Minor Agility Potion, Minor Defense Potion, Starflower Potion. Minor Wisdom Potion, Minor Stealth Potion.

These were the results Tori had achieved after three days and nights without sleep, nearly exhausting every last bit of the shop’s reserve funds.

The Minor Agility Potion used feathers from Green Lake Cranes as its main ingredient, along with tree fruit, a small amount of Stamina Potion, and even lightning-struck wood that Tori had forcibly produced herself. The Minor Defense Potion used earth spirits as its main ingredient, while the Starflower Potion naturally used starflower grass. The Minor Wisdom Potion used lightning-struck wood, but unlike the others, it heightened the user’s neural sensitivity. In Tori’s words, it’d probably sell best to nobles. Using it on girls and all that—it felt like the sort of potion you’d find in some rather dubious little games. The Minor Stealth Potion used hollow flowers as its main ingredient.

It could increase the body’s movement speed. Tori had some ideas about that. But the consequence of making all this was that the Witch’s House was nearly out of funds.

When Tori came out of the laboratory, her eyes were bloodshot and she looked utterly exhausted. She grabbed Lydia firmly by the shoulders, making Lydia wince in pain.

Tori seemed to realize she’d lost control. She froze for a moment, then shook her head. “I’m going to sleep for two hours. Wake me up after that, no matter what!”

Then she climbed straight onto the table, closed her eyes, and fell asleep.

Lydia looked to Yabu for help from the only adult there. Yabu shook his head. “Lydia, wake her up in two hours. She must have something important to do. Maybe…”

Maybe it had something to do with Young Master Ethan.

But he didn’t say that aloud. Tori was an eight-year-old girl, just like Lydia, and she was a little precocious and mature for her age. But Tori was truly an extraordinary person.

When Lydia was told something, you had to worry she might be tricked, or that she might accidentally let something slip. But Tori always seemed like someone you could trust. She always gave the impression that she could handle anything.

Two hours passed quickly. Lydia thought Tori should sleep a little longer, but Yabu disagreed. He told Lydia to wake her by force. Once Tori had managed to come around, the moment her Memory returned, she looked at Yabu. “Uncle Yabu, keep an eye on the shop for a while. I’ve developed some new Potions, and they’re our trade secrets. We can’t let anyone with bad intentions steal them. We’ve invested a lot this time, but I can promise you—we’re going to make a fortune!”

She deliberately said this in front of so many people.

She wanted certain people to hear her. “And now, I’m going to start making my advanced Potion! Hehe~ Once I’ve made it, I’ll officially be a Potion Maker—a Potion Maker nobody can deny! Blackwater Town will tremble before me!”

It was true: even the lowest-ranked Potion Maker could wield tremendous influence in a town like Blackwater Town. After all, an ordinary town couldn’t usually persuade a Potion Maker to settle there. They usually lived in cities.

“I’m going to take a bath and clear my head.”

Tori went into the bathroom. The bathwater had been heated with a magic stove. She soaked in it to keep herself awake; she couldn’t afford to fall asleep now, or her life might be in danger.

She thought about Ethan.

Even if Ethan became an Extraordinary, he might still not be as strong as Uncle Yabu. Why wouldn’t he come to the shop, but instead hide away on his own and ask her to help him become an Extraordinary?

There was a good chance the reason had to do with Yabu himself—perhaps he couldn’t fight. Or perhaps Butler Yabu couldn’t be trusted, either. Tori didn’t know which explanation was right.

Either way, she had no intention of letting Yabu know what she was doing. He might have his suspicions, but he shouldn’t be able to prove them.

So the danger was most likely still coming from Ethan’s siblings. But Ethan had said before that it was because of the monsters in the Church,

Did Yabu have some connection to the Church? Mi Luosha might have been controlled, or perhaps they’d never trusted each other at all. Maybe they were only bound by a contract—

This world wasn’t peaceful.

Tori had felt that deeply. Life in Lusaka Village had been leisurely and slow. She’d only moved to town and made a little money, yet it already felt as if the waters around her were churning. That was closely tied to her employer, Young Master Ethan, of course. But all in all, perhaps her parents had made the right choice. Choosing to move forward meant choosing the waves.

She wasn’t working so hard for Ethan’s sake. She’d realized she was reaching her limit. She could feel something swelling inside her, as if she might burst—as if boundless power were surging out from within. She hadn’t dared enter deep meditation even once, because she knew she was about to break through.

And this was her chance. A chance to transform. She wouldn’t let herself waste it. Time was putting pressure on her, and so was the situation. This was something she’d never dared to imagine, much less do, in the past.

But she had already died once.

The timid, ugly, irresponsible version of herself had died after the painful life she’d lived before. Back then, had she known she would come to this world? No. She’d simply given up. Everything had lost its meaning. The life she’d once looked forward to had been crushed by life itself. Hadn’t she known she carried everyone’s hopes? Hadn’t she known—

She couldn’t do it anymore.

She was weak. Everything had already been decided.

And yet she had embraced this world. In the cycle of death, she had come here. Through that bone-deep pain, in the instant her dim eyes opened, she had been given a new life.

Before she had anything, she had nothing to lose. So now, she had to give it everything she had. In the past, she’d had chances to go all out, but back then, she hadn’t even realized those chances had come. This time was different. This time, she had her chance. That was why this turbulent situation only made her feel more fired up. It made her dormant blood boil and her dimmed soul cry out!

“The All-Round Series Potions!”

Looking at the Potions laid out in front of her, she had given herself the greatest possible pressure. If she couldn’t succeed, then she’d break through just like this, without taking a Potion. That would still keep the series all-round. She was making an advanced Potion for Ethan.

“My body leans toward wind and fire. Earth and water are weaker, so I need to increase the amounts of earth spirit and ice mint. It’s not right to use only ice mint here; I should add some orange lotus leaves, too. They’re pretty expensive—but fine, they can also help balance the mixture. For the tree fruit, I should use oak wood-fruit. It’s not quite the same as an acorn, but it’s what I had in mind. It has a certain ‘elasticity.’

“Starflower grass is the key to this Potion. I need to rely on it to form an inherent skill, so I have to arrange the elemental framework on it—but I’ve never studied how. It doesn’t matter. I’ll just arrange a nice-looking pattern as best I can! As long as the skill it produces isn’t self-destruction, it’ll be fine! And finally, hollow flowers. The hollow flowers and starflower grass should go in at the same time, with a little more starflower grass. Oh, right—the Green Lake Crane feathers and lightning-struck wood. I only need a tiny amount of lightning-struck wood. I can’t handle too much electric shock, and wind and lightning are already pretty destructive elements. I can keep them weaker at this stage.”

After going over the process in her mind, Tori took a deep breath and slapped herself twice. The burning sting on her face made her feel more alert.

Then—she entered deep meditation!

Every element was reflected in her world, its colors dazzling. Little by little, she began to sense a certain rhythm in the way the elements were arranged. She could feel it, faintly. So this was what it felt like to truly enter the next stage of meditation—to perceive and touch the different forms of elemental and magical-energy arrangements.

She sank into deep meditation, and her body began to leap toward a higher level. At that moment, her hands moved rapidly. She didn’t need to see; she could grasp the elements now. She knew the materials well, knew how to handle them and how much to use. She had never been this clear-headed before. Yes. This was it. Only while ascending could she prepare a Potion like this with such clarity. The amounts I estimated before were wrong. I need to adjust the red pepper. It can stimulate my body and push it further into a state of being stimulated. The lightning-struck wood does the same.

Right, hollow flowers are a good medicinal ingredient. They’re said to be dark—but what is darkness? Darkness is acceptance. They’ll pair even better with earth spirits and oak wood-fruit… This is Potion-making. This is the mystical. This is magic.

This was different from physics, chemistry, or even ancient medicine. It belonged solely to this world. It was the crystallization of this world’s people’s wisdom, and it was so beautiful. Making Potions was supposed to be a wonderful process like this. It seemed she’d been a little mistaken in how she understood it before.

She even found herself wondering, “Is it really okay to sell a Potion like this?” It wasn’t just a Potion. It was a work of art. She manipulated the elements of the light-aspected starflower grass, tracing out a Möbius Ring. She’d had a more complex, more beautiful pattern in mind, but now she felt that wasn’t right.

That couldn’t be called art. It was just a collection of complicated shapes. But magic wasn’t like that. Magic had its own aesthetic, too. She’d never studied it systematically, but at that moment, she felt the Möbius Ring was the perfect shape.

Light. The element of light. Light magic—light should be infinite. The Möbius Ring represented infinity. Light and darkness opposed each other, while the world moved along both its front and back sides—a model in which the two sides were one. It didn’t exist in reality, but it could be traced with elements.

How wonderful. How beautiful.

A smile rose from the bottom of her heart.

“All-Round Series Potion: Weak-ranked advancement Potion—the Möbius Potion. People in this world probably won’t understand that name. Let’s call it Infinite Light for short.”

She abruptly came out of her meditative state. At the final stage of her body’s leap, she snatched up the Potion on the table, glowing with pure white light, and drank it in one gulp.