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As soon as the root and moss had gone into the cauldron, Wanda sensed them both, along with how they were interconnected. She took her time, gently parsing out each component and comparing the information with what she’d learned about other plants. Only when Wanda was certain did she announce her success, taking note of the stricken expression on Lenar’s face.

Right, they were supposed to work on that together. Wanda had gotten a bit excited and forgotten that part.

It was swiftly gone, though, fast enough that she almost wondered if it had only been imagined. “Please, I am curious what you’ve learned.”

“I wasn’t smelling the root, I was smelling the blue moss. Still no idea what it is, but it’s got some healing properties… along with a few incredibly toxic ones. We need to filter out the harmful parts while preserving the aspects that heal.”

It only took Lenar a moment to dig another book from the portalable bag upon his hip. Opening it wide, he laid the hefty tome upon the counter, motioning for Wanda to look. “You’ll have to add a skimmer. They’re usually only seen in more advanced cauldrons; a lot of ingredients for more complex potions have detrimental effects. Some alchemists try to balance them with other components, while others favor a skimmer. You’d normally need different compounds formulated to draw out the parts you’re removing, but Ever Present Cauldron can theoretically handle that part.”

Wanda’s focus on the book was so intense, she didn’t even hear Lenar slightly trailing off at the end. All of her mind was devoted to memorizing every feature of the diagram before her. Skimmers were, at their core, just perforated metal plates that sat on top of the liquid in a cauldron. Different materials were better at extracting different components, but Wanda zipped through that section, focusing more on the design itself.

Slowly, a dusky orange plate appeared inside her cauldron, only to snap into the side where it vanished, leaving the top open to add ingredients.

“Got it. What’s next?”

“Let’s proceed with making the potion. Once we’ve reached the skimming point of the process, we can try—” Lenar was cut off by the ship taking a sudden sharp dive, nearly sending all of them airborne.

Wanda managed to snag Wumble along with a piece of the counter, while Lenar caught the same surface with his foot. Karlisle was the only one truly airborne, but he landed deftly on his feet when the bearship rapidly corrected its orientation. Had they been using normal cauldrons, Lenar’s potion would be spilled everywhere, but it continued to brew as if nothing had gone wrong, still floating in the air.

The moment Wanda’s feet touched the ground, she was moving. Now that they had a rough idea of how to proceed, she needed to get brewing. Because whatever was going on with the occorites, Wanda had a strong suspicion that people were going to need potions.

Probably sooner than later.

FIFTEEN

One aspect of the new magical cauldron Wanda hadn’t expected: she was able to brew potions much faster than before. Previously, she’d had to wait as each batch simmered, the innate occoreal slowly drawing out and infusing into the liquid. In her new cauldron, able to sense each component more thoroughly, Wanda found she could sort of… squeeze the ingredients gently with her mana, helping the infusion process along.

Precise temperature control helped as well. Rather than backing down and boosting up a flame trying to remain in an optimal zone, Wanda was able to hold everything thermally steady, down to the degree. For some reason, that hurried the process along considerably, to the point where her first batch was nearly done just as Lenar finished bottling his own cauldron’s contents.

“Wow, that moss brews fast,” Lenar noted, setting the last of his dozen potions aside. The bottles had come from the same storage locker where they’d found the ingredients. Given the motley assortment of shapes, it was clear they’d been left by various alchemists over the years, but each was still sturdy enough to contain liquid.

Lenar was correct, the fine strands of blue moss were much easier to break down than mullin vines, adding to her potion’s speed of creation. Wanda peered into the floating cauldron formed of her own mana, checking the skimmer that sat atop. A dark green sludge had formed along the top of the skimmer, all the toxic aspects of the moss that had been drained out. Below it brewed a brilliant red potion with what Wanda could have sworn were flecks of gold, though whenever she tried to look closer, the flecks vanished.

Her nose said the brew had come out as intended, and she could practically taste the vitality contained within just from one sniff. Grabbing one of the many still unused bottles, Wanda drained off a portion and stoppered it, creating a potion. She gave the bottle a swirl, then handed it over to Lenar.

“Is there some way we can test this to make sure it’s safe?”

“With the proper ingredients and time, absolutely. As things stand, though…” Lenar’s hands shot out, striking like a serpent as it curled around his own chopping knife. With a delicate flick, Lenar sliced the back of his other hand, just enough to draw two drops of blood.

It was an incredible level of dexterity and skill, yet Wanda didn’t even have a chance to marvel at the display before Lenar was popping the stopper on her potion and dribbling a small amount onto his hand. In seconds, the wound was gone, not even a faint mark left where the injury occurred.

“No tingling or numbness, no noticeable impairment. Do I seem normal to you?”

“As normal as someone who tests a potentially toxic poison on themselves can be.” Wanda realized her heart was racing; she really hadn’t been certain whether the brew would do more harm or good. “That was a pretty big risk.”

Lenar shook his head while he laid the chopping knife back on the counter. “Less than you’d imagine. I’ve already used the potion ingredients I’m able to, and my combat skills are unlikely to make much difference in these circumstances. Determining whether the blue moss potions were usable has a far greater total upside than the risk of me being rendered useless from this point forward.”

It was a very clinical, pragmatic way of thinking, one Wanda didn’t care for when applied to the well-being of her friend. She also didn’t have a counterargument. Lenar was probably right that this was the best overall choice. Still, it wasn’t one Wanda wanted to see repeated.

Lacking a direct rebuttal, Wanda focused on the part of Lenar’s statement that struck her as odd. “Why couldn’t you make the blue moss potions too? We figured out you just have to add a skimmer.”

“My cauldron can’t do that, Wanda. It takes most of my mana just to hold it stable.” Turning from his counter to her dusky orange cauldron, he approached it slowly. “Frankly speaking, the amount of mana you’ve displayed just since we’ve been down here is… staggering. I would call it impossible, were I not here bearing witness.”

“Oh.” Looking back, it was immediately and painfully clear that there probably was something odd about her mana. From the way it stormed through her, refusing to be controlled until she’d employed more complex methods, to the strange brightness her spells had a habit of bringing along when they manifested.

But mana was part of magic, and she knew so little about how any of that worked. The one word response evidently betrayed that ignorance, as Lenar’s focus shifted from the cauldron over to Wanda herself. “You didn’t know?”

“I knew my mana was hard to control and my spells came out bright.”