Chapter 21
With the garden complete they took a break for lunch before Hanna left to take care of some of her other responsibilities. That left Linus relaxing in the mess hall for a bit before coming to the conclusion he’d soon have supplies for alchemy but very little in the way of equipment. After wasting another half hour or so dithering over how to solve his problem he finally decided to head over to the crafting hall and catalog the equipment he brought before attempting to make his own. On his way he pulled up his status to check on his progress.
[Gardener], [Plant Mage] and [Amateur Alchemist] were all on the cusp of tiering up. [Gardener] was deceptively close since [Plant Lore] mostly leveled off of studying literature on plants with only minor experience from actually learning about the plants directly. But the other two classes could be imminent in their tier up. For [Amateur Alchemist] he hoped to level up [Increase Potency] so it could be pulled into the Tier 2 class.
Once in the building he pulled out the few pieces of glassware and equipment that had made the trip. Two round bottom flasks, a small and a large, a retort for distilling and several mixing wands were all the glassware they’d managed to pack. As for equipment there was a small scale with a variety of weights, a heavy leather apron covered with pockets and a fine pair of insulated gloves.
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With his [Mana Blade] or rather [Mana Blades] he technically had the most basic and necessary equipment covered, but if he wanted to be serious with his alchemy he’d need to figure out a way to make a mortar and pestle, several different types of filters, a separatory funnel, and well controlled heat and cold sources. Something to store finished products in would also be helpful instead of limiting himself to reusing the few vials leftover from their travels. The easiest and most immediately useful items would be the mortar and pestle and containers to store the concoctions. The separatory funnel would need to wait until he could use glass while the funnels and cold source were a whole different challenge he’d need to puzzle out.
He headed outside and pulled a chunk of dirt out of the ground and compacted it into a ball of stone before heading back in. A heave and a thump later he had the rock on the workbench and started to work on it. First he pulled off a smaller chunk for the pestle portion and set it aside, then grabbed the remaining piece and pushed it down on the bench, using [Basic Earth Manipulation] to give it a flat bottom before pushing the middle out and pulling the sides up. Bit by bit he shaped it into a thick bowl with a heavy base before turning to the smaller chunk he had set aside. This one he rolled into a short cylinder, just long enough for his hand, with a bulb at one end to better grind ingredients. It really was a shame that [Basic Earth Manipulation] was currently a non-class skill and limited to only 5 levels. Not only would this have been good experience for the skill but he’d be able to make a better tool than the rough mortar and pestle he’d just cobbled together.
With a small shrug to himself and resignation that it would be good enough for now he turned his mind to storage containers. He’d need smaller ones that could easily be carried on one's person but could also have larger ones to store batches of finished product and any reagents that might need to be stored away. Mulling it over the smaller one to go would need to be vials of some type. He wouldn’t be able to make a screw top but maybe a stone stopper would work or he could find some cork in the area. For the larger containers he could do jars with stoppers for the potions and a bunch of boxes for ingredient storage.
Settled on his plan he once more headed outside, this time making several trips before he had shifted enough stone into the workshop to support his plans. He started with the storage for reagents, making multiple open topped boxes. After he had made 16 he shifted from boxes to a shelving unit to store them all in. He sculpted the walls and back first before making 4 rows of shelves and then 4 columns of dividers, spacing them out so there was just enough room to slide the boxes in and out. He’d likely need to add more rows and columns as he grew his garden but it was at least a start.
Next he started on the bulk storage for potions, again he started with a boxy shape but this time made them taller and started to close off the top, leaving an open circle in the middle of the top with a raised ridge around it. He once again made 16 to start, with them coming together fairly quickly until he got to the lids. His low skill level and lack of experience was showing and the stoppers were either too small and fell in or were too snug to actually fit. Finally he settled on making the lids have a downturned edge that wrapped around the raised ridge, erring on the side of caution and leaving them less air tight but good enough for now.
Taking a step back both mentally and physically from his work he was hit with a wave of exhaustion and absentmindedly used [Heal] followed by [Invigorate] on himself. Even after their travels he still wasn’t used to this much physical exertion. Instead of continuing he decided to take a break and check out the fields outside the walls.
It took him a few minutes to get through the gate, first looking for who was manning it before remembering they didn’t have anyone posted during the day then to figure out how to unlock and open it.out Walking along the fields he realized how sorry of a state they were actually in. At this rate they were in danger of dying, let alone providing a good harvest of fresh food. He was hesitant to even use the majority of his skills on them, afraid the strain of expedited growth would hurt more than help. Instead he once more started to chain [Enrich] in a never ending session, trying to cover the max land possible with each. Checking on the soil as he went he soon realized the dirt was too dry.
Unwilling to try to ferry the required water from the well bucket by bucket he once more turned to a long combined skill [Basic Water Manipulation]. It was almost as familiar to him as [Basic Earth Manipulation] and after a few minutes of focused effort was rewarded with a notification and the skill.
Using his newly gained skill he worked to pull water vapor from the air and moisten his newly enriched soil. Soon enough he’d covered his already improved area and moved on. Then he either needed to alternate between the two skills or try to use them at the same time. The second approach was much more challenging but helped break up the tediousness of the activity. Doing both at once exhausted his mana much quicker and then he found himself taking breaks for that as well. Before he knew it the sun was starting to set and he’d barely made a dent in the first field. Calling it a day he headed into the fort for dinner and a bath before bed.
Waking up the next day he decided to have some fun and focus on some alchemy and wine. Reviewing his planters few were ready but the grape vine had rooted and recovered nicely. A few applications of [Growth] advanced it quickly through a season of development, providing enough for him to take a few clippings to propagate and [Improved Yield] helped ensure a small harvest of grapes to start a batch of wine.
Each of the clippings he took were carefully transplanted into a different portion of the planters, with each receiving an application of [Mutation] followed [Growth] then a [Basic Water Manipulation] fueled watering. For all 5 of the clippings he mutated he focused on the concept of mana, imagining the vines concentrating it in the grapes they produced.
As his skills took hold on the transplanted clippings their futures diverged sharply. Two of them immediately withered, either the mutation towards mana failing or the forced growth being too much for the poor plants to survive. A third survived barely, leaving a sad, weak vine that wasn’t any larger than the initial cutting. The last two had potential promise, with one’s leaves and vine shifting towards a darker green and growing healthily and the last shifting to a lighter, shimmery color, barely growing but starting to produce tiny grapes along its length.
While he was admiring his work Hanna finally found him. Without even exchanging a word Linus held out his hand, concentrating mana into a tight, intense ball as she leaned in trying her best to sense and affect it. Linus found himself smiling, unsure if it was because he was happy at the company or appreciative of her dedication, it was unusual for him to interact with someone so consistently outside of Archie that didn’t have some type of hidden ulterior motive. Sure Hanna was using him to acquire a skill but she was so earnest about it he didn’t even mind. Plus increasing the power of the outpost could only benefit him in the long run, maybe he should be working more with the other inhabitants…
He continued to muse on potential ways to improve the outpost and its staff while he worked with his three new mutated vines and the base stock. He slowly grew them out, shaping them for improved air flow and light exposure, making sure to enrich their soil and water to ensure they would die as soon as he stopped pouring magic into them.
As they cycled through growth cycles he collected the grapes, keeping them separated. The dark green variant produced almost as much as the original while the lighter one and withered yielded less than a quarter despite his skills. While he was considering how many more growth cycles he should do he was interrupted by Hanna.
“I got it!” She exclaimed excitedly, poking the ball of mana he’d been holding and making it deform under her finger.
“Great job Hanna, here.” He said while handing the mana to her. “Next exercise is holding it together.” Hanna’s face shifted from exhilaration to panic as she struggled to maintain control. Linus turned back towards his vines, deciding to do one more cycle before taking a break, interrupted just a few minutes later by timid um from Hanna. With a resigned sigh he held out another sphere without looking up from his work. At least it was less distracting than constantly holding it for her.
After enjoying a lunch break with Archie, Hanna and Luke, Linus was excited to start making some batches of wine. The sooner he started the sooner he’d rebuild his collection. He’d recruited Archie and Hanna for the more manual portion of it. First he pulled water from the air, washing each batch of grapes, leaving them dry and allocated to stone canisters. The dark green variant and base grapes ended up needing five each while the other two only required a single per.
He then shaped several flat tipped, stone paddles handing them off one by one to each helper they finished. Hanna only took one while Archie with his [Telekinetic Hands] ended up with five, four in pale, silvery gray, translucent hands and one in his regular set. They then proceeded to thoroughly mash the grapes. For this batch he was relying on whatever natural yeast was present on the grapes and would leave the skins in. As each canister was finished he used [Increase Potency] on it and capped it off. He’d need to wait awhile for the taste test but the first batch of wine was officially in progress!
