Potion Making

The green rolling hills carried a little darker tone this morning compared to the previous. My body still remembered all too well even with the repairs. And worse my gear did more specifically. I felt a little exposed going around with a hole pointed straight at my fleshy soft bits. Hopefully, nothing I ran into today was looking for some target practice.

First, I sat down and pulled out my pack. I retrieved the small harvesting scythe that fit into my hand neatly. That set to the side, I grabbed the potion making kit as well. A few things need to be tested to understand how the system worked.

Opening the menu I went to check to see if there was any change. Nothing appeared in the weapon menu or on my gear. “So just holding them isn’t enough to count. Good to know.” I picked up the scythe in my right hand. Part of me wished that I paid closer attention to when my weapon got recognized. Did a point have to be earned using it? Or was it intent?

Testing out intent presented a much more vague concept. The system that governed everything had some understanding of what I did, but could it read my mind. ‘I want to be…a…this class…’ I realized that I didn’t actually know if this was a class or just some sort of tool. But I closed my eyes acting like I knew what I was doing, but looking like an idiot.

After a few moments of silence, I searched the menu again. Nothing. That didn’t necessarily rule it out, but I guess I’ll try the next action. There wasn’t anything around me other than tall grass, but I felt that should be enough. It was an action, even if it didn’t necessarily produce anything useful.

A clean cut through a clump of grass gave me a handful that I stared at a little confused. I guess I expected something, but didn’t know what. Checking the menu, it did finally change. Underneath Astral Priest I found a new title, Botany and it was level 1. Which answered the question of being a class.

Diving deeper, the class even had a level 1 ability, passive by the looks of it. Though it did make me wonder what sort of skills it would give me considering it was just a gathering class.

‘Botanist Sight – When active identifies any harvestable material.’

That would be very useful. It’ll make finding plants easier. I toggled the ability on getting a note of the passive applied in the UI. A chevron icon with a green plant sprout surrounded by speed lines appeared in the buff window. Suddenly, my vision changed to have an overlay like I was in an augmented reality space. It was a little disorienting at first to see something that I knew wasn’t there. All I saw around me was the grass which it accordingly informed me that it was called King’s Grass. An odd noble name for something so common.

The clump of it in my hand, I stared at more closely. It identified it the same. I tapped on the text out of curiosity. A new window appeared under the text giving me an item description.

‘A common long prairie grass found throughout Tasilen. King’s Grass makes for a foundational base in many simple brews and teas. It is known for its uniquely bitter honey taste when steamed.

Originally found and treated by King Felwain of Ranthan. He saw the positive traits of its hardiness to grow in different climes and saw it planted in his realm. It went on to aggressively dominate the lands, eliminating many species as a result.’

That was more detailed than I expected for a generic piece of grass. An interesting bit of trivia, but it wasn’t going to provide much use to me. But it was all very helpful for understanding how things worked. Which meant that I wouldn’t get anything from the kit until I made something for the first time. It was a little annoying, but it was how things worked.

I packed up my things and stood up. The forest wasn’t looking so inviting. I wanted to test out the potion making, so I would keep out of it for now. But I wanted to be prepared. There was no more point in stalling. I went to the stat page to put in the allocations. Whatever I picked I would have to live with.

With twenty points and nine attributes there wasn’t going to be a good way to do it. But I didn’t need them all. I went for the safest answer for now, splitting it four ways and putting five points into four stats that were going to let me learn their impacts. Points went into vitality, magic, magic attack and spell speed. Since nothing I had was modified by Mending, it didn’t make any sense as strange as it was to not invest into the healing stat.

Confirming the changes, I closed the menu. I was about to start walking, but a strange tightness washed over my body. It almost felt like all my muscles tensed like having a Charlie horse. Though it didn’t hurt the same way. Nothing moved correctly and I just froze there. I could barely breathe as it even seemed to lock up my heart and lungs.

It then dropped and everything felt normal again. I stared down at my body to see if there was some sort of change or even damage. But everything looked to be the same as it was before. “What was that? Is it because I changed my stats?” Taking a few steps confirmed that my body was fully recovered. I hoped that wasn’t what I had to go through everytime. It was uncomfortable. “Guess I’ll find out the next time I level.”

But I headed out properly in search of new materials. There should be wildflowers or weeds, anything other than grass around in the open. I wanted to try that before going into the forest again. I didn't want to call it PTSD, but there was definitely some reasonable fear.

Something like an hour or two passed and I was back to sitting with my small collection of plants. There were a total of eight different types that I found with the sight passive. Wildflowers grew in clusters sometimes so it made it very useful to know what I already picked. It was time to test out potions. I had ideas, but I wanted to know what I could make right now rather than things that were out of my reach.

Pulling out the kit again, I laid things out a small clearing I created for myself. As Miss Heia explained, I should just need to interact with the pot to see what I can do. Systematically, I went through picking up each of the components looking for the results. I tried pairing two things together to start and then adding a third and checked with a fourth to see if I got any differences.

The results were curious and more than I expected. There were only three potions that I could make at the moment, but each was saved into a recipe list. And there was an unknown recipe list as well that hinted at other viable recipes. I just had to find the correct ingredients or as she said envision it and they would reveal it to make. I wouldn’t have to remember anything, so I was thankful for that.

Of the three potions, the immediate one of interest to me was the Weak Health Potion. There were no details about it, probably because I needed to make it, but that was one of the goals. My main reason for wanting the potion kit was to supplement my healing, or lack of, by being able to drink a potion. If I could make a strong enough one for my level it’d be the same as a heal.

The other two filled in a little of my questions on how versatile this might be with a Weak Potion of Poisoning and a Weak Potion of Vitality. Without knowing the details, it seemed like I would be able to buff my own stats, another part of my plan since I was doubting how much strength I’d have as a healer. And the poisoning I would need to see how it applies, but I should be able to use on enemies. All very useful things for my future successes.

My kit needed to have a fire to brew the potions, but it was thankfully a simple one to fuel. And I had six bottles that I would get to experiment with. Preparation would begin and then I could return to the battlefield.