Emily pours two hundred and fifty millilitres of water into the empty cauldron before her. She sprinkles in a touch each of powdered light and wind crystals, turning the water a sparkling pale, lime hue. The fire beh the cauldron quickly brings the water to a boil, and Emily drops in five strips of shadow boa flesh, fifteen fine, bck scales, and two stalks of pulverised luminis.

  Ivor stirs the mix as she deposits materials and, the moment she fihey shut the lid agaily three mier, they crack it open and add in a few pieces of pallbdder and a drop of the snake’s venom. The moment the bck venom hits the surface, Ivor drops the lid bato pd Emily lowers two tendrils of mana into the potion.

  She uses oo stir it, fully bining everything as it all starts melding together in a violent magical rea, and the other to disperse pockets of impurities building, allowing them to be devoured by the violent fire mana incorporated into the mix.

  The rea tinues until, after exactly four painstaking minutes and twenty-three seds, Emily removes her magical senses from the mixture and opens the lid. Ivor tosses in a whole ocex tongue, and Emily quickly drops the lid bato pce.

  They wait with bated breaths for a few seds, both holding high expectations for this attempt. They feel the roiling mana within the cauldron calm, and Emily receives a system notification.

  ˉˉˉˉˉ

  Quest pleted: Alchemical Aspirations

  [Alchemical Aspirations]

  [Rank:] D

  [Description:] You’ve joihe world of alchemy by following a known recipe. Now bee a true alchemist and create your own!

  Requirements:

  -Create and successfully brew a new uion (plete)

  Rewards:

  -Meiowledge: Chemistry

  _____

  A new flood of information fills her mind.

  Woah. This seems helpful for refining my alchemical method. I definitely ohis knowledge too.

  She sets her sed core to expl every er of the new knowledge for future use and keeps her main focus on her achievement.

  They lift the cauldron off the heat, and Emily takes the lid in her hand.

  “The big reveal,” she says with a grin, pulling it up sharply.

  A faint, shimmering bck mist rises from the cauldron, sliding down the edges and releasing a cool, weling st. Emily looks past the mist into the tre of the cauldron at the swirling liquid, a shimmering mix of bd grey that pys tricks on her eyes.

  She pulls on the system for the information about her pleted potion.

  ˉˉˉˉˉ

  [Brew of Faint Presence]

  [Rank:] E

  [Description:] A potion based oealth powers of the shadow boa.

  [Effect:] Upon ption, reduces the presence of the er in the perception of others.

  _____

  What a terrible name. ’t I re since I made it?

  She tries willing the name of the potion to ge, and it shifts on the s before her from ‘Brew of Faint Preseo ‘Brew of Imperception’.

  That’s a bit better.

  She nods, turning her focus to its effect.

  How strong is the effect? Only one way to find out!

  She turns to Ivor, who is gaping at the potion with his mouth wide in shock.

  “We really did it,” he signs in disbelief after making eye tact with her.

  “Sure we did,” Emily says, knowing he won’t get to enjoy the achievement for long. “Want to see what it does?”

  He nods enthusiastically, so they prepare a set of vials and scoop the liquid out into them, leaving a shrivelled bck tongue itom of the cauldron. Ivrimaces at the grotesque sight.

  “How did you even think to catalyse the rea with the boa’s own venom? I would have thought you’d want such a votile material as the base,” he signs curiously as Emily picks up one of the finished vials, swirling it before the light to admire the ethereal blend of colours.

  “Just call it a spark of inspiration,” Emily responds with a wink. “Besides, it wouldn’t have worked if you hadn’t worked out the right separating agent.”

  Not wasting any more time, Emily throws her head back, gulping down the tents of the vial without hesitation. The potion tastes stra barely has any fvour, only a slight salty tang, but it makes Emily’s tongue go numb.

  The magical co is almost instantly absorbed by her body, and a strange ge takes pce. Emily feels a buzzing numbness spread across her skin in a wave, and looks down at her hands. She watches in fasation as the colour seems to flow from her skin, turning from a pale white, with bursts of colour around old scars and callouses, to a uniform dull grey.

  She grabs a handful of her messy brown hair, that now hangs in the middle of her shoulder bdes, and pulls it into her vision to check. It has also turned a strange greyish tone.

  Ivor starts looking around startled as she admires the potion’s ges.

  “I’ve lost you!” he signs frantically, intriguing Emily.

  She reaches out and pces a hand on his shoulder, and his head instantly es to a halt, making solid eye tact with her.

  “What happely? Expin it to me,” Emily says calmly.

  Ivor nods before tapping her hand to tell her to release it. The moment she does, Ivor’s eyes shift, fixing on the space beside Emily. She watches carefully as the mage seems to put his thoughts together before signing an expnation.

  “When you drank the potion, I watched you ging colour. The sed you finished ging, I blinked, and you vahen you touched me and I could see you again. When you aren’t toug me, I still feel your mana signature though, but it’s suppressed. I would think you’re a strong first circle mage at most from it.”

  Emily nods thoughtfully at his expnation, though Ivor ’t see it.

  “ you hear me still?” she asks without toug him.

  He nods immediately, his eyes flitting towards her voice then drifting away once she’s silent again.

  So it suppresses my presence. If I actively do something to increase it like make noise, and I suspect cast spells, it weakens the effect, with physical tact breaking it pletely. He seems to be looking away though, so maybe the spell is f him to keep me in his periphery and nister me as there?

  To test her theory, she steps in lih Ivor’s eyes and watches as they naturally shift sideways to never look straight at her.

  , this will be very useful for moving around unnoticed.

  Trying to stand in front of him a few more times, he doesn’t notice at all, so Emily moves on to her est. She casts infra-sight, keeping her eyes shut to avoid leaking their magical glow.

  “ you see me?” she questions, receiving a light tap on her shoulder in firmation.

  She dismisses the spell, elling maa into the repaired Cws hidden in her sleeves, stopping before iing enough to cause sounds. This time, Ivor doesn’t react.

  Iing, so using a spell with no obvious visual effects breaks it, but not using maa.

  She pulls up a sleeve, revealing the oh, and increases the quantity of maa, turning the to a crag duit of electricity. Following Emily’s expectations, Ivor reacts, zeroing in on her position again.

  “I think I have a solid grasp of how it works now. you drink one please so I test it against some dete spells?” Emily asks while flooding her system with mana and maa, sing her of the potion’s effects.

  Ivor nods and grabs a vial, p it into his mouth. Emily watches him lose colour and vanish. Even when looking for it, she barely notices her eyes shifting away from him.

  That feels weird. I know what I’m doing, but I still ’t stop myself. I don’t think I’d notice either if I wasn’t looking for it.

  First, Emily casts infra-sight. As the shades of heat in the room reveal themselves to her, she tries to spot Ivor. Though she finds herself still uo see him, Emily does notice small fluctuations of heat near where he’s stood.

  “Infra-sights a failure. I see some disturbance, but not enough to know what it is unless I know what I’m looking for,” she tells Ivor while dropping the spell.

  , she pulses eartheion and asks him to move. Once again there are a few small fluctuations, but not enough to seem like a person.

  “Good. Now finally light!”

  Emily releases a sparkling white orb of light, pumping mana into it and filling the room with light. This one does ge something. Emily sees Ivor’s shimmering outline appear. He’s still hard to spot, but definitely reisable as a person if you look straight at him.

  Okay, there are some limits, but this will be very useful, especially if no one knows about it. Sorry, Ivor, but I don’t think I want anyone else to know about this potion.

  With her deade, she reaches into a pocket in her robes and activates The Clock.

  ***

  Emily goes straight to the b with Ivor after css, not colleg any materials this time. They instead spend the rest of the day doing a few final tests on the shadoarts, firming information Emily already knows before writing up their final report. They also write a copy of their report for Oscar, which they bundle up with a small sample of the snake’s flesh.

  After finishing their study, they decide to split the corpse, with Emily then buying Ivor’s portion off him for thirty points since he doesn’t have a use for it. They both leave satisfied and, after dropping off the report at Oscar’s dorm, Emily returns to her room.

  The day, Emily has an Artefact Crafting lesson in the m. The lesson is taught by Elias Hawthorne, and Emily finds the lecture on the importanatg opposing elements to baefacts iing. However, it repeats some of the same points and theories she has already learnt from her reading in the library.

  I’ll keep going for now, but I may end up dropping this css if Mr Hawthorne doesn’t give me anything more useful.

  Midway through the afternoon, at the same time as she finished making the brew of imperception the day before, Emily is sitting in the library reading about ritual spells when a system notification interrupts her focus.

  ˉˉˉˉˉ

  Warning! Quest requirement for [Alchemical Aspirations] u in final timeline.

  Please plete requirement:

  -Create and successfully brew a new uion (Error)

  _____

  Emily frowns at the straification. And pulls out The Clock to g the time.

  What’s this? Error? I wonder if it’s because I reset time, haven’t brewed the potion in this timeline, and it’s too te now to reset to before I got the reward.

  She bites her thumb, dropping her book and drumming her fingers oable as she ptes the notification.

  It doesn’t say there will be any punishment if I don’t plete it again. the system not take the reward it already gave away? Iing! Let’s leave it twenty-four hours and see what happens. I always reset to now if something goes wrong.

  She dismisses the notification, tinuing with her reading as time ticks by. A few hours ter, Emily rises, stretg her arms behind her head and dropping the st books from her desk out of the barrier to be recimed by the magical stacks.

  “Time for dinner,” she mutters as she steps out of the barrier.

  A few steps down the aisle between the shelves of books, someone wantonly tosses a book out of their barrier, and it catches Emily in the side of the head with its er. Emily flinches, raising a hand to rub her temple in irritation. She ighis and moves on, reag the transportation rooms just behind a small colle of es. After a rare, short wait to enter ay magic circle, Emily finds herself in the cafeteria.

  She gnces around, quickly log her friends and moving to join them. On the way, a full tray of food flying over her head shakes as it shifts to avoid a returning tray, dripping gravy onto Emily’s shoulder.

  “Eugh,” she groans, casting se as she slips into the barrier around her friends’ table.

  “Did food just drop on you?” Tom asks incredulously.

  “Apparently,” Emily grumbles, ahat su unishap would happen to her.

  “I didn’t even think that ossible,” Hester ents.

  “I’ve just been hit in the head by a book in the library too,” Emily tells them, rolling her eyes.

  “You’ve what?” Tom asks, even more shocked. “That definitely shouldn’t happen.”

  “You’ve been cursed,” Juliana says with a teasing smile. “Who’d you upset this time?”

  They all ugh and Emily half-heartedly joins in, distracted by a f idea.

  Is this reted to the system’s warning? Am I going to be super unlucky till I brew the potion again.

  She scoffs at the thought, pushing it to the back of her mind to enjoy her meal with her friends. After eating, Emily and Juliana leave to spend the evening together. On the way out of the cafeteria, though, as they’re walking arm in arm, one of Emily’s boots engages out of nowhere. The meisms inside whir into motion, flig the sharp spikes otom to full extension suddenly, catg Emily off guard and causio trip.

  “The hell,” Emily mutters with a frown, gring down at her feet.

  “Are you alright?” Juliana asks, steadying Emily to help her stay upright.

  “Yeah, I’m fine.” She uses a spark of maa in an effort to retract the spikes, opting to extend the other foot’s when that fails. “I repaired my boots after the expedition, and apparently I made a mistake, that’s all.”

  I checked them with a maa s though. There’s no way I made a mistake.

  They head to Emily’s room, but as they pass Juliana’s room, they find a mage waiting for them.

  “Juliana!” The tall, spindly man runs over the momeices them. “Thank Goddess I found you.”

  “What’s wrong, Marco?”

  “Margaret and Boris are both out of tact outside The Dome, and today is mandrake harvesting day! I ’t gather them all alone. Please help me,” he begs pitifully, falling to his knees in the hallway before them.

  Juliana looks flicted for a few moments, lookiween Mard Emily, before letting out a sigh.

  “Sorry, Emi,” Juliana says as she turns and gives Emily a hug.

  “It’s fine. I’ll just fix my faulty shoes while yone.”

  They part ways, Juliana leaving with Marco to go help in The Dome’s herb gardens, and Emily slipping into her room alone. She sits down at her workbend removes her boots with a scowl.

  Was Jules having to leave the influence of the system as well? Is it gonna keep annoyiil I listen?

  Frowning at the thought, she performs prehensive ss of her boots with maa, quickly disc the source of her issue. A small steel pin that was holding one of the spikes’ tensioning springs in pce has sorn in half.

  “It must have been damaged during the expedition and I didn’t notice,” she mutters, taking the boots apart and removing the pin.

  After extrag the failed part, Emily fires up the Steam Sourd gathers a few materials to mae a rept part. As she’s cutting a steel rod to size on the bandsaw, she hears a loud metallic crack. Ag on instinct, Emily ducks, narrowly avoiding a shard of metal that flies out of the rge mae’s body.

  The saw peters out, slowly losing its momentum and gaining an unpleasant screech as the internal meisms keep partially w. Emily quickly deactivates the steam flow, closing a valve to the mae before turning off The Source.

  “Was that the system too?” she questions slightly nervously, gng at the fragment of metal , now embedded in her belt sahat almost took her eye out. “This is going from annoying to dangerous.”

  As if to answer her question, another system notification pops into view.

  ˉˉˉˉˉ

  Warning! Quest requirement for [Alchemical Aspirations] u in final timeline.

  Please plete requirement:

  -Create and successfully brew a new uion (Error)

  _____

  “Fine,” she growls. “I don’t want to know what it’ll do .”