"So powerful… Is this what the academy's High Apprentices are like?"
Edwyn looked at Erik standing at the center of the hall and couldn't help but sigh in admiration. As a Mage apprentice practicing bloodline alchemy, Edwyn had a better grasp than most of the sheer force behind that earlier swing of the staff.
If that blow had landed on him, even a graze would have meant serious injury, and a direct hit, death.
And yet, Erik had caught it like it was nothing.
"My master said that Erik is Vice Dean Aelyx's prized apprentice," Elia commented casually. "I heard he's so talented the Vice Dean wants him to skip the Mage Trial altogether and just return home to inherit his family's resources and become a full Mage."
"Family?" Edwyn was stunned. "Erik is from a Mage family?"
Mage families were a hallmark of the early days of the Magus Civilization, and they still existed today. Though no longer as prominent, they had become more secretive. The more powerful ones often used academies as their public-facing institutions, while the weaker ones would align themselves with academies, becoming vassals of Grand Mages in hopes of claiming a share of power in this new age of inter-galactic exploration and colonialism.
Regardless of strength, Mage families always invested far more into the cultivation of their offspring than ordinary Mage descendants.
"Yeah, at least that's what I heard from my teacher."
As the social gathering went on, the atmosphere in the hall grew livelier. With music floating from an unknown source, familiar apprentices began to dance in the center of the hall.
"Ed, want to go dance for a bit?" Elia asked, a little bored.
This scene was all too familiar to her. As the daughter of a wealthy merchant, she had attended plenty of aristocratic balls.
"I'll pass," Edwyn replied, brushing off a few apprentices who had come over to chat. Despite keeping a low profile, some well-informed students already knew what he looked like.
"I'm not good at that."
He was starting to regret attending the event. At this time on a normal day, he would be reading in his dorm or brewing potions, not wasting time making small talk with a group of scheming apprentices.
"Then let's go back. This feels no different from those noble parties."
On the other side of the hall, Joseph was entertaining a crowd of apprentices. Unlike the low-profile Edwyn, Joseph, an official apprentice under Lord Ulrich and a Mage descendant, was quite well known.
"Joseph, I heard you've mastered the production of Focus Potions?" one apprentice flattered.
Joseph downed his drink in one go and said proudly, "You heard right. My teacher already gave me the formula. From now on, Ulrich's shop will be stocking at least fifty bottles a month!"
The crowd instantly gasped.
Although Ulrich's alchemy shop did sell Focus Potions, the supply was always inconsistent. Some months they might have 30 to 50 bottles, and others only a few. As a result, even though the official price was five magic stones per bottle, they often sold for one-third more among apprentices. In low-supply months, the price could double or even more.
Stockpiling Focus Potions had practically become a business.
Joseph was pleased with their reactions. His success rate with potion brewing was nearly 50%, a talent even his master praised. That's why Ulrich had entrusted him with the formula.
Just as he was enjoying the moment, he happened to glance at the entrance and saw two apprentices leaving.
One of them looked very familiar.
"Elia?"
Joseph's alcohol-clouded brain hesitated for a moment, but before he could confirm, the two had already vanished out the door.
"Whatever. So what if it was her?" Joseph muttered, shaking his head.
He had no shortage of women now. Just a pretty girl with a bit of talent. Let her go play with that poor apprentice.
A short-sighted woman who'll regret it later.
With that thought, Joseph went back to drinking and basking in the attention.
…
The social gathering didn't change Edwyn's life. Boring, monotonous, dull, that was the dominant theme of a Mage Apprentice's, and even a Mage's, daily life.
Over the next three months, Edwyn dedicated most of his time to potion brewing. Throughout the process, he had been doing one thing, recording data. As he succeeded with more and more potions, his dataset grew.
"Hm… still no obvious patterns."
After an all-nighter, Edwyn stared at his thick notebook. It recorded every detail from all the potions he had made. He had hoped to find a trend, some rule that would improve his success rate and eventually allow easy mass production.
But so far, his hypothesis had failed.
"Could it be that potion brewing really just comes down to experience and gut feeling?" Edwyn stared at the data, feeling discouraged.
Mages valued empirical evidence. Numbers don't lie. No obvious pattern meant… no pattern.
He tossed the notebook aside, deep in thought. He had done hundreds of experiments, surely he couldn't have missed everything?
Just then, there was a knock at the door.
Outside stood Elia, dark circles under her eyes, yawning as she handed Edwyn a stack of manuscript pages.
"Ed, I finished what you asked. This Ice Spike spell is fascinating. After dissecting its rune structure, I found that most of the runes are used for generating force. Only a small portion are for forming the actual ice spike."
"That kind of design is practically unheard of in other elemental spells."
Edwyn flipped through the pages. They detailed the entire spell dissection process. On the last page was a simplified model containing only one ring of runes.
"This is the source of Ice Spike's kinetic force. I hope this is what you needed," Elia said, yawning again. She'd barely slept the past few days, working nonstop to break down the spell for Edwyn.
"Perfect. This is really helpful." Edwyn gave her a gentle pat on the head. "Go get some rest. You've worked hard."
"Hehe, I'll be going then."
Returning to his desk with the papers, Edwyn decided to take a mental break and put the potion problem aside.
"Ice Spike… Let's see what you're really capable of."
Edwyn flipped through Elia's pages. She had thoughtfully included the energy conversion efficiency of the rune set.
"Wait. Sixty percent conversion rate?!" Edwyn was shocked by the note. That meant for every unit of mana he input, 0.6 units were converted into kinetic energy for the ice spike.
If that efficiency existed in his past life's internal combustion engines, the Nobel Prize would've had to be renamed after him.
But he soon realized this was only a theoretical value. The actual rate depended on the rune's material substrate. The better it conducted mana, the closer the efficiency would get to 50%.
"Mana conversion… mana…"
Suddenly, Edwyn froze.
He realized what he had overlooked.
He had recorded physical changes, chemical reactions, and countless other bits of data, but he hadn't tracked one crucial variable: mana flow during potion brewing.
He had been blinded by knowledge from his previous world. In this world of magic, mana should be the most important part of potion-making!
Enlightened, Edwyn bolted from his room… then ran back in.
Going down the stairs would be too slow!
He leapt out the window onto the balcony and sprinted straight toward the commercial zone.
He needed help, immediately.