Why? Just why did this woman have such a mutation? Was it some sick way of God to rub in her own misfortune? Not only was she a powerful mage, but she also had a useless mana mutation. She herself on the other hand...

Sephila looked down at the small scar in the palm of her right hand. It wasn´t even five centimeters long and wasn´t different from any other scar on her hands. Yet, it was so much more. She let out a sigh. It wasn´t right to be angry against this woman, she knew that, their respective mutations were completely different after all. Sephila´s mutation had only left a small scar, while Lena probably lost half of her face. Nonetheless, it felt unfair.

She knew that it wasn´t Lena´s fault, she seemed to be a nice person, maybe a bit naive as far as she could tell. But she didn´t seem to be a bad person and Sephila didn´t want her to suffer the same fate that she did, even if it was unlikely.

Perhaps she should talk with her and give her some advice? That was probably the least she could do after running away from their camp. Not to forget the fact that this woman had saved them and even healed her with a pricy potion.

She slowly made her back to the camp. The others were probably already sleeping, but Sephila might talk to the person on guard duty. She was about halfway back to the camp when she suddenly felt a large surge of mana. It came right from the camp.

As soon as the others fell asleep Lena began to plan her next steps. They would reach Enklen by tomorrow, which was far sooner than she had previously anticipated. She needed to prepare.

She decided to organize and categorize her storage ring first. Even at this early stage of her adventure, it was filled with dozens of things. Since her ring could only store a limited amount of stuff, it was important to keep an eye on the things inside. Filling five square meters of space seemed like a whole bunch at first, but the fact that she had already filled half of it was proof that she had to be careful.

I´m totally gonna buy myself another one when I have enough money, she thought.

The first category was her day-to-day necessities and equipment. A few spare underclothes, some books, Garro´s artifact, and of course her swords. She had started carrying them in her ring because it was cool as hell to summon them right into her hands, but she would need to strap them on her back when she was around other people. Even if she found it a bit unnecessary, it was a useless risk to advertise her storage ring more than she already did.

Next was money, Eshen had given her a few coins as a start but it wasn´t much. Forty-two silver and thirteen copper coins were a fortune in Maryda, but in other cities, it wouldn´t last for long. The good part was that she didn´t need to worry about food tho.

Lucky to be undead I guess.

What took away most of her storage space were materials. Over a hundred smooth metal scales, nearly two hundred small and medium-sized fire mana crystals, and a howl bunch of raw metal ore. Lena seriously asked herself why she even bothered with the metal ore. Sure, it contained a bit of mana and was shiny, but neither of these things guaranteed that it was worth any money.

I´ll see if I can sell it, if not, I just throw it at my enemies. She thought with a wicked smile.

Next were her alchemy materials, potions, and equipment. A large batch of glowing moss and her mana grass were great materials but she didn´t know how useful they would really be, since most potions were useless to her. She would keep them just in case.

Then she had a list of the actual potions and elixirs she had:

- 18 healing potions

- 20 mana potions (for humans)

- 5 antidotes

- 10 stamina potions (restores fatigue and greats an energy boost)

- 2 elixirs of regeneration (for lost limbs for example)

- 3 elixirs of inner protection (to strengthen the body for a short amount of time)

- 6 liquid mana potions

From all this Lena could only use the last three. For some reason, even as an undead most elixirs still took effect on her body. Whereas most potions did nothing at all, her own mana potions being the exception.

Lena suspected that elixirs only affected the physical body, whereas potions affected the inner mana of the body. A regeneration elixir created new limbs from the mana imbued in the elixir but a healing potion simply enhanced the user's mana to fasten the natural regeneration. Since Lena's inner mana was incompatible with normal healing potions they simply didn't affect her.

But her body was still mostly a normal human body and so the regeneration elixir still worked. Not that she needed them. Her natural regeneration would take care of nearly every injury given enough time.

Either way, she had taken a stock of the basic potions on Eshen's advice. Once she started to take real adventurer missions with others it could prove useful after all. And since she knew how to craft them she didn't need to worry too much about them.

What she needed to worry about was something else. Her mana reserves were getting low, and with her increased consumption she would run out far sooner than she wanted to. She had only six potions left. With her current consumption, and if she stayed out of larger fights she could probably last two months.

Two months was theoretically enough time to reach Knightfall, accept a few missions, and gather a handful of cores. The problem was that missions with high-rank monsters that had a chance to form cores were only available for high-rank adventurers. And if Grant told the truth it wasn't so simple to increase once own a rank in the guild.

Additionally, high-rank monsters were rare, especially around a large city like Knightfall. Most monsters were probably killed as soon as they approached the city. So she would need to travel a fair bit in order to reach worthwhile monsters. Two months seemed like a lot a first but it was genuinely not enough.

Lena needed more mana potions. Luckily, she had already managed to gather a few cores on her way here, all that was left was to do was a bit of alchemy. Creating liquid mana was impossible inside of cities since the side effects would attract too much attention. So Lena needed to create them now before she reached Enklen.

Grant and Levis were sleeping and with their lack of mana perception, they wouldn't be bothered by the process. She might have to explain it to Sephila, but that wasn't a problem since she was out and about.

She sat down and summoned her alchemy cauldron.

Lena watched as the last drops of the red liquid dripped into the small flask. The liquid shimmered slightly under the magical lights of the laboratory. With a swift motion, she sealed the flask and turned around to present her creation to the tall elf behind her.

It had taken her over two months of constant failures but now she had finally managed to mix the ingredients together without ruining the potion. It was frustrating as every ingredient reacted differently, and many of them needed to be processed separately before she could even begin to mix them.

The fact that she had no great talent in alchemy wasn't helping. The only reason she still managed to progress at a fast enough pace was thanks to Eshen. He might be strange sometimes but if there is one thing Lena was sure about, his skill in alchemy was unmatched.

The elf swirled the flask in his fingers and examined the crimson liquid. Lena already knew that it was perfect. But she had thought the same about nearly every single one of her creations.

"Stop fucking around and tell me how it is." She exclaimed frustrated.

He looked down at her with an overly serious expression.

"Well, it is a functional healing potion." The elf said in a serious tone.

Lena snatched the potion out of Eshen's hands and grinned. Her first fully functional self-made healing potion. After over a year of alchemy theory and lectures and another year of constant training and brewing, she was finally able to create simple stamina, mana, and healing potions.

Stamina potions had been rather simple and she had mastered them pretty quickly. Mana potions were tricky but still far simpler than a healing potion. It had turned out that healing potions were extremely complicated and could be ruined easily. In consequence, she had created hundreds of healing potions with unhealthy side effects. Not that it mattered to her, since she couldn't even use the potions.

All that mattered to her was her progress in alchemy. She turned towards Eshen.

"Sooooooooo?" she asked still clasping her potion.

"Now that you have mastered the three basic potions you can officially call yourself a Novice alchemist." Lena glared at him. Her mood plummeting instantly.

"I repeat. So?"

"That's a great title Lena, you should be proud, not everyone manages that, especially at your age." The elf answered amused.

"You know that I don't give a damn about that title. Can you finally teach me how to make liquid mana potions?" she asked annoyed.

Eshen let out a theatric sigh.

"I suppose that now that you've reached a good enough understanding of alchemy we could start. But it is already late and we worked all day, it would be better t..."

"Stop complaining and teach me old man." she interrupted and started to make room on the working table.

Eshen laughed and joined her a moment later.

"The creation of liquid mana is rather simple in concept but complicated in the actual process." The elf began. Which in turn made Lena roll her eyes. Every single one of his lessons was "simple" in concept.

Eshen took out a large leather bag and emptied it on the table, revealing hundreds of weird-looking stones. There were all different in color, size, and form. Some were formed like smooth pearls and only the size of a fingernail, others had multiple sharp edges and were the size of a child's fist. Some were bright blue, pale green, grey, or pink. The vast majority, however, was in more or less bright color of red.

"These are monster cores. They are the only ingredient needed, and it doesn't matter what kind of core it is as long as it contains mana." He explained.

Lena looked away from the myriad of shimmering cores and looked back at Eshen.

"If we only need a single ingredient, why couldn't learn it from the start? Even for a simple stamina potion, I needed dozens of ingredients." She asked.

"Well, that's what I meant with calling liquid mana simple in concept. It technically isn't even a potion, it is an extract."

"To create liquid mana, we need to extract the mana from the core and then purify it in order to get rid of the associated affinity." Lena nodded. It sounded pretty simple so far.

"The extraction itself is pretty simple. The problem is that once the mana is extracted from the core it becomes unstable. Without the containing structure of the core frame, the mana is free to do whatever it wants. In most cases that means blowing up."

Depending on the amount of mana in the core, Lena could easily imagine an entire house being pulverized. Monster cores were pretty harmless normally and couldn't even hurt a child. Except if the child ate it or if someone pierced a hole in it, which was basically what they needed to do to extract the mana.

"In order to prevent such an outcome and get rid of the affinity, we need to create a new frame that will contain the mana but not the affinity. Creating a new frame beeing extremely complicated and requires a great deal of concentration. Then all that is left to do is to let the mana stabilize."

"But isn't the affinity itself dangerous too? If we don't contain it will it not blow up too?" Lena asked.

"Mana and its affinity are like the flame and heat. If you remove the flame, all that's left is a bit of heat. It's like a dog that barks but that can't bite you. It might be annoying but it can't hurt you. Mana itself is without intent and simply exists, affinities are what gives purpose and makes it dangerous. With mana being the fuel. " Eshen explained.

"In practice, if we take a core with an ice affinity and extract its mana, during the purification process the affinity will separate from the mana and blow up, yes. But it won't affect you or the environment in the slightest. You and people with mana sense will feel the cold and see it with mana sense, like a real mana explosion. But you won't be ripped into pieces and you won't be frozen in the slightest."

"Are you sure that that is safe?" She asked.

Seeing her uncertainty the elf laughed.

"I never said that it isn't risky Lena. How about a demonstration?"

Seeing Eshen's goofy grin, Lena wasn't so sure anymore. Maybe healing potions weren't so bad after all.

Sephila ran back to the camp as fast as she could. Ignoring anything but the constant buildup of death mana in front of her. What was that? A monster? A spell? Some kind of artifact? She didn't know, and that was only fueling her panic.

Just why did I have to walk away so far from the camp?

Sephila was about to curse even more when she felt the massive amount of death mana waver. Her eyes grew wide and in a blink of an eye, she turned around and ran in the opposite direction. Sephila was a mage for multiple years now, and in consequence, she knew when mana became unstable.

Within seconds she jumped behind a large boulder in the hope that it would be enough to protect her from the explosion. There was no time for more, she knew that. A second later she felt the buildup of death mana breaking free.

Sephila covered down behind the boulder as a wave of pure death was released. When the wave reached her hiding spot she could hear the birds fly away in panic and feel the cold touch of death. But otherwise, there was nothing. No devastating wave of destruction. No explosion.

Her limbs trembled and it took her a full minute to realize that she wasn't dead. In fact, she was completely unharmed, the boulder was still intact too. Slowly Sephila got back to her feet as she tried to understand what just happened.

The massive amount of mana that she had felt before was still there but it was contained and stable. And for some reason, it was.....pure?

Sephila was equally panicked and confused, but nonetheless, she slowly made her way back to the camp.

After storing back all of her possessions in her ring apart from her alchemy cauldron and her monster cores, Lena activated the enchantments on her cauldron and placed the first core inside. She started with the core from the Bone shredder.

As soon as the cauldron began to extract mana from the core Lena started to create a new frame in order to contain it. It was a complicated process, and she needed to finish it before all the mana was extracted. Sadly Lena couldn't just create the new frame beforehand; She needed to create the frame while the mana was being extracted.

The entire process had to be timed perfectly and each error she made could lead to her losing control over the mana. The risk of imminent death had been scary at first but after she managed to create her first potion she realized that it was only encouraging her further. If she made a mistake she would die, so she better not do any mistakes.

In all honesty, she was confident enough that she would survive it. With her armor, her natural regeneration, and her magic it would need a rather potent core explosion to kill her. But still, a mistake would be bad. Because the two humans that snored a few meters behind would not be so lucky. She wouldn't make a mistake tho.

Lena wouldn't have started the process here if she wasn't confident in her alchemy skills. She had been taught by a master of his craft and the creation of Liquid mana was her specialty. Also, since she was on guard duty she couldn't just leave, she had to keep the others safe. If that meant performing potentially deadly alchemy in the camp, so be it.

If they knew what she was doing they probably freak out. Lena could only smile at the thought.

After a while, the mana began to waver and expand even faster and she could feel the death mana expanding into its new frame. It was ready. Lena checked the containment frame one last time and closed her eyes, waiting for the affinity to burst free.

Despite her closed eyes, her mana vision went white for a second as the affinity exploded out of the cauldron in a massive wave. The cold feeling of death and decay washed over her and her core tingled slightly, but when she opened her eyes nothing had changed. Nearly nothing.

Inside of her cauldron was now a pale blue liquid, swirling around, slowly condensing further and further. Lena watched as the last impurities evaporated and the amount of liquid became less and less. It would take a few minutes until the only thing that remained would be mana in its purest form.

The only thing that was left for her to do was to wait.

A few minutes passed before the liquid mana was stable enough by itself to be filled in flasks. Lena was about to begin when a panicked Sephila came out of the bushes, a burning sphere of crimson fire in each hand.