Potion of the Star Caller

Mortal tier recipe. No cultivation requirements

The star caller is an ancient cultivator famed for his discovery of a new enhancement system. An adept astronomist, and astrologist in his spare time, his knowledge of the stars was at the practical limit of humanity back in the day. Using quite a volume of resources confirmed that starlight is not only delicate but also an endlessly persevering force. This does not refer to the pittance of light actually received by these far off stars but instead the astral energy emitted alongside it.

He focused on creating a systematic method of absorbing and refining this force. The theory accumulated to a single factor of humans lacking natural affinity to starlight, so he thought of two solutions. Forcefully gather starlight with supplemental goods or make the first stage in the system to refine a thin starlight attracting skin. We now do both.

Ingredients and recipe Astral shard, 50 grams – natural gathering stage crystal Extreme yin blossom, 1 flower – natural gathering stage flower Core magma, 1 drop – natural gathering stage fluid Mystic’s water, 10 ml – natural gathering stage fluid Moonlit tea leaves, 2.5 grams – non magical plant

Our recipe focuses on affordability whilst the original version cared little for that. He was an insanely rich cultivator and people of that time cared little for sustainability or affordability. If you published a recipe like that nowadays it would be rejected.

Extreme yin is required as a core for drawing in this force however these flowers in particular hold a flaw due to only growing in horrible frigid locations. This icy essence that infused itself with the yin energy can only be removed by a type of pure heat. There are many ways to do this but for simplicity I have chosen core magma.

Starlight is a delicate force and the harshness of frost will distort such energies, if not directly dispersing it. Additionally, extreme yin is not a soft force by nature and by applying this extreme heat it counters this harshness to a degree, but weaker yin forces are too ineffective for this recipe. We could use spirit forming stage yin plants but it bloats the recipe cost by several times.

Moving on, core magma is magma from the outer core of any active planet. Technically this is grade 1 core magma as it comes from a low-level world, which is also why the ingredient is only at natural gathering despite its toughness to obtain.

Moonlit tea leaves are a broad range of teas. As some may know, plants require light to grow but in normal cases moonlight is too weak to help them photosynthesize. This is also true for moonlit plants, however what makes these special is how they absorb lunar energy at night. Without lunar energy they shrivel up and rot after just a few days. All moonlit leaves share the property of clearing the mind for a few seconds after drinking, great for relaxing if highly stressed.

Lunar energy is an odd phrase in its own right since moons don’t emit anything. To summarise as many scholars before myself, lunar energy is an annihilated mixture of sunlight from our sun and starlight from far off stars. I’ll stop here so as to not lecture about irrelevant things.

Astral shards are collections of spatial forces combined into a physical object. Naturally, these crystal formations are rare and sought after but advancements mean that creating them artificially is possible. The problem is that this process is still really expensive unless personally controlled by a cultivator at the law questioning stage. Only by having a body take on astral properties can we draw starlight to it, and what is more astral than space itself?

Last is Mystic’s water. I previously stated it holds a ‘recursive effect’ and primarily left it on the reader to infer the connotations. Made from a combination of enchanted water and the water contained within a jade lily, and then merged through Mystic’s enchant. The jade lily is a neutral water with few effects when on its own, maybe the only notable part is its rejuvenating effect on mortal bodies. It also really hates combining with anything else in a natural state, the reason this enchant is so important.

Recursive effects mean to repeat, but not in the way one imagines. There is only so much energy contained within something and a natural gathering stage ingredient is never going to overcome this. Recursive effects do not directly amplify effects by repeating the process, but instead apply a time effect which repeats the merging of whatever ingredients you pour it over.

Nature is far from optimal, instead it simply goes with whatever works best. Recursive effects allow cultivators who cannot control time to merge ingredients at optimal rates, although such a thing is never guaranteed. A recursive effect will inevitably stop under one of two conditions, either the process is completed or the product providing the effect runs out. In most cases we have the former case. A recursive effect will never ‘undo’ a perfect result as there should not be anything leftover to cause a recursion.

Moving on from that lengthy explanation, let’s hurry up and make this potion.

Grind up the extreme yin blossom and add half your Mystic’s water to the pulp. Disperse the ground up flower using it and add the core magma. It is critical that we perfectly remove the frost energy and ensure that none of the core magma’s extreme heat is left over. It is best to use inert stone tools for this part and move back a few metres during the clashing phase. Merging two extreme ingredients is known to have… explosive effects.

I’m not joking with the next part. Brew a cup of tea with the moonlit tea leaves, washing the leaves is not recommended as you would with standard ones. Brewing time at the minimum should be 2 minutes, although some types call for up to 10 minutes of brewing. Read up on whatever leaves you purchase in advance.

Remove the tendered leaves and grind them up. Allow the cup of tea to cool to room temperature, and whilst doing that begin coating the astral crystal in ground up tea leaves. Completely covering it is unnecessary, just make sure all the leaves are stuck to it.

Add the finished extreme yin flower to the tea. If you breathed whilst nearby the original flower you will notice a massive difference in quality. The initial blossom’s energy should have felt like swallowing icy needles which somehow filled every corner of your throat and lungs, but with only a soft energy remaining it becomes refreshing. The flower itself has no scent, unfortunately.

Stir the ground up flower with the cooled tea and add the remaining half of Mystic’s water. Finally, drop in the tea leaf covered astral crystal and stir gently. The recursive effect will only last 5 minutes at most, however this is enough to obtain a 98% combination rate. Consider that most products only achieve a 95% rate and you can understand why this stuff is used so rarely.

For reference, the annihilation of frost and extreme heat must be 99.99% at minimum to stop a failed potion. The lower mass of ingredients means the recursive effect lasts 20 minutes.

Stirring non-stop during the 5 minute combinatory period ensures the best result, although at best it will give you a 98.5% combination rate. The recorded best is 99.98% but supposedly that girl made almost 40,000 of these potions to achieve such a thing. No one has even attempted to beat it.

You may want to strain out the ground tea leaves and fragments of cooled magma, but aside from that the product is finished.

Usage

You drink it, we don’t do liquid suppositories here. Expect 3 hours of effects, although a combination rate of less than 98% will reduce the effective time.

For obvious reasons, if you had not figured it out, this potion only worked at night whilst in directly starlight. For that reason it is recommended to use this potion closer to a new moon as moonlight will have less chances to interfere.

The effect is simple as well, starlight which impacts your body will not be immediately repulsed. This gives even mortals enough time to hold the energy in place and refine it, albeit it very slowly. Needless to say this type of refinement demands good mental prowess.

A latter, weaker effect is the attraction of nearby starlight. This force, and the corresponding energy, moves significantly slower than light making it actually useful. For the sake of avoiding complex explanations, a standard Star Caller potion will draw in all starlight in a 10 metre radius around you.

Star Caller’s body refinement method asks you to complete a skin mutation first, but there are so many starlight refinement methods that you’re free to pick and choose. Just find one which supports your other skills the best. Hell, there are even a few alchemy related ones.