It was still the middle of the night when Jace returned to his apartment on Crimson Lane. He locked the door behind him, turned up the gas lamp, and carried all the wrapped packages straight to the kitchen table.
He unwrapped everything carefully and arranged the ingredients in a neat line:
the pale blue Stellar Aqua crystals, the sealed vial of Lavos Squid blood, the small bottle of night vanilla extract, seven gold mint leaves, three drops of poison hemlock in a tiny pipette, nine grams of dragon blood grass powder, and the bottle of pure distilled water.
Then he took out the rimless glasses from their case and slipped them on.
The memories from the novel came back sharp and clear. He read Old Neil brewing the potion for Klein—measuring each ingredient with slow precision, explaining coagulation as the moment the mystical properties finally bound together instead of tearing apart.
He also remembered the part about cogitation: the quiet meditation Klein used afterward to stabilize the potion's effects, letting the power settle inside without letting it run wild.
Jace wrote the brewing steps in his diary, removed the glasses, and set them carefully back in the case.
He looked at the lineup of ingredients. His breathing sped up. His heart thumped hard against his ribs. His fingers trembled slightly.
Mostly due to excitement, there was a 'small' trace of fear underneath.
"Okay… okay… let's do this," he muttered to himself, trying to sound steadier than he felt.
He didn't have real alchemical tools—just a plain Tupperware container, a metal spoon, and a measuring cup from the cupboard. He hoped the ritual didn't care about fancy equipment.
He began.
First the 100 ml of pure water.
Then the 50 grams of Stellar Aqua crystal, stirred clockwise until the water turned a soft, glowing blue.
Thirteen drops of night vanilla extract, stirred counterclockwise three times.
The seven gold mint leaves, crushed lightly and stirred clockwise seven times.
Three drops of poison hemlock.
The nine grams of dragon blood grass powder, sprinkled slowly while stirring clockwise.
The mixture swirled and fought for a moment, refusing to settle. Jace kept stirring steadily, focusing hard on the idea of coagulation—willing the ingredients to merge, to bind without exploding into chaos.
Slowly the liquid thickened. The colors deepened and smoothed out. The chaos stopped. It became a uniform azure syrup with the thin, mercury-like texture as described in the novel.
Jace let out a long breath.
He poured the finished potion into a plain drinking glass. The liquid caught the gaslight and shimmered faintly.
He carried the glass to the small dining table and sat down.
For twenty minutes he simply looked at it.
His heart kept racing. His arms trembled in short bursts. He tried the slow breathing he remembered from med school—inhale, hold, exhale—but it only helped a little.
'If I was already a Seer, I could divine whether this is safe,' he thought. 'But I can only become a Seer by drinking it.'
He gave himself ten more minutes.
Then he picked up the glass with his right hand.
One final deep breath.
He brought it to his lips and drank the entire potion in one long gulp.
The taste was disgusting—bitter and metallic like chewing old copper coins soaked in seawater, followed by a sickly sweet rot, like flowers that had been left too long in the sun. It coated his tongue, burned all the way down his throat, and landed in his stomach like hot lead.
For a single heartbeat, nothing happened.
Then the heat erupted behind his eyes.
His vision blurred for a split second before snapping into painful sharpness—every tiny crack in the wall, every speck of dust in the air suddenly too vivid.
His thoughts scattered wildly, then slammed back together with unnatural clarity.
Faint whispers brushed against the edges of his mind.
Not real words—just overlapping impressions that felt ancient and indifferent.
'Hornacis… Flagrea…'
The names echoed once, soft and distant.
His body jerked once—hard—then locked rigid. Bright pain flashed through every nerve like lightning, sharp and quick, before fading into a heavy, throbbing ache.
At this point he had already started shaping a inanimate object in his mind-following the meditation technique 'Cogitation' described in the Novel.
His heartbeat slowed, but each pulse felt deeper, more deliberate.
The whispers faded completely. The heat drained away.
Jace slumped forward, elbows on the table, breathing in short gasps.
He was still himself.
The madness did take over him, he was himself and not a monster.
But the world felt… layered now.
He closed his eyes. A thin, silvery thread appeared in his mind—his own spirituality, brighter and more alive than before.
When he opened his eyes again, faint auras clung to everything: the gas lamp glowed with a soft golden haze, the walls carried a quiet residue of ordinary life.
Spirit Vision.
And deeper inside, something patient and watchful waited. A quiet sense that hidden threads ran through everything, and he could begin to see them.
Jace leaned back in the chair. A shaky laugh escaped him.
"I did it."
Sequence 9: Seer.
He was exhausted, buzzing with leftover energy, and—for the first time since waking up in this world—actually powerful.