Demi had resolved to do her best to help Tata, and Aelfric had resolved to support her.
With an understanding that it was wisest for her to get out ahead of her work, Demi immediately set aside time to make a supply of the advanced healing potions that had helped to suppress Tata’s symptoms, along with the soil compresses that Aelfric had suggested would have some efficacy. She took a week’s worth of doses to Tata along with the compresses. Aelfric instructed them both how to apply them properly, and the second time she brought compresses, Soa and Seri had also been there to learn how to apply them.
Aelfric had been right. The advanced healing potion that Demi had made worked to mitigate Tata’s symptoms from between four to six hours. She needed them whether she was asleep or awake. That meant that one day’s worth of relief was four to six of the advanced healing potions, the ones that Demi had worked her hardest to make. One week’s supply was forty-two potions if one erred on the side of caution, and Demi did.
She made a lot of potions.
But making all of those advanced potions did have the net bonus of causing her levels in Fluid Alchemy to skyrocket. She also became focused on improving the efficiency of time and materials for each synthesis. She was relentlessly searching for ways to make the synthesis less costly, to simplify it as much as she could without losing any of the efficacy. The better she got at making the potions, the easier it became. Each potion that she made a little bit faster or a little bit more cheaply was one more potion to ease Tata’s pain, and those potions themselves were the doses that would hopefully extend her life.
In this way, Demi got better at chained transmutations rapidly, because she felt she had no other choice. She also became accustomed to synthesizing items in bulk.
And after level twenty-five, something alarming happened.
She had been working to complete a batch that ought to have produced four potions, but once she was finished, she had eight bottles.
This was such a drastic difference that it was impossible for her not to immediately notice, just as when she had looked at the foundations of the farmhouse and had known instantly that there was no way it was going to be an ordinary farmhouse.
Sometimes if she was very careful with the synthesis she could squeeze out an extra one if she was making multiple to begin with, but double the amount?
“Allllllllt!” she had called out, backing away from her cauldron. “What did I do?” she asked in alarm.
Getting this many potions was obviously positive, not negative, but she could not shake the idea that she’d done something wrong. Maybe she’d used up twice as many ingredients? Or four times! This could not be normal.
He came over calmly to where she was doing an inspired little dance of dread and looked into the cauldron.
“What’s the problem?” he asked, after finding nothing particularly amiss.
“Well, I wasn’t trying to make eight at once,” she said, throwing her hands up. That was still somewhat beyond her.
“Oh,” he said after a moment, then considered her. He put his hand on a table behind him and his fingertips rattled out a rhythm as he thought things over. Then he looked over at her all at once, his eyes narrowing. “Check your cyprianus. Look in the first few pages. There ought to be a summary of your personal information, like a status screen. Check among your skills for one called ‘Doubler.’”
Demi quickly did as he said, opening up Evergreen Memory to check the skills listed there, which all had to do with Fluid Alchemy. She was surprised to see that the information there was not identical to the information on her status page as accessed through the system menu. The basics were the same, that much was true, and of course her level in Fluid Alchemy was recorded only in her cyprianus and not reflected in the menu, but she hadn’t realized that there were also skills in her cyprianus, skills that were not among the fifteen pages (and counting) of skills in the system menu.
When she checked, she found the skill that Aelfric had told her to look for. There it was: Doubler.
Doubler: Doubles the amount of items produced by a synthesis.
Well, that’s straightforward, I guess, Demi reflected upon reading it.
But then the full import hit her.
“Doubles?!” she exclaimed aloud. “It just doubles whatever I make? Aren’t there any stipulations? Like ‘can’t duplicate any fancy, super rare items’ or ‘only works on consumables under level ten,’ heck, even ‘only works under a waning crescent moon.’”
“I see that you do indeed have it,” Aelfric remarked dryly. “Congratulations. It is a rare and desirable skill. It doesn’t have any of the limitations you’ve indicated. It will always double output unless your synthesis fails entirely.”
“Isn’t that,” Demi began. “Isn’t that like, outrageously powerful?” she demanded. “And where does all of the extra stuff come from? It seems like it just appeared out of thin air!”
She had already experienced the strangeness of gathering more than she expected, and cooking more than she expected, but somehow, seeing double the amount of a potion that had been such a challenge to make the first time (the week previous) was so astonishing that she didn’t know how to feel about it.
“It seems to be a specific interaction between your personal mana and the ingredients during the final sequence of transmutation,” Aelfric explained, crossing his arms in front of himself. “And yes, it is quite powerful. That’s why it’s desirable.”
“But where did that skill even come from?” she wondered. “I didn’t even know that I had it, and since it never activated before, I must have gotten it only recently.”
Passive skills are so absurdly strong, she thought to herself.
“High Alchemists gain a new skill at level five, level ten, level fifteen, level twenty-five, and level fifty,” he said. “Given the recipes you are currently handling and the techniques you’re exhibiting, I assume you recently achieved level twenty-five.”
Demi looked and confirmed, nodding. “Yes, I’m already level twenty-nine in Fluid Alchemy, it seems.”
He had coughed but then shook his head.
“Then you passed it without realizing it, which sometimes happens with people who study, gather, and analyze more often than performing synthesis,” he explained. “And you have done a great deal of research recently in attempting to make that potion more cost-effective.”
She nodded, then cocked her head. “The way you’re talking about it,” she began, slightly unsure of herself, “It sounds as if—”
“You are correct,” he answered, polite but clipped. “‘Doubler’ is not among my skills. Skill acquisition and inheritance among High Alchemists is not yet well understood.”
“Oh,” Demi said, feeling awkward. “I’m sorry.”
He shook his head. “Don’t be. I’m not bothered by it. Different alchemists have different skills. The same is true for people in general. I am not embarrassed by my abilities.”
I mean, you shouldn’t be, she thought weakly. Mr. Grandmaster of Fluid Alchemy Archmage Great Sage Handsome Old Man.
Fortunately, the miraculous bounty of Doubler meant that it would be easier to produce the potions Tata required, and that was a resounding win in her book.
(Quite literally.)
Thank you, mysterious system I do not fully understand, Demi thought at Evergreen Memory, pressing her forehead to the cover.
She wanted her book to know that she was grateful for all of the support.