In truth, Ethan hadn’t invited Tori to test anything. He simply wanted to see whether the girl dared to do it. You could call it a test if you really wanted, but mostly, he was just curious.

Then he saw the girl gather some grass and start burning it.

“What are you doing?” He wasn’t in any hurry to head back. The materials from these magical beasts kept well, since they still contained traces of magic. A little ice magic would preserve them for a long time, too. Ethan had a decent affinity for water.

“That place is poisonous, right? I’m preparing a few things now, so I won’t have to scramble to make them when you take your next job.”

“So what are you burning all that grass for?”

“A mask.”

Tori gave him a rough explanation. “Basically, it’s just a simple mask with a layer of grass ash and a layer of charcoal. It filters things—and you can also use it to filter drinking water that isn’t very clean. It doesn’t work that well, but it’s better than nothing.”

He had no idea what the girl was doing.

And where had she learned all this?

Ethan didn’t ask. He just took a look at the place where Tori brewed alcohol, then gave her thirty silver coins. “That strong liquor you gave me last time was pretty good. I used it to make connections with the garrison. This is your payment.”

Tori had meant to refuse, but thirty silver coins was a lot. At least, it was a lot for someone like her, who was a little short on money right now.

Seeing the girl’s eyes fixed completely on the silver coins, Ethan couldn’t help smiling. For some reason, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a gold coin. Tori’s gaze snapped straight to it.

A gold coin. Its golden surface bore the image of the king of this country. On the back was an engraving of some strange creature. Tori couldn’t tell what it was.

Ethan casually toyed with the coin in his hand, tossing it into the air now and then. Tori’s eyes followed it up and down.

Then Ethan put the coin away. “I’m off! Come to town whenever you’ve made the meditation Potion. I’ve already made all the arrangements.”

He came and went like the wind. It was as if he’d come all this way just to give Tori thirty silver coins.

Tori gave Lydia four silver coins first. “I was going to pay you at the end of the month, but I can give it to you now. I’ve got enough money for the moment. Let’s see… It’s July 14th today. How about I pay you on the fifteenth of every month from now on?”

Lydia accepted the four silver coins and carefully took out a somewhat worn cloth pouch. She put the coins inside, tied it shut, and tucked it away. “Thank you, boss!”

She takes the money and suddenly I’m ‘boss.’ So practical, Miss Lydia.

Before, she was calling me Tori this and Tori that.

A tragic, impassable wall has risen between us!

With a little more money on hand, Tori wasn’t in such a rush anymore. There was no need to recreate things from her old world in this one just yet. Like she’d said before, there were plenty of ways to make money. Making it safely and reliably was another matter. Take the liquor, for example. Without Ethan’s backing, Tori wouldn’t have dared to sell it. She trusted him to handle any trouble that came from selling alcohol.

Still, having money felt great. With this much, she could try… growing mushrooms. She could buy some Azure wood, saw it into sawdust, pack it into bags, and water them every day to see if white horse mushrooms would grow. If she could supply them steadily, she could make quite a bit of money. According to the village chief’s notes, nobles seemed to like eating them. She just had to keep quiet about growing them herself. If anyone asked, she’d say she’d managed to gather them deep in the mountains.

Tori was dreaming of getting rich again, but she still knew what she needed to do. She felt like she was beginning to understand the essence of moon grass.

Her guess probably wasn’t far off—assuming it was right in the first place. For all she knew, she’d gotten it wrong from the very beginning. If so, she’d wasted far too much money.

Tori cut out the parts of thirty moon grass plants that contained the most elemental energy, then crushed them and tried extracting them with her purified liquor. She ended up with a large bowl of pale blue liquid: a mixture of liquor and moon grass. Even sitting still, it gave off a sense of densely packed elemental energy. There might be other substances in it, too. She didn’t fully understand how Potions worked, so there was no point jumping to conclusions.

Could you drink this stuff?

In theory, you could eat cakes made from moon grass. This was just moon grass steeped in liquor, so it should be drinkable too. Though it probably wasn’t a great idea for an eight-year-old girl to drink alcohol.

She poured out a little of the liquid and diluted it with water.

When the liquid was only the faintest shade of blue, she took a sip.

The girl’s eyes widened.

It actually tasted pretty good, a little like soda water. It was lightly sweet, though it had no bubbles. Otherwise, she could’ve made blue sparkling water…

Tori thought it over, then entered a meditative state. She suspected her meditation was about to reach the next stage. She wondered if the Magic Academy had a proper explanation for it. As for asking Ethan… Never mind.

She didn’t want to owe anyone favors. Owing too many people would make it hard to do business. She wanted her relationship with Ethan to be a simple business arrangement: he invested in her, and she paid him back.

She’d recently made a few inquiries about the lord’s third son. That was how she learned Ethan’s story—he was pretty famous, after all.

He’d become famous for his talent when he was young. Then, all of a sudden, it was as if he’d lost it completely. He worked hard, but it made no difference. In the end, the lord sent him to a town like Blackwater Town to serve as its actual administrator. In a way, he’d already lost the right to inherit his father’s title and lands. Becoming a true noble was out of the question. She’d heard his engagement had been called off, too, though it was hard to say who’d ended it—

That was why Tori was so wary of Ethan.

Ethan gave her the feeling that his fortunes could turn around at any moment. And even if his power had declined, could someone with diminished power still kill a rat that huge?

Or had he already unlocked some kind of cheat ability?

Tori wasn’t sure. Either way, getting too close to Ethan didn’t seem like a good idea. If he was that kind of person, then his companions would usually get dragged into some huge crisis, only for the protagonist to show up just in time to save them or something… How stupid.

If he wasn’t, then Ethan really did have limited potential. She could use him as a stepping stone to make more money, that was all.

Either way, Tori didn’t want to get too close to him.

One bowl of liquid made from thirty moon grass plants could probably be diluted into about two hundred bowls if she made a drink like this. A slight taste of alcohol might even make it more popular. So, one copper coin a cup… Or two? She wouldn’t sell it in the village. She’d take it to town and sell it as a drink…

She wrote down the relevant details in her notebook. Then, after thinking it over, she used less water to dilute it and took another sip.

It was just okay—

In the end, she drank the extract straight. She could already feel the difference. The elemental energy in the moon grass flowed through her body and resonated with the energy already inside her. But that wasn’t the most important part. Some substance in the moon grass itself was making her more… sensitive to elemental energy.

She could feel her senses growing sharper.

She didn’t even need to meditate to feel her body absorbing elemental energy, while some of it seemed to leave her again. This wasn’t caused by the elemental energy or magic in the moon grass. It was because of some chemical in the plant itself—perhaps a nerve-affecting chemical, or something else. Like a poison, it caused some kind of reaction in her nerves, making her more sensitive to elemental energy.

The elemental energy and magic in a Potion were only one part of it. What mattered more were the substances already present in the ingredients. That was why the recipe was important.

She couldn’t establish a complete system of chemistry in this world. But if the real key was the nature of the ingredients themselves, then industrial production might not be impossible.

She felt dizzy. The world around her slowly began to turn colorful.

No, this was bad. She’d drunk too much. The substances in the moon grass might normally take time to work, but the increased concentration was already making her feel poisoned.

She hurriedly drank some water.

Then she stuck her fingers down her throat and threw up everything in her stomach. After that, she kept drinking water. Finally, she collapsed onto her bed, dizzy. The moon grass cakes probably hadn’t caused any problems because the heat had denatured the proteins, which was why she hadn’t experienced the same symptoms. Damn it. The rats were all dead already. Otherwise, she should’ve tested it on one of them.

She hoped she wouldn’t die.

Slowly, she drifted into sleep.

As she slept, she felt as if she were in some wondrous world. Elements surrounded her, while magic kept being drawn toward her. At the far end of that pull, she sensed something unimaginably vast, something words couldn’t describe.

She seemed to hear a voice whispering. It sounded like a man, a woman, a young person, an old person. She couldn’t make out the words, yet somehow understood what they meant. There were no specific words, only a number.

When Tori suddenly opened her eyes—

She was soaked with sweat, but she didn’t have time to care. She hurried to the table and, with very rough drawing skills, sketched out several things.

She stared at the sketches. “Are these Potion recipes? Was that voice… a Witch? Was that world I saw the Demon Realm? The new ruler of the Demon Realm?!”

Tori could barely keep her expression under control. It slowly turned into one of delight. Could it be that her cheat ability had finally… come through?!