“Are you sure you want to do it Aiden? If you are not absolutely sure, it is best if you just let me do it.” Granny asked with a worried expression.

During dinner, out of nowhere, Aiden asked her to let him complete the last step in the brewing process alone and to only provide him with instructions. She didn’t understand the reason for the request, it seemed too sudden, but seeing the honest look in his eyes, in the end, she relented and agreed to the request. The added benefit of seeing Lily’s eyes lit up with competitive fire was also satisfying. After this, Lily will work extra hard to keep up with Aiden, which is good, as she wasn’t really enthusiastic about studying before.

“Yes, I’m absolutely sure. Just tell me the instructions and I will execute them. This way I can learn the process better. After all, what we are doing now is just to water down the finished product to lower its potency, right? What could go wrong?” answered Aiden.

Granny elicited a small giggle in response to Aiden’s last question. “Oh sonny, there’s a lot of things that could go wrong. We are in uncharted territory here, and I’m not sure about the reaction it will have. Hopefully, there will be nothing unexpected, but just be ready for anything. While adding cold water is a generally accepted way of lowering potency and quality of half-finished and finished alchemical products, there are cases when the end product reacted rather violently. In simple terms, the more complicated the mixture, the riskier it will be to water it down. In our case, we should be fine, as this recipe is still quite simple.”

Then, as to change the atmosphere, she clapped her hands loudly, startling Lily, and looked at Aiden while patting the pouting princess’ head.

“Okay Aiden, if you are ready, then let’s begin. First things first, since we need cold water, pour some from the barrel in the kitchen and bring it here. I will help you cool it for you since you don’t know how to do it yet.”

Nodding his head, Aiden went to the kitchen. Grabbing a sizeable pitcher, he placed it down to the ground, and then as if it was nothing, he picked up the large barrel and carefully aimed it’s opened hatch to the mouth of the pitcher.

—

The scene looked rather incredible. A small 8-year-old looking boy, using a barrel bigger than himself and carefully aiming with it like if its weight was nothing. Looking at the scene, Number 3 wasn’t even that shocked anymore, when she saw the boy carrying the large wooden barrel with ease, she was shocked, but by now? It was still an incredible sight, but shocking? No, not anymore. She carefully scribbled down what she saw, then continued watching the family….

—

Seeing the pitcher quickly filling up, he placed the barrel down, and with the pitcher in his hand, he walked back to the fireplace where Granny and Lily were waiting for him.

“Great job Aiden. Now, give me the pitcher, and while you open up the cauldron and check if the mixture is ready for us to continue, I will cool it down. Remember the end color should be dark, brownish, almost black. The darker the color, the higher the potency basically. If the color is still mostly red or reddish-brown, then it still needs time.

Although she said as it could not be ready, she was absolutely sure that the mixture is ready for them to continue. Still, since Aiden wanted to gain first-hand experience, she told him what to look for so he can learn from checking it himself.

While Aiden was busy checking the readiness, Granny placed the pitcher down to the table, and with her right hand, she wrote the runic symbol “Chill” into the air. As she finished it, the symbol started glowing in a light blue color, then a light coat of energy with the same coloration shrouded the pitcher. It only lasted a second and the energy coating vanished into thin air, however, if someone would hold the pitcher, he or she would be shocked, as it was ice-cold…

While Aiden wasn’t focusing on the rune this time, his system, Enya did not forget to make sure the system analyzed it, producing a small almost imperceptible smile to creep up on Aiden’s face looking at the notification.

[Rune Magic discovered! Analyzing information… 19%]

‘Thank you, Enya. I really don’t know what I would do without you.’ Aiden didn’t forget to thank her.

[No need for thanks Aiden. We are a team when you are unable to, it is my job to be your eyes and ears. You just focus on your task in front of you.] Enya’s answer came. Even though she said otherwise, the happiness for Aiden’s gratitude could be felt from her voice.

While the small smile was still sitting on Aiden’s face, he opened up the lid to peek inside the contents of the cauldron.

“It… is… dark brown! We are good to go!”

“Okay, that’s good. Now open up the lid completely, and put it down to the table, and then pick up the pitcher. Do not pour it in before listening to my instructions, okay?”

Nodding his head, he followed instructions. Picking up the pitcher he felt how cold it got in a matter of a few short seconds.

‘This magic she uses… It’s pretty useful for everyday life.’

Standing next to the heated cauldron with the cold pitcher in hand, he looked back at Granny waiting for the next set of instructions.

“Now, slowly start pouring the water and watch how the color of the mixture gradually changes. Make sure to only continue if the color lightens and starts going back to reds. We want the end result to go from dark brown all the way to a clear red without any brown in it. That should be enough for our purposes, I think.” Granny instructed. As this whole process was an experiment, she couldn’t be 100% sure that what color the end result should be, but based on her many years of experience, she expected that a normal red color should be good.

Focusing on her words, Aiden carefully aimed the pitcher and made sure that the water only poured into the cauldron in a thin stream so he could carefully observe as the color gradually changes.

Just as she said, the color was slowly lightening, strays of red started appearing.

“It is slowly changing color… I can see red, but only in sections, other areas are still brown.”

Granny smiled, as this was the result she was hoping for.

“That is perfectly fine. Keep on adding the water until you see that at least half the mixture has red in it. Then, just give it a whirl, and it should be ready.”

Once again, following the instructions, he kept pouring the water slowly, carefully. As soon as he could see that half of the mixture changed colors he picked up the wooden handle from the table while putting the pitcher down and mixed the contents with a good, strong stir.

“Okay, I think it is ready. The contents are fully red, there are no brown patches anywhere.”

Walking to the cauldron to check it herself, he patted Aiden’s head gently.

“This is perfect, you did a great job! This is exactly the result I was hoping for. We will still need to test it later, but for now, we should just let it be until morning. Put the lid back on to close it down, and we should be done for now. Tomorrow before we head back out to gather herbs, we can check how it turned out, okay?”

“Yes. I hope it will be good.”

Meanwhile, with feet dangling as she was forced to sit still, Lily was listening to both of them, and couldn’t hold herself back anymore. She raised her tiny right fist to the air and loudly exclaimed.

“Granny! Next time let me do it! I want to help as well!”

Looking back at the pouting girl, Granny couldn’t help but laugh at her shenanigans.

“My-my, you were never this passionate about Alchemy, dear. What changed?”

Still pouting, she answered.

“Humpf! I can’t let brother get too far ahead of me. I am still his big sister, I need to be the one to be able to help him!”

Hearing this, Aiden’s face morphed into a gentle smile, and as he sat next to her, he gave his reassurance.

“No matter what happens Lily, you will always be the big sister. You were the first, you found me, and you were the first to accept me, and that will never change. I will always be grateful to you.”

Failing to fight her tears flowing, she couldn’t stop herself anymore and launched at Aiden, knocking him off his chair and falling to the floor.

“Brotheeeeeer!!!”