First floor of the Tree Hole Shelter.
Lan Qingyou was currently holding a magic lantern in one hand and a bamboo basket in the other. Inside the basket was a large meat bun and a bottle of Chafan tea.
This was her standard routine after getting hungry from reading.
It was the same logic as raiding the fridge in the middle of the night after getting hungry from scrolling through a phone.
However, after grabbing her food, Lan Qingyou suddenly felt it was a bit of a hassle.
It wasn't that eating was a hassle, but rather the constant running up and down for food. She wondered if the magic desk could be moved upstairs.
【Moveable.】
Just as Lan Qingyou had the thought, the desk suddenly floated a centimeter off the ground, and a projected dialog box popped up above it.
"Oh, that's quite convenient."
Saying this, Lan Qingyou prepared to move it upstairs.
But as she reached the door, she suddenly remembered that the magic desk had a teleportation function. Sometimes she needed to teleport large items; if she moved it to the second floor, wouldn't that make things even more inconvenient?
That wouldn't do.
Lan Qingyou stopped in her tracks and looked around. It would be better to find a more convenient spot for this thing.
Next to the alchemy workshop would be good.
After all, she would need to use various items while performing alchemy in the future.
Once she had arranged that, Lan Qingyou carried her magic lantern back to the second floor, still taking the route through the outdoor terrace because she found it more convenient.
After eating and drinking her fill, Lan Qingyou picked up 《Basic Potions》 from beside her mattress and began to read.
During the middle of the night, she had already skimmed through symbology and drafting, gaining a lot of new knowledge.
Now, she was going to officially start studying potions, the subject she was most interested in.
Half an hour later, Lan Qingyou tucked a leaf between the pages to mark her spot, closed the book, and shut her eyes.
While one couldn't read much in half an hour if they were being thorough, it was enough for Lan Qingyou to realize her mistakes.
《Basic Potions》 was, as the name suggested, a fundamental tutorial for brewing potions. It not only recorded many potion recipes but also naturally listed many precautions to take during the brewing process.
Unfortunately...
Lan Qingyou, the fledgling alchemist whom the small screen had snidely remarked needed to be sent back to the drawing board, had essentially stepped in every possible pit.
There were six reasons why yesterday's batch of mana potions had been of such low quality.
First, she hadn't constructed an alchemy circle. Without using an alchemy circle's mana circulation system, her control over the heat had been poor.
Second, she hadn't used her own mana to properly stir and fuse the herbs and the base water inside the cauldron.
Third, the base water she used was just stream water from below. Although the stream water contained mana, it was raw and not the processed mana water required for alchemy.
Additionally, the brewed potion had not been filtered. The excessive impurities meant the potion was not pure.
Furthermore, the herbs and tools she used had not been pre-processed or even given a simple cleaning, which caused the overall quality of the potion to deteriorate.
Of course...
If those were just common mistakes for a novice, then the final one was an error that likely only a self-taught alchemist like Lan Qingyou would make.
Generally speaking, the most basic brewing ratio for alchemy potions was ten-to-one.
In other words, if her cauldron, which could hold twenty thousand milliliters of water and materials, was used according to the basic ratio, the final yield should have been 2,000 milliliters.
Yet, her batch yesterday had been around 10,000 milliliters—a two-to-one ratio.
No wonder the rust marks on the bottom and top of the cauldron had been so distinctly separated.
It seemed it was caused by long-term brewing at a ten-to-one ratio.
Thinking back to how she had even risked going back down in the dark to fetch another bucket of water because she was afraid it would boil dry, she felt a wave of embarrassment.
It was a bit awkward, but it wasn't a huge deal.
After all, she was a self-taught novice; she couldn't really be blamed for this.
Besides, what was done was done.
They were already sold, and the materials were used. Was she supposed to give refunds? She didn't have time for that.
Well, she might as well cover up her mistakes while everyone was still in the dark.
For instance, she could sell those potions as quickly as possible and then brew new ones.
They were still usable, after all. There was no reason to just throw them away.
Since things had come to this, she might as well sleep.
Lan Qingyou pulled her summer comforter over herself and fell into a deep sleep.
She wouldn't read any more today. She would wake up early tomorrow to gather herbs, try to draw her own alchemy circle, and then brew a new batch of potions.
Oh, and she had to make mana water.
That required using her own mana to neutralize the mana in the stream water, which was also a major undertaking.
Busy. She hadn't expected herself to be this busy.
But it was good.
"Ah! My eyes!!!"
When Lan Qingyou opened her eyes the next morning, a beam of light hit her directly in the face.
Her courage in staring directly at the sun earned her a solid hit from a Solar Flare.
Her brain, which had been a bit groggy from just waking up, was instantly jolted awake.
This won't do. She had to see if there were any curtains for sale. If not, a piece of cloth would work. At the very least, she had to install some gauze curtains.
Otherwise, if she had to deal with this every time she woke up, how was she supposed to live her life?
Lan Qingyou thought this as she looked at her second-floor bedroom, which was brightly lit by the sunlight.
She went downstairs, ate breakfast, checked the chat logs, and then headed out.
Nothing had happened last night.
Aside from her shelter upgrade, the ghost everyone had mentioned hadn't appeared.
It seemed it was just an illusion.
Zhao Doulai, who had released the news, was being harshly flamed. The general sentiment was that everyone was already on edge, yet he had to pull a stunt like that to mess with their heads.
Some hot-tempered guys even sent direct death threats.
But this was good. At least her plan to go out at night to find chests could be carried out smoothly.
When the sun was directly overhead, around noon, Lan Qingyou finally drifted back home carrying a supply chest.
In one morning, she had worked hard to gather about forty or fifty pounds of herbs.
In addition to the herbs for mana potions, she had also gathered herbs for other potions.
She didn't go out in the afternoon, choosing instead to study symbology and drafting.
Potions could wait.
Her primary task now was to draw an alchemy circle.
Without an alchemy circle, everything else was useless.
"The sun represents 'Gold', the moon represents 'Silver', the triangle represents 'Fire', the inverted triangle represents 'Water', the hourglass represents 'Time'..."
"No, that's not right. According to the basic theory of the Four Elements and Four Characteristics, it should be the two-by-two addition of the four characteristics: Dry, Wet, Cold, and Hot. Dry plus Hot equals Fire, and Wet plus Cold equals Water. I can't forget that."
On the afternoon of the fourth day, after studying for a whole day, Lan Qingyou went to her alchemy workshop and began to draw her very first alchemy circle on the iron base.
Drawing an alchemy circle on a base required the alchemist's personal mana.
One only needed to gather mana at their fingertips to draw on a base of any material.
It seemed very convenient, but in reality, it wasn't easy at all.
Poof!
As Lan Qingyou's finger traced the final image, a puff of black smoke suddenly erupted from the base, and the alchemy circle on it was instantly ruined.
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