John landed with a thump atop the bow of the Icarus. He was frustratingly tired while having to carry another body along with his in flight in addition to requiring a longer flight. Walking was much slower for John and the Icarus had produced quite the gap to overcome by the time John was back in the air.

Under his breath he cursed the creature and even had a moment where he thought of ramming Icarus full force straight at it. This was of course the worse idea imaginable and he cursed himself again for entertaining stupid ideas.

Ultimately he put it behind him and tended to the elf. She was still in critical condition and required immediate care. Carrying her below, he took her to the ships infirmary.

It wasn’t much but a crystal hanging from the ceiling froze status effects. If someone was in a state where they should bleed, they would not bleed in this room. This didn’t mean they were cured as it you removed them the room, the status would resume if you did. It was just an effect of a unique crystal that would continue as long as it was charged.

John laid her down on the room’s spare bed. She would be fine for now but it couldn’t be left like this.

“Icarus, please watch over her and warn me if the charge in the crystal starts to get too low.”

“Understood.”

John was no healer, but he was an alchemist. She would probably not enjoy what he was going to make for her and might even protest should she not be unconscious.

He was reluctant to use his main stores for a stranger and instead would use what he gathered in his walking.

What would it be? There was fungus and moss, two of the strands had recovery properties but risked delivery of decease. Using particular flowers and their roots would counter the decease so it would be alright overall. Adding some insect shells to the mix would give her something her body could use to recover bones and tissue. A few more ingredients would make it work and touch more for flair and it would be done.

The main issue was the potency, she would be drinking allot of this for her to reach a state worthy of being considered a recovery. There was no helping it though.

Taking a mortar and pestle, he removed the required ingredients from his inventory that was the space where various objects appeared and disappeared within his outfit, and placed them in to be crushed.

Doing it a few times, the pestle became infused with the action and began repeating his movements. Moving to another he added the same ingredients and worked the pestle like the one before. Soon it too followed the actions of the first and John was able to work on more. The result was a creepy looking workspace seemingly run by ghosts as a number of mortars and pestles worked to crush together various ingredients.

“Minor water summon, water sphere, water sphere, water sphere.”

Normally he would avoid using spirit water but as the ingredients were of a low standard, it would suffice and more importantly, was free to use. There were just some adjustments needing to be made so that the spirit energies didn’t overly harm her. If she took in too much spirit energy that she couldn’t process, her mana reserves would become unstable and tear her mind apart until she entered a vegetable like state. Spirit energy was not the same as mana, it could be quite harmful if not accounted for.

So John drew it out. Letting the spirit energy spill into a pot, John willed his mana into the water and gripped the spirit energy. Tugging at it like a third arm, an aura appeared over the pot for a brief second before John could feel the energy disappearing to nothingness. When removed, the energy simply left and ceased to exist. It did not linger and likely slipped back into the spirit realm.

The purer John tried the make the water, the hard and more mana he would have to use. He stopped part way to a complete purification, he didn’t need it, where it was at now was enough.

Stopping the pestles, John poured in the crushed mixtures into the pot with the water and started a low flame below to start the fusion process.

Dabbing his finger in some of the mixture left stuck on the mortars inner walls, John drew a magic circle on the side of the pot. Alchemy required magic and he wasn’t planning on being the source. Such a low quality production could be produced though latent mana in the atmosphere as there was more than enough there to finish this without further intervention from himself.

John opened a drawer down and to his side, placing the used mortar pestle combinations within it. Besides being able to overlap multiple drawers of the same size in the same 3 dimensional space, so that he may pull out what he needed from the same location with, it also served as a makeshift dishwasher. The magic space rejected unregistered components and organized incoming items to a predetermined state which would strip the most recent mixture off the mortars wall and fall down a shaft to an essence extractor down below. The little bits left were still magical ingredients and held far higher concentrations of mana then normal plants. It wasn’t much but it was still worth using the little bits left over for the long run and the system more importantly kept tools and utensils clean.

But now there was nothing for him to do.

The skytiger was sleeping on the lab’s bed, it might actually be a few days before it woke up.

Taking another look at the elf in the infirmary…

“Icarus, any changes?”

“No, she is stable but won’t be waking up for awhile.”

“I see, I’ll be taking my leave for awhile then. Be mindful of any hard banking, a decent amount of potion is brewing in the lab.”

“Understood. Take care john.”

“Goodbye Icarus.”

And John disappeared from first.