Fatigue reducing potion and rations

Mortal tier recipe. No cultivation requirements

We all know that feeling. Spending several hours performing intensive labour, whether for pay or training, and wanting to keel over and drop dead. So do a lot of alchemists as it turned out, all the way back to the first intelligent creatures.

The proto-alchemists, a while into the growing tribal civilisation, yet to entirely cement their craft, held a meeting to calm the greatest problems plaguing their society. This is quite loosely documented, although the fact that it’s recorded at all is a miracle. It was nowhere close to the first gathering of scholars in that primitive age, but it allowed hundreds of different people to compare techniques and recipes. They successfully brewed a bitter compound capable of removing physical fatigue, but not capable of healing muscles. As well as showing alchemical prowess they could all realise basic medical issues like this, soon after acknowledging that healing fatigue would not remove the necessity of rest.

Ingredients and recipe Low tier enchanted water, 10 ml – natural gathering stage fluid Stamina herb, 2 leaves – non magical plant Dead-eye tree bark, 50 grams – non magical plant Paralysis bombs, 9 mushrooms – non magical plant

This is the best version of this recipe available to the world, and the last change was before the tribal period even ended.

Stamina herb can’t actually restore stamina. Warriors in these primitive groups would often chew on the leaves raw to relieve any muscles aches, to a limited degree of course. We never changed the name because stamina herb sounds nice.

Dead-eye trees are odd. They can’t harm you on touch, nor by releasing any chemicals. If you ate a leaf, flower, or seed then nothing would happen. But take the bark, boil it down, and add it to a stew and you’re in for a strange situation. The bark, and only the bark, has the innate property to focus the chemical effects of any non-magical drug. Fairly good if you want to poison someone with a neurotoxin.

Paralysis bombs retain their age-old name as well. These thin mushrooms contain a non-threatening paralysing chemical, and would be quite fun if not for violently spraying it out alongside their spores whenever touched by a living creature. The exact requirement is to send any weak electrical signal into them, for example by touching them directly. Don’t expect to be moving in the hour if you touch them, so wear some gloves when harvesting.

Dump the tree bark in a pot of hot water and leave it to soften for half an hour, this is a great time to prepare the other ingredients as well!

The paralysis bombs only store their chemical in their heads, so cut off the stems and keep the heads in a non-conductive bowl. As an alchemist you should ideally only use stone and wood bowls at the mortal tier, but I digress. If you have the accuracy then feel free to scrape out the gills of the mushroom to only leave the small cap containing the chemical store.

Pour your enchanted water into a flat plate, leaving a thin film of the liquid, and drop the stamina herb into it. For surety, press down on the leaves to cover their entirety. It really sucks when you only coat one half…

The energisation process affecting the leaves right now takes about ten minutes. Try not to let it stay in for much longer since the cellular structure will break down, leaving you with a pile of disintegrated leaves.

With that done, take a bowlful of water out of the pot containing bark, ensuring that none of the wood is removed. The mushroom caps are thoroughly washed in this water, and don’t worry if some tiny splinters end up stuck to the fungi. After washing simply tip out the water and place the wet caps in direct sunlight to dry a bit.

Remove the leaves from their magical water soaking, but do not leave them in the sun. Simply store them for now.

With the bark’s end soon approaching you simply need to wait for the half hour mark to tick by before draining the water. Dump the liquid as you please, it holds no use for us. Cleaning the pot may also be more tedious now, as some sap from the bark likely escaped in that.

Pour the remaining enchanted water into a clean bowl and prepare your vial to store the potion.

Add the enhanced leaves, cleaned caps, and soaked bark to mortar for crushing, Mulch all the ingredients down together and try to keep all the liquid inside the bowl. Make sure to finely crush the bark such that no large splinters are left over, while also crushing the other ingredients to a fine mush.

Now the product can be scooped into a tough cloth, like linen, and slowly drained out into the magical water. This will release quite a lot of liquid, and likely enough to make a few potions just from this single portion of ingredients. Just make sure to stir the enchanted water into the rest to evenly distribute it.

But the recipe doesn’t end here this time.

The leftover plant mixture is still edible, and contains all the requisite effects to remove fatigue. Simply take a small piece of the plants and roll it into a small ball. These can be left out in the sun to dry, likely taking a couple days. Eating them while wet has no implicit danger, but they’re awfully hard to store due to that wetness. Not to mention losing their form relatively quickly.

Usage

They remove the physical sensation of fatigue, as well as the actual cause of such sensation. On a technical level this means complete removal of lactic acid build-up, while the paralysis chemical targets muscle soreness. This combination effectively allows a tensed warrior to ignore their wailing body to continue acting at maximum efficiency.

The potion is roughly 10x more effective than any of the plant balls. Some have suggested adding enchanted water to the balls, effectively tripling their effects, but that also entirely negates their far cheaper purpose. These balls are effective for 10 minutes to be clear.

Aside from clear battle usages, it holds a large number of societal usages. Anything from having to work a long day, or simply needing to finish something and rest could result in a poor outcome. Even something as simple as using it to exercise without worry of the intense soreness that comes later. It all comes with a simple warning.

Rest properly after consumption!

Not resting will result in damaged muscles not healing, and this can easily build up. Expect weeks of recuperations due to muscular lesions and the sort, just because you wanted to work double the workload this week. They’re also popular in nightlife, for self-evident reasons.