Wilona looked at the recipe in front of her with squinted eyes. Fuzz was kind enough to not just grow them a lab—or brewing hut, whatever—but the place also had all the things she could possibly need when making potions; shelves full of prepared ingredients, stands for their cauldrons, and more importantly, a podium for recipe books! It stopped her from constantly using one hand to carry a book which is like, super convenient.

  The hut was pretty spacious too. From the outside, it looked like a giant boulder with a door at the front. Two windows sandwiched said door for ventilation, but right now, they are closed since Wilona isn't working on anything dangerous.

  She's just making a mana potion, and that's it.

  The bowl of Cerulean Manaberries on a table to her right looked pretty safe, and the dried stalks of Aurelian Crownblooms next to them had been prepared so meticulously that they looked like sticks instead of a plant. There’s also the powdered flowers of the Crownbloom—they are there in case Wilona wanted to add some amplification to her brew in a pinch.

  "Okay, so what does this say?.." Below the paragraphs telling her to use a cauldron enchanted with Ancanor and Iridian, sits the actual recipe. "Brew mana fluid until viscous, add water and... stir?" Wilona tilted her head. That’s it? "This seems pretty easy."

  After all that talk about how alchemy is dangerous and volatile, she expected some kind of recipe that's more instructions than words, but isn't this one super simple? Maybe the truly dangerous recipes are in advanced alchemy books? If that's the case...

  "I can totally just wing this, can't I?" Wilona looked at the cauldron. She nodded. "I'm winging the living fuck out of this one—wait, is there a risk to that?"

  Wilona flipped through the pages in search of one, but other than some people experiencing something called "overcharge," there isn’t. Wilona huffed and went back to the recipe for a mana potion. She rolled her eyes. "Like, I know what a sugar rush is, book, chill out."

  Why is it acting like having a lot of energy is a bad thing? What does it think coffee is for? Obviously, it's for when office workers need that extra boost of energy when they go over time and like, that's the point?

  Wilona grabbed a handful of berries and crushed them inside a clean piece of fabric. Getting mana fluid—a catch-all term, though the more accurate version of it would be "Aethex"—is basically the same as harvesting soy milk, and with how much she's done that these last few weeks, she's basically an expert when it comes to doing it.

  The cauldron was filled until around a quarter before she diluted the fluid using regular water. She stirred it for a bit as per the instructions. Afterwards, the book told her to add Alchemist's Mawfern into the mix and then stir until the contents of the cauldron turned grey.

  Wilona lit the firewood beneath the cauldron and then crushed some dried Mawfern seeds for future use. As the mixture began to simmer, she chopped up a few Manaberries to add to the mix. She did the same to six Crownbloom stalks and pushed them aside.

  If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  She stirred the cauldron for a while, waiting, humming. There’s really nothing interesting going on besides the constant rotation she made with her arms. Once the mixture in the cauldron turned dark grey, she threw in the Manaberries she got and blended everything together until the water turned blue.

  To break down the leftover pieces that came from the berries, she dumped in the crushed Mawfern seeds and stirred.

  The mixture is now nearing its completion, and the last thing she needed to do is to amplify it using the Crownbloom. The stalks went in, she stirred, added a bit of Crownbloom dust whenever the color of the concoction dulled, and then finished everything by killing the fire and letting the potion rest.

  Once cooled, the product found its way into several containers: potion bottles, jars, water flasks, a pot of fruit jam, the container where she keeps her venison jerky, mixed into some of the spices, added into her poison root jar—those sorts of things.

  The end goal for making the potion wasn't to sell it, no—Wilona has had a dream when she was a child, and that is to eat something truly magical once in her lifetime. Sure, her previous life may have ended, but her new one had magic! And now? Now she can fulfill her dreams.

  Wilona walked out of the lab with a smile on her face. She waved towards Fuzz and showed the mushroom a clay jar she plucked from the air. "Look! I added mana potions into my fruit jam!"

  "That's... exciting?" Fuzz tilted her head. She was genuinely confused, which Wilona didn't get—like, it's magical food! "Why did you do it? Was it not to your liking?"

  "What? No! I did it because that's what I wanted. The potion is actually kind of strong, like, it's light blue," Wilona corrected.

  "I can see that," Fuzz muttered while looking at a transparent bottle full of said liquid. "You added your leftovers into our food?"

  "Not leftovers. I could have actually made five bottles but decided to only make one. The rest I either reserved in some clay pot or put inside one of my glass jars to turn into a nightlight—"

  "Don't you have a lantern for that?"

  "—because I thought—oh yeah!" Wilona snapped her fingers. She nodded and opened the jar to pour it into the vase full of venison. "I didn't realize that!" Fuzz watched on. "Anyway, like, the ones in the clay pots are there for me to like, use on food. Maybe meat? Meanwhile, the one in my water flask is something I want to drink. You know, to see what it tastes like."

  "I see?" Fuzz would have choked if she had the ability to. "You want to know what mana potions taste like?"

  "Yah," Wilona nodded in confirmation. "Like, obviously it's not gonna taste good like you said, but what if, you know? There's a good chance that it might enhance taste. It's not like anyone else tried it before."

  "That's because no one in their right mind would waste a mana potion on food. There are magical culinary items out there—you can simply use them if you want a bit of magic to your meal." Fuzz explained lengthily. Now, normally Wilona wouldn't listen to her, but then she heard that there is something out there for magical food. "Not only are such items meant to be long-lasting, but they also enhance the meal in such a way that only a spell can—are you even listening to me?"

  "I am!" Wilona raised her hands in defense. It's not like she doesn't listen to Fuzz sometimes—she just lets her explanations drawl on without listening to them like, 80 percent of the time. "I'm actually interested in what those things are."

  "Well, for starters, there are magical utensils that can enhance a food's taste and even improve palate when used. Then there's the meat of magical beasts and magical plants that, while similar to the herbs you are growing here, are strictly for cooking, not alchemy."

  That just makes Wilona believe that the herbs she has can be used for cooking food. "So you're saying that if I add like, the herbs that I have into my cooking raw, then they can be considered a magical ingredient?"

  "What? Of course not—wait. Yes." Fuzz stopped in confusion. "That makes some sense now that I've thought about it, maybe?"

  "What do you mean maybe?" Wilona looked at the myceloid strangely.

  "It is just as I said, I'm not sure. I've never dabbled in magical cooking before."

  "Right." To be fair, Fuzz is a mushroom and she's said multiple times she isn't into cooking, so Wilona can't exactly blame her. "Raw ingredients it is then."

  After putting away everything, Wilona prepared to cook her dinner while Fuzz went ahead and started on her bath. She got a bowl of Manaberries next to her, some soy milk, a bit of poison—she's really taken a liking to it—bread, potatoes, and some ground beef.

  "What are you doing?" Fuzz asked as she walked over.

  "Making a patty," Wilona casually replied as she finished pouring a tiny drop of her mana potion into the beef. Can’t have it soggy after all. "You're gonna love this, trust me."

  "I'm afraid I can't exactly taste anything as of right now."

  "Oh, right." Wilona frowned. That's really disappointing. She shrugged. "More for me then."