Reincarnator RB Dragons, ch 44

The page he was writing in was almost full.  Kevin looked at the new page of notes and made a face. He’d filled up quite a few now. Over the last two weeks, he had been studying even harder than before, and he had even used some of his own money to buy several books on Alchemy that he had found in shops around town. Of course, none of them had actual recipes, and they were vague on Alchemy processes, but there was still good information inside.

The idea to check out books hadn't occurred to him until he bought the book from Lydia to have it signed by Alariel. Prior to that, since he’d known that regular books wouldn’t have practical know-how for Alchemy, it hadn’t seemed useful.  Nowadays he was eating up all the theory and history he could get, though.  Of course, he hadn't had much time to read, but he solved that problem by limiting his sleep. Going with so little sleep per day would not have been possible, or at least not sustainable, without all of his supernatural powers.  In particular, [Beastly Stamina], and [Werewolf Constitution, Minor] were putting in work.

Thinking about his various abilities gave him an itch, like usual, making him want to go out and find powerful monsters to kill and eat again. He suppressed the feeling. The reality was, he had already grown by an astonishing degree in only a few months since leaving his parents' cave. Now he was a little worried about the feeling he was getting, almost a compulsion to get stronger. Stealing monster abilities might be addictive. Physical addiction was unlikely, but an emotional or mental addiction was a danger he needed to keep in mind.

They weren’t fun memories, and he didn’t plan to explore them if he didn’t have to, but Kevin knew what addiction was like.  Going down that road was not an option.

He glanced around his area.  Open alchemy books and filled notebooks littered the floor of Kevin's room at the inn. A week ago, he had told Alariel that he had an idea for a potion and wanted to spend an extra half hour there every day to work on it. This request had strained the illusion that he was just visiting and that Alariel was not his master or teacher in any official way. Luckily, all she had done was frown at him before granting the request.

The extra half hour wasn't much, but it meant that if Kevin finished his assigned potion that day quickly, the one Alariel left her mysterious book open to, he could have an extra thirty minutes to an hour and barely have enough solid time to work on his unknown, unfinished potion from the journal. It had been slow going at first, and probably should have even taken him years to get to the point he was at now. [Perfect Seasoning] was a massive cheat. Instead of needing to make the potion hundreds or even thousands of times and engage in a long-term game of trial and error, Kevin could decide on any reagent or process that he thought might finish the potion, and every step of the way, [Perfect Seasoning] would tell him the exact amount of that ingredient to add at that particular step of the process.

The greatest problem now was settling on which ingredients he wanted to finish the potion with, as well as what distillation processes to use during creation. The potion, as described in the journal, was already fairly complex. Luckily, Kevin was able to make a large amount of the unfinished potion as it existed after about two hours of work.  Then even cold and sitting in a thermos, he could start with that base in small amounts for experimentation.  This greatly lowered the necessary time every day to seriously work on the new creation.

He wouldn’t have been willing to attempt this kind of work before, at least not seriously, or at least not so quickly, without a combination of [Perfect Seasoning] and the epiphany he had about alchemy sublimation processes. 

Kevin got another inspiration when he realized he had been approaching the problem wrong. He had assumed that because of the relatively inexpensive ingredients, this potion would be finished in two more steps. However, as he continued to learn about Alchemy and understand how the different reagents work together, as well as learned more about how other potions were made, he realized where his error of judgment had been.

Related to his new decision to craft the potion to hit the stomach first before sublimating, it was too harsh. Regardless of how it was finished, his calculations were clear that it would destroy the person who drank it. Part of that problem was solved with Kevin's new way of folding one ingredient into another while cold–an accidental discovery. The other portion was solved when he realized that he needed three more steps, not two, to smooth out the potion both physically and, more importantly, its energy.

He got to work again and eyed a long line of stoppered bottles on the table.  He was planning to test each bottle against the portion of the potion he had already made. There were theoretical ways that math and other problem-solving models could be used to predict how each concoction might react, but Kevin was already saving so much time, and this was so important, he had adopted a hand-on methodology.

The way a stabilizer for rubber had been discovered back on earth was at the forefront of his mind.

Finally, a month and a half from the time Kevin first realized that he could fix his potion problem by designing it hit his stomach, he finally succeeded in creating a viable product. Ironically enough, it would taste like cola. Along the road of discovery, Kevin had eventually figured out how to make cola, and he’d decided to use that project in his potion project as well.

After all, why not?

The moment his potion came together, all the parts melding and fitting together into a synchronized harmonious whole, he felt something change in the air around him, even in himself. It was something he wouldn't be able to explain even under the threat of death. But he could sense it from the top of his head, down to his feet, and even in his soul. It was totally unlike anything he had ever experienced before.

Not ten minutes later, Alariel glided into his room. Kevin didn't know where she had been before then. And without ceremony, she moved to the stoppered potion bottles that Kevin had filled up with his invention, set to the side. She didn't even pick any up at first. Instead, she just stared at the table in almost a trance-like state. Finally, she turned and asked, "Kevin, what have you done?"