It creaked. He winced, but none of the cooks turned to face him.

  Inside the cabinet were rows upon rows of clear glass cups. Some were wide—much too wide to fit in his holding stand—but the wine glasses would work. If he broke off their bases, he could fit their stems in the holders.

  He took as many glasses as he could fit in his haversack—six. Since they wouldn’t be very portable when they had potions in them, he’d either have to leave them on his holding rack, or keep them in his void pendant. The best potions, the ones he wanted to keep access to all the time, could go in the flasks and his canteen.

  After he had the glasses, he crept down a set of stairs and into the wine cellar. Although he could make a proper tincture with alcohol, he would much prefer to do it with vinegar. Wine wouldn’t be a strong enough alcohol, and he didn’t want to get drunk on his own potions. But it still might be useful in some way.

  Kegs lined the wall of the cellar. Thankfully, they all had labels above their spigots. Some held freshwater, some held saltwater, most held wine of all different varieties. Some even had mana-infused wine in them…which would probably make an excellent ingredient, or be helpful somehow.

  Without hesitation, Wulf gulped down the rest of his blindness potion, then used its aura to activate his storage pendant. He filled each of his wine glasses with mana-wine from three separate barrels (that way, no one would notice as much missing), then sealed up the pendant. He might not use it for making tinctures, but he’d still use it for something.

  The pendant was heavier now. Significantly heavier. Though the glasses themselves didn’t have much mass, and not enough to affect the barrel, their arcane presence weighed it down. It was nearly five pounds, by his estimate.

  With a now empty canteen, he ran to the far end of the cellar, where a few kegs of vinegar waited, and filled it up.

  Now, time to leave.

  On his way out, with a significantly emptier haversack, he snagged a few more wine glasses from the cabinets, before slipping out of the kitchen without anyone noticing.

  Once outside, he leaned back against the wall and exhaled. This haul of stolen goods had to be worth about thirty to forty silver, depending on how fancy the glasses were. But considering his tuition had been well over five hundred silver, this would barely be a counting error in the academy’s ledger.

  In the interest of saving the world, they could spare some resources.