After the awkwardness of the cyprianus-naming incident subsided, the two of them fell back into a comfortable pattern relatively quickly. To Demi’s great relief, the incident did not become “the thing we must never speak of.” Aelfric seemed to be committed to determining what had actually happened and was actively investigating the case. To that point, he had politely requested permission to handle and examine her cyprianus, Evergreen Memory, whenever she wasn’t using it.
A peculiar thing about a cyprianus was that after they were paired with someone, they became unintelligible to other people. They could be read and used only by the person they were meant for, up until that person’s death. Then they could be read again, but even then, the information in them was not often organized in an easily comprehensible fashion. Even learning from the cyprianus of your own deceased mentor was often a challenge, even if they otherwise produced fine teaching materials in their other writings.
To allow someone else to handle and examine your cyprianus was a little like letting them see your status screen. It was something that required trust, and so Aelfric had asked before presuming he would be allowed to touch it, even though he was the person who had made it. Of course she let him. She also wanted to know what had happened, and his investigation of the incident meant he spent a lot of time with her in the atelier and she got the chance to watch him as he worked.
That was easily as instructive as all of the books she had thus far read on the subject of Fluid Alchemy.
And she learned a great deal.
Having her own cyprianus was like having shackles she hadn’t even realized she was wearing shattered. Before Aelfric’s arrival, Demi had already exhausted every single recipe that she had even a chance of successfully completing at level one, practicing them multiple times until she had felt confident with them.
That included the syntheses that had an extremely high chance of failure when being attempted by a novice at level one. Because of this delicate and yet intense practice, Demi was ready to challenge recipes that were far above her level as she advanced. She had already learned a lot about what could go wrong and what was likely to go wrong, and the idiosyncrasies of different materials, their traits, and their symbolic units.
Evergreen Memory allowed her to translate all of that experience into Fluid Alchemy levels, and as a result, she practically flew along.
Demi had an essentially limitless supply of mana because she was a goddess, and she had increased both the flow and control of that mana multiple times through the use of her Earth Blessings on the garden and all of the resulting produce she had subsequently thrown into her sacred spring.
In fact, for a while it seemed as if the only thing that put a limit on her progress as a high alchemist was her obligations to do things other than alchemy, like care for her chickens and tend said garden.
But of course, even though she was animated by a passion for the subject and had gobs and gobs of mana, even a goddess needed to rest sometimes, especially considering that she still had a lot of work to do as president of the Rosebrook Canal Authority. She not only had to organize paperwork, but she had to create it herself, to write some reports and to summarize others, and to meet regularly with the respective section heads: Soa, Grandmeister Fairfox, Izar Touchsight, and Foreman Oakroot.
And she really really really wanted to progress in Fluid Alchemy as quickly as she could, so she devoted almost all of her “leisure time” to it. She found it fascinating and exciting, but beyond that, Tata was very sick. She was lying in a little bed in a lean-to all alone, ill and exhausted.
Demi visited her as often as she could just to quietly check on her, doing her best not to disturb the sleeping dryad whenever she did.
But ultimately, all of the work caught up to Demi, and it did so more often than she wanted to admit, even to herself. People needed her help, after all. Many people were depending on her. She had to do her best not to disappoint them.
One afternoon she was sitting at a worktable and considering an array of ingredients laid out in front of her. She was trying to improve the potion she was making beyond what she had managed so far and debating which combination of ingredients she ought to try.
It was a difficult problem because she wanted to keep the overall quality of the potion as high as possible, because that would not only make it more effective, but it would also make it less horrible to consume, a significant issue if the intended recipient was expected to have to imbibe a lot of them.
Her dilemma came from the fact that not every ingredient was of a similar quality. Some ingredients had some very attractive symbolic units, which might cause important traits to appear, but they were of a lower quality. Other ingredients were of a higher quality, but had less effective symbolic units.
The challenge was deciding on which ingredients to use and in what quantities, to balance out the overall quality versus the desired traits.
It was complicated and difficult.
Demi was feeling cross and uncomfortable as she stared at the ingredients in front of her. Her head felt hot and her eyes were dry as she dug her fingers against her scalp in frustration.
Of course it isn’t easy or simple, she tried to rationalize. If it was, then they would have cured Tata by now! But still, still, I have to keep trying.
She was still staring hard at the ingredients as if willing them to somehow arrange themselves when there was a light footstep behind her. She looked up to see that Aelfric had placed a glass on the worktable next to her.
The fluid in the glass was transparent, a clear golden color, and she could see tiny bubbles clustered along the bottom of the glass, some escaping with a soft fizzing sound.
The scent of the drink was immediately familiar, and Demi’s eyes widened as she looked up at him.