Bookbound Bunny

B2 - Chapter 62 - Fairymoss Redux

After getting Professor Ollie's permission, Lily went back to her room to fetch her supplies while he went ahead to inform Professor Sylwel of their little brewing demonstration.

Lily was actually quite excited, as this would be her first proper brewing session since she arrived at Regarth, as it had been nothing but a few herbal remedies to show Lotte the ropes. After all, a bedroom was not a place to perform such activities, although the thought had crossed her mind of filling her room with glyphs to facilitate her wants.

Lily collected her meager supplies, mostly hand-me-downs from Camilla, except for the rare piece of equipment she bought herself with her savings. She also naturally checked her stock and saw that she still had two portions of Fairymoss.

Miss Camilla gave it to me, thinking I'd need it because I didn't tell her I swapped to imbuing my own ink. At the time, I wanted to sneakily leave it back in her store, thinking it would go to waste, but now it's actually saving me!

Silently thanking Camilla for her unexpected foresight, Lily promised to tell her all about the outcome of this brewing batch in her following letter. Lily had only sent one letter during the first week, simply telling everyone she passed the entrance exam and was enjoying her first few lessons.

Lily wanted to send letters often because of her own frustrating experience with the lack of communication from Rose last year. She'd promised to write to Lily, and it had taken her ages to finally do so, most of which had to be redacted to keep Regarth's secrets.

With everything packed, Lily was about to lift the bag when Arakil made the obvious suggestion—use telekinesis. Lily wanted to slap herself for not thinking of that sooner, and quickly cast the spell to lift up the bag and make it follow after her.

As long as the weight doesn't change after the casting, this is pretty good for moving my stuff! Lily thought positively.

Despite her positive attitude, she kept another casting of the spell at the ready to catch it, just in case. The last thing she wanted was to break one of her valuables. That horrific thought was actually providing the perfect training opportunity for her to sustain the spell and be vigilant.

As Lily darted down the passageways heading towards the alchemy basement, she caught a few strange stares from the students she passed by. After all, it wasn't every day you saw a small bunny followed by a large floating package and a book chasing after her.

When Lily reached the basement, both professors were already waiting for her, engaged in what appeared to be a heated discussion about tools and resources.

"Sorry if I'm late," Lily quickly apologized.

"Not at all," Professor Ollie replied, quickly regaining his calm demeanor. "I'm quite excited to see the results. I even brought my own pen and paper in the hopes of attempting to draw one myself, if that is alright with you?"

"Sure, I don't mind," Lily replied. If it were her old situation, she would have dreaded sharing such a precious resource, but with her own imbuing and now the glyph chalk, she didn't need to be so frugal.

"What's all this?" Professor Sylwel asked, pointing at Lily's belongings. "Surely it doesn't require this many ingredients?"

Lily shook her head, carefully lowered the package to the ground, and opened it to reveal the contents.

"I brought my own supplies," Lily explained.

Professor Sylwel took that as permission and wasted no time in looking through Lily's belongings, much to the horror of her and Ollie. Yet she quickly calmed down as, despite his rather hasty scrounging, he was actually delicately unpacking everything.

"Good gods, did you grow up in squalor?" Sylwel asked rather bluntly, looking at some of Lily's thoroughly used equipment. "How does someone with both alchemy and enchanting experience not have the funds to buy better equipment?"

Lily opened her mouth to say something, but Professor Ollie beat her to the punch. "She's unlicensed, or do you expect her to sell her wares on the black market?"

"Yes," Sylwel replied with zero hesitation. "After all, that's what I did before I got that piece of paper. I wasn't going to let a bunch of pencil pushers stop me from my pursuits."

Professor Ollie groaned, "Please do not suggest something to an impressionable youth with such a bright future ahead of her."

Sylwel shrugged and turned to Lily. "If you want to use my tools, you're welcome to," he said, pointing to the various stuff littered around the room. "Although I will admit I'm curious to see how well you'll brew under these circumstances. Considering you brought them, I can only presume you're confident enough to do so."

Lily nodded somewhat confidently. "I'd actually rather use my own stuff... no offense, but I'm used to using it, and I wouldn't want to ruin the batch because of unfamiliar equipment. Plus, I only have two batches of Fairymoss left."

Sylwel was nodding along while looking positively delighted by Lily's reasoning. However, what Lily had said must have intrigued Ollie as he interrupted unexpectedly.

"Fairymoss?" Ollie repeated in a questioning tone. "I admit I'm not very well versed in alchemy, but isn't that used to cure headaches?"

Lily silently nodded.

"Yes, it is," Sylwel confirmed. "Although that's only the case for demis. In humans, it actually can be used as a method for a minor Mana recovery."

"Really? How peculiar..." Ollie murmured.

"It likely has to do with bloodlines. Humans lacking one means the Fairymoss recovers a small portion of our Mana. In demis, the slight amount of Mana is overwhelmed by your blood, but it still stimulates your blood flow, which can alleviate pressure in the cranium," Sylwel explained.

"I see, I see," Ollie replied, sounding quite enthused. "And that Mana is what you want refined into the glyph ink!"

Lily nodded again.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

"Personally, I'm quite surprised at the use of Fairymoss," Sylwel said, throwing a small wrench in Ollie's recent understanding. "Even though it does have Mana properties, the amount is minuscule... Why not use deviltongue? Or orichalcum dust? Or even mermaid tears!"

"Those are way too expensive!" Lily cried out, instantly providing a simple answer to his curiosity. "Those are all used in Mana potions for everyone, so the prices are through the roof! Meanwhile, Fairymoss was cheap enough that even I could afford it, and even with its Mana issues, it's still enough to work."

"Intriguing... Although if money were such a concern, wouldn't blood glyphs be the obvious remedy, being practically free?" Sylwel asked.

"I hate blood... and needles..." Lily admitted.

"Enough to go this far?" Sylwel asked again, pointing at the Fairymoss.

"I imagine Lily started learning glyphs before she even knew about her bloodline," Professor Ollie said, inserting himself once again in the conversation.

Lily's poker face failed spectacularly as she stared wide-eyed at the professor. Sylwel also couldn't help hiding his surprise, staring at his fellow professor before turning to Lily with curious fascination.

"Judging by your reaction, I believe I hit the mark," Ollie chuckled.

"How?" Lily asked, wondering if there was a fatal mistake in her backstory.

"Well, firstly, you seem to know more about glyphs than anything else," Ollie answered. "I imagine you started learning glyphs first, before anything else, as in theory you don't even need to be a mage to use them, as the history books mention. This is the only thing that explains your current proficiency and knowledge, unless you had a grandmaster enchanter as your personal tutor."

Neither Lily nor Sylwel said anything, so Ollie continued his postulating.

"Secondly, although I admit this is some extrapolation on my part, this explains your avoidance of bloodglyphs. You couldn't use them before awakening and needed to resort to Fairymoss. If you could, I imagine you would have been desperate enough at some stage to resort to them, regardless of your personal feelings. Since the Fairymoss worked, when your bloodline was actually revealed, you just doubled down on your bias against them, since you never reached that level of desperation."

The professor hadn't hit the mark, but he was close enough that Lily was left momentarily speechless.

"Wanting to learn magic no matter what is quite a dream," Sylwel finally said, breaking the silence. "I wonder if that is what led to her bloodline awakening?"

"If that were the case, I'm sure there would be many other examples," Ollie replied. "While I have no grounds or evidence for this, I'd choose to believe Lily was drawn to magic because of her bloodline."

Sylwel nodded. "I suppose that fits. There's certainly been similar examples."

The two professors looked at Lily, who had still remained silent this entire time.

"I wanted to learn magic no matter what," she answered simply.

Ollie nodded proudly. "It's no wonder you want to bring glyphs to the mock test then, it's what you're most comfortable with."

"So, are we going to proceed?" Sylwel asked, pointing back at the alchemy supplies.

Lily practically jumped at her supplies with enthusiasm, happy to divert the subject away from critically analyzing her past. She took out a small cauldron, a fresh bottle of ink, the Fairymoss, and a solvent solution designed to break down the ingredients without diluting the ink afterwards.

It really was a simple recipe, more about proper execution and carefully preparing the ingredients. It needed to be consistent enough to not break the flow of Mana, and even some leftover lumps could ruin it.

With most of her supplies set up, Lily then pulled out a slate and glyph chalk and began quickly throwing together a flame glyph. Both professors watched in fascination and examined her work with a critical eye from each of their disciplines.

The glyph was ready in moments, and Lily set up her cauldron atop it. She filled it with a small amount of water she had conjured before activating the glyph to ignite the flame.

"Forgive me, but why is it a triangle?" Ollie asked.

"Why can't it be a triangle?" Sylwel retorted. "I think it's pretty neat."

"Fire has a better affinity with triangles. Or anything with a point, but I find triangles the easiest to draw," Lily admitted.

"I'd definitely choose drawing a triangle over a cylindrical cone," Sylwel commented.

Lily knew the water had reached the right temperature when the glyph moved to the second phase, causing the flame to shrink and allow for a simmer.

The Fairymoss was already ground up for storage purposes, so she could just dump the contents into the boiling water. If Ollie doubted that she ground it herself, she could get Sylwel to verify her ingredient preparation.

Lily casually stirred her ladle clockwise, waiting for the next stage of the flame before adding the solvent. Perhaps sensing a moment of respite, Ollie cleared his throat.

"Forgive me again, but I don't understand why a flame would be more efficient as a triangle. It should produce the same amount of heat regardless of the shape, no?" Ollie asked.

"Yes, but it's more Mana efficient as a triangle," Lily answered. "I read that to further refine a glyph, a perfect drawing is not enough. The sigils need to be correctly balanced, and should be ones that are complementary or suited to the crest."

The flame changed again, and Lily reached for the solvent solution. To her surprise, it was being held out by Professor Sylwel as if he had predicted when she would need it.

"Thanks," she whispered before carefully pouring the solvent into the boiling Fairymoss in an anti-clockwise motion.

"Good technique," Sylwel commented.

Lily couldn't help but smile, delighted that Camilla's teachings were getting a chance to shine.

The solvent combined with the roaring flame meant the Fairymoss was dissolved completely, leaving not even the hint of any chunks remaining. The heat also helped boil away any excess water, leaving behind the pure solution she needed. Lily kept stirring until the flame went out, but she still took a moment to confirm everything was right, and only then did she add the ink.

The final step was just more stirring until the solution cooled, so Lily used the time to explain the steps and emphasize the importance of ensuring there were no lumps and an even consistency. She also explained that you couldn't skimp on the ink, as poor quality would similarly ruin the batch.

"I'm surprised you didn't get into ink making," Ollie joked.

"I tried... but I couldn't beat the professionals," Lily admitted.

"You should have transmuted it. Water to ink isn't too complicated an incantation," Sylwel replied casually.

"Sylwel!" Ollie yelled out. "First, the black market, now forbidden magic!? Please stop trying to corrupt her!"

"I was just pointing out the obvious solution, no need to summon the royal mageknights," Sylwel said with a shrug. "I can even do it for her; it would certainly save both of us some money, since I will need to compensate for her time and services, since I need some glyphs like this."

Ollie guffawed while Lily giggled. She noncommittally agreed, with the caveat that she would need to inspect it thoroughly before finalizing the arrangement. She always needed more ink, and if Sylwel was willing to supply it, she wasn't going to complain.

The alchemy professor was ecstatic and promptly filled an entire bucket with water. A few chants later, and he touched it, turning the whole contents pure black.

Professor Ollie began to grumble under his breath, Lily only catching a few of his complaints about "transmutation," "cheating," and "unethical".

"I can change the color, too, if you wish," Sylwel said casually, ignoring his fellow professors' turmoil.

"Thanks," Lily replied with surprise, almost stopping her stirring. "I'll stick to regular black ink for now, but I'll keep that in mind."

When the ink was done, Lily carefully siphoned it into three empty bottles and used telekinesis to lift out the last remnants from the cauldron before starting her washing procedure.

"One for each of us," Lily said happily to the two surprised professors.

Sylwel hastily grabbed his bottle, even sticking a finger in it and licking it. Ollie, on the other hand, picked up his carefully, as if cradling a delicate treasure. Lily couldn't help but laugh at how different the two professors were.