[Vol. 7] Chapter 130: Life is Full of Explosions
Time passed.
In the blink of an eye, Violet and the two little ones had already been living in Academy City Sainz for over a week.
Life in the academy was far more peaceful and serene compared to the outside world. The usual schemes, power struggles, and hidden conflicts seemed to be sealed away beyond the towering magical barriers formed by the city’s Seven Grand Towers. The enemies and traps she had anticipated never appeared. Most of the people Violet met in Sainz, including Yulia, Priscilla, and others, were surprisingly friendly, offering her and the children plenty of help and care.
Sainz was truly like a warm and welcoming home, a city that seemed perfect for settling down, at least for now.
With the support of those around her, Violet and the children gradually settled into their new lives. While she remained quietly vigilant against any potential dangers, she also began exploring new areas of interest, enjoying the thrill of learning something entirely different for a change.
"Gurgle... gurgle... gurgle..."
A massive, iron-gray metal pot glowed with a deep red hue as it was heated by the intense flames below. Inside, a swirling mix of colorful liquids bubbled vigorously, forming vibrant, shimmering bubbles that popped the moment they rose, like something straight out of a fairy tale witch’s sinister potion brew.
At the pot’s edge, a young, black-haired girl dressed in a long lab robe gripped a thick wooden stirring rod with both hands, struggling a little as she leaned over to give the mixture a few strong stirs. Watching the ripples of color spread across the surface, she muttered to herself in satisfaction—
"Hmm… everything’s going smoothly this time. I think it's going to work!"
"Please, Miss Violet, stop saying things like that."
A voice from the other side of the pot sighed in exasperation.
"Every time you say that, something strange happens. I really don’t want to experience another pot explosion in the lab…"
"Hey, hey! What do you mean by that?! Don’t just slap me with a 'jinx' title out of nowhere!"
Standing across from her, Ismael, the head of general affairs of Sainz Academy and a top-tier master alchemist, wiped the moisture off his hardened forehead, whether from the heat of the lab or sheer nervousness at her words was unclear.
Yes, despite looking like some forbidden dark ritual, Violet was actually working with Ismael, learning and experimenting under his guidance. The goal? To create an entirely new type of magical potion.
Violet had been interested in alchemy and potion-making for a long time. In this world, magical potions were widely used across various fields, from healing and enhancement to enchantments and more.
Though their high cost made them inaccessible to the general public, they were absolute necessities for those who lived on the edge of life and death, adventurers, mercenaries, and even elite military units with specialized combat roles.
If magic scrolls work by sealing a fully-formed spell inside a container, allowing it to be released at a critical moment, essentially turning magic into a portable weapon that anyone can carry, then potions are even more incredible. By using different ingredients and formulas, potions can achieve effects that even magic itself cannot replicate, making them a unique branch of magic in their own right.
There are potions that boost courage (Heart-Strengthening Potion), make the drinker invisible (Invisibility Potion), drastically enhance physical strength for a short time (Berserk Potion), and the most well-known type, Healing Potions, which can save lives in extreme conditions. The sheer variety of potions in this world is endless, with so many different effects that it's hard to put them all into words.
Even with the exact same ingredients, altering the ratios or the brewing process can lead to completely different results. Even the best alchemists can’t simply create a new potion from scratch. They can only estimate the necessary materials and proportions, then go through a painstaking process of adjustments, repeated experiments, and inevitable failures before they succeed.
This was exactly what Violet and Ismael were doing now.
Due to the nature of her magical affinity, no matter how powerful Violet was, she couldn’t use magic outside of the Holy Light element, aside from some basic life magic that had no strict requirements. While this limitation wasn’t a major issue, it was still a small regret for her.
But potions were an exception.
The reason Violet hadn’t tried her hand at alchemy before was partly because she was constantly traveling and never had access to proper facilities, instructors, or resources.
The other reason was her unique divine body. Most potions, whether beneficial or harmful, from the lowest grade to the highest, simply had no effect on her. Because of this, she had put off exploring potion-making for a long time.
But Sainz Academy was different. As a specialized discipline here, potionology has well-established experimental facilities and supporting equipment. The teaching resources and material supplies are all readily available. There are even experienced test subjects. It's a rare opportunity, and the priestess naturally wouldn't miss it.
In the past few days since she officially started learning alchemy, Violet had already conducted over twenty experiments. The theoretical side was easy for her to grasp, but according to the rules of alchemists, a beginner wasn’t considered formally initiated until they successfully created their own original potion formula.
Of course, if her goal was simply to brew an ordinary new potion, with her skills and Ismael's assistance, who was said to be among the top ten alchemists in the world, she wouldn’t have struggled this much.
But Violet had her sights set much higher and the materials needed for her experiments were far beyond ordinary…
"Oh! It's about time!"
Noticing the rapid change in color within the pot, the black-haired girl, who had been stirring vigorously, suddenly brightened up. She quickly stopped what she was doing and reached into her backpack, pulling out a sealed crystal vial. With a swift motion, she popped the lid open.
A faint, indescribably pleasant fragrance spread through the air. Violet gave the vial a small shake. Inside, the liquid looked as clear as water but had a subtle golden-red shimmer to it. Tilting the bottle carefully, she began to drip the liquid into the pot's swirling mixture.
"Drip~ Drip~ Drip~"
She measured it with absolute precision, exactly three drops, no more, no less. As soon as the final drop landed, she immediately sealed the vial back up and stashed it away into the void. Then, wasting no time, she turned to Ismael and urged him on hurriedly.
"Quick, quick, quick! Hurry up!"
"Got it!"
Without hesitation, Violet grabbed the stirring rod again and began mixing the pot's contents even more aggressively than before. At the same time, Ismael, who had been waiting for this moment, lifted a massive container filled with a clear liquid and steadily poured it into the pot at a precise rate.
That liquid was the base solution, one of the fundamental components in potion-making, typically used to dilute the mixture and lower its concentration.
However, the sheer amount of the base solution was alarming. Given the pot's size, there was no way it could hold that much liquid, it should have overflowed instantly.
But in the next moment, a dramatic transformation took place, explaining exactly why they were taking this approach.
With just three drops of the mysterious liquid, the once multicolored potion rapidly turned into a brilliant, golden glow, shimmering like liquid light itself. At the same time, the mixture began boiling intensely, evaporating at a rate ten times faster than before, sending up thick clouds of steam while its volume shrank at an alarming speed.
"GURURURURU!!!"
Even as Ismael poured in the base solution at a steep angle, trying to keep up with the rapid evaporation, he could barely stabilize the shrinking potion inside the pot.
It wasn't that he didn't want to pour faster, but they had already learned the hard way from a previous explosion, the pouring speed, timing, and the exact conditions of the potion before this step were all lessons painfully earned through countless failures.
That was how potion-making worked, trial and error, over and over again, pushing forward through every setback.