Chapter 418: Potential Breaker

Ruvian was a little surprised when he entered the workshop.

The place was a lot more neatly organized than he’d expected. It was exceptionally well-equipped too.

As he was admiring the place, he finally spotted the person he was looking for. Corwin was at one of the work stations, carefully mixing several ingredients with apparent absorption in his alchemical experiment.

A moment later, someone approached them and greeted Silvena respectfully.

"Lady Silvena! What a pleasant surprise," the chief alchemist, a middle-aged man with neatly combed hair, greeted her with a respectful bow.

"To what do we owe the pleasure of your visit?"

"Nothing serious, Mr. Frek," Silvena replied with a smile. "I’m here with Ruvian, one of our corporation’s most valued partners that I told you about before. We were just hoping to speak with Corwin."

"Oh, I see. A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Ruvian."

The man bowed respectfully.

Ruvian returned the greeting with a polite smile.

"As for Young Corwin, I believe he is working over there. Please give me a moment. I’ll fetch him for you."

With that, he turned and headed toward the workstations.

*****

A short while later, Corwin came hurrying over. Upon seeing Ruvian, his eyes widened in surprise.

"R-Ruvian?! Haha! You’re finally here! When did you arrive?"

"Just a little while ago. What about you? You seem to be enjoying yourself here."

"O-of course! This place is great! You wouldn’t believe how much I have learnt already!"

Corwin was practically buzzing with excitement. But when he saw Silvena standing next to him he immediately straightened.

"Ah, Lady Silvena! My apologies," he bowed respectfully. "It’s a pleasure to see you again. Thank you for allowing me to work here."

Silvena smiled softly. "There’s no need to thank me, Corwin. I’ve heard you’ve been working quite diligently."

"Hehe. I’m just trying my best!"

"By the way, Corwin, are you free right now?" Ruvian asked. "There’s a favor I need to ask of you."

"Hm? Oh, yes! I’m free!" Corwin nodded eagerly. "We were just experimenting with a few ingredients earlier, so there’s nothing urgent at the moment."

He paused for a moment, seemingly remembering something.

"Ah, wait! Is this about the favor you mentioned in your letter?"

"Yes."

Ruvian nodded.

"Oh, got it!"

Corwin looked rather curious, but before he could ask anything further, the workshop door suddenly opened.

Turning toward the entrance door, Ruvian saw Irene stepping inside, followed closely by Zian and Lovia.

’Right on time.’

"So, what do you need me for?"

Zian asked as he approached them.

"I need you to help Corwin brew a certain potion."

Hearing that, Lovia also broke into a knowing smile. It seemed she had already figured out what Ruvian was planning.

’Well, I expect no less from her.’

As for Zian, he merely looked puzzled.

Ruvian had his reasons for bringing him here. Of everyone involved, Zian was probably the most important person he needed for what he was about to do.

There was a good reason for that, too. Zian possessed a rather convenient System feature that even Ruvian found somewhat enviable.

Whenever he gathered a certain combination of ingredients, his System would automatically notify him of any potions he could brew with them, along with their respective recipes.

In other words, as long as the necessary ingredients were available, Zian could discover potion recipes without having to research them himself.

Naturally, that didn’t mean he could brew them on his own. He would still need someone with sufficient knowledge of alchemy to handle the actual process.

And that was precisely why Ruvian had decided to involve Corwin as well.

With Zian providing the recipes and Corwin handling the alchemy, there was a good chance his plan would work.

’It would be a waste not to make use of such a convenient feature.’

"Hmm, what kind of potion?" Zian asked curiously.

"You’ll find out soon enough."

Ruvian smiled before turning toward Silvena.

"By the way, Silvena, do you happen to have an empty private laboratory we could use? I’d prefer somewhere private."

*****

[Velthia Grand Shop]

[Equipment] [Artifacts] [Potions] [Materials] [Miscellaneous]

At the moment, a translucent shopping window was hovering before Ruvian, projected from the bracelet on his wrist. It was the Velthia Grand Shop, which he had received as a reward for ranking first in Individual Excellence during the Vazrun Island examination.

’Now, where is that thing...?’

Ruvian browsed through the long list of items, trying to find what he was looking for.

’Seriously, they should really improve this navigation system. It’s such a pain to find a single item.’

After several more minutes of searching, Ruvian’s eyes finally lit up.

’Ah, there you are!’

Finally, he found what he was looking for and began to pick up the ingredients one by one, adding them to his shopping cart.

Luckily, he found everything he needed, and the prices were much less than he had anticipated.

[Velthia Grand Shop]

[User: Ruvian Castelor]

[Available Tokens: 58,300]

[Shopping Cart]

1} Dark Gentian ×8 = 4,200 Tokens

2} Mahoshija Ginseng ×10 = 2,400 Tokens

3} Wyrmblood Extract ×12 = 3,800 Tokens

4} Red Calcite ×10 = 5,500 Tokens

5} Chrysalis Moth Core ×6 = 2,600 Tokens

[Total: 18,500 Tokens]

[Confirm Purchase?]

Ruvian examined the list once more, making sure he hadn’t missed anything.

’Hmm... That should be everything.’

Satisfied, he proceeded to confirm the purchase.

[Purchase Successful!]

[18,500 Tokens have been deducted.]

[Remaining Balance: 39,800 Tokens]

Ruvian took a look at the remaining balance and happily smiled. Even after purchasing such a large quantity of ingredients, he still had plenty of tokens left to spare.

With his purchase complete, Ruvian began retrieving the ingredients from his bracelet and placing them on the table one by one.

At the moment, they were gathered inside one of the private laboratories that Silvena had arranged for them.

There was a reason for this.

The potion he was planning to make was very extraordinary, and its existence alone could cause considerable trouble if word of it spread.

Once he had finished arranging the ingredients, Ruvian turned toward Silvena and gave her a nod.

Understanding his signal, Silvena took out several additional materials from her dimensional storage and placed them beside the others.

These were the ingredients Ruvian had asked her to procure beforehand, having already confirmed that they weren’t available in the [Velthia Grand Shop].

’Alright. That should be everything.’

Satisfied, Ruvian turned his attention toward Zian.

"So, Zian, what do you think? Can you work with these ingredients?"

"..."

Zian didn’t answer immediately.

Instead, he looked at the ingredients on the table, his expression slowly changed from confusion to disbelief.

Then, his eyes widened slightly, as though he had just discovered something completely unexpected.

"Uh... Ruvian?"

"Hm?"

"Y-Yeah, I think I can work with these."

Zian paused for a moment before looking at him skeptically.

"But seriously, how did you even know about this potion?"

Ruvian merely smiled.

Before he could answer, however, Silvena suddenly interrupted them.

"Hold on a moment. Before we get into that, would someone mind telling me what exactly this potion is supposed to be?"

She looked between the two of them with obvious curiosity.

And judging from the expressions of everyone else in the room, she wasn’t the only one wondering about it.

Everyone except Lovia.

"Alright, since everyone wants to know, I’ll explain." Ruvian gestured toward the ingredients on the table.

"Simply put, it is a potion that can upgrade a person’s innate potential, helping them to break through their original limits and leaving them with more room to grow."

"..."

"That’s—"

"Yeah, that’s all."

Silence fell over the whole room for a second.

Everyone stared at him in disbelief.

Potions that could improve one’s strength or mana capacity weren’t particularly unheard of, but increasing someone’s innate potential?

That was something none of them had ever heard of before.

Was such a thing even possible?

"Ruvian..."

Irene, who had remained silent until now, finally spoke up.

"...How did you even learn about such a potion? I’ve never heard of anything like this existing before."

"Well, true... not many people know about it, but I guess you all do now." (+2,000PP)

Ruvian thought that would do some reaction.

But nothing happened.

’Wow, why are they so serious?’

Ruvian coughed.

"Ahem, anyway, today might very well be the first time such a potion is created. So, yeah... oh, but that depends on how well the alchemy process goes too."

He gave Corwin a playful wink.

"E-Eh? M-me?!"

Corwin pointed at himself, clearly caught off guard by the sudden responsibility.

Seeing that everyone still looked rather skeptical, Lovia suddenly chimed in. "Oh, hold on! I remember this... isn’t this the potion you told me about before, Spicy?"

’Eh?’

"You know, that strange dream you had about Necraz making some kind of potion with a bunch of unusual ingredients."

Lovia tilted her head, acting as though she had just remembered something.

"So, you finally remembered what he used?"

’Oh?’

Ruvian glanced at her, quickly catching on to what she was trying to do.

’Haha... that’s surprising.’

Well, since she’d already given him such a convenient excuse, he might as well go along with it.

"Ah, right. That’s actually how I found out about it."

Ruvian replied with a nod.

"I had a vision of Necraz making this potion a few weeks ago.."

It was a bluff.

A total bluff.

Then again, considering how legendary Necraz was, it wouldn’t be too far-fetched for someone like him to possess such a miraculous potion.

"W-Wait, a vision?" Corwin looked even more confused than before. "What exactly are you guys talking about?"

’Oh right... Corwin didn’t know about my vision excuse yet.’

But before he could explain further, Irene interrupted him again.

"Say Ruvian... if this potion really works as you say, wouldn’t it be better if we produce it in larger quantities?"

She glanced at the ingredients. "Imagine if we could provide something like this to every member of our guild..."

Ruvian could understand her reasoning. A potion capable of improving someone’s innate potential would be invaluable to any organization.

Unfortunately, there was one rather obvious problem...

"No, I’m afraid that won’t be possible," Silvena interjected.

Everyone turned toward her.

"The ingredients I asked Bella to procure were already extremely difficult to obtain. Even with her connections, she barely managed to secure what we needed."

She shook her head.

"They’re far too scarce for us to consider mass production."

"Exactly," Ruvian added with a nod. "Velthia Academy still has some of these ingredients in its old stock, but even those were acquired a long time ago."

He glanced at the materials spread across the table. "As for the rarer ones... they can only be found in the Dead Man Lands."

At the mention of that godforsaken place, everyone in the room grew visibly tense.

"Because of that, getting our hands on enough of them to produce this potion in large quantities would be nearly impossible."

"That means—" Corwin muttered.

"—Only some of us will get to drink the potion." Ruvian said flatly.

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[Chapter 418: Potential Breaker]