34 days after the explosion – Duke’s room

"Wait, she may not be interested but I need to know, how did you do it? This is probably one of humankind greatest discoveries"(duke) asked

And it was true that he wanted to know, but it was also a way to change the subject

"Oh! Do you want to know?Fine I will tell you"(prince) showed a happy face

Sadly for the prince, he had so few opportunities to gloat in his life, that he couldn't resist the temptation of showing off a little

"Well, it all started 5 years ago....."(prince)

Narration

In the palace private library, there were a lot of interesting books about alchemy, and some even came from the old Dragon empire. There were a lot of interesting recipes there that would be impossible to find even in the black marked, so I tried them myself to see wat I could find

One of my favorites, the sleeping powder, came from one of the recipes there, and it was one of my best sellers. There were also some that I had to get creative, like the stimulant for the powder, where some of the materials were impossible to get on this continent. The thing was that the inner mana potion was a completely different beast

For starters, the inner mana potion was a mana recovery potion actually

I don't know if you know duke, but most mana recovery potions on the marked increase the speed of recovery while resting.What most potions do is help the body relax so it can absorb the mana around them faster and the quality of the potion depends on how fast it helps with the recovery

But this one was a little different since it could also help your recovery even in the middle of a fight. Unlike the usual mana potions that rely on the body relaxing(something impossible in the middle of a fight) this potion helped in the regeneration of the mana inside the body

As you can probably imagine, the difference within helping in the middle of a fight or helping after a fight is enormous, and so is the "value"

That is why I was really interested in recreating that potion

The problem was that most of the materials, including the key components, were impossible to find on this continent or even time since some went extinct. Unlike the stimulant that only had some of the ingredients missing, at leat the key component was available, but it wasn't like that with the mana potion

Luckily, the theory behind the potion was left with the recipe, so I started to experiment. After some research, I tried mixing the recipe from both the ancient mana potion, and the mana potions in the marked, plus some other materials I thought could help

As for test subjects, I used normal rats to taste for poison and inner mana rats to test the effectiveness

The test was simple. I recorded the rat stamina and recovery rate. If one of those improved after taking a potion, it meant the potion worked. Obviously, I was more interested at the stamina improvement during exercise than the recovery rate after, but a way to make normal recovery potions wasn't a bad idea

And at some point, I started to succeed in both the recovery and stamina improvement, but that didn't mean I was satisfied. Not only I wanted to know which materials were most effective and which useless, I also wanted to increase the effectiveness. The less useless materials I used, the cheaper it would be to make, and the better the effectiveness, the more expensive it will be, so it was important to research

Besides, if I found out which were the important ingredients, I could experiment with new ones and see if there was any change

So I kept experimenting while first trying them with the normal rats for poison and the inner ones for effectiveness. This kept going for a while until I saw something strange.

Usually, the normal rats were kept in wired cages while the inner mana ones were kept on especially cages. The reason was because inner mana ones could break the wires of the normal cages with their reinforced teeth while normal ones couldn't. The thing is, one rat escaped from a normal cage, and it was after eating the wire

At first I thought the cage was defective or they sold me an inner mana rat by mistake, but after inspecting the other cages, some of them had strong bite marks on the wire

Well, my point is that after doubting for a while and doing different checks, I came to the conclusion that my potion had the ability to grant inner mana to rats

I would make a killing in buying normal ones and then selling them with inner mana :)

not

Of course my ambition wouldn't be so low

Since I kept records of all the experiments I did, it wasn't too hard to find out which recipes had the effect. After that, I tested the potion on different animals(rabbits, dogs, and cats) and after seen no side effect, I tried on myself

Kind of dangerous I know, but it was the kind of discovery someone would kill for, so instead of using it on another person and gamble if the guy could keep a secret, I preferred to gamble on myself, and it paid off

The end

"Interesting story, right?"(prince)

"But why not tell the world? It would bring immeasurable fame and glory"(duke)

It was a reasonable question. A discovery like that would put you in the history books. Most people would love that, including the duke

"Can I eat fame and glory? naa, I already saw the effects of fame and glory on my family. Now, getting a stupid amount of gold to do anything I want, that is different"(prince)

For the prince, getting fame and glory came with annoying baggage. You had to fulfill everyone expectations, everyone knew who you were so it was hard to move around, every little thing you do would get blown out of proportion

Basically, a pain in the ass

"What were you planning to do with the potion then?"(duke)

"Sell it on the black marked and then on request, it would earn me a lot of money both on the short run and the long run"(prince)

That shocked the duke. Seel one of the greatest discoveries at a black marked to the scum of society? It was crazy, It was like creating a kingdom and selling it to bandits

Still, the duke had to admit it would bring good profit

"But it is a waste prince, such a great discovery been sold to ruffians and scumbags!"(duke)

"Yeah, because nobles and merchants are better than scumbags and ruffians. Besides, in the end I plan to sell it to everybody so who cares? This way I get more profit without dealing with annoying popularity"(prince)

"Still, it's a waste. Imagine what you could do if every soldier had inner mana. Taking over the continent would be easy"(duke)

"and here we go with your conquer plan. Besides, You still haven't told me everything you know"(prince) went back on track

And the duke cursed his slip of the tongue. He had skillfully changed the subject, but his dream of one land brought back the topic of the invasion

"I believe that the discovery of the mana potion should be used by the kingdom. Imagine what could be accomplished with it"(duke)tried to change the subject

"Don't you mean the Empire? In the end, you sold us out to them, right?"(prince)

"Haven't you been listening? what it is important is human supremacy, and we have the tools now to easily do it"(duke)

The duke was happy in a way. Even if he failed, or even if the invasion failed, as long as the prince used the mana potion to win, the end result would still be the same. All the duke wanted was peace

"Fool, but it doesn't matter, I won't argue with a religious fanatic. Now spill everything you know about the invasion. I still have a lot of stuff to do and I can't deal with you all day"(prince)

"Fine, I will talk"(duke)

It didn't matter anymore. The duke had done his best and the way he saw it, no matter whose side won, the humans would benefit in the end. If the Zergeit kingdom won, all humanity finally would become one, and if the Griffin empire won, a way to use inner mana would spread among humankind. As long as the duke didn't die, with the information he got out of the prince, sooner or later the way to make inner mana potions would come out

So the prince finally knew who he could trust, how much damage the duke did, and in how much sh-t he was in