The next few days, Clive set out to train his sense of smell. Lucia had left him a small wooden box beside his bed with a note: "Begin your education where the scents are born."

  Inside the box were seven tiny glass vials, each sealed with wax and numbered, but otherwise unmarked. Another note at the bottom read: "Find these in the garden. Your nose alone must guide you."

  The garden appeared ordinary at first glance, herbs, flowers, fruit trees, but as Clive uncorked the first vial and inhaled the bright, clean scent, he realized the challenge. He needed to match each vial to its source.

  The first scent—minty with a sharp edge—led him to a patch of what looked like ordinary mint. But when he bent to smell it, the plant revealed a more complex aroma than the vial. Confused, he moved to another mint variety a few feet away. This one matched perfectly.

  "Mountain mint," Lucia said, appearing suddenly beside him. "Different from common mint—sharper, with a hint of pepper. The common variety would ruin a healing potion."

  By midmorning, Clive had found only three matches. Frustration tightened his jaw as he recorked the fourth vial, still unmatched after an hour of searching. The garden was vast, and his nose was becoming overwhelmed, each new plant blending into the last.

  He sat on a flat stone nestled among the bushes, annoyed with himself. His nose felt fatigued, his mind cluttered with effort. His [Artist's Eyes] were useless for this task. He needed something more. An equivalent for smell.

  He closed his eyes. Art had taught him that sometimes, to truly see something, you had to stop looking so intently. Perhaps the same was true for smell.

  He breathed through his nose, focusing on the sensation. In... and out. The simple rhythm of his breath. Gradually, his frustration ebbed. In this relaxed state, he was able to expand his awareness. He started to notice it. A hundred different scents surrounded him.

  At first, he was tempted to list everything—lavender, soil, the distant scent of the kitchen herbs. But something made him pause. Instead of cataloging, he breathed, allowing the garden's scents to come to him. With each breath, the sensation in his nose grew stronger, as if smell receptors long dormant were slowly awakening.

  [Certainty: Oh, come on. First, I had to watch you draw a bunch of daggers. And now I have to watch you meditate. This is Boring with a capital B. Can we do something fun instead? Go visit the Archmage again. That one was exciting. ]

  Clive ignored her as per usual.

  Colors began bleeding into the scents—green threads for the earthy base notes, purple for the floral overtones, golden streamers marking the sharp citrus edges, crimson weaving through the deeper musks. These threads weren't random but connected in patterns, forming a complex web of relationships. Some scents complemented each other, their threads weaving together harmoniously. Others clashed, their threads recoiling from one another like opposing magnets.

  As he followed these threads, one color began to predominate in his awareness—a vibrant green mist that pulsed with life energy. It represented not a single plant, but a fundamental scent quality that underpinned many of the garden's offerings.

  "I smell... green," he mumbled, trying to articulate the essence his senses had captured. "Living things. Growth."

  The revelation made him pause. Clive remained seated on the stone, now perfectly still, afraid that movement might disrupt the fragile awareness he'd achieved. His eyes remained closed, his breathing steady, allowing the green mist in his mind to expand and reveal its subtleties. Gradually, from the tapestry of garden scents, one particular thread of the green mist seemed to strengthen—subtle but distinct from the general verdant aroma.

  "Something sweet... but not like fruit or honey. Earthy sweetness."

  Keeping his eyes closed, he stood and walked slowly through the garden. He moved carefully at first, afraid of stumbling, but soon found that he could navigate surprisingly well using solely his sense of smell. He followed the sweet-earthy scent, which strengthened with each step.

  After about twenty paces, he stopped. The scent was strongest here. He opened his eyes to find himself standing before a plant with small purple flowers.

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  "Violet," he realized. He uncorked the fourth vial and compared. The scent matched perfectly—a licorice-like sweetness with earthy undertones.

  [Skill Learnt: Apothecary’s Nose (Passive)]

  Allows the user to identify and categorize complex scent profiles with precision

  He smiled to himself, proud of his progress. [Apothecary’s Nose]. Most people experienced scent as an afterthought. They noticed a smell, briefly registered it, then dismissed it. But a potion master must learn to dwell within scent, to navigate its landscape as one would a physical space. He now understood this.

  Over the next hour, Clive alternated between seated breathing meditation and slow, eyes-closed "scent walks" through the garden. Each time, he focused less on identifying and naming, and more on experiencing and following.

  For the seventh and final vial, Clive sat in meditation for a full thirty minutes before attempting to locate its match. The scent was subtle—woody with a hint of spice that seemed familiar yet elusive.

  "Don't try to name it," he told himself. "Names are useful later, but they can become barriers. Experience it first as pure sensation." He held the uncorked vial near his nose, breathing in deeply. The scent seemed to shift and change—sometimes woody, sometimes spicy, occasionally with a fleeting sweetness.

  "It's not constant," he realized aloud. "It changes with each breath."

  This time, the scent led Clive to the far corner of the garden, to a gnarled tree he had barely noticed before. It wasn't flowering or fruiting, and its leaves seemed ordinary.

  "There's nothing special here," he said, confused.

  On instinct, he reached up to peel away a small section of bark, exposing the pale wood beneath. He leaned in and inhaled. The complex, shifting aroma from the vial greeted him, stronger now.

  "Wild truffle."

  He recorked the seventh vial satisfied. As he walked back toward the house, Clive felt a shift in his perception. The garden was no longer a collection of individual plants but a complex tapestry of scents interacting and overlapping.

  The next day, Lucia lead Clive to the basement of her workshop.

  "Primary scents are the simplest to identify," Lucia explained. "Today, we focus on creating and identifying secondary aromas."

  The air grew cooler and damper with each step. The stone chamber was circular and cavernous with walls lined with wooden barrels, clay pots of different sizes, and glass vessels holding various liquids.

  "Secondary aromas arise through transmutation," she said, pointing to a barrel crafted from ancient oak. "The sacred processes of nature—fermentation, distillation, essence-binding—the transformation of one thing into another through the hidden workings of the world."

  Around the room, liquids bubbled and simmered. Some vessels were sealed with wax, others covered with cloth bound by twine. A few open containers released wisps of vapor that coiled in the torch-lit air.

  "The alchemists of old knew that transformation is the heart of power," Lucia continued, running her fingers along a row of sealed jars. "A humble grape becomes wine, and wine becomes spirit. Each transformation releases ether essence, concentrates power."

  She handed him a mask woven from silk. "Some of these are... intense."

  "Now observe," Lucia instructed, removing the cloth from a clay vessel. "This is mead in its fifth day of transformation. The honey has awakened, and the mead-spirits have begun their work."

  Clive peered into the vessel. The golden liquid bubbled gently, releasing a complex aroma that penetrated even his protective mask. The scent revealed itself in layers, sweet honey at the base, but now transformed, with notes of flowers and earth that hadn't been present in the raw honey.

  "I can see the transformation," he said, eyes still closed. "The essence is changing, becoming... stronger, more complex."

  "Yes," Lucia nodded approvingly. "The mead-spirits consume the sweetness and releases the ether trapped within."

  For hours, Clive sampled dozens of scents—from pleasantly yeasty bread cultures to pungent cheese essences. Lucia explained how different vessels affected the transformations, how certain woods imparted their spirits to the liquids they contained, how mountain water yielded different results than river water.

  "The moon phase affects the speed of transformation," she noted as she showed him a dark, bubbling liquid. "This elderberry wine was started under the waxing moon—observe how vigorously it transforms compared to this one," she pointed to a similar vessel with a calmer liquid, "which was begun under the waning moon."

  Clive's head spun with the wealth of knowledge, but his [Apothecary’s Nose] grew stronger with each new scent he cataloged. He could sense not just the current state of each mixture, but glimpses of what it had been and what it would become.

  Near midday, Lucia brought him to a special corner of the chamber, where five crystal vessels stood on a stone pedestal. Each contained different fruit bases—apple, pear, plum, cherry, and blackberry—with various additions of herbs, honey, and what Lucia called "awakening agents."

  "Your task," she said, handing him a notebook, "is to document the changes in these five fermentations over the next week." She pointed to five glass jars, each containing different fruit bases with various additions.

  "You will record every transmutation, every shift in essence. Each will follow a different path of transformation based on the awakening agents I've added. The transformation is where the magic of potions lies. Master this, and you begin to understand how to harness ether for your art."

  "The eye sees but the surface of things, yet the nose knows their very soul. In the sacred dance of transformation—grape to wine, honey to mead, herb to essence—lies the first mystery of creation. He who would master the art must first learn to dwell within scent as others dwell within sight, for in the invisible realm of aroma, all change begins."

  — Master Apothecary Jankin Angus, "The Hidden Senses: A Treatise on Olfactory Mastery"