It Started with Slime - Part 1

Chapter 107 - Potions Again

Bonus Chapter for Review (2 of 2)

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Aarav had managed to pull himself over to his initial potion experiment and looked at how best to proceed.

Aarav began funnelling Mana into the water, trying to combine it with the liquid before he poured it into the glass that held the sand and herbs, and it just kept rolling off. He pushed harder, trying to bond the Mana to the water and get it to mingle, but the Mana kept passing through this time. It was like trying to attach steam to oil, and it just kept emulsifying instead of binding.

Would he need to try a different approach? Okay, let's do this one more time. This time instead of trying to force the weaves of Mana to bind to the water, he just weaved the Mana into a lattice. Then threaded it around and through the water. The water parted around the weaves and slid past but was still contained within it. Now it was partially bound to the water. So far, he had poured 100 of his meagre 562 Mana into the weave, and nothing of note had happened.

He needed more.

Another one hundred Mana went into the weave and then another. Now the weave was all-encompassing. The water was barely visible through the weaves. It also seemed to become exponentially harder to hold it all in his mind—a headache of epic proportions formed where his brain was supposed to be. He can't have it much longer. Even in his mind, his voice felt strained with its pressure. Water sloshed in and out of the weaves. The gaps were too small for solids, but the liquid passed through quickly. He was trying to hold water with a sieve, and he needed to tighten those gaps to keep the water going through the Mana.

Another one hundred Mana, and still the gaps were there. He poured another hundred in, and now, on top of the headache he already had, the Mana deprivation headache formed and doubled down on his aching brain. Aarav strained, getting close to his limit, but the sieve idea hadn't worked. Aarav needed to let go and allow his mind to relax and his Mana to replenish. Still, he couldn't just let go after putting in so much effort. Maybe just a little more could make it work?

He put in the final sixth-four MP, some having recovered through this ordeal. But it was not enough. He was exhausted, his mind strained and about ready to implode his Mana sitting at zero now with a trickle coming in from the potion he had taken. He felt blind from having to head with the intense ache in his head. One good thing came from it, though:

Your Skill Pain Resistance has increased to Level 8!

A clear indication if he even needed one that the pain was beyond what he could just take. Aarav thought fondly of a time when he would not have to feel pain at all unless he wanted to if that was possible. Or just a way out of this situation and the pain it brought.

He was just about to completely let go when he heard a surprised cry, which almost made him lose the Mana weaves entirely as well. But what if the yell was Haemish telling him he was about to kill himself? The cry had been remarkably feminine, though if that were Haemish, he would have another weapon in his teasing-Haemish arsenal. That thought brightened his mood a little, but he was still straining hard.

There was the gasping intake of breath, and Aarav immediately began to regret what he was doing. He had read a book back in the day that talked about using Mana like weaves and thought the idea sounded perfect, and this was not the way to work with it here. Aarav sighed as he tried to relax the tension. The weaves nearly slipped, and he quickly snatched them up to avoid fatalities.