Ryan had always privately thought that tossing all the ingredients together at once — which was what the big lug's memory suggested happened — was somewhat ridiculous. But after asking Edith about it, he learned that mixing a potion was genuinely that casual.
Use a container large enough to hold everything. Add the common supplementary ingredients first, then the less common ones, and the primary ingredients last. The reason for that order, in fact, was simply this: if you made a mistake somewhere, at least you hadn't wasted the most expensive materials.
Ryan used a kettle as his container, then dropped in five drops of Blue Datura juice, ten grams of Water Fern powder, and a walnut. Then he added a hundred milliliters of pure water — essentially distilled water — that he'd bought from a mysticism market a few days earlier.
He had actually just asked Edith whether pure water needed to be freshly made. Her response had been impressively offhand: as long as it had been properly distilled and sealed in a clean container, it was fine. She had no particular comment on him buying it from the market, either — only a passing glance, and a note that next time he should probably at least watch it come directly out of a distillation vessel himself.
Ryan checked the kettle. Everything looked normal so far.
He picked up a small iron box. Inside, sitting on its own, was a Y-shaped organ that looked something like a trachea — the vocal pipe of the Demon-throat Honeybird. It looked slightly wilted from sitting in the box, but otherwise unremarkable. Reminding himself to mind his own business about Extraordinary things, Ryan tipped it into the kettle.
He checked the bottom again. Still nothing unusual.
Then he picked up the box containing the Demon-throat Honeybird's heart. It looked startlingly fresh — almost as though it had just been extracted. Ryan, thoroughly desensitized by now, simply tipped it in.
A soft hiss, and steam rose from the kettle — translucent and dreamlike, curling at the spout and refusing to disperse. Faintly, he thought he heard a brief, melodic birdsong.
There it is. Primary ingredients really are the important part. He nodded and looked in again — only to find the mist had thickened considerably, enough that even his enhanced vision couldn't see the bottom clearly.
Without dwelling on it, he reached for the last box. Inside was a sac-like organ, darkened to a glossy black.
A glance at it was enough to put some unpleasant thoughts in his head.
You're a venom sac, he muttered, and tipped it in.
The mist was instantly drawn back in. The faint birdsong disappeared. When he looked into the kettle, everything he'd added was gone — replaced by a single dark liquid, lightless yet somehow gleaming, giving off tiny bubbles, and occupying a volume that was clearly well beyond a hundred milliliters.
"Miss Edith, is this ready to drink as-is?" He touched the bottom of the kettle — warm — and asked what was, in retrospect, a fairly casual question.
"If you'd like to pour it over yourself instead, Mr. John, that's technically also an option."
You're joking, surely. Ryan did not touch that particular comment. With a woman who potentially had a Charm ability, he had no interest in testing his own willpower.
He poured the mixed potion carefully into a cup — and noticed that Edith might not have been entirely joking after all. Though it flowed like a liquid, it had an inexplicable viscosity. When the kettle was empty, there wasn't a single drop remaining anywhere inside.
He looked at the dark liquid in the cup. Something stirred inside him — desire, destructive impulse, nothing specific, but real.
Then Edith spoke.
"Wait a moment."
She crossed to the table, looked at the cup of potion, and produced a small mirror. She passed her hand over the surface, and waited until the glass stopped reflecting and began to show something else — a ripple, like the surface of water. Then, quietly, she repeated:
"This potion poses a hazard."
Seven repetitions. Ryan, watching from the side, saw words slowly appear on the mirror's surface: Some hazard present.
Edith nodded, satisfied.
"This means your potion mixed successfully."
Without pausing for him to respond, she continued:
"What I just performed was a simplified version of mirror divination. For an Extraordinaire with sufficient Inspiration, mirror divination doesn't require consulting a god or some other powerful but dangerous unknown entity — you can simply direct the divination toward your own spiritual power and ask for an answer directly. The accuracy is lower than other methods, but for simpler questions, it's entirely adequate."
She noted the slightly envious look on Ryan's face and smiled deeper.
"No need to rush. These things will come naturally once you reach Sequence 7. For now, focus on what's in front of you — and try not to be tense. A calm mind will make the potion's discomfort easier to endure."
"Thank you for your help, Miss Edith."
Satisfied that nothing looked wrong, Ryan glanced at his pocket watch, thought: What's meant to come will come, and what isn't won't be held off by worrying — and drank the whole cup in one go.
It wasn't sticky going down. Just a profoundly strange taste.
That was the last impression he had time for.
A tide of malice and destructive urge surged up from his stomach and swallowed him whole. What had been formless and abstract moments ago now felt entirely physical — tearing through his flesh, infecting every part of him. Every cell seemed to turn feral at once, attacking its neighbors, and the pain that produced was beyond easy description.
The sensation from meditation returned — that feeling of thoughts beginning to lift free — but this time what swept through him was not stillness.
Ryan gritted his teeth and endured, waiting for it to recede like a tide.
Before he could breathe again, the whisper came — familiar, as unwelcome as ever, its words still unintelligible. What had been one ordeal was now two, stacked. His vision had dissolved into a blur of shifting, unreal images.
Pushing through the fierce agitation, Ryan forced his focus inward and began the meditation steps he'd just learned.
As his attention gradually gathered, the clamoring noise and unsettling visions fell away. As his body and mind settled into stillness again, he became aware of his spiritual power running through him — only now it was like a lake with a stone thrown into it, ripples crossing the surface.
Something shifted in his understanding. He began quietly sensing the spiritual power — increased noticeably from before — and tried to smooth the ripples, to let everything return to calm.
He exhaled slowly.
When he opened his eyes, everything looked the same as before — and yet subtly, unmistakably different.
He looked around. Edith was gone. On the table was a note:
Something came up — I had to leave. Don't worry, the Church hasn't found this place. Congratulations on your successful advancement, Mister Instigator. And don't forget — you still owe us 720 pounds.
Ryan hadn't gone out to earn money that week, wanting to avoid drawing attention. He'd only eliminated a few individuals in Mourne and the surrounding area who had no regard for human life — the sum he'd taken from them didn't even cover a week's meals. Edith hadn't pushed him; she'd just mentioned it periodically as a reminder.
Still, looking at that number — 720 pounds — even genuine elation couldn't entirely prevent his mood from sinking a little.
"Pay-to-win exists in real life too, apparently."
He shook his head, set the debt aside, and checked his pocket watch. Only a few minutes had passed. He turned his attention to the difference between Sequence 8 and Sequence 9.
"After all that, you'd better not disappoint me."
He began going through the new knowledge that had appeared in his mind.