Over the next 20 days, Lucas made a number of important discoveries about his new ash-water washing liquid.
On the day of his first success, Lucas took all the ashes from the kitchen stove, sorted through them to remove the large pieces, and then dumped them all into a large bucket before adding two parts water for every part of ash. The young boy figured that while a very concentrated washing liquid would probably not be ideal to work with as it burned his skin after too much exposure, he could always just dilute it.
Although an equal mix of ash and water had yielded some washing liquid in his first experiment, Lucas wasn't satisfied with how much liquid was left after letting it sit, so he added a bit more water for this second round.
Recalling from his first experiment that the colour of the ash-water didn't change much from the first day to the fifth day, Lucas tried out this second batch after letting it sit overnight, but he found that it basically didn't work at all.
Also, while it was still murky, it was a different shade compared to his previous attempt and it also didn't burn nearly as much when it got on his skin.
Lucas figured he just hadn't left it long enough, so he waited the full 5 days again; but when the fifth day came, it still didn't work.
Uncertain what had gone wrong, Lucas went back over the steps he had taken, trying to figure out what mistake he might have made. It took him quite a bit of head-scratching and pondering before he eventually arrived at the conclusion that there must be something different about the ashes he used for his second experiment compared to his first; after all, he used the same process, buckets, and water as last time.
Lucas realized that he needed to be even more meticulous with his experiments from now on if he really wanted to succeed. As such, that evening, using a small booklet of paper, which while not cheap also wasn't too expensive, Lucas recorded exactly what type of wood was used in their stove for cooking, as well as its approximate size and weight.
The next day, Lucas began his third experiment, adding the ashes to a bucket before stacking a different type of wood in the kitchen to be used to cook that day, planning to repeat this process the following day with another type of wood.
Fortunately for the boy, although there were dozens of types of trees in the nearby Great Western Forest, only 3 types were regularly used as firewood, so he only needed to use 3 different buckets to determine which type of wood produced the washing-liquid he was looking for.
A few days passed, and Lucas was able to determine that only ashes from Krast and Lych trees produced usable washing-liquid, while the most common Redwood didn't.
Lucas didn't know why this was the case, only that it was.
When he asked his father about it, Drake suggested it might have something to do with the fact that both Krast and Lych trees shed their leaves in the winter, while Redwoods kept their needles year-round.
Lucas felt like some vague information was jogged lose when his father suggested this to him, but it was just a fleeting thought before it once more faded into the background. By now, the young boy was fairly used to this happening so he had stopped getting frustrated over it. The way he saw it, if he could access the new knowledge he obtained, great, if not, there really wasn't much he could do to force the issue other than to keep doing what he was already doing.
Over the next dozen or so days, Lucas made several batches of washing-liquid and continued experimenting with its concentration and usefulness for scrubbing stains from the dirty clothes that his father's smithy never seemed to lack. Drake was quite happy about this as well as it meant he didn't have to spend nearly as much time trying to clean up the rags he used while smithing thanks to his son's experiments.
Anna was also pleasantly surprised when she brought a big batch of her son's new washing-liquid to help clean out the equipment storage the Town Guard was using in the Town Lord's Manor.
The musty and somewhat dingy warehouse had a clean and refreshing scent to it after being scrubbed down with brooms and the washing-liquid, far more so compared to when the Town Guard just used water to flush it out.
Unfortunately, after washing one particular cloth several times, Lucas made another unexpected discovery that caused him to frown. The rag, which admittedly was already quite well worn, seemed to be breaking down faster after being washed with his washing-liquid.
This degradation wasn't noticeable at first, but after over a dozen or so cycles, Lucas was convinced this rag was coming apart faster than it should, with Drake agreeing with his son's assessment as he commented that he could normally use one of these cloths for a couple of years before they became so threadbare, yet this particular one was nearing that point despite only being a year old.
While he had successfully created a product that could be used to clean up all kinds of stains on clothes and even found several other uses for it, earning him much praise, Lucas found himself at an impasse.
What he wanted was something to clean himself with, not clothes or floors, but he had no idea how to turn his very liquidy ash-water into a cream, much less a solid. Lucas knew he had to add something more to it, but he had no clue what these others ingredients were, how many of them there might be, or how much of each he should add.
Even if he added different ingredients one at a time, it was unlikely he would luckily stumble onto the right answers. He needed another clue, or a hint of some kind, but where was he supposed to find that?
His family was fairly well-off, but not to the point where he could just randomly take different things and waste them on a set of experiments he had no clue would ever succeed.
Lucas eventually determined he had no choice but to set this matter aside for now and hope he came across some kind of inspiration in the future. Perhaps more of his new memories could be jogged in time, or perhaps he could gain some insight after acquiring the bottle of Bathing Cream his Aunt Sasha was trying to get for him.
This didn't mean that Lucas gave up on making more ash-water, though; far from it.
After seeing the potential utility for this new cleaning-liquid, the young boy had a certain thought one day, If I need money to perform more experiments, maybe I can get it by selling this stuff?
Naturally, he couldn't just depend on the ashes from his family's small kitchen stove to creating enough ash-water, but fortunately, there was no shortage of places that burned wood and charcoal for all sorts of reasons, like his father's forge or the kitchen at the Town Lord's Manor. All he had to do was convince his mom and dad to allow him to collect these ashes.
As for the logistics of this new business venture as well as who his clients would be, Lucas hadn't quite figured that out yet, but he felt it shouldn't be too difficult.
…..
Despite his flurry of experiments during this time, Lucas hadn't slacked on his other responsibilities and today, as the end of the first month of Summer approached, he finally completed the simplified version of the Unarmed Foundations Martial Art, nearly a month ahead of schedule.
It took a fair bit of thought and consideration, but eventually, the boy had settled on teaching 14 of the 22 Stances, 25 of the 41 Figures, 52 of the 96 Motions, and 110 of the 284 Forms.
Lucas had decided on this particular configuration in order to solely use the simplified Art to build up strength and stamina, eliminating most of the benefits the true Unarmed Foundations Martial Art provided to speed, flexibility, and reflexes.
He also planned on not teaching others the mental conditioning aspects of the Martial Art, such as the meditation methods or specific breathing rhythms.
While this stripped-down version was nowhere near as good as the original, it was still orders of magnitude better than the random training most of the Town Guard did on a regular basis, so it was still incredibly valuable. Lucas figured that after the Town Guard began cultivating this Body Tempering Art, within a year, their overall strength would increase by at least 10%, which was a massive improvement to say the least.
Over the past month or so, Charles, Sasha, Eris, and Anna had all been diligently learning the true Unarmed Foundations Martial Art from Lucas, and had all by now at least memorized all of the Stances, Figures, and Motions.
As for the Forms, Lucas' students were making good progress, with his mother and big sister having learned about a third of the 284. Of course, none of them had truly mastered the Stances, Figures, Motions, or Forms, at least not according to Lucas' standards; but given enough time, that would surely happen.
The only one who was disgruntled about the whole situation was Drake, who due to his old injury couldn't properly practice the Martial Art his son had introduced to their family. This kind of frustration was nothing new to Drake, however, as ever since his knee was injured, he had faced similar setbacks in life many times.
It was for this reason that Drake was still stuck in the Fourth Step Vein Opening Realm, while his wife had already reached the Seventh Step, even though he had been in a higher Realm when they first met some 20 years ago.
Although Drake never mentioned this to him, Lucas could tell that his dad was somewhat depressed that he couldn't increase his strength and cultivation like everyone else.
Lucas wasn't discouraged however, as he felt that somewhere in his newfound knowledge there had to be a way to help heal his father's right leg. This was nothing more than a kind of instinct, but the young boy was confident he could one day make it happen. Even if there wasn't a way to fix his father's limp in his new memories, Lucas was sure there was some way in this world to do so; after all, it was said that powerful Cultivators could fly freely through the sky and flatten mountains with a single punch, so healing a limp shouldn't be an issue, right?
In the mean time, in addition to creating the simplified version of the Unarmed Foundations Martial Art, Lucas had also been working on putting together a set of exercises for his father which specifically dealt with building upper body strength, something which would be quite useful to him in his work as a blacksmith. Lucas hoped that this would at least tide over his dad until he could find a way to heal his knee.
After he finished writing down everything about the simplified Martial Art in a small notebook, Lucas turned in for the night, anticipating that he would be teaching it to his Uncle Charles and Aunt Sasha tomorrow so that they could begin preparing to pass it along to the Town Guard.
…..
The next day came, Lucas woke up, and began his usual routine, but before he could complete his morning exercises, he heard someone knocking hard on the front door of his home.
Curious, Lucas stopped what he was doing, ran around to the front yard, and was surprised to find his Aunt Sasha standing there with an expression that was an odd mix of surprise, happiness, and solemnity, an expression that only turned even more complicated when she spotted her little nephew, her brow even scrunching into a deep frown.