A New Star Chapter 14

My parents, it turned out, wanted confirmation on my affinities as they were embroiled in the hunt for a tutor for me. I reaffirmed my affinities, including demonstrating that I had acquired flame, which greatly pleased my mother. After going over the basic types of my affinities with them, still withholding that I had ice, as I was not going to reveal all my cards to anyone, I returned to my rooms. It was time for dinner, and I ate in my rooms by myself before turning in for the night.  

The next couple weeks went by rather quickly, as I spent much time in the library doing research and only a little in my lab. I was learning that alchemy was far more complicated than I had first assumed, but I was even more interested in the various aspects. During this month, I also pushed my swordsmanship to the third step of my current grade, becoming a High Apprentice. I had made the preparations and was now ready to do some pill concoction, so that would be my next step before slipping out of the estate and gathering some materials myself. 

"Right, pills," I muttered to myself, in my lab after the day's workout and lunch. 

I first got the set of herbs I was going to be working with and laid them out on a clean cloth on the worktable. Next, I took the pill furnace, which I eyed with a rather critical look, a relic I had found in the room that had certainly seen far better days, placing it on an area where a flame could be generated. It was a burner that was slightly different than one that could be used for potion brewing or cooking, as it was built specifically to have a pill furnace lock into it and cycle the flame through the bottom and walls of the furnace. The furnace itself was roughly circular, made of a dark bronze metal, about two feet wide and eighteen inches high, with channels carved in the walls that would allow a flame or fire energy to penetrate into the heart of the furnace. 

Flame manipulation was key in pill concoction, and my skill would be getting quite the workout during this process. And speaking of flame manipulation, the basic pill I was starting with was one to increase a flame affinity. I suspected just working on the pill would advance my flame affinity to C-grade, but the pills would be a nice boost as well. 

The first step was to heat the furnace, which I did with the flame from the worktable, only using my manipulation to slightly alter its flow. I waited for the furnace to get to the proper temperature before tossing the first of four herbs in, controlling the herb and its refinement by manipulating my flame affinity. The first herb alone was already highly demanding, and I put my whole focus on it while it slowly broke down, releasing its mana and essence into the furnace. When the herb was fully refined, I threw in the second herb, keeping it from mixing with the essence of the first herb until it was fully refined. I repeated this process for the third and fourth herbs, sweating profusely by the time I had refined all four herbs, and not from the temperature in the room.  

Now came the most difficult part, and I concentrated intently as I carefully mixed the medicinal essences of the four herbs together within the furnace. As the essences mixed, their energies became harder to control, until I was forced to push them together with raw mana, making sure the temperature didn't go out of control with my flame affinity. I slammed the lid on the furnace and shouted "Condense!" as I forced the essence to form into pills, panting as the process completed and left me on the verge of lightheaded. I held my hands on the lid for a moment, just trying to recover, before opening the furnace to check the results. 

Within the furnace were four shining pills, emitting a very light red luster and a very faint heat. A medicinal fragrance wafted out of the furnace and caused my pores to open in response, my body feeling slightly refreshed from the medicine-laced air. I picked one of the pills up, feeling the heat and smelling the greater medicinal fragrance as I held it up to examine, noting the luster and shine of the surface of the pill. Four pills for the amount of herbs I had used was a rather good result, but it could have been much better; at least six pills from that amount.  

Grade B Lesser Fire Heart Pill  

90% Completion 

Profession upgraded.   

Profession: Alchemy   

Grade: B 

Making the pills successfully had upgraded my alchemy profession by one grade, giving me a jolt of new knowledge and skills. The Alchemy skill itself could be used to manipulate herbs and items, starting at B-grade, it seemed, and that was how an alchemist would normally control the herbs in a pill furnace. That was why they were all at least B-grade items, I supposed, but I had managed to brute force it even without the skill at the requisite level. Still, having the ability to manipulate items with mana by using the alchemy skill itself was going to prove quite handy, especially as I worked in the lab.  

I figured it was also time to try my work, and I wasn't scared of it being defective. If it was poisonous or corrupted, it wouldn't have the correct name, or the completion percentage would be far too low, or even both. I took the pill that was still in my hand and popped it into my mouth, swallowing it whole without chewing. I felt it drop down my throat and enter my stomach, where it dissolved immediately and started spreading through my body. I felt my veins grow warm, a heat spreading out through my torso and then my limbs.  

Fourth Affinity upgraded.  

Affinity: Flame  

Grade: C 

Compatibility: 100%  

Well, the concocting of one set of pills hadn't done it, but I was close enough to advance to C-grade as soon as I used one of the pills. I waited a little while, meditating lightly as the pill dissolved and was absorbed by my affinity, before I had a second pill. I repeated the process three times, consuming all four pills, but my affinity did not increase. Not at all surprising; increasing an affinity with pills took quite a few, and using pills of a lower grade was extremely inefficient. The extra three pills had probably not even moved the needle.  

I also sighed as I thought about other affinities, thinking that that was the other problem with pills; the rarer or more esoteric the affinity, the more difficult it was to craft the pills. Take my affinity for gravity, for instance; crafting a pill for that would require at least one ingredient with some kind of gravity mana within it. The pill itself, by product of that esoteric mana, and also because the crafting process was often just more complex, was far more difficult to craft. I could upgrade flame or even pure ice fairly easily using pills, which is to say, it would still take an immense amount of time, effort, and resources, but it was doable. Upgrading gravity or the dark with pills, on the other hand, would be much more difficult, if not close to impossible. 

That was a concern for later, however, as I had more ingredients and I intended to practice a bit more today. It was rather taxing, but I rested for a time before doing my second concoction of the afternoon. This one went smoother, so much smoother that it was almost frightening, but the two affinities involved had both upgraded while I had not chosen a more complex or higher-grade pill to concoct. The greater power and control my C-grade flame affinity brought was extremely noticeable and, combined with my increased alchemy skilled, allowed me to refine the herbs and melt their essences together far faster and with less effort. I opened the pill furnace after completing the concoction to find five shiny, warm pills within, pulling one out to inspect. 

Grade B Lesser Fire Heart Pill  

100% Completion 

An even greater success than the first time, and I wasn't even as tired after this attempt as I was after the first. The pills were basically useless to me, but they would still be rather valuable to anybody that had a flame affinity, or more likely, to any of my parents' colleagues who had young children likely to awaken a flame affinity. Quickly upgrading an affinity from A to B grade could be a major boon and would give the person doing it a big sense of accomplishment, making these pills a hot commodity, no pun intended. That did bring to mind that I still had little idea of the prices of…well, anything really. I would have to do some research, maybe some more direct research, heading to town and having a look around, to see what the current market looked like.  

I grabbed the pills I had just created and threw them in a stone jar. Storing pills in metal, like potions, was highly frowned upon, as it could affect the pills negatively. It was also the same with glass, though for different affects one wanted to avoid, so pills were commonly stored in stone or jade containers. I only had two stone jars in the room, so that was what I would have to use for now, until I could buy more supplies on my own. I really didn't want to rely on the estate's funds, despite my experiments not even being a noticeable expense. Hell, if I advance to M or N grade, my alchemy work would still barely be more than a rounding error just to the estate budget, let alone my parents' overall budgets.  

Still, I was never comfortable relying on others; even drawing a salary at the height of my last life had been something I did under duress. The sooner I could hunt and gather materials myself, as well as form my own business connections, the sooner I could guarantee my self-sufficiency. It would also be good to get involved in the business world for several reasons, including their often-outsized influence on politics, as well as the relations between business and criminal enterprises. Understanding the current state of the criminal world was also something that could provide me with great benefits and even advantages, if for no other reason than cleaning up some criminals could be a good way to make a bit of money. 

I performed the same pill concoction operation twice more, using up the remainder of my ingredients to make another dozen pills. And when I said the remainder of my ingredients, I truly meant everything, as I was now out of ingredients entirely. Well, other than beast cores, of course, as my family dealt with huge amounts of them. Our position both guarding and monitoring the border meant we dealt with beasts, and other people that dealt with beasts, more than almost anybody else. In terms of beast parts, I practically couldn't walk around the basement without tripping over a bag or pallet or crate full of them. When it came to herbs, however, there was essentially nothing, even the extremely valuable, high-grade herbs. 

The value of something often came from the demand or desirability, and there were hardly any alchemists at all, let alone any highly skilled, high-grade alchemists. Why would people venturing into the Untamed Wilds bother with learning anything about herbs or plants, other than what could be eaten raw to give a small boost to a person? There also wasn't any independent skill for herbalism, since it was all rolled up within alchemy, so identifying herbs was also rather difficult for many since they wouldn't be an alchemist or have one in their expedition. It was yet another advantage I would have; there would be few people competing with me for ingredients, and there would be an ocean's worth of ingredients left unharvested, even just in the Settled Lands. 

Seventeen Lesser Fire Heart pills was pretty good for a day's work, so I cleaned up the lab and packed everything away for the day. I took the stone jar with me when I left, intending to keep it in my room with a few potions I had there. I would look to see what I could do about selling it in a bit, but that wouldn't be for a little. My next objective was to head out of the estate and explore the land around it, which I would get into in a few days. 

For the next few days, I trained in the mornings and practiced my affinities in the afternoons. I practiced in my room, as I didn't want anyone observing my practice, and I was still at a level where basic exercises weren't going to burn the house down. Hopefully. My shadows had ceased to actively follow me, which would have normally made me suspicious, but I had already observed that the security at the estate was truly slack. I had the suspicion that the guards had somehow, whether through complacency or overwork or, more likely, lacking skill, had simply forgotten about me. Mina was the one who had been most concerned about keeping watch over me, and even she had been distracted by other duties.  

One of my goals over these handful of days was to work on a skill I had an inkling I could develop with my affinity for the dark. I started the first afternoon by concentrating and summoning an area of darkness around myself, which I built up into a thick cloud. Normally, I would say this wouldn't be very good for sneaking, even at night, but that was not my intention right now. Instead, I focused on an area in my bathroom as I stood in my living room, thinking about that spot even though the door between the two rooms was closed. I walked forward and pulled on the darkness around me, nearly bashing my knees against the bathtub in my palatial bathroom as I suddenly stepped out of the darkness, having taken a step to traverse the distance from the living room to the bathroom. 

First Affinity upgraded.  

Affinity: The Dark  

Grade: C 

Compatibility: 125%  

Well, apparently that was enough to upgrade the affinity, though it would be some time before I truly realized how crazy of a feat I had just accomplished. With that ability understood, I began to practice with it, moving around my suite by walking into the dark and appearing from a patch of darkness elsewhere within the rooms. It felt a bit strange, not something I was used to, but I rather quickly adapted to the feeling of getting lost in the dark and reemerging somewhere else.  

Speaking of that feeling, however, I began to focus on it, concentrating on what was happening every time I walked through the dark. I didn't get very far the first day, or the second, but the third day of practice I was able to further tap into that feeling. Instead of disappearing from where I was and appearing some short distance away, I instead found myself submerged within a dark, swirling void. I wasn't totally blind, however, as I could still see a faint trace of the world around me. Quite frankly, I was shocked at what I was experiencing, not because the experience was so overwhelming directly, but because I was astonished at what was happening. I had never heard of such a thing, either, and I had spent at least a bit of time reviewing all my current affinities, as well as many common affinities in the library.  

I was within an entirely separate space, able to see the world but not interact with it, as a few experiments proved. I then tried moving, finding it to be rather effortless, at which point I also discovered that material objects posed…far less of a hindrance than they should. I came to this conclusion by walking directly through the door to my suite, which immediately gave me many ideas, quite a few of which I had neither the power or resources to accomplish now, but I kept them in mind. I walked all the way through the estate to my lab, passing quite a few people by, in the servants' passages in particular, but not a one even gave off a twitch, leading me to believe that I had remained undetected. I left the dark plane in my lab, finding it was similar to the shorter hops I had been doing, though not instant, of course. I then re-entered the dark area and moved through it back to my suite, wherein I exited that place and was standing within my room again. 

First Affinity upgraded.  

Affinity: The Dark  

Grade: D 

Compatibility: 125%  

I wouldn't complain about two upgrades to an affinity in only three days of work, though it was rather surprising. I suppose the ability to not just teleport with the dark but to walk in that alternate space were great discoveries. The ability to remove my presence and move about largely undetected (though I was under no illusion that far stronger people wouldn't be able to easily detect me) would greatly aid all my future endeavors, and I felt confident about what I was to do next. With my current level of swordsmanship, my current affinities and their levels, and a damned thousand years of battle experience, I was ready to slip out and begin exploring. 

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