Luz had not slept a lot over the last few days. She had been working almost non-stop with the new ingredients—and some old ones—to produce some tangible outcomes.

  She was happy with her development as an alchemist overall, especially since they had gotten books that actually explained things instead of her just experimenting. Still, she felt it was time to take the next step beyond weak healing potions and such.

  The two potions she was working on right now were that next step.

  She was pulled out of her musings by Mary holding a plate of food under her nose. The girl was only seventeen but didn’t hold back at all. She wanted to become an alchemist as well, showed real talent and discipline, and never took no for an answer when it came to Luz’s self-care.

  “Thank you,” she grumbled as she took the plate and started to eat. “Did you manage to clean the ash of the Silent Sentinels?” she asked between two bites.

  “Yes, I did. I used purified water and then dried it again and pestled it down.”

  “Good job.” Luz looked at the vial with the extract from the Sapphire Blossoms, the flowers from their very first dungeon—Luz still remembered when Ben had pulled them out of his bag when he returned from his adventures on Arrival Day. Of course, they had been harvesting them ever since, and she had gotten a lot better at extracting their essence.

  She had already powdered the Sapphire Mushrooms, so everything was ready for the final step.

  “Get ready and start heating the cauldron.”

  She had to work hard on Adam to fund the cauldron—it had been one of the more expensive items in the System Store, but it was worth it. Since she had access to it, her success rate had increased significantly.

  She heated purified water to just below boiling; the [Heat Management] perk had been an incredible help. Then she added the sapphire blossom essence.

  Mary stirred patiently as they slowly drizzled the ash into the liquid to get it to emulsify. She mentally patted herself on the back for saving the Silent Sentinel Maple shavings and scraps from Thomas. She was certain that they would prove to be the unlock for the recipe.

  After nearly thirty minutes of stirring with little progress, the mixture suddenly transformed from water with blue and black sediment into a thicker, viscous blue liquid. Excellent!

  On to the next step. She had to decrease the temperature significantly while keeping up the constant stirring. Once the target temperature was reached, she sifted the powdered mushrooms through a fine mesh, ensuring no large particulates were mixed in.

  It only took a few seconds until the powder was fully integrated.

  Last step. “You do it.”

  Mary looked at her with wide eyes. “Are you sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure. Do it.”

  Mary took the energy core that they had received from the Protectorate Administration and used her [Extract Energy] perk to infuse the stored energy into the potion.

  After a few minutes, the core turned gray and brittle while the potion flashed once and glowed in shining sapphire blue.

  She quickly poured the potion into three vials, sealed them, and used [Analyze] on their creation.

  Sapphire Sentinel Elixir. Energy-infused item. Tier 1. Epic – Advanced. Magic attribute +1; elixirs can only be used once per tier.

  Now it was Luz’s turn to look wide-eyed. She had suspected that the potion would be good, and she had known that it would focus on Magic—but she had not expected a +1 to an attribute, especially for Magic, as the other attributes were easier to increase with practice.

  This potion was exactly the kind of advancement she had had in mind earlier.

  She would hand the three potions to Ben when he came back. She was slightly tempted to use one herself, and she was certain that Ben wouldn’t mind, but she wouldn’t benefit as much as others from it. Giving one to Allison, for example, felt much more important.

  With that success under her belt, there was no excuse not to tackle the Ironthorn Vines Sap potion for Ben.

  There was a hint of apprehension in her voice when she turned to Mary. “Take a break, then we will tackle the next challenge.”

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  ***

  They had moved a few blocks from the Warriors’ compound and stopped in a former fashion boutique that had been looted earlier to take stock.

  While none of the former hostages seemed to have any injuries, none of them looked good.

  “Did they not feed you?” Ben asked.

  Adam nodded, then shrugged. “They gave us food, but not a lot. Just one meal a day.”

  Ben took out some of the food he had in his Bag of Holding and distributed it among them.

  “Do we need to do anything else in the city right now?” Steve asked.

  Ben looked at the others. When no one came up with anything, he shook his head. “No, I would love to punish them for what they did, but I think the best course of action is to return to the settlement. We might have to deal with them at some point, but right now is not the time. Let’s head back home.”

  “Okay, I suggest we leave town and rest for a few hours once we’re in the forest. It might be less comfortable than sleeping in a bed here, but getting some distance between us and the Warriors seems advisable,” Allison said.

  Ben nodded, and they set out again, though it was clear they wouldn’t match the pace they’d made on the way to the city.

  ***

  They made steady progress, though slower than he’d hoped, and he started to worry about the new dungeon waiting for them—but it couldn’t be helped. Even though they had only been captured for a few days, the ordeal and lack of food had weakened them—and Adam had never had the highest Body attribute anyway.

  Their rest was brief, as it had already been so late when they stopped for the night, but they started at first light anyway. A few hours later, they returned to the site where they had fought the Warriors the previous day.

  To everyone’s surprise, Little Tony and his fellow Warrior were still alive, shackled to the trees. An inspection by Michael revealed, however, that the cuffs showed clear strain. It seemed the growing Body attributes of people would soon limit the usefulness of such devices.

  “What do you want to do with them?” Steve asked.

  Ben scratched his head. He had made his peace with fighting—and, if necessary, killing—humans, but he still didn’t want to execute anyone outside of combat, so the only real option was to let them go.

  “Collect the weapons from them and the bodies, then let them go.” He turned to Little Tony. “Maybe I am making a mistake here by letting you go, but your grandmother and her family are valuable members of the Protectorate and very decent people. But let me be clear: if you ever mess with my people again, no relation will protect you from my retaliation. Do you understand?”

  The man, severely weakened after a day shackled to a tree, was in no state to spout nonsense. He just weakly nodded and trotted off with his companion after having massaged some feeling back into his limbs.

  The rest of the trip home was uneventful. Their group was large and alert enough that none of the beasts in the forest wanted to mess with them.

  They had to spend one more night in the forest, and Ben got quite anxious as the four-day deadline rapidly came to an end, but they made it with a few hours to spare.

  A large group of people awaited them, led by Barry, Damien, Nils, and the friends of those rescued. There was cheering, clapping, and laughter as the former hostages returned, but Ben immediately pulled Barry aside. “The new dungeon is going to break in the next few hours. Have you seen it?”

  Barry patted him on the shoulder. “Relax, Ben, remember our discussions about not doing everything on your own? Damien, Nils, and a few other Protectors cleared the first floor earlier today. You should have time to celebrate a bit, get some rest, and tackle the full thing tomorrow.”

  Ben grinned. “That is fantastic news. I was quite worried about it. I will not even ask what the theme is…” he said with a wink.

  He found his sister, hugged her, and caught up on how the twins were doing and what else was happening in her life. It was a pleasant afternoon, followed by an early bedtime.

  He woke up refreshed the next morning, ready to tackle the challenges of the day.

  During breakfast in the inn, Luz came up to him. “Got a minute?”

  “Sure!”

  She sat down and put a small, well-crafted chest on the table. It looked like something that Thomas had built. As she opened it, he could see that it was tailor-made to hold potion vials. Of the dozen spaces, four were currently filled.

  “I wasn’t lazing about over the last week or two.”

  Ben laughed. “In all the years we’ve known each other, I’ve never seen you lazy. What are those beautiful potions in the chest?”

  They were beautiful—three glowing in brilliant blue, the last in gold.

  She pointed at the blue ones. “These we made from the Sapphire Mushrooms and Sapphire Blossoms plus a bit of ash from the Silent Sentinel Maples. Go ahead and [Analyze] them.”

  Ben did and was delighted. A +1 to any attribute was incredibly valuable, especially for Magic. While it was possible to train the attribute, it was significantly harder than just exercising your body rigorously for a few months.

  He could already see that he would want one for his mother. They would have to think about who would get the others. Adam could be a candidate, but he was mostly focused on Mind. Their chief healer and former doctor, Ashley, could be another one, but so could the professor. Anything that strengthened [Clarity] sounded like a win in his book. The one thing he was certain of was that it would be wasted on him.

  “Incredible work, Luz, absolutely incredible. Do you want one?”

  She shook her head. “Alchemy is a mix between Mind and Magic. Getting a higher value in Magic would be nice, but it is not as critical right now as getting it to people who are focused primarily on Magic.”

  “You are a star, Luz, thank you.”

  “Don’t mention it. Now [Analyze] this one,” she said, pointing to the last potion.

  Ironthorn Constitution Elixir. Energy-infused item. Tier 1. Epic – Master. Advances Stage 1 Direction, can only be used once.

  Direction. Ben had to think back, as he didn’t use the term, but when he had reached 20 in Body and had chosen Constitution, that was called Direction by the systems.

  So this was one of the ways in which he could advance along that dimension. He grinned from ear to ear and hugged Luz, who had been like an aunt to him for many years, across the table.

  “This is the first Master-level item I have ever seen. This will help me so much. Thank you!”

  “If you keep getting me materials that allow me to stretch my abilities and evolve my perks, I am more than happy, Ben. The most important thing for us is to keep you, and all the others who protect us, safe.”

  She placed the potions back into the small chest, slid it over to him, and left shortly after.

  Ben ran back home, keen to see how his Constitution would evolve.

  Patreon we are almost 20 chapters ahead of royalroad at the moment.