Chapter 78 – Activating Potion

Punk’s arrangements for Bilan were quite tedious, including various tasks such as cleaning the White Tower, simple processing of experimental materials, and “delivering” food to a group of slaves imprisoned in the basement.

Of course, Punk was quite generous with compensation. He created a room inscribed with an Elemental Affinity Array for Bilan and gave this alchemical mage five Apprentice Rank spell models as a mentor’s “meeting gift.” Compared to those mages who hoarded knowledge and refused to teach, Punk could be said to be very generous!

However, Bilan seemed quite dissatisfied with this work that could be described as “treating people like golems.” Although the compensation was substantial, it appeared she would rather receive less payment than clean up piles of “corpses.”

But Punk had no time to deal with this little girl who “didn’t know how good she had it.” He had too many experiments to conduct.

After casually sending Bilan to familiarize herself with the White Tower and ordering her not to disturb him during his experiments, Punk returned to the experiment table once again.

What now demanded all of Punk’s attention was a Formal-Level magic potion he had found in Mainaixi’s notes.

Perhaps because Mainaixi was a mage who specialized in evocation, his knowledge of alchemical spell potions was quite shallow. The alchemical potion formulas Mainaixi had collected were pitifully few, completely inconsistent with his status as a “veteran” Formal-Level mage.

Punk had searched through the Seven-Eight Notebooks left in Mainaixi’s ring and found only three Formal-Level alchemical potion formulas, one of which was obviously incomplete.

However, these three formulas all belonged to the type of important potions that could serve as trump cards. All three potions were the finest of the fine, absolutely incomparable to those common “basic potions.” Punk suspected these three formulas were likely obtained by Mainaixi through “improper” means. If a Formal-Level mage possessed such potion formulas, it would be hard to imagine he would trade away such “trump cards”!

Without exaggeration, each of these three potions could potentially save his life at a critical moment, especially this alchemical potion that could be abbreviated as “potential activation”!

Punk held a wrinkled, yellowed parchment, his slender fingers very carefully avoiding the green runes on this worn piece of paper!

Those runes were composite corrosion arrays. Once they sensed any living being’s physical contact or any external energy invasion of the array itself, they would immediately release a Formal-Level “Powerful Corrosion Spell” on the parchment, guaranteed to corrode the entire parchment into fragmented ethereal energy. This showed how much the previous owner or previous previous owner of the parchment valued and guarded against the contents recorded on it!

This parchment recorded the alchemical potion formula with the full name “Lovskar’s Formal-Level Soul Potential Potion v7.30.” Punk simply called it the “Activation Potion”!

The effects of this potion were extremely powerful. After using the System to analyze the scrawled writing on the parchment, even Punk gasped in amazement. The System’s analysis results clearly listed the information obtained from the parchment:

Potion Name: Lovskar’s Formal-Level Soul Potential Potion v7.30

Potion Formula: Stable intelligent being soul fragments (below Formal-Level), Obsession of the Dead, Liquified Happiness, Solidified Pain, Ghostfire Flower, Minnar Greenvine Powder, Screaming Roling Grass…

Potion Level: Formal-Level

Potion Effects: Beings below Formal-Level will die from soul rupture within three minutes after consuming the potion!

Formal-Level beings will have their energy recovery speed (excluding God-Given Energy) increased by a maximum of 7.5 times and minimum of 4.6 times for fifteen minutes after consuming the potion! (Varies by individual)

Master-Level beings will have their energy recovery speed (excluding God-Given Energy) increased by a maximum of 2.3 times and minimum of 1.2 times for three minutes after consuming the potion! (Varies by individual)

Legendary and above beings will find this potion helpful for quenching thirst after consumption!

Potion Side Effects: After the potion’s effects end, for 100 magic hours, the user’s energy recovery speed will be greatly reduced, with the reduction rate equal to 2.4 times the increase rate during the potion’s active period!

Notes:

1. Repeated use of this potion has a high probability of damaging the soul, and in severe cases may cause soul rupture!

2. If this potion is used simultaneously with other potential activation potions, there is a high probability of unknown effects. According to System analysis, the probability of unknown effects being negative is over ninety percent!

3. Multiple uses of this potion have a high probability of causing soul level degradation.

Although it had troublesome side effects, they still couldn’t overshadow the powerful efficacy of this “Activation Potion.” If used during combat, a six or seven-fold increase in energy recovery speed meant you could use high-consumption spells extensively in a short time without worrying about magical exhaustion.

If used after combat, it meant your magical power could recover completely quickly, allowing you to face the next battle immediately without fear.

How could Punk not be excited about obtaining such a life-saving potion as a trump card? As a Formal-Level mage who had recently advanced, the spells he used, while uncommon, were far from being hidden killing moves. What he lacked most now were the “endless” trump cards that were standard equipment for mages! Therefore, Punk was determined to craft this potion!

But powerful potions also came with formidable crafting difficulties.

Having experienced more than a dozen failures over the past month, Punk understood the meaning of “difficulty” all too clearly.

Now, floating in his palm were dozens of translucent, irregular light blue fragments. If you listened carefully, these fragments seemed to be screaming and wailing as they flew up and down, with sporadic flashes erupting from each fragment from time to time. These fragments were the intelligent being soul fragments that Punk had just “cut”!

Punk frowned tightly, using delicate magical power to carefully manipulate the increasingly chaotic soul fragments, but their reaction was far from ideal. Not only did their chaos not subside, but it became even more frenzied and bizarre!

These souls were extracted from the body of a young male slave. Now, that poor slave’s body was curled up on the floor, every inch of muscle twisted out of shape due to excessive tension. After all, the agony of having one’s soul forcibly torn from the body was enough to make an ordinary person tear their muscles from the excruciating pain.

Extremely irritated, Punk kicked the “body” to the corner with one foot. He casually discarded the confined soul fragments, letting them be completely devoured by the ethereal River of Fate. For those suffering souls, such an end might even be considered a relief.

Slowly massaging his temples, Punk felt that this potion preparation had truly stumped him.

According to the instructions on the potion formula, the core ingredient of this “Activation Potion” was “stable soul fragments from intelligent beings below Formal-Level”!

But no being was willing to have their soul manipulated by others, let alone the process of having their soul cut into fragments, which was painful enough to drive any intelligent being without sufficient soul level to madness. After such a “brutal” operation, most of the soul fragments he obtained were twisted, mad, and full of chaos. How could they possibly be associated with the word “stable”?

Having invested enormous time and energy without any results, even someone as calm as Punk now felt the urge to smash things. But he knew there must be a solution to the problem. Anger would only make the already poor experiment worse and provide no help toward his goal of success.

After several deep breaths, the anger in Punk’s heart finally subsided. Once calm, he used a brief magical communication to tell Bilan to go to the basement and “fetch” a few more slaves, while he picked up the worn parchment once again to study it, searching for any details that might have been overlooked!