Chapter 30 - Limitbreaker
"Oh? You're also a Limitbreaker? For what skills?" Eisen asked surprised, and Bree leaned in to listen closely as well. Morrom laughed and began to explain.
"Well, I'm actually at Limitbreaker II right now. I broke through Alchemy and Enchanting, hence why I specialized on those skills. I tried breaking through others as well, but it seems like I never had the aptitude for them, and nothing that I did felt natural to me in the slightest. But that also means that my curiosity kept growing further and further, the less I could find out about the title. So, I wanted to ask you for something. For your help in studying it."
Eisen closed his eyes and scratched his beard, thinking about the offer. The Limitbreaker Title was definitely useful, as it gave him a lot of bonus stats, so Eisen was keen to find out more about it, especially as he was slowly getting to a point where he needed to seriously get his stats up for the weird cat's quest.
After thinking about it for a while, Eisen nodded, agreeing to Morrom's request. "Sure, how can I help you then?" He asked, and Morrom smiled brightly.
"I want you to break through two more skills! With my help, of course!"
"And how do I do that?"
"How I said, I've broken through Alchemy and Enchanting, so I want to set the base for you to also do that! When you were making that first Health Potion, that really was your first time ever doing that, right? Someone that can do something so perfectly with only basic instructions has to have an aptitude for it! So, right now we'll make another potion. But a really, really high-quality one. I've got a bunch of materials here, so we can start right away. How about it?" Morrom explained and led Eisen, Bree, and the Doubles back to the Workshop.
[New Quest - Breaking Through]
[Description]Morrom Marson found out that you've broken through the limits of some of your skills, and asked you to help him find out more about that title. He asked you to break through both the Alchemy and Enchanting Skills.
[Reward] Special Class; Max Reputation with Morrom; Experience
[Failure] Morrom will be disappointed; Slightly lowered reputation with Morrom
Eisen began to laugh. If he had the chance to make a great item, why wouldn't he? This was quite exciting to him. So, Eisen agreed to help.
"Perfect! Alright, you can sit back down over there if you want to. I'll bring the ingredients over, and then I'm going to explain what you need to do." Morrom said excitedly, making his way to the other side of the room to grab a few Jars and bags, a few smaller bowls, as well as new containers and flasks.
Eisen was somehow both surprised and not surprised at all when he saw half a dozen pure-white hands appear in mid-air, carefully grabbing all the things that Morrom needed them to, and then disappear again when everything was at the table.
Morrom cleared his throat and excitedly began talking. "Today, we're going to make a God's Bane potion! It's something that heightens every ability someone has and brings them closer to godhood! Of course, that last bit is only an urban legend amongst alchemist, but it really does heighten the effect of every one of your stats, and even some non-stat abilities, like sight for example. First, we're going to prepare the different ingredients and put them into a bowl each, as the timing of adding them to the mixture is going to be really important. I'll fill a bowl with all the materials you need, you grind them down, and put everything back into the bowl. There're a few roots instead of dried plants, just crush them to a pulp and pour the sap back into the bowl."
Eisen nodded and began to work the instant that Morrom placed the first bowl in front of him. He grabbed the Mortar and Pestle and-
"Wait! Sorry, I forgot the most important part! Don't use those, you need to use tools that conduct mana more easily. Here." Morrom yelled apologetically and quickly summoned another magic hand that flew across the room, coming back with a different Mortar and Pestle set, one that was apparently completely metallic and made of some kind of light silver metal that seemed to have a slight blue tint. Eisen recognized this, as he saw it in the back of Dwarf Delight's Storage.
"This is Mythril. It allows you to easily pour mana into it and expel it through the metal just as easily. While you're grinding, you need to keep a constant amount of mana flowing out of you, into whatever you're grinding down." The Elf-Dwarf explained, and Eisen smiled. He figured that there was something missing, and was glad to see that he didn't mess anything up right off the bat.
"Got it, Morrom! Thanks." He said and this time, really got to work. He placed the first portion of plants into the new Mortar and Pestle set, using Appraisal on it to find out what plant he was actually about to work with.
[Dried Adgana]
Even though Eisen couldn't actually do anything with this information, he simply started to pour his mana into his tools, and instead of only the Pestle, Eisen also grabbed the Mortar and poured his Mana into it, making sure to slowly let some leak out of both of them.
After that was done, he placed the green powder back into its bowl and moved onto the next. First, he appraised the plant again.
[Dried Saffron]
Eisen smiled, slightly scoffing at the spice he actually knew quite well. What it was supposed to do in a potion was beyond him, but there for sure was some kind of reason. So, he ground it up and put it back into its bowl, moving onto the next ingredient, some dried up orange berries. Apparently, these were called Alether, but as he didn't know what it was, Eisen ground them up and moved onto the next item.
After grinding down a dozen more plants, most of which he had no idea what they were, Eisen placed the powders and saps into their bowls, leaving a rainbow of colors all around.
And of course, Eisen also ground down a large number of Mana Crystals, albeit this time high-quality ones, and placed them into a large bowl.
Once he was done, Morrom began to explain the general purpose of these powders. "Some of them are for stat enhancement, some for ability enhancement, and some for sense enhancement. And don't get me wrong, with ability I don't mean skills, but just… ability? It's weird and complicated, but some of them let you fight better, as I hear. Anyway, there's a number of plants in there that give someone a number of resistances and bonuses. The first thing we, or you, will do next is to get the base going. We'll take both the water you got from the Health Potions and the Mana potions, don't worry, I already removed the extra bit we got from the first health potion."
As he frowned slightly, Eisen looked at the two containers holding the waters, which were either slightly tinted red or blue, but only to the point where you could see the difference if you compared it to normal water. "And why do we do that? Does that water have any effect?"
"Yep! When it evaporated, the water took some of the mana crystal and Amran, or Byron, powder with them. Well, it didn't directly, it's more like it took their essence with it. It doesn't have an effect on its own, but if you, for example, drink it over a long period of time, it helps with your general health. And it's also a great base for potions!"
"I see… so, what do we do with it?" Eisen asked, and Morrom grabbed another container, a metal pot, which he placed over another, larger Mana Crystal that also seemed to have the Flame Enchantment.
"Alright, now, start the flame and pour the water out of both containers into the pot," Morrom instructed, and Eisen followed them instantly. After that, he simply stirred the water around until it began boiling, and then moved onto the next part.
According to Morrom, Eisen simply had to pour the bowls of powder into the water in the same order as he ground them down, stir it in for one minute, put the next powder into the bowl, and then continue stirring for exactly one minute.
After all of the plant powders and saps were inside the pot, the liquid inside was a deep black with the consistency of tar as it bubbled up.
"Now, slowly add the Mana Crystal powder. Make sure not to add it all at once, but a steady flow of a small amount." Morrom explained and Eisen nodded, grabbing the large bowl of the fine crystal powder and did as Morrom instructed.
After all of it was inside of the pot, Eisen grabbed a Mythril staff and infused Mana into it as Morrom told him to, stirring the mixture and adding mana into it.
A few minutes of stirring later, the deep black liquid turned into a pure, milky white.
"Yes! Success!" Filled with excitement, Morrom looked into the pot and then turned to Eisen. "Now, the next step is important. The whole pot is filled with your Mana, amongst things. When you put in more mana directly from your body, you should be able to control the mana inside the pot quite easily. What you need to do is to compress the mana into a sphere as tightly as you can, and then pull it out of the top."
"Got it. I'll try my best to!" Eisen smiled, and began to push more mana out of his body and making it flow into the white mixture. He could feel the mana inside of the pot, and as he was told, slowly decided to control it. Eisen started at the sides and slowly pushed the mana inward. As he was doing that, he could see that the liquid suddenly lost its color, or lack of color, at the parts where he removed the mana, turning the mix into a clear liquid.
When Eisen compressed his mana into a small sphere the size of a marble, he pulled it out of the pot through the top.
"Perfect! Now, move it over your hand and dissipate your mana all at once."
Eisen nodded and did as instructed. He slowly moved the sphere above his palm, and as if through an explosion, made his mana instantly explode outward so that he lost grip on it. As his mana flew through the workshop, however, he picked a few different sensations up. Eisen decided to look into that later, but for now looked at the small, white marble that dropped onto his hand.
Excitedly, Morrom looked at the small sphere and moved the pot with the rest of the now completely clear mixture away.
"Now, you have to do the same as you did for the Health and Mana Potions, just with that marble instead of the Amran or Byron. And make sure to still infuse mana into the things you grind down."
Eisen nodded and began to work. He placed the marble into the Mortar and started grinding it down into a fine white powder. Once that was done, Eisen placed it into a bowl and began grinding down some Magic Crystals in a 1:1 ratio to the white powder.
Then, Eisen poured some water into the bowl and stirred it in, turning the mixture into a slightly translucent white liquid. After that, Eisen poured the mix into the glass flask and placed it over the small flame, connecting its top to the distillation system and leaned back, as now he could relax until the item was finished.
Morrom came up behind him and nodded approvingly. "Absolutely perfect! If this isn't enough to break through your Alchemy Skill, then I don't know what to do!"
"Haha, I hope so. Although I'm more interested in the effects of the item."
"Oh, trust me, they are amazing. A God's Bane Potion easily sells for 50 Gold, after all. Even if it's at Rank 2, the max you could get."
"50 Gold? That's a lot, isn't it?" Eisen laughed out lowly at this number. It's about 50 times the highest amount he ever possessed, so of course, it was a lot. He never was much affected by money, though, as long as it was enough to get him enough food and water to get through the day.
Bree, however, stood next to Morrom and Eisen with her mouth and eyes wide open. "Wh-wh-what?! Yeah, that's a lot! That's a real lot! 50 gold?! That's insane!" She yelled out and stared at the Flask containing the white liquid that just began to boil.
"Haha, yeah, I thought the same when my teacher told me about that. High Tier potions like that are worth a lot. But on the other hand, the materials alone also cost 20 Gold. Well, the information for them… Most of them I had to gather myself… and that was a pain in the ass, trust me. But a profit of 30 Gold is great on its own, haha." Morrom laughed, leaving Bree speechless. The information cost 20 Gold? There must have been a lot of really rare plants amongst them.
But before they could continue their conversation, Morrom looked at the soon-to-be-finished potion. "Eisen! The water evaporated! Now make sure to pour it into the glass bottle here." He said and handed Eisen a strongly decorated glass bottle the size of Eisen's thumb. He nodded and did as Morrom said, carefully pouring the glittering white liquid into the bottle, and put a simple cork on it.
"Lastly, before it's finished, dip the top in wax to make sure it's closed." Morrom said, fidgeting around as he can barely wait to find out if Eisen managed to break through the Alchemy skill. Noticing this, Eisen laughed and grabbed the candle that Morrom held out to him, dripping some of the red wax onto the cork and used his thumb to make sure it has been completely spread around.
[You created a God's Bane]
[God's Bane]
[Quality - Perfect][Rank - 2]
[Description] A High-Quality potion made by the Alchemist Eisen. It has been created using the most high-quality plants one could find, combining them to create a substance worthy of reaching the Gods. However, due to the low rank of the creator's Alchemy Skill, the effects have been significantly lowered.
[Effect] Full Health and Mana Recovery; +20 To all stats for 6 hours; Truesight Trait for 6 hours; Perfect Fighter Trait for 6 hours; Golden Body Trait for 6 hours
[For creating an overwhelming quality item, you gained +1 INT and +1 WIS]
[You overcame the limits of your skills]
[You have broken through the limits of four different skills. Limitbreaker III Title is changing to Limitbreaker IV]
[Title - Limitbreaker IV]
[Description] By Breaking the limits of four of your skills, you showed the gods you stand by their side.
[Effect] +4 to all basic stats
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[Eisen]
[Race - Giant-Dwarf Halfling][Occupation - None][Level - 9
[HP - 500][MP - 380]
[STR - 34][END - 41][AGI - 38][INT - 28][WIS - 29][CHA - 10]
[Titles]
-[Original of the Mechanical Arts]
-[Limitbreaker IV]
[Skills]
-[A Dwarf's Hands][Rank - 1][Level - 57]
-[A Giant's Strength][Rank - 1][Level - 1]
-[Alchemy][Rank - 1][Level - 13]
-[Appraisal][Rank - 1][Level - 5]
-[Blacksmithing][Rank - 1][Level - 58]
-[Drawing][Rank - 0][Level - 99]
-[Leatherworking][Rank - 2][Level - 4]
-[Mana Copy][Rank - 1][Level - 4]
-[Mana Double][Rank - 2][Level - 11]
-[Mana Manipulation][Rank - 1][Level - 37]
-[Tailoring][Rank - 2][Level - 6]
-[Tool Connection][Rank - 1][Level - 10]
-[Woodworking][Rank - 0][Level - 49]