"STOP RIGHT THERE!"
My firm piercing voice froze Vallerynne and Jansen where they stood.
I steadily walked up to the cauldron between the two where a dark red liquid was brewing. My face was expressionless.
I snatched the stirrer from Jansen's hands and used it to scoop up a crimson flower petal floating inside the cauldron. There were many more suspended within the brew.
"Is this…Dara flower?"
I calmly asked the two brewers, as if I did not shout at them just seconds ago.
Vallerynne nodded to me with an insulted frown.
She seemed to had step up to speak for the both of them. Not that Jansen would be able to speak any word given how pale his face was.
"Well of course it's a Dara flower! We're making health potion after all!"
"If you're making health potion, then why are the Dara petals inside the cauldron?"
I asked again. With the same calmness.
"We're boiling them. How are we supposed to get their essence otherwise?"
Vallerynne asked back with a roll of her eyes.
"Why didn't you grind and filter the flowers to acquire the essence?"
I told her.
The girl's eyes widened. Surprised was her face.
"You can grind and filter them?"
"OF COURSE YOU CAN! YOU ACTUALLY HAVE TO!"
I snapped back at her.
Vallerynne and Jansen flinched back at the sound of my voice.
The girl's face had turned pale as well.
"This is not 2000 years ago. There is now a Ralean Method that could extract all the essence completely. No sorcery necessary. Any person can do it! You won't get all the essence by simply boiling the flowers directly like this. It's wasteful!"
My eyes caught on the piles of flower stems set by the cauldron.
"How many vials of basic health potion are you trying to make with these many flowers?"
I asked the two frightened brewers.
Vallerynne suddenly turned speechless. Jansen was the one who braved himself to speak up.
"F-fifty, my lady. Master wanted us to make fifty vials by the end of the day."
"FIFTY?! You could easily make two hundred and a dozen more with these amount of Dara flowers!"
Vallerynne and Jansen gasped and stared unbelievingly toward the precious ingredients they just wasted. The ingredients they hadbeen wasting.
I was so infuriated by them that I just noticed the stirrer I was holding was made of metal.
"Why are you using a silver ladle to stir the cauldron?"
I asked them again.
The two flinched upon my question.
"D-does it matter?"
Vallerynne asked breathily.
I tossed the heavy stirrer on a table beside them, causing a loud thump which made them flinch again.
"Don't you know that raw Dara extract reacts poorly with various metal, especially silver? The reaction would cause part of the essence to coagulate and--"
I suddenly caught notice of the barrels brimming with dark crimson ooze at the back of the lab.
I pointed to those barrels as I continued.
"What are those?"
"T-those are r-residues, my lady. The b-brew residues."
Jansen answered with quivering lips.
"Brewing health potions always create residues."
Vallerynne added with some of her confidence returned. She was almost certain of this fact.
The girl realized she had made a mistake after I clicked my tongue upon their answers.
"There are wastes during its preparation, yes. But there are no residues to the potion-brewing itself! Everything that goes into the cauldron will end up in a vial! The fact that there are even residues means you did something WRONG in your brewing process!"
I then caught sight of a small cauldron on the table brewing with thick yellowish red substance.
"Is that the Tawa-Surya mixture?"
Vallerynne nodded.
"Before you say anything, we have made sure to put in the correct mixture ratio. The temperature of the Padang water is accurate as well. We're now waiting for the mixture to cook. We know what we're doing with this particular solution!"
She said challengingly. Trying to prove they had done something right for once.
"Then why none of you is stirring the mixture as it boils?"
The two fools flinched again.
"You think this is chicken stew?! The Tawa-Surya mixture has to be stirred throughout the heating process! Else, the two ingredients won't properly--"
I stopped mid-sentence.
There was no use explaining what they should had done when the damage had been done.
I raised my finger to a direction and the two followed their gaze there.
They found me pointing the exit.
"Both of you get out of MY alchemy lab. Under no circumstances you would enter here again without my permission. Away with you."
My voice was calm and steady but they somehow flinched even harder than ever.
The girl and the huge man practically sprinted out of the lab.
I could not help but sigh as I terminated their brewing process.
How many ingredients had the two wasted for the past week?
How many health potions we could have make instead?
I shuddered to think of the answers.
As soon as I cleaned up enough of the mess and prevented further waste of ingredients and materials, I left the lab and returned to the library.
Vallerynne and Jansen were huddling nervously in a corner as Yuxia and Matrias watched them worriedly from their research tables.
As I was making my way to the brewers to give them further stern lecture, I caught sight of the problem the two researchers were each working on.
A puzzle involving the intermediate phase of the Stagio Theorem and the inverted version of the 4th Barrachian formula.
Both of them had the exact same problem as I saw last.
Research never presented the same problem again. Never.
There would be identical problems, but their variables would vary, at the very least. Even those cases were very rare.
These two problems were exactly the same as before.
It only meant one thing.
Yuxia and Matrias were still working on this particular problem.
Impossible! The puzzle should only take seconds to solve!
"You do realize you only need to write the solution, right? It would still be accepted even if you didn't write the entire process."
I told the two researchers.
"I am writing the solution!"
Yuxia said in an irritated manner.
"Then why are you writing up the elaborate process for the Barrachian variables? Just insert the variables' values directly into the Stagio formula and you'll be done much quicker."
I asked.
"What do you mean just insert the value? We need to calculate the Barrachian variables first."
Matrias said exasperatedly.
I could not help but frowned at his words.
"Why do you need to calculate them? You should've known the values already."
Yuxia rolled his eyes.
"There are one hundred Barrachian variable equations. How are we supposed to remember all of them?"
I gasped as I stared at them incredulously.
"The two of you haven't memorized the Barrachian Index?"
The two researches stared back at me just as unbelievingly.
They spoke at the same time in innocent tones.
"It has to be memorized?"
"It can be memorized?"
I suddenly remembered the mess in the alchemy lab earlier.
The Barrachian variables were important in potion-making as well.
I turned to the enchanter.
"Vallerynne, state the entire equation of the 76th Variable, the Alastan Half-Circle."
The cream-haired girl trembled under my gaze.
Her lips quivered as she replied to me.
"I-I…d-d-don't…k-know."
How could this be possible?
The Barrachian Index was one of the basic things a first-year student had to learn in their first month in the magic academy!
How did they cast ANY spell without knowing something so fundamental?!
Let alone develop their magic to the state they were?!
A conclusion struck my mind. A terrible conclusion.
"No. Oh Goddesses, please no. Not that."
I muttered breathlessly.
"What's the matter?"
Yuxia asked with a frown.
"The three of you are one of those, aren't you?"
I said.
"One of what?"
"Wildlings. Mages who practices magic purely using instinct. Disregarding any foundational theory on sorcery. Basically just 'feeling their way' as they were casting."
The three mages nervously avoided my eyes as I explained the term to them.
Dear Goddesses.
Master summoned not one, not two, but THREE wildlings to the forged land!
Wildlings were not necessarily poor mages. After all, Crown Princess Samesta was one.
But wildlings developed their magic with their own very specific method, which most often could not be applied to others.
It happened to be this way because wildlings were mostly mages who never went to a magic academy. Those who never received formal education and training.
Those who had to figure out things on their own.
Wildlings would often develop a method that rapidly improve their magic skills at a much faster pace than normal mages.
In very rare cases, the wildlings would progress rapidly, significantly, and endlessly that eventually they would reach unimaginable peaks of sorcery.
Crown Princess Samesta was one such case.
Most often, however, wildlings would eventually stop progressing rapidly and settled somewhere along the spectrum. From novice, intermediate, to advanced.
These cases of wildlings could never improve their magic further.
Never, as long as they kept relying on the instinctive method they had been using to develop their magic till that point.
The only way for them to improve was to learn the necessary theories and build their magic foundation from scratch. Which was almost like learning magic all over again.
"Hey, wait just a minute here!"
Yuxia suddenly spoke up to me. He went on.
"You may call me wildling, but I'm excellent with my spells! I doubt there's anyone in any of the Golden Dawn provinces that could match my magic!"
Matrias and Vallerynne nodded alongside him.
"I'm good with my lightning too. Many nobles hired me back in the empire."
The disheveled middle-aged man said.
"I've been on many dangerous subjugation quests with lots of strong mercenaries as well. I am very useful in the battlefield!"
The enchanter girl proclaimed.
I sighed upon their words.
They had a point.
Wildlings they might be, but that fact would not matter if they could serve their role in battle.
Perhaps they had developed enough before their growth stunted. Enough to overcome the trials.
"Let's hope you all are as good as you claimed you are."
I told them.
I pointed to a staircase leading underground.
Even though the magic hall had changed, I recognized the path enough to know where it led to.
"The three of you, enter the training hall now."