The manor had a physician’s room. In this world, “physician,” “herbalist,” and “alchemist” were pretty much the same job, so the room was already kitted out with all the basic tools: a mortar and pestle, a distiller, beakers, test tubes of various materials, and an old brass scale.

  Elsa, being Elsa, had the pce spotless in minutes. Following the diagram of a “standard alchemy b” from Dulles’s notes, she arranged every tool with perfect maid-like precision.

  But Pandora didn't start brewing.

  The reason was simple: she had no idea how.

  Her soul might be from a world of science, but fourteen years was a long time. Those memories were like fossils buried deep in her mind. They'd need some digging to unearth.

  Besides, the world’s basic knowledge of potion-making—the handling of materials, the control of the fme, the ratios of catalysts… all of it was built on the unique rules of this world’s alchemy. She had to learn it from scratch.

  So, Pandora spent the rest of the afternoon and the entire night devouring everything she’d brought back from the research facility. She was a sponge, soaking it all in.

  She read fast, but that didn't mean she was skimming.

  Dulles’s notes weren't just dry formus. They were the ghost of a man on paper. Pandora could see his initial ambition, his frustration and self-doubt after each failure, his ecstasy upon obtaining the “Witch’s Blood,” and, most of all, the almost paranoid thirst for knowledge and rigor that drove his experiments.

  It was like she was having a conversation with Dulles the apothecary.

  The process transformed her understanding of potions from words on a page into something… three-dimensional, vivid, a “feeling.”

  It wasn't until noon the next day, when sunbeams turned the dust motes in the herb room to gold, that she finally closed the st notebook with a deep breath.

  She stood up and walked to the table den with various bottles, jars, and strange herbs.

  Time for her first attempt at… potion-making.

  She followed Dulles’s final formu, the one he’d called perfect. Step by step: processing, purifying, fusing. Her hands, clumsy at first, slowly found a rhythm. This was thanks to her enhanced physique, and the logical thinking from another world, still active deep in her soul.

  She could understand the “scientific” conjectures in Dulles’s notes and, in her own way, control the fme’s temperature, keeping it almost perfectly constant.

  Soon, a potion with its base concocted y quietly in a beaker, a translucent, pale golden liquid.

  Pandora picked up the gss tube containing a drop of “Witch’s Blood” and carefully, drop by drop, let it fall.

  Humm—

  The scarlet Witch’s Blood, like a congealed teardrop, bloomed the instant it touched the base potion. The entire mixture emitted a hazy, moon-like glow, beautiful and eerie.

  Obviously, she’d done it. First try.

  Success, however, was one thing. Quality was another.

  The potion in her hand was, to put it mildly, ugly. Its color was a muddled brownish-red, not the pure, moon-like scarlet Dulles had described.

  He’d even quantified the purity of the color as a percentage. By his standards, her brew was maybe… eighty percent of the way there.

  This was worse than Dulles’s first attempt at the final version. According to his own records, that first try had been ninety percent simir, and he was confident that with the stable environment of the formal ritual, he could brew a masterpiece, a ninety-five-percenter.

  At eighty percent… it would probably prevent the worst of the mutations. Some minor, controlble ones would probably be unavoidable.

  Pandora looked at the “failure” in her hand and gave a wry smile. Her alchemical talent wasn't terrible, but it wasn't genius-level, either. Solidly average, maybe.

  What she cked was that almost instinctual affinity and intuition for materials that Dulles had.

  But… who said she had to do it the hard way?

  Pandora set the failed product aside. Not a hint of frustration. Instead, a lightbulb went off in her head.

  She summoned the System.

  This time was different.

  On the System interface, the column she’d always watched, the one that had always shown “0” for 【Number of Known Alchemical Temptes】… was no longer “0.”

  【Number of Known Alchemical Temptes: 1】

  【Potion · Dulles’s Red Moon’s Tears】

  It worked! The System had recognized her ugly, half-brewed mess!

  A brilliant light exploded in Pandora’s eyes.

  She immediately issued a new command to the System in her mind.

  “Activate Assisted Alchemy mode.”

  【Host has initiated an Assisted Alchemy request… Request confirming…】

  【Does the Host confirm the use of “Potion · Dulles’s Red Moon’s Tears” as the reference tempte for Assisted Alchemy?】

  【Perfect-level Assisted Synthesis, estimated consumption:】

  【Flesh: 23 units】

  【Flora: 2 units】

  【Salt-Gold: 7 units】

  【Ether: 37 units】

  【Soul: 0 units】

  The cost was a little steep. The Ether alone was almost everything she’d gotten from the second-rank golem.

  But… it was a price she was willing to pay.

  Most importantly, it didn't require any of the precious “Soul,” which was still sitting at a big fat zero.

  Pandora took a deep breath. The stuffy air, mixed with the smell of herbs, minerals, and old paper, seemed to have become fresh in an instant.

  In her mind, with a slight hint of excitement, she gave the confirmation command.

  The next moment, a strange, wonderful resonance hummed to life in the depths of her soul. It shot through her nerve endings, spreading to her fingers and toes. Pandora felt like she’d fallen into a magnificent, dizzying dream.

  She “saw” the cold, lifeless medicinal materials on the table. She “saw” the vial of Witch’s Blood she treasured.

  And at this moment, it was as if they had all come alive!

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