Sitting in an old office surrounded by shelves upon shelves of old dusty tomes, grimoirs, and forms of magical books written by famous, infamous, and monstrous scholars of magic, well, at least the ones allowed to be read by the Ishoro Kingdom, the second smallest nation in the western continent, and sittign at the desk was a pale young man in his early twenties, wearing a medium blue robe with a gold outline, a red shirt with bandages wrapped around his neck, with small bits of purple veins revealing themselves as he dapped the sweat off of his forehead.
"No, no, if I added the fire elemental symbol in here, the whole formula would be off, I would get a blinding potion, instead of a sight one."
This scholar was Lukas Cassian, a two-circle mage of the Bronze Magic Tower, oen renowned for their vast assortment of potion recipes and the gathering spot of talented human alchemists, alongside the occasional Ents whose mastery over nature itself has helped them make leaps in progress in various areas of alchemy.
"Would a plant bathed in lightning magic be a good substitute for it, or would it turn the potion itself harmful?"
Right now, Lukas was leaning over a scroll with a vast assortment of different symbols, ingredient lists, and possible combinations of the two. Some of the words were circled, others crossed out as he scratched his forehead, trying to figure out the proper combination to a potion he was trying to create, one he titled 'Sight Potion', a specialized potion meant to heal one's eyes and allow one to see the flow of mana itself.
This was the 6th month into what he was assured would be no longer than 3 months, those being the tower master's words, Archmage Leon, the kingdom's designated alchemist. A man who was able to complete and fully stabilize five mana circles within his soul and cast powerful elemetnal magic, and create potions of amazing quality/effect. Most people who chose this field to study were extremmly jealous of him and the other Archmages of the other nations' Bronze Magic Tower, and that's not accounting for the Gold, Silver, Steel, and Platinum towers whose specializations lay in other areas, but whose tower masters were just as strong, if not stronger than the Bronze towers' Archmages.
"Perhaps the old textbooks in the tower's basement will provide a clue or two," Lukas said, grabbing a few of the scrolls as he got up.
Approaching the old wooden door, he opened it slowly, hoping not to disturb the other mages who were either asleep, deep in study, or having a meeting about something or another. Right now, Lukas was on the third floor of a five-floor gigantic tower, one that was large enough to contain various laboratories and ingredients/equipment, some noble houses couldn't even include or hold properly.
As he slowly descended the steps, he passed by a couple of the other mages who called this tower home, or in some cases, work if they were rich or influential enough to gain a place of residence outside the tower, which Lukas was not. He was lucky enough to be able to wear clothing that better suited him rather than the brown robes inscribed with the tower's symbol, a black serpent with bronze eyes.
He shook his head once he passed them, tossing out the thoughts and instead focusing on the task at hand. Yet he took a moment to stop and look out the window of the tower. The night sky was particularly beautiful that night, with the cracked moon hanging over the world like an old, worn-out chandelier. Its beauty captivated him for a moment, and he then shook his head, stopping himself from being distracted, and continued his way down the tower, soon enough reaching the first floor, the second largest part of the tower.
It was a place where new disciples, apprentices of well-known mages, and students of the various academies were welcomed to try their hand at alchemy. Either that or a testing ground for potential recruits who wished to join them, and was of course stocked with the basic necessities for such things, and he smiled, remembering the days when he was an academy student, still trying to find his place in the world, and still so naive and innocent when it came to magic and the larger world, wanting to explore it all.
Passing by them, he approached an old brown cellar door that had a grey outline and grabbed the handle, struggling to lift it. Once he finally opened it, he made sure to lock the chain onto the side so that he didn't have to do it again once he was done with his business downstairs. Either way, he slowly started making his way down, making sure to light the various torches lining the wall, making Lukas realise just how underused this part of the tower was, seeing as it didn't use lighting crystals to light up the area and still had torches to do so.
Either way, he used a basic elemental flame spell to light one of them up, taking it with him to help him see the way down and take care not to trip and fall on some root or loose floorboard. The place was old enough to be in disrepair after all, but right now, Lukas was desperate to get results, so he was braving the darkness and odd basement to do so.
Once he reached the end of the staircase, Lukas lifted his torch and lit up a piece of string connected to a chandelier, although he gulped as sparks flew off it, nearly hitting some of the old bookshelves, he let out a sigh of relief as nothing terrible happened and the candles were lit up, allowing Lukas to see the room before him finally. The vast ocean of bookshelves did not do the place justice; it was a repository of ancient knowledge, some simply being stored down here due to be outdated, others because the information was untranslated/written in a dead language.
For Lukas, though, it was the last place he could think of that could have some information on what he was looking for, with the other rooms connected to it being used for storage, each having their own entrance, meaning almost no one came down to what was essentially a gigantic old library. Shaking his head, Lukas once more tossed these thoughts to the side as he began shifting through the books, taking note of the ones already translated and ignoring the ones untranslated, not wanting to go through the hassle of trying to figure out if they were written in a dead tongue or were simply forgotten about.
Then he stumbled upon an old red tome, one covered in dust, and yet something about it attracted Lukas to it. Perhaps it was the golden outline it had, perhaps the oddity of the name 'Daemonium Doctrina', which roughly translates to Devil Knowledge or something like that, a rather odd name for a book in Lukas's opinion, but nevertheless, he carefully pulled it out of the shelf and saw the front cover, nearly wincing in response.
It was of a gigantic yellow eye embedded in a cross, with strange, arcane symbols surrounding it and various other symbols he did recognize but couldn't pinpoint where they came from. Turning it over, he saw nothing else of note on it, but for some reason, he had a strange feeling about the book. But looking over the first few pages already revealed new bits of information he didn't consider before, like using a plant that's been bathed in water-aligned mana to help the potion settle and help the eyes see the river of mana surrounding everything.
Or something along those lines, honestly speaking, the language this book was written in wasn't Lucas's forte, so he was making a few assumptions, unfortunately.
"Now this, this is interesting." He said as he grabbed the nearest chair, doing his best to get the dust off, and sat down to read.
The book itself was interesting, whilst he had a hard time translating it as he read, he was able to get the gist of the more basic information. With one of those things being the author's name, Pravum, which was a rather strange name for a mage/scholar, and well, lessen Luka's trust in the book, lessen seeing as how the name translated to Devious or something like that.
Although that didn't take away the possibility of this being extremmly useful information, well, if it was true and not written by some bastard. It explained some useful potion formulas that would cut down the time on production, for example, a few of the mana recovery recipes would cut down on the current production time by a few hours.
"This is truly fascinating, but not what I came here for. Does this book have recipes for sight-based potions, or is it all a jumble of information not pertaining to one subject?"
With that, Lukas spent the rest of the night reading the book, doing his best to translate the parts he could, and writing down the words he couldn't, at least not yet. Each time, taking special care to jot the page number so that he wouldn't confuse any of the wording, as he knew better than most what the cost of failure was when creating a potion, and as he touched the purple vein on his neck, he flipped the page, seeing a Venn diagram of a strange humanoid body, one he didn't recongize from the continents countless species.
It fascinated and terrified Lukas; the body itself was humanoid in base, but the large curved horns, the third eye in the center of its head, and the grotesque body sent shivers down his spine.
"What the hell is this thing?" Lukas said as he flipped to the next page, the details only getting more horrific as it went on and on.
The next page began detailing the body of this...this thing, the thing the book named 'Gusion' was a demon of knowledge; however, instead of detailing what the beast said or revealed to the author or other people. It instead revealed the insides of the beast, the two hearts and an odd worm-like black organ that replaced the creature's stomach or its equivalent. The amount of detail was shockingly bizarre and made Lukas wonder, why, why wasn't this book more well-known or even copied, sent to the various mage towers for further research to find this creature?
Well, that is, if the writing was true, the various alchemical potions seemed to be true or testable at the very least. This, however, was probably the reason why the book wasn't more widespread or even its recipes taught. Lukas had begun to think this book was written by a madman as it kept going on, detailing everything about this demon, its habits, diet, personality, and everything else about it, including a strange magic, Hoard, and an ability to garner all sorts of spells and replicate them easily, even if the caster only saw them once.
While fascinating in theory, Lukas scoffed as he rapidly flipped through the remaining pages, choosing to skip this section to see if some other page contained the Sight Potion recipe he was looking for, or if this was a wild goose chase.
"Really, skipping all teh way to the end, not knowing that right in front of your eyes, is what you desire?"
"How odd, humans are usually more perceptive than this, although the years may not have been kind to me." An odd otherworldly voice said, its smooth and inviting tone drawing Lukas in.
He jolted up, dropping the book to the ground, his eyes darting back and forth around the storage room, trying to figure out where the voice was coming from. His eyes were frightened and full of nervousness, trying to figure out where this voice was and why this feeling, the feeling underneath his nervousness, why he felt a tingle, a shiver from something that wasn't there, similiar to the diagram of the...the demon he just read.
He then slowly looked down, and saw that the book, the book that fell facing upward, showing the pages he was just on, now flipped over on its cover as the eye...the eye had shifted. It was looking at him, with curiosity and somehow boredom all mixed together, as though it was both exciting this and not at the same time.
"Ahhh, finally noticing me, little mage, well then let's talk." The book said, now fully revealing itself, as a toothy grin opened right underneath the eye.