"So? Spit it out," Ashton said as he carried the pot with the anti-infestation potion inside. All the summons were in Ashton's vessel right now, and Sam was helping carry some of the remaining materials.

  "Spit what out?" Sam looked back at his friend with a puzzled expression.

  "Oh, not you, I'm talking about the Observer. They said they have a suggestion, but got quiet after that."

  "You sure it's not just another sponsorship agreement? You said they would ask you again, right?"

  Ashton shrugged, pushing through the pain of a small beetle that had dug into his shoulder-blade earlier. "No clue. I feel like they're discussing something right now."

  "Hm? What do you mean?"

  "Like, with each other. Usually, the constellations are kind of chirping constantly. There are breaks, obviously, but in a situation like this? Where the Observer dares to try and 'make a suggestion', they would definitely try to intervene or say something themselves," Ashton said, as the two of them walked upstairs back to Calibur. Sam asked Ashton to come inside and make the full potion and finish the treatment in his office, rather than sitting out there in the nude while treating himself.

  "And what do you think they're discussing?"

  "... I don't know. I don't have that much experience with constellations, and I practically have no experience directly interacting with one beyond the past few days," Ashton sighed and dropped down on an armchair in Sam's office, taking a deep breath. It was honestly kind of putting him on edge, seeing that they had suddenly grown completely silent.

  But either way, there were a few things that Ashton had to prioritize right now. For one, healing up. It was time to upgrade his potion-making setup.

  "Sam, I need you to get a few things for me." He had the backpacker give him a pencil and a piece of paper, and quickly wrote down a list of things that he needed. It was mostly stuff that he had seen around here in the kitchens or the basement.

  Pots, pans, knives, glasses, coffee filters, a French-press, a pour-over, as well as some towels, plus a few other small additions. He would need to improvise a bit, but it was about time that Ashton made some proper potions rather than the improvised stuff that he had been making.

  The ingredients that he had access to now were also slightly higher quality. There were some plants here and there that Ashton had been able to get his hands on.

  It didn't take long for Sam to come back with everything. He was a little out of breath, so he was clearly running around the building as fast as he could. Everything was in a cardboard box, so Ashton got started and set it all up on a table that he brought in while his friend was out.

  The first step of what Ashton had to do was simple. He had to engrave the outside of the various glass containers with different enchanting patterns. There were tons of glass cups in different sizes in the basement that Ashton had seen when he went downstairs to grab the door, and those were exactly what Sam had brought him.

  Most of them were just tall, cylindrical glasses, but that was perfect. But to be able to do.

  For that, Ashton quickly grabbed the 'All-Natural Watercolour Kit' that he got through the Guardian's quest. There were a few dyes here that showed unique reactions when under the right conditions, which Ashton was hoping to take advantage of. Using a small brush from a cheap paint kit that he got at a supply store while he was out before and a bit of water, Ashton started drawing patterns onto the outside of the glass. It didn't stick amazingly well, obviously, which was why Ashton used the undine's magic to quickly drain the moisture from those small spots to make the actual pigment stick to the glass a bit better. It still wasn't perfect, but it was better than nothing.

  There were various patterns that Ashton had to make. Some were specifically supposed to support extraction, others infusion, and then yet again others were made to help Ashton manipulate the mana pattern in more complex ways. There were a bit more than two dozen of these in total that Ashton had changed these glasses to. He, obviously, also labelled them properly by carving small notches into the edges at the top of the glasses, so that he would know which one did which without having to inspect the patterns super deeply.

  When that was done, Ashton got out a bottle with some leftover canned slime. He didn't have a lot of this, but he didn't need a lot either. Rather, he could use an ounce of slime to make a couple litres of the liquid that he needed by diluting it with rainwater and mixing in a few few dyes from the watercolour kit.

  After heating the mixture in a pot, Ashton dunked in the individual glasses.

  The dye on the outside of the glasses reacted extremely to this mixture, easily etching the complex patterns into the glass while leaving behind a faded red shine along those lines that had embedded itself in the glass in the process.

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  The concentrated heat that was created during that process basically melted the glass and the leftover parts of the dye and fused the two together.

  With each of these done, Ashton put them to the side, and then moved on to the pour-over coffee pot.

  It was fairly big, enough to hold three litres of liquid comfortably. Ashton would have preferred something bigger, but he had to work with what he had.

  "Hey, are you sure you don't need some sleep? You've been at this for like, two three hours already, and it doesn't seem like you'll be done anytime soon," Sam said with a concerned expression, carefully putting aside all the glasses that Ashton had made already.

  But he just replied with a scoff. "That's because I won't be done anytime soon, actually. After I'm done with all the glass, I have to move on to the metal, which is a bit more annoying. Because the metals parts can wear down and scratch up a lot more easily, I have to reinforce the enchantment patterns. If I have to guess, it'll take me until... two, maybe three in the afternoon? By then, maybe the constellations will have come to some kind of conclusion already, too. And hell, I might get a second class offered to me. Not that I'll take it."

  "... Second class?"

  "Enchanter. None of these are beginner enchantments, man, they're high tier. If I keep making these, the system will recognize that I've got the experience and put in the time in the past, so I should be able to fulfil some requirements faster. I imagine it's going to be the same with the Apothecarist class once I start brewing. I should get the Staff Fighter class offered to me relatively soon as well, though it's harder to show combat proficiency with this body." Ashton almost shuddered as he looked down at himself.

  The process of levelling up and increasing his stats had made Ashton build a ton of muscle over the past couple of days, and he had toned down a lot as well since his body was going through all its energy reserves for a couple different reasons. Levelling up rapidly and changing physically was an energy-intense process that was partially subsidised through mana, but not fully. Beside that, the the more potions someone used, the more energy their body had to use to make things work properly, especially the lower-quality potions that Ashton had made until now.

  When it came to higher-quality potions that Ashton was preparing the tools for at the moment, that was another matter, and mana would do most of the process. That was why those potions would be better for emergencies as well, where people might not be able to spare a ton of energy. Giving a starving person a low-quality healing potion could be quite literally lethal.

  They were getting to a point where there would be plenty of people with extreme malnutrition going around, simply because they weren't able to find any food. They'll have gone days without any, though they probably weren't desperate enough to try and eat a monster yet. At least most of them. Things were going to get a lot worse, and Ashton wanted to be prepared for that.

  With the setup that he was working on right now, it was possible to make a 'Nutritional Potion'. Essentially just something that would stave off the effects of starvation for a while. It wouldn't make you feel satiated in any capacity, but at least you wouldn't die. It was also an extremely safe thing to give to people that haven't eaten in a while, so that they wouldn't get refeeding syndrome. And well, it was also just good to have in an emergency or for long trips.

  Then there were some potions that would help more in the other direction; ones used in agriculture. Basically, magical fertilizers that would give the harvested crops more mana, make them bigger, or make them able to persist against harsh weather. Combat potions and oils were also a good thing to have. Oils could be applied to weapons to imbue magical effects into them for a short while, and potions could make people stronger or faster.

  But almost at the top of the list of what Ashton wanted to make using this was a fast-acting healing potion. An absolute, emergency-only potion that could heal even major wounds within a few moments. It was probably what most people thought of when hearing the term 'healing potion'.

  There were only two types of potions that could heal you almost instantly. Elixirs, though those were legendary concoctions that even Ashton didn't know the recipe for. They not only could heal every injury or wound, but brought the user's body into 'peak condition'. It could even cure cancer with just a few drops.

  And then, there were these fast-acting healing potions. They just healed the physical body, leaving behind ugly scars in the process and draining stamina intensely. On top of that, the process to heal something with these potions hurt like an absolute bitch. It was like someone dug around in your open wound with the tip of a hot knife. That's why they were emergency-use only. It wasn't uncommon for people to fall unconscious because of the pain from these. However, Ashton would need to use one soon. Annoyingly enough, the best-possible potion that he had access to right now that could help get rid of all the tiny little bugs still crawling through his body, or the ones that would hatch soon, was one of these fast-acting healing potions.

  He could probably make it already with all the glass-containers ready if he improvised a little, but Ashton figured that it was smarter to just get the entire setup ready since he was already at it. Again, the metal parts were a bit annoying to make, so it might take him a while to get around to it if he didn't get his entire setup ready right away.

  First things first, Ashton had to clean the pots up. They were old and scratched up. Using a special mixture once again using diluted slime, though with its mana pattern shifted slightly around and a few more ingredients in the mix, Ashton was able to slowly make it eat away at everything that was left in the pots and pans that he didn't want. All the special coatings that were used on earth to make pans more convenient could probably really mess up a potion if you weren't careful.

  So, while the pots were basically cleaning themselves up for about half an hour, Ashton could get started with the knives and towels. For the knives, Ashton would engrave some patterns onto the sides of the blade to make it more mana-conductive, and let him skip a step or two while he was cutting or chopping up some ingredients. The towels would, after being cleaned a bit with the undine's help, get patterns stitched into them using the spider-silk. That way, they could be used to help dry ingredients or keep them cool or warm, depending on what was needed at that moment.

  However, while Ashton was painting the right pattern onto the sides of the knife, a notification appeared in front of Ashton, which he had been waiting for.

  [[Observer in the Veil], [Daughter of the Scarlet Heart], and [Executor of the End] are making you a combined offer]