Novel Full Chapter 2133 Apprentice Cleanup
Chapter 2133: Chapter 2133 Apprentice Cleanup
— Kat —
Kat wasn’t the first to react, Appoline was. In some ways, this just made sense, in others it was slightly annoying. Kat had been watching the process of brewing the potion closely, both to compare it to Appoline’s and so Lily had more to work with when she went back over Kat’s more exacting memories of the event. Even with all of that attention she wasn’t really using her faster cognition.
Before things failed, Tweedle had been making progress, slow progress, but progress. Even during the second, or perhaps third, main step she’d messed up. Her net had left uneven holes in the cores. Appoline had said “Just continue. They’re not good enough for a proper potion now, but you might as well see how far you can get with the first attempt”
It was why Kat was paying so much attention. Even if she wasn’t using her demonic energy or watching in slow motion she was still watching carefully for a sign the potion was about to fail catastrophically. Still, with Appoline’s encouragement the work continued. Tweedle managed to hold on for a few more steps, and even sneezed once without issue.
Truth be told, even looking back on it, Kat couldn’t tell what exactly the problem was, nor what triggered it. The cores seemed to be rotating normally, what Kat could see of them anyway, and nothing seemed ready to explode. Then Appoline reached over, grabbed Tweedle by the collar and YANKED her away from the cauldron, violently. As soon as Kat saw Appoline’s hand go around Tweedle’s collar she was moving. Her tail reached out to encircle Lily who was already leaping backwards, while her arm went over to grab Furen nearby.
Lily was apparently just as on the ball because her shadow was stretched out towards Tanisha and shoving her as far away as it could manage. Kat was expecting an explosion at that point but what they ended up with was not at all like she’d been guessing. The cauldron let out a hiss and a spark, before water exploded out like a geyser, flowing directly upwards instead of upwards in defiance to physics.
Appoline didn’t stop moving back yet and so Kat continued, good thing too. Where the water droplets hit a multitude of effects sprung up. Some grass caught fire, parts of the stone pathway melted, other sections froze over. A patch of grass tripled in height and turned orange. All sorts of magic seemed to be happening all over the place. Some like the ice lasted only a few seconds before it simply melted or some other effect replaced it. Others like the acid melted stone remained.
Lily opened the door to the house behind them with her shadows and everyone, except Tanisha was pulled inside. That was because Tanisha had been on the other side of the cauldron. Instead, she’d been forced to the edge of Lily’s range by a shadow, and then managed to stumble herself back further and behind one of the trees in the backyard. The potion mess from the cauldron didn’t seem to be making it quite so far. Hopefully she’d be fine.
Looking out of the window, Kat could see that Appoline had somehow managed to shut the ingredient boxes on the way, saving those as well. Kat hadn’t even noticed her taking the time to do that but it wasn’t too much of a surprise. She’d probably used to it.
“I’m pretty sure I know the answer… but how did you manage to get Tweedle out of there so fast? And how did you know it was about to explode?” asked Kat.
“Your likely suspicions are correct. I was able to notice the mana was unstable at that it would not stabilise. Perhaps with more personal interference from me I could’ve prevented such an explosive reaction, or even neutralised it, but there was no need to take such a risk. Sadly, with things destabilising it didn’t take long for the cores to collide and cause the volatile reaction you see here,” Appoline explained.
“What did I even do wrong?” asked Tweedle with water eyes.
“Nothing too severe,” Appoline admitted. “The issues with the netting were coming back to haunt you in some ways, while the slightly imperfect additions were the secondary culprit. Essentially? The cores were squeezed a bit too tightly and collapsed instead of remaining properly balanced. The layers unwound a bit, and then collided. Perhaps if they hadn’t smashed together things wouldn’t be quite so explosive but…” Appoline shrugged.
“So… it was the mistake I already made?” asked Tweedle.
Appoline made a ’so-so’ gesture. “Technically yes, but if you’d done everything perfectly you could have gotten close to the final steps. If you were exceptionally familiar with the potion and went above and beyond you may have possibly been able to complete it. Likely with a reduction in power making it unsuitable for the more complex scars like Furen’s and my own, but still useable.”
“Oh… um… were you helping me with that? Or just trying to have me do as close to possible for the normal way?” asked Tweedle.
Appoline shook her head. “That’s not quite how it works. You always need to account for the slight differences in the ingredients and everything you’ve already done. Teaching you how to ’normally’ brew a potion this advanced might work fifty percent of the time if you get consistent ingredients but it’s not really teaching you…
“Though you clearly haven’t been listening if that wasn’t obvious. I’ve been explaining to you what you need it to feel like, and given visual examples with my hands to ensure that the idea is always clear. The slight adjustments I’ve suggested were always to get you closer to a finished potion. Though… perhaps… hmm…
“Ah, were you able to listen to my explanations? I admit it hadn’t occurred to me before but I have recalled that you consider this to be a quite advanced potion and that your mana control is barely enough for it. How much of my explanations did you hear?”
“Um… err… I don’t really know? I hope most of it. Implementing it all was hard and comprehending it in full was FAR beyond me. I wasn’t really able to look at the bigger picture, just make the adjustments you suggested. I didn’t really know why… and honestly looking back? Even knowing they’re meant to help stabilise and improve the potion I don’t think I can always tell how they do that.”
Appoline let out a hum as she tried to consider what changes would need to be made for the second attempt. Meanwhile, Lily asked, “Could you really stabilise something like that? I mean, I didn’t really notice it was failing until it was about to explode and you’d grabbed Tweedle but like… at what point was there nothing to be done?”
“Eh…” Appoline made her best uncertain noise. “It really depends what you mean by ’nothing’. Theoretically, every potion can either be ’saved’ or turned into something else ’useful’ but both of those words are doing some heavy lifting. The main issue is the time and mana involved in fixing it.
“Like… take the explosion just then? If I stopped it exploding at the last moment, and let’s pretend I was making it the whole time, then I’d need a bunch of extra ingredients if I wanted the same effect at roughly the same potency to the point it’s probably cheaper to just restart. Which is the main issue. Sure most potions CAN be saved, but it’s very rare that it’s cheaper to fix the potion then it is to start again.
“Perhaps if you’re a lot more familiar with the potion and had an abundance of cheap ingredients, which we definitely don’t in this case, then SOMETHING might be feasible but even I don’t practice saving failed potions all that often. Once they destabilise it’s hard to stop and the ingredients needed to do so aren’t usually cheap unless you’ve got like… the perfect harmonising agent and it happens to be cost effective.
“As for turning into other things? That’s more of a gamble. Using what you know to stabilise it with a subpar ingredient that can also transition the potion towards something else. Arguably easier then saving it outright… but like… in this case for example? Probably easiest to make a bomb. One you could choose to set off… but keeping it shelf stable long term still wouldn’t be THAT easy and we don’t need a bomb potion either so… it’s like ’eh why take the risk’. Plus, remember this was Tweedle’s potion so she’d have to do it not me,”
“Huh… so is it even worth practicing?” asked Lily, curious as to the answer. She had a LOT of time on her hands… so maybe?
“Perhaps, perhaps not,” Appoline stated. “I’ve dedicated myself to ever increasing mana control to avoid failing potions and achieve more unique and advanced outcomes. It is how I brew. Perhaps that’s how my… colleague manages such unique things. They constantly fail intentionally and then try to find a solution. It would require a large expenditure of resources and a lot of effort but perhaps it is something to be trained. It, however, is not my path.”