Chapter 32

Waking from a wondrous nap, there wasn’t much time left in the day. Kai helped his mother cook dinner and spent the rest of the evening with his family. Alana had brought Kea around to witness different jobs, but his sister didn’t show interest in any of them.

“Don’t worry, sweetie, there’s still time,” Alana said.

Kai could clearly see that her reassurances were making Kea more anxious. Their mother was doing what she thought best with the options they had.

It was unfair to put that pressure on a child, but this was how things worked in the archipelago. If you decided late, the odds to get a good profession would plummet. The earlier she got started the better. The other option was choosing for her, like in most families. Nine out of ten children ended up following in their parents’ footsteps.

He wasn’t the only one seeing Kea’s distress. Eleni moved the conversation away from that topic to her daily routine. Kai wasn’t sure how much that helped, considering she started talking about her apprenticeship.

Pearling was an interesting job in the Baquaire Archipelago. The Shallow Sea’s low depth and the powerful tides created a unique environment. After the tideseers, the pearl hunters were the ones who paid the most attention to the cycles of the sea. That was how Alana met Ele’s mentor and got her an apprenticeship.

Each time the waters retreated they presented several possibilities. Be it reaching depths previously impossible, exploring underwater caves or frantically searching the exposed seafloor. The low tide was so convenient to hunt for pearls, there was little point in going out any other time.

Ele’s mentor was teaching her the tricks of deep diving. Until she got a profession, she would mainly hunt on the exposed seabed, since it was safer.

“Why don’t you use Mana Sense?” Kai asked.

Ele talked about several searching skills, but no Mana Sense. It was weird. What better way to find rare treasures than with mana?

Eleni smiled at him. “Not everyone is as good as you with mana skills, little brother. I don’t have the skill.”

“Oh…” Kai said, embarrassed.

He forgot how hard it was to unlock the skill without the right conditions. You could unlock it through the use of evolved skills that used mana, but those weren’t easy to obtain. Even though his older sister was very mature, she was thirteen. She hadn’t had the time to evolve many skills yet.

Ele didn’t take offense, but he felt bad for asking. “Sorry…”

“Don’t worry. My mentor doesn’t use it either. She says it requires too much training for it to become useful. Plus, not all pearls are mana-rich treasures. The largest part of a pearl hunter’s earnings is through common pearls. Mana pearls are valuable, but finding them is up to chance. You can’t rely on them.”

Kai’s hand unconsciously moved to the green pearl at his wrist. Now he felt worse. The bracelet she gifted him for his seventh birthday was already precious, he hadn’t known how much. Then an idea hit him.

“Hypothetically speaking… if you had Mana Sense right now, would you use it?”

His sister turned thoughtful, considering the question seriously. “My mentor doesn’t use it, but she got the skill too late and now has her profession to help her. If I had access to Mana Sense right now… I would probably use it.”

After a short pause, she added, “But I don’t think it’s worth asking your teacher for such a favor.”

She easily guessed where he was going, but his sister misunderstood his intentions.

“I think I can help you without asking anyone,” he said in a confident tone.

At his proclamation, an awkward silence followed. The whole family wore a skeptical look. Alana was hiding it well, Kea not at all. The sticking point being – no one believed him.

Ouch… my pride…

It was only a half-baked plan, but a plan nonetheless. The best way to get Mana Sense was being exposed to different concentrations of mana. Why couldn’t he use his own mana to achieve the same?

It was a bit of a stretch, and he had no proof that it would work, but why not try? People with Mana Manipulation were rare. Maybe it was a common way to get the skill in other places.

After he explained his idea, his family still wasn’t convinced. Kea looked at him, full of doubt. That didn’t last long. Kai casually suggested he could help her get the skill too for her to become his most enthusiastic supporter.

Put into a corner, Ele accepted with a patient smile. She was doing it to make him happy, but as long as it worked it didn’t matter.

Kai hadn’t regenerated much mana from his afternoon training, but it was enough for a couple tries. Sitting across from each other, Kai put his hand over his sister’s. Thinking a larger surface probably worked better, he molded his mana into a rough flat circle. He had found there was one advantage of a lower mana density. The less ambient mana to contend with meant an easier time with external mana manipulation.

Stabilizing the mana construct, he pushed it toward her hand.

“Tell me if you feel something.”

As his mana brushed her skin, he lost control over that part of the construct.

Although he expected that would happen, the sensation of having his mana wrenched away was still unpleasant. Ambient mana had no intent and was already hard to deal with. Going against the mana imprint of another person was drastically harder.

He tried to make his mana hover against her skin, not really touching her. After a few tries, it became clear that making their mana clash was the easiest way for her to feel a slight tingle. Unfortunately, that did not seem to be enough to get the skill.

With the mana he had remaining, he could only afford another try. He moved to Kea, who was eagerly waiting her turn. The process repeated in about the same way. The only difference being he was able to push his mana a little deeper before losing control, likely due to Kea’s lower stats or race grade.

She said she could feel a slight prickle, but still no luck with the skill. He wasn’t deterred. They agreed they would try each night till it worked. Kai and Kea were serious, Ele probably thought they would get tired of the whole thing after a while. She was underestimating him. He wasn’t the type to give up easily anymore.

I can at least do this much for them.

The next morning Kai jumped off his bed more eager than usual to start the day. The skill strain from Inspect was gone and he couldn’t wait to try all his new ideas.

He had to wait a bit longer. First, he had his routine to maintain. Meditation, stretching exercises, physical training and weapons stances.

He wanted to skip it and get to what he truly craved, but an irritating part of his brain told him that was the wrong choice. If he were to make an exception even once, it wouldn’t be long before the next. Some good excuse always came up. He was determined to maintain his diligent streak.

Kai ignored all the looks the people threw his way as he trained. Once he would have cared, now only his goals mattered.

Two hours later he lay on the beach covered in sweat, grinning. He was done for the day. He took a quick hop into the sea to cool down, choosing salt over sweat. He was already covered in it from the morning swim anyway.

Walking home and getting cleaned up the best he could, he was reminded of how much he missed the tap water of the estate.

Silently lamenting the loss, Kai got ready for his mad scientist arc. He reached into the expanded space of his alchemy chest with his whole arm and took out the equipment Dora had prepared for him. Cauldron, burner, several pieces of glassware and a number of small knives and other tools to process ingredients.

He had left most of them in the chest. His room didn’t have much free space, and if he broke them, there was no way to get a replacement. After preparing all the materials and tools he planned on using on his small workbench, he got to work.

His senses and skills zeroed in on the herbs, experimenting with how to extract the properties he wanted, while destroying the toxic or useless parts.

From yesterday’s notes and inspiration, Kai planned to try thirteen new ways to treat herbs and five experimental recipes. He was hoping to create two healing balms, a powder to keep pests away and two different potions. One with invigorating properties similar to the energizing tonic. The other—and most ambitious—was a potion to clear the mind and increase focus.

To be completely honest, all five were modified recipes from Dora’s book rather than completely original ideas. He wasn’t good enough to create miraculous potions from scratch, not yet. He also lacked the large quantities of ingredients needed for wide testing.

With his limited materials and funds, he could only repeat an experiment so many times. If he was too ambitious, he risked not getting anywhere.

With a plan in mind, he started testing his new processing methods. Even in the best-case scenario, he wouldn’t invent something revolutionary, but it was good training. Dora always told him that a proper alchemist had to go beyond the proven recipes and venture into uncharted territory. His mad scientist dreams needed to stay humble for now.

The testing of the thirteen new processing ideas proceeded smoothly. It wasn’t like he could truly fail while using stable pseudo-mana herbs. The success hinged more on how much better or worse the result was compared to using standard methods.

He had two mild successes, seven failures and four cases where his new ideas made no difference. Kai was… okay with the results. His aim to integrate Inspect in his Alchemy had been a success. Even when he missed the target, he learned and understood why it happened thanks to Inspect.

After a brief lunch break, Kai rushed back to his room. Writing down his discoveries on the decreasing pages of his notebook, he was ready for round two – attempting to modify five recipes. They had more steps than simple processing and were very demanding on his concentration and mana. Still, he hoped to try each of them at least once.

This morning Kai had restricted his use of Inspect, now he stopped holding back to observe everything he could. The longer and more complicated the process, the more things could go wrong. Just finding where the mistake lay could be a challenge.

As the hours passed, he realized he might have been a bit optimistic with the mana required. With proven recipes you didn’t even need to intervene at all if you did things correctly. When you improvised and tried new methods, the story was entirely different. Put simply, things tended to go wrong. A lot. And you needed an equally big amount of mana to salvage them.

The good news was he wouldn’t need to practice Mana Manipulation exercises today since he had no more mana left in the tank!

There was always something happening that he hadn’t predicted, forcing him to crudely use his mana to prevent the concoction from imploding. The whole experience was like trying to stop a house from collapsing with duct tape and prayers. Whenever he managed to stabilize something, another ingredient started falling apart in a never-ending cycle.

Testing five modified recipes in an afternoon? His mad scientist persona needed a reality check. He barely managed to try two, and they were the easiest.

His mind was completely spent, having once again pushed Inspect beyond the limit. His only wish was to lie down and wake up in a week.

With a last effort of will, he noted his observations while they were fresh in his mind. He wished Dora was here to explain to him what he did wrong.

Having a master alchemist watching over him was a great blessing. Greater than he had truly understood before. How many times had Dora slightly nudged him in the right direction and made him avoid pitfalls without him noticing? He needed to make sure he told her how much he appreciated her when he got back.

The next few days proceeded in the same fashion. Kai continued his experiments. He had nightmares of peacefully brewing over his cauldron when something went wrong. He didn’t know what, but everything he tried only made the situation worse, until it exploded in his face, waking him in a sweat.

Usual stuff.

Stupid mind, you’ll have to do better than this. I’m going to have my mad scientist phase whether you like it or not!

He planned to sell his potions and remedies at the market to buy more herbs and continue his experiments. But nothing could ever be easy. Who could have predicted that people were skeptical when children tried to sell them suspicious-looking potions they brewed themselves?

Being a child sucked.

His marketing strategy needed a few adjustments. He was only the mailboy of an old and wise apothecary who couldn’t be bothered to go to the market himself. It was the best he could come up with. Hopefully, it would sound believable enough after people saw his potions worked.

Kai also changed his experiments toward the products with the highest demand: healing balms and remedies for fevers and infections. Poison to get rid of pests was also quite popular with the farmers.

It wasn’t easy to deceive seasoned merchants, but with a bit of Acting, and using old Selly as an intermediary, he managed to sell them at only a small price loss.

People preferred a reliable source when they bought their medicines.

If things went according to plan, he would start earning soon as he improved and became more efficient with the brewing. He could leave the money he earned to his family when it came time to go back to the estate.

In the meantime, Kai continued to try and help his sisters get Mana Sense. They had no luck so far, but he was confident they were getting closer.