Ancient Wizards: A Little Progress Every Day

Dago sat on the wooden stump and let out a satisfied burp, clearly having enjoyed his meal.

"If the method succeeds, we won't have to worry about running out of magic stones anymore."

With these thoughts in mind, he got up, went into the shelter, and opened his luggage.

Inside, layers of moonflowers, each the size of a ginseng flower, were neatly arranged, exuding a faint, refreshing fragrance. Taking a deep breath, one immediately felt invigorated.

He counted them; there were six plants in total, and each plant had six petals.

That's right, he plans to concoct a spiritual potion based on Rosalind's manuscript.

According to the steps in the manuscript, the first step is to let the entire moonflower plant air dry in the shade for a day...

It cannot be exposed to sunlight during the day, and at night it must be placed under the moonlight of the [Origin Moon] for one night.

Dago first placed the moonflowers one by one in a shady corner of the shelter.

"We'll talk about the rest tonight. Let's focus on improving our skills now," Dago said, patting the dirt off his hands.

He then got up, left the shelter, and went to the open space outside to begin his training and gain progress points.

Time passed slowly under the blowing of the icy wind, and the trees around the shelter were more or less covered with icicles, making it look like an ice pillar hell.

Dago, however, seemed oblivious, mechanically meditating and casting spells.

As evening approached, Dago finally broke out of his meditative state to start a fire and cook.

After comforting his tired body and mind with delicious food, Dago slowly regained his energy.

The two moons climbed into the night sky without anyone noticing, their light spreading throughout the Emerald Forest.

Dago returned to the shelter and took out the many withered moonflowers, placing them on a stone bathed in moonlight.

The moonlight of the Origin Moon caresses the withered moonflowers like silk.

Its petals seemed to be infused with magical power by the moonlight, and the six pale purple petals became full again, emitting a faint fluorescent glow.

Dago quietly admired the magical and beautiful scene. After a while, he turned around and went to the open space of the shelter to practice until he was tired and went back to his room to sleep.

In the early hours of the morning, before dawn, the wooden door of the shelter was pushed open by Dago, who was still sleepy and yawning.

He didn't cultivate too late last night because he needed to get up early to tidy up the moonflowers and avoid exposure to sunlight.

That would severely affect the extraordinary substances contained in the moonflower, resulting in a lower quality of the spiritual potions produced.

I walked to the drying stones and picked up six moonflowers. Their petals were still full, but the rest of their parts had withered and dried up.

After returning them to the shelter, Dago came out again to prepare breakfast, a simple noodle stew with meat strips.

He also planned to collect "dewdrops from the morning sun," which was one of the raw materials for the psychoactive potion...

The dew needs to be collected into a glass bottle under the first rays of the morning sun.

The moment the sun rises is the most magnificent awakening between heaven and earth—the darkness has not yet completely faded, but the light, with its scorching power, has already broken through the clouds, and the dew on the grass blades is illuminated, each one becoming a small sun.

"Gurgle gurgle—"

His small iron pot hung from a triangular iron frame on the fire in the open space, and his breakfast was boiling inside.

Meanwhile, Dago was diligently collecting dewdrops from the grass not far away, with his rear end sticking out, and three glass bottles filled with the morning sun's dewdrops hanging from his belt.

As the sun rose higher, Dago stopped collecting noodles, picked up his small iron pot, and slurped down his noodles while considering his next plan.

By the afternoon, the Moonflower petals will be ready to meet the requirements for crafting a spiritual potion. Next, I need to go into the forest to collect some Two-Ear Grass, which is quite common in the forest.

Once you've gathered all the magical materials needed for the potion, you can start trying to craft it.

Dargo doesn't consider himself a genius pharmacist, and he can't afford to waste any of the time that's required.

Around seven or eight in the morning, Dago walked through the quiet forest, looking around as if on a picnic, searching for two-ear grass.

He would occasionally fire an air blast into the sky to scare away small animals in the vicinity and prevent them from disturbing his search for the two-ear grass.

This magical plant has a very distinctive appearance; just like its name suggests, it grows two ears-shaped blades of grass.

It took him about an hour to find this strange plant, and another ten minutes to collect it and pack it into his bag before he was ready to head home.

After returning to the shelter, I put away the collected materials and washed the mud off my hands...

He turned around and went to the open space outside to cultivate diligently until four o'clock in the afternoon. For lunch, he casually made a monster-themed meat sandwich.

........

Sunlight streamed into the shelter with its open door, making it bright and airy inside.

Dago sat behind his newly built small wooden table, crooked and rather unsightly, but it was stable enough that he could easily stand on it and dance.

Neatly arranged on the small wooden table were a silver crucible, a stone mortar and pestle, a glass pestle, a brass balance, and other potion-making tools he had bought earlier in the academy square.

Next, he plans to use the cold brewing method from his previous life to refine spiritual potions, which is a completely new attempt.

Cold brewing was mostly used for tea and coffee in his previous life, so Dagoby knew a little about it. After all, even if he hadn't eaten pork, he had at least seen pigs run. However, he wasn't discouraged and just took things one step at a time.

The extraordinary substances contained in the Moonflower prefer cold to heat; they will lose much of their medicinal properties when exposed to magical flames...

Using the cold immersion method, which utilizes a low-temperature environment for selective extraction, should yield better results.

Based on Dago's research on the Moonflower and Rosalyn's manuscripts, he felt that this method could be modified for the creation of spirit potions.

First, the twelve pale purple petals of the moonflower are placed in a stone mortar and ground into powder using a glass mortar and pestle. Then, the powder is poured into a silver crucible.

Grind the two-ear grass into juice using the same method, and weigh an appropriate amount of the two-ear grass juice and morning dew using a brass balance.

The three materials are mixed and poured into a silver crucible and stirred. According to the Wizarding World's method, the next step should be to boil them with magical flames and then collect them in a condensation device.

But Dargo did the opposite; he planned to use ice water to chill the liquid in the silver crucible.

A halo appeared and swirled in his eyes as he used his spiritual power to awaken the dormant ice element...

A small corner of the white glove floated out and fell into the mixed medicinal liquid in the silver crucible.

Dago slowly stirred the mixture with a glass stirring rod, gradually increasing the output of his mental energy to control the temperature of the mixed liquid.

Silken threads of cold air drifted out of the silver crucible, and the mixed medicinal liquid inside gradually cooled down. Dago stared intently at the changes inside.

To his disappointment, he only got a solid, frozen block of mixed medicine ice; he had failed.

With a muffled thud, the ice shattered. The explosion was not powerful and did nothing to the silver paper crucible, only sending shards of the medicinal liquid flying everywhere.

Dago patted the ice crystals off his robe without any expression.

"Where exactly did things go wrong?" Dago recalled his recent failure and analyzed the reasons for it.

He still has twenty-four moonflower petals left to use, which means he has two more chances.

Dago took a towel and wiped the melted ice water that had been sprayed on his face.

He decided to try again, this time using his mental vision to observe the flow of energy particles in the mixed liquid.

Grinding the moonflower petals into powder, a faint silver light emanates from the spiritual vision.

The juice of the two-ear grass, when ground into a paste, emits a light green glow, while the dewdrops contain a hint of orange-yellow light.

When the three were mixed and stirred, a supernatural substance with a slight purple glow slowly dissolved into the water.

Then Dago's ice element mixed in, along with the output of his mental energy...

As the ice element became more and more active and the temperature dropped, the extraordinary substance emitting a purple glow became increasingly unstable until it exploded.

With another "bang!", the frozen mixed medicine shattered into pieces. Dago picked up a towel and wiped the medicine that had splashed onto his face.

Now he understood that the extraordinary substance with purple light becomes increasingly unstable in low-temperature environments.

Indeed, none of the ingredients in the universal potion recipes circulating in the wizarding world are superfluous.

They also knew that moonflowers would lose a lot of their medicinal properties under high temperatures, so the wizarding community's solution was to add a material with fire element to improve the high-temperature adaptability of the extraordinary substances in the mixture.

"This is the last time, otherwise we'll have to risk our lives to pick moonflowers at Moonlight Lake again."

Dago sighed softly; he didn't want to risk his life going there again anytime soon.

He had already named that dangerous lake where moonflowers grew Moonlight Lake, a beautiful name.

Hopefully, this final attempt will go as he hopes.

The third attempt began. This time, Dago removed the dew from the materials and directly mixed the powdered petals of Moonflower and the juice of Two-Ear Grass into the ice water frozen by the Ice Crystal spell.

This time, the silvery substance in the moonflower powder absorbed the light green light of the two-ear grass juice, but it could not be integrated with the ice element in the ice water.

Dago kept his mental energy focused on the output of ice element until an hour later, in ice water with a specific level of ice element activity.

Just like the dewdrop of the rising sun, which is a potion ingredient, this ice water containing ice element with a specific activity level can also be considered a potion ingredient.

The silvery substance in the potion absorbed the ice element, forming thumb-sized, silvery-white ice cubes that floated on the icy water.

The system panel appeared instantly.

[Skill Detectable for Improvement: Potion Making. Would you like to improve it?]

Dago decisively clicked "yes," surprised that this could be engraved into the system.

He had been expending his mental energy to control the ice element, searching for a balance point. In the end, he felt that both his mental and physical energy were not keeping up, and he was exhausted.

All the silvery-white ice cubes were scooped up and put into a glass bottle, which was then placed on a small wooden table to wait for time to melt them.

He washed a towel, wet it, and patted it on his face to wipe away the fatigue between his brows.