Experiment

Priscilla gave up on making me talk after she realized I wouldn't say much. She guided me into the job assignment agency, I ignored the people walking about.

She brought me to a door near the end of the room that was guarded by two older men. One in a black robe and the other in a white robe.

When Priscilla came by they moved out of the way and opened the door courteously. They then eyed me as I followed behind Priscilla, they made their intent obvious. If you try something funny we'll get rid of you. I was never a fan of threats, so I just didn't treat it seriously.

'I am here for one thing and one thing only. As long as they don't try anything against me, I won't get violent.' I said to myself as I ignored the guard's stares.

As we entered the gate it smelled of a strong medicinal smell. I looked around to see a luscious garden, filled with various herbs. I recognized a few from the books I had read in the library.

But for the majority of them, I was unaware of their names. Priscilla kept walking until we went into a green room. In it were a few rare herbs all potted.

Each receiving different treatment some were put in the dark like the Venomous Duscle. A type of fungus that required it to be damp, venomous, and dark where it lived.

Another one was in the light, I saw a plant that resembled a saffron. But it had a light radiating around it, that burned with solar energy, and was a light orange color. There was only one stalk of it near the light I recognized it as the Sun Saffron.

Priscilla took the pot and made some symbols with her hands that landed on the saffron's pot. As she did I wanted to use my magic eyes to see what was happening.

But out of fear, I decided to not use my magic eyes. I tried to remember the symbols she had made. But when did that the symbols it would come up as a blur.

"You must be wondering what I did?" She said to me playfully.

I didn't respond showing my interest would give her a weakness, and rejecting it will be seen as hiding my interest. So it's just better to not respond at all.

"Well it's just restriction magic, it's about the use of formations an sealing." She said in response to my silence.

"How many sword marks," I said as I handed her my medal

"30, here you go." She said as 30 sword marks disappeared from my medal.

Over the course of this month, I had already spent 130 sword marks. Considering I started off with 450, it really shows the price of improvement isn't cheap. I took the stalk in the pot as Priscilla guided me out of the job agency.

She smiled alluringly and told me to come back or some further crap. I didn't bother to listen I was just thinking about the sun saffron.

The sun was setting but it was still light out, so I went to the library I looked for Brian. He was behind the counter to the first floor of the library, checking books out to students.

"You're finally back Lucas, what happened?" Brian said concerned about my week's absence.

"I was at an important point of my training, so I was unable to come to the library. Even now I still have one last thing to finish, I just needed some equipment." I said with a knowing smile

"What kind of equipment," Brian asked

"I need to extract the essence of this Saffron, so I need beakers, distillation equipment, a heat source, disinfectant, needles, and 2 separate gallons distilled water," I said as I handed Brian a list of items.

"We have a lot of that being sold in the Magi Circle. I can't let you there but I can go buy you the equipment." Brian said as he tried to return the list.

"I don't need to go there myself, I just need you to buy it. how much for all that." I asked as I rejected the list

"15 sword marks it's rather cheap," Brian said with a sigh

I felt suspicious since he could just lie about the price, but honestly speaking 15 isn't much to me. But if he comes back saying he needs more money. Then I will just end his little charade and leave.

I sent 15 sword marks from my medal to his when he removed it. Brian left the library, while I waited I went around reading and found the book on the distillation of herbs I had read before. I was planning on using the method I read it to extract the essence of the Saffron for use.

Brian returned with all the items, he took out his bag of holding and gave me them for inspection. I made sure to check for any cracks or tampering.

"Can you use electricity?" I asked Brian

"Sure what do you want me to do," Brian said as a little bit of electricity crackled in his palm. All magicians could harness all the branches of magic, they just abstained due to the higher level of difficulty and weaker effect. A true Thunder Magus could rival a fully grown Kirin.

I opened the lid for the distilled water and pointed to it.

"Shoot some into the water."

Brian looked confused for a moment but just listened to me. He shot a small current of electricity into the water. It sizzled and conducted a very small amount as the water was moved around and some evaporated. I observed it and concluded it to be highly distilled water.

'If the impurities were removed well then it wouldn't conduct electricity at a much higher level. But this will be adequate for making an extract.'

I put the lid back on and put all the equipment into my bag of holding.

"Thank you for the help, but I must be going now," I said to end the conversation as soon as possible

"No problem but I hope you come back to work when your rookie period is up," Brian said kindly

"I plan on doing so," I responded in turn

As I left I started to think about Brian's niceness, he is just too nice. It's almost suspicious I would conclude he had a hidden motivation, but I haven't seen him treat many other people differently.

The only case would be the little fight with Gavyn. But that was with special circumstances, they already seemed to be enemies.

Though I thought about it calmly, I still had a belly full of anger from Gavyn. I wanted to rip him apart for his arrogance, but I still calmed myself.

'If I can't keep an overall calm and stay detached I will be killed and used.'

I finally got to my home a cozy stone home, filled with sub-par furniture. I had better facilities in the Silent Blades guild, although I lived in a sewer...I took my items out of the bag of holding and put them on my desk. I set up the distillation equipment and got out my heat source.

My first step was to take a beaker and fill it half with distilled water. I then took 2 petals of the saffron and put it into the beaker. I separated the 6 petals into 3 different beakers with distilled water.

Then I took the stem and cut it into three with the void blade. I put them each into the beakers and waited for a while. When the flowers were saturated with water I took one of the beakers.

I put the solution onto the heat source and put in the tube. I would have the vapor moved to another empty beaker. The solution had a touch of purple, as I got annoyed. It reminded of that mage, looks like I will be continuing his legacy by experimenting on myself.

After the beaker was 1/4 full of purplish water, I turned to put a different beaker under the heat source. I looked at the petals in the empty beaker. They were pale and whitish like the essence was ripped out of them.

It was like an analogy for the lives of the people that mage had used on me. Though normally I would feel sadness at that fact, ever since his experiments, the old me died.

The death of some innocents meant nothing to me, especially when the prolonged my own. They can feel solace in the fact that they helped in my survival.

I waited for the other beaker to finish and when the purple solution reached 50%. I exchanged the beaker for the last one and waited.

When that was finally complete the solution stopped just short of 75%. Though I made calculations that I would have 75% left, there is always human error.

I turned off the heat source and corked the solution as I put away all my materials. I tested the purity of the solution and smiled, it was my first attempt and it turned out quite well.