Time passed unperturbed, and the last rays of light had already seeped below the horizon, giving space to the tranquil atmosphere of the night. The distance brought forward the ever-eager sound of wild animals getting ready for their nightly escapades.

In a clearing stood a singular hut, whose chimney was puffing a steady flow of smoke. The fireplace was lit, and the fire was cracking while a small, blonde-haired girl was sitting on the floor in front of it with a contented smile on her face.

“Aaaaah I love desserts! It is the best!” She then opened her eyes, only to see that her brother was no longer sitting next to him, but made her way towards the elderly lady, who was preparing a large cauldron.

She was currently cleaning it, making sure there are no residue or stains inside it. She had to be thorough, as anything could cause impurities in the final product. Impurities that would lower the end products pristine quality, and she couldn’t have any of that. Her pride as a Master Alchemist would be in ruins after the fact.

As she was cleaning, and humming to herself, she just noticed the boy that was in front of her, looking at her every movement with focused eyes.

“Oh Aiden, are you interested in Alchemy? Would you like to watch?” Granny asked the boy.

Aiden, who could now perfectly understand their speech, but was still unable to express himself, at least not until the system finished its process and granted him the necessary skill, nodded his head in affirmation.

“Alright, but do not touch anything okay? Just watch, and I will do my best to explain the steps to you.” Then she turned towards the resting girl. “Lily you should come as well, and stand with Aiden, okay?”

Lily frowned a bit, as she was in an absolute bliss, caressing her full tummy, like if it was her unborn child. However, after thinking about it momentarily, she could be with her brother, and as his senior, she could help him! This realization transformed the frown to a happy smile and filled with energy about this newfound revelation she hopped to her feet and ran to them while cheerfully answering her Granny.

“Sure Granny! I will help little brother explain things! Leave it to me!”

Granny smiled at Lily’s shenanigans, then she focused once again on the task in front of her. Continuing the cleaning process, she gently explained.

“Cleaning the cauldron, or in fact whatever you will be using to brew your potions or pills, is of paramount importance. You have to make sure there is not even a tiny speck of dust or grime left inside, as that could cause impurities, failures or in some rare cases even explosions.

You see, standing next to an exploding cauldron is not something, you want to experience, so you could understand how important this preparation phase is, right?”

Listening to Granny’s words, Aiden nodded his head. However, he was wondering, would he survive the explosion? His new body is pretty durable, and even if the power of the explosion would prove fatal, he could still shapeshift into a more durable form. For example, his ‘Birth State’ may be able to withstand it.

‘I have to get a form that is more durable, in similar cases it could be useful.’ he thought to himself.

[That would be a wise decision Aiden. One of your main goal should be to assimilate as many life forms as you can. You will also need to start using Fusion at some point, to fuse specific abilities to your main form.] Enya’s soft voice resounded in his soul space.

She was right, so far, he didn’t even take a look at the Fusion feature. Not that he had any reason to, there were no abilities to gain from the Bug form, and he did not want to do anything with his Birth state if it’s not forced onto him. Now he had this new, default form and his previous form, the Cave Viper had his toxic, incredibly poisonous spit that could be useful. However, he could not control it, and the idea that the contents of his mouth would be always deathly venomous is not something he was looking forward to. So, for the time being, he decided to wait for a form that would have better abilities.

As she was cleaning the insides of the cauldron, Granny was taking peeks at Aiden every now and then. She could see that the boy was watching her every move, with an incessant, fervent gaze. It was as if he was analyzing her every move, trying to understand the underlying meaning in her smallest movements.

‘This boy… just how many secrets does he hold..’ she thought to herself while continuing the cleaning.

In fact, she wasn’t wrong. Aiden was indeed analyzing her every move. Or to be more precise the system was, through Aiden’s vision. He could see the notifications popping up every now and then.

[Analyzing Alchemy. Progress 2%]

[Analyzing Alchemy. Progress 3%]

However, he noticed that he will probably need to watch the entire process multiple times, as after reaching 5%, the progress stopped and it said that he needs to watch the next phase to continue with the analysis.

[Analyzing Alchemy. Progress 5%. Threshold reached. Continue watching the next step, to continue gathering information for analysis.]

As Granny was doing the last scrapes in the cleaning of the cauldron, she looked back at the 2 and continued her lecture.

“Once you are absolutely sure that you have cleaned your cauldron, and even double checked it, just for safety, we can continue with the next step.” Then looking at Lily, she asked. “Lily my dear, can you tell me what the next step is?”

Lily raised her right hand to the air while exclaiming loudly.

“I know! Preparing the ingredients in order!”

Granny smiled and gently asked the follow up question.

“That is correct, and in our case, since we want to create Basic Healing Potions, what do we need to prepare?”

Lily thought for a few seconds then, as the answer formed inside her head, she cheered once again loudly.

“We need Devil Cloves and Boiling hot water. The last ingredient is the MAGIC! We need that whooshy green light to go inside the cauldron then WHRRIM and WHOOSH and then after 2 days of letting it be, we would get the red syrup!”

Granny laughed at the explanation.

“Yes that is correct, we need Devil Cloves and once we prepare them, we have to put them into the cauldron that would already be ready with boiling hot water. The last part was almost correct, we will inject our Life Essence into the cauldron, and that would be the catalyst.”

Then looking at Aiden who was listening to them, she explained.

“The last part that Lily said, the 2 days of wait time, is also needed. Once we are finished, and I will show you when we are, we need to put on the lid and let the whole thing cool off for 2 full days and nights. Once that is done, we can pour the contents to special vials that could store the liquid for a longer time before it would eventually expire.”

Pointing at the direction of the cupboard in the kitchen, she explained.

“We have plenty of vials at the cupboard in the kitchen. Don’t worry yourselves, that part is covered.”

Picking up the cauldron, she groaned, and put it on top of the cracking fire inside the fireplace. Then looking at Lily, she continued.

“Lily please bring the water we prepared yesterday from the kitchen. Aiden go with her, and help her bring it here. It would be too heavy for her alone.”

Aiden nodded, while Lily pulled his hands as she bolted towards the kitchen.

“Come brother, I will show you what we need!”

A large wooden barrel at the size of Lily was standing at the far left corner of the kitchen. Looking at it, Aiden couldn’t help but exclaim inwardly.

‘How the hell would this frail girl lift this barrel if it is filled to the brim with water?’

Arriving in front of said barrel, Lily pointed at it.

“This is it brother. It is super heavy, so be ready!”

Aiden couldn’t let this frail girl, overexert and hurt herself, so just gripped her left shoulder and shook his head signalling to not do anything.

“Huh? You want to try it? But it is super heavy…” looking back, Lily couldn’t understand why Aiden stopped her.

Signalling with his hand for the Girl to stay back, he stepped forward looking at the barrel.

‘Now finally I can test my strength. Let’s see how much 27 Might translates to in the real world…’

Crouching down, he gripped the barrel, and without thinking much about it, he tried lifting the barrel. To his surprise, it felt like nothing, almost as if he were holding condensed air and not a wooden barrel full of water.

Standing up, he turned and slowly started walking back towards Granny, with the stunned Lily in tow.

“Wooow… Brother is super strong!” exclaimed Lily. “Granny look at brother, he could lift the barrel by himself!”

Granny, who was still in the process of cutting the useless parts from the dark red flowers, looked at them. Seeing the fragile looking boy, holding a barrel twice in size and thrice in weight as him and bringing towards her easily, she was stunned.

‘Just who is this boy…’