Chapter 24: Scaling the Workshop

Serayne stared at the lantern hanging on the wall for a quiet moment. Drifting closer, she unhooked it from its mount and set it onto the appraisal panel, feeling her earlier drowsiness give way to an uneasy suspicion.

[Magic Lamp  -  Rank E]

[Remaining Duration: 2,466 minutes]

[Function: Illumination]

[Description: Surely no sensible person would carry this through the woods in the dead of night. Right?]

She read the number again, her ears swiveling slowly forward.

Two thousand four hundred and sixty-six minutes amounted to just over forty-one hours - under two days - after which the lamp would apparently go dark, regardless of how accustomed she had grown to its presence.

So they gave me a week of light, and just didn't bother telling me upfront.

She had no reason to believe her gear alone had such a lifespan. If the other arrivals had received identical lanterns, a good chunk of the sector was about to find their Hearthholds significantly less hospitable after dark.

Until now, light had just been there. It was easy to take it for granted like the walls, floor, or door, rather than wondering what powered it or whether it needed recharging.

Fire was the most obvious substitute, but Serayne remembered her first night of brewing all too well, watching the makeshift hearth devour wood.

She hadn't kept a strict log of fuel, and illuminating a room hardly demanded a roaring blaze like heating a cauldron, but burning even a few extra units every evening meant resources diverted from the next upgrade.

Torches or crude oil lamps could partly patch the issue, but they still required fuel and safe clearance, and not every arrival had built a stove, fireplace, or dedicated hearth yet.

Serayne rested her fingers against the rim of the console, her gaze darting between the two lanterns. Her rabbit tail twitched beneath her clothes as her earlier unease took on a far more intriguing shape.

Wait… Am I looking at the next product everyone’s going to desperately need?

The blueprint had required five Gloomflares, and the manual mentioned utilizing those mushrooms in brewing light elixirs, even if it didn't detail every single application for the finished mixture.

If the core of the lamp held a luminescent fluid, perhaps the glass and metal were merely a housing, and the true secret boiled down to an alchemical cartridge that gradually burned out its potency.

“To take you apart, or not to take you apart…” she murmured, eyeing the older lantern.

The new one worked perfectly, so even if she botched reassembling this one, she wouldn't be left in the dark - the only immediate hassle would be lugging a single light source up and down the ladder again.

Weighing the risk for a moment, she drew the lantern closer.

“Alright. Let's see what makes you tick.”

She turned the casing over in her hands, inspecting the seams and peering under protruding fittings until she found a thumb-wide cap at the top. Using a toothpick, she carefully pried it open.

Tilting the lamp over a clean bowl, a measure of glowing fluid poured out. Serayne scooped a drop into a test tube immediately and set it on the appraisal panel.

[Light Elixir  -  Rank E−]

[Description: A concoction near the total exhaustion of its luminescent properties. The residual liquid holds negligible value for reuse.]

Serayne’s lips curled into a slow smile, her ears perking with satisfaction.

Called it.

The housing stays; you just replace the fluid.

She had no proof yet that a homebrewed elixir would function identically in the lamp, but at least she knew what to test, rather than burning through single-use blueprints every time she needed light.

Mana potions remained a surer source of revenue, but having a product ready for the exact moment everyone's lanterns started dying out was well worth penciling into her plans.

For now, another yawn reminded her that even the most brilliant scheme didn't demand starting an experiment at midnight.

Securing the disassembled lantern and fluid sample, she carried the new light source upstairs and tucked herself in with a book, intending to read just a few pages before finally giving in to sleep.

***

The next morning, Serayne sat by the console nibbling on bread and washing it down with milk when a message pinged from Kaela Vorn:

[Kaela Vorn: Agreed.]

Attached was a trade request loaded with the carved stone slabs. Serayne stared at the painfully terse reply for a moment before snorting quietly.

That futa must charge by the word.

She didn't mind in the slightest, given that the delivery delivered precisely what she needed. Reviewing the manifest, she confirmed the counts and transferred the agreed forty potions from her trade reserve.

[Kaela Vorn: Received.]

[Serayne Veyra: While I have you, I also need stone rods. Twenty pieces, one meter long and three centimeters thick, and a hundred pieces, thirty centimeters long and one centimeter thick.]

[Kaela Vorn: Five potions.]

[Serayne Veyra: Deal.]

Roughly ten minutes later, she was already inspecting her new stirring rods, rolling one of the smaller ones between her fingers to check for smooth finishes and flaking under pressure.

She had retired the forest branch long ago, but wooden utensils still made her nervous over prolonged contact with boiling broth. She wanted a material that wouldn't absorb liquids and could be scrubbed spotless with ease.

Finishing breakfast, she dove into work, following the routine she had honed: preparing water, washing reagents, trimming damaged leaves, and laying the herbs out to air-dry.

This time, the sheer volume was vastly larger. Prep work alone ate over an hour, during which she repeatedly adjusted her apron, brushed stray hair from her face, and swiveled her ears toward the console at every ping before refocusing on her botanicals.

Across the ground floor, she laid out a grid of one hundred stone tiles, leaving clear walkways and spacing between stations, and topped each with a 1.25-liter enamel mug.

The sheer sight of those orderly ranks made her feel, for a fleeting moment, as though her modest workspace was transforming into something on a grander scale.

The mugs were meant for alchemical preparation as well, but not for commercial mana draughts.

Serayne lingered over them, recalling Mika Hayren’s message, before pressing her lips tight and returning to work.

This was going to be her secret weapon.

She had no intention of breathing a word of the idea before testing it. She meticulously sorted the reagents set aside for these trials away from her standard brewing herbs, then began preparing mana water in smaller increments.

With so many vessels, managing her mana expenditure was paramount. Rather than attempting to fuel everything at once, she activated the stations in waves, using the intervals to process more plants and monitor the pots already simmering over flame.

She reserved the large stockpots for an expanded batch of mana draughts, carefully tracking the heat curve of each new container.

The stone bases demanded extra vigilance - especially after earlier trials where extinguishing the flame cracked the rock. Serayne treated them as expendables from the outset, ensuring every mug sat level and remained easily accessible.

There was little theatrical finger-snapping for fun here; instead, it was a dance of juggling utensils, regulating flames, and ensuring one task didn't bottleneck the next.

Once the process hit its stride, she discovered she could leverage the downtime far better than during that first long night with a stick.

Whenever a brew didn't require stirring or temperature tweaks, she grabbed the next bundle of herbs, cleaning and portioning them onto trays to stockpile for later batches.

She had no desire to burn eight hours just staring into a kettle when productive work sat waiting right beside her.

For easier botanicals, her throughput neared several kilograms an hour, fluctuating with the quality of each shipment. Batches dense with delicate foliage or stubborn grit served as swift reminders that craft labor couldn't always be reduced to neat statistics.

Whenever she could safely step away, she ferried processed trays up to the terrace, checked temperatures on her return, and kept at it - settling into an efficient rhythm between preparing reagents and tending the fire.

Her ears caught subtle changes almost before her conscious mind did - swiveling toward a faint simmer whenever a flame dipped, or twitching at a chime before she even decided whether she could break away to check the console.

Around noon, she took a longer break to review her incoming trades and found that her published guidelines were yielding clear results.

Plenty of arrivals had spent their morning foraging the specified plants, attaching hauls far larger than modest handfuls. Serayne confirmed shipments after verifying the goods, feeling immense relief that she wouldn't have to forage every leaf herself.

Most of the herbs had been rinsed at least once; while that didn't eliminate her own inspection and fine processing, it saved hours of scrubbing caked dirt.

While tinkering with trade settings, she discovered a parameter allowing her to set a minimum quality threshold pegged to the console’s appraisal, sparing her from relying entirely on a seller's goodwill.

The system didn't replace her botanical knowledge, but automatically filtering out sub-par goods was enough to make her view the console with fresh admiration.

Among the incoming offers, she also spotted a blueprint for a 500-milliliter measuring cup requiring only a few dozen units of sand. She accepted the trade and crafted the vessel immediately.

Clear graduation marks made measuring liquids far more convenient than her tiny jigger, especially for bulk batches; after one use, Serayne counted it as one of those little conveniences whose absence you only truly notice once you have one in hand.

The rest of the day slipped by between cooking stations, herb trays, and the console. Around four in the afternoon, when the earliest batch reached its final reduction, she approached the finishing steps with heightened caution.

This time, after all, she was using cookware she hadn't tested across a full brewing cycle; familiar appearance and aroma weren't enough to declare the experiment a success.

After filtering out the boiled herbs and letting the dregs settle, she drew a test sample from the steel stockpot and set it onto the appraisal panel.

Her ears swiveled toward the console as she leaned over the display, waiting for the verdict.