“He’s gonna feel that one tomorrow!” Tresk shouted, pumping her fists in the air.

Although they had a lot of training to do, the pair wanted at least a short break. Tresk figured the best way to take a break would be to commentate on the fights, since they were getting interesting. Instead of the large-scale attacks they had come to see in the previous fights, each battle had become far more tactical. Thanks to the point system, they couldn’t afford to go all-out without fear of losing points.

“Interesting strategy,” Theo said, leaning forward and narrowing his eyes. “This is the fighter that got docked for throwing and missing too many daggers, right?”

“That’s right, Theo. Our blue fighter is a stealth specialist who loves tossing thousands of daggers at their opponent. They almost lost it last round since the judge is now treating poor accuracy as a reason for docking points.” Tresk zoomed her screen, shaking her head in disappointment. “Unless blue gets back into stealth, I’m not sure he can come out the other side alive! Or at least with their points intact.”

“Looks like you might get what you’re asking for,” Theo said.

Below was a strange burst of movement. It first appeared the blue fighter was feinting left, preparing for a charge. But when the red fighter conjured walls of flames, that plan was abandoned as soon as it was formed. But the feint was a double-feint… Whatever that was called. The red fighter took the momentary lapse in the blue fighter’s concentration to unleash a wall of daggers. They soared across the arena, most being caught in an invisible barrier. But the ones that got through streamed against the body of the red fighter, leaving shining marks where the arena registered the hits.

The crowd went bonkers, and so did Tresk.

“The old feint-feint-dagger move!” Tresk shouted. “Looks like we’re going to see a winner here in a second!”

“Not if that wizard… Yep, another fireball,” Theo said. “Trusty old fireball. Even if your arms and legs don’t work, even if your spine has just been punctured by about ten billion daggers, always pick fireball.”

“Huh. They both blew up. Who gets the win?” Tresk asked.

“Let’s see what the judges say.”

This was the last match Theo and Tresk were going to do today. Truth was, they had a bit of extra time now that Fenian was missing. It wasn’t as though the elf was a burden, but training him in the paper dimension made the dragon project a tad harder. Now that they were free to do whatever, the alchemist was convinced they could get the system even more stable before the reset.

The judges finally reached a conclusion, the information flashing up on the screen for them to see.

“Dagger boy actually won!” Tresk shouted with excitement. “Can you believe it? I guess enough of those daggers hit their mark to count.”

“It was seriously close, though,” Theo said. Both fighters met in the middle of the arena, shaking hands like good sportsmen. “We’re handing the commentary over to some other fine folks. Busy, busy!”

Tresk pushed away from the table, releasing a heavy sigh. “Okay, that’s seriously fun.” She eyed their replacements, shooting up from the chair and offering them the driver’s seat. “All yours. Good luck with the other fights.”

“Thanks,” the elf said with a slight bow.

The elves were apparently high-ranking military folks from Tarantham, but Theo hadn’t taken the time to get to know them. As far as elves went, they weren’t bad. Most elves could be too snooty for his liking, but these two were alright.

“Why you floating that essence around?” Tresk asked.

Theo had taken to withdrawing the vial containing the unknown essence from the Frozen Tear, and floating around while he thought about the best way to force it to work. “I can’t figure it out,” Theo admitted. “Typically, I have a sense for what an essence can do. I feel elements of ice.”

“Is there such a thing?” Tresk asked. “Ice Potion?”

“Frostbomb, I guess. Especially from the Manashroom,” Theo said. “But I can’t get it to be a Frostbomb, Resist Cold Potion, or anything like that.”

“Try juicing it with dragon mana,” Tresk said, rubbing her hands together.

Theo considered it for a moment. But alchemy was a reactive thing. Precautions were needed. “Okay. But we’re not doing it here,” he said.

“Yeah, come on. You can teleport anywhere. Let’s go.”

“I hear Calet is pretty fun this time of year,” Theo said with a sinister laugh. “Stay here, Alex. You’re cold blooded.”

“No, I’m not!” the dragon shouted from somewhere above.

Without waiting for Alex’s approval, Theo teleported himself and Tresk to the region once called Calet. Tresk wrapped her arms around herself immediately, shivering only a moment after they had arrived.

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“Oh, yeah. This place sucks. Just put some fire energy into your aura and we’re golden,” Tresk said.

“Let’s go into that ominous cave, instead,” Theo said. “If I put fire energy into my aura, we’re gonna infuse that into the essence.”

Tresk didn’t like it, but she agreed. This was her idea, after all. Theo smiled to himself all the way to the cave. Somewhere in the distance, he picked up the sense that monsters were lurking. He couldn’t tell what kind, but they were there. Deep under the snow, he also felt more of the Frozen Tear flowers, waiting to be plucked. The alchemist wasn’t sure if he wanted more of them, since the only useful effect had been turning themselves into shards. The ice immunity wasn’t cold immunity, so that was out of the question.

Stepping into the cave, Theo looked around to spot a sheet of ice frozen to the walls of the cave. Even the floor was slick, as though a river had run through here and froze half-way through. He stopped after erecting a few powerful barrier to contain whatever explosion came from the combined power of dragon energy and the essence.

“Mana infusion isn’t an insane concept,” Theo said, levitating the essence with one hand, and his own refined mana with the other. He had done his best to pull out only the mana most closely aligned with the concepts of dragons. “Put them together and… what?”

“Why are you asking me? You’re the alchemy boy.”

Theo gave her a flat look. If she scanned his memory, she’d understand he had no idea what would happy. Mana infusion was done through concepts based on spell arrays, not pure mana. The alchemist had never seen a new effect springing up from mana infusion alone. He could only think that there would be a stabilizing effect when potent dragon mana was added to the mix.

“Fine. Nothing should happen. But will nothing happen?” Tresk asked, clapping excitedly. “Let’s find out.”

Theo floated the essence and his mana behind the safety barrier. There were two options: an explosion or something interesting. Although the alchemist leaned toward the explosion, there was something about the dragon mana he had refined that was interesting to consider. Although he tried his best, the way he had cultivated the energy made it a mixture of celestial and dragon energies. Refined into mana, it created a strangely potent mix of those two concepts.

Pulling those two elements together created an interesting effect. Rather than repelling, as Theo had expected, they wanted to merge. Before moving forward, though, experimentation was required. It wasn’t enough for him that this might work. The alchemist wanted to know why

it worked. He sucked the errant mana back into his body, and withdrew some infused instead with the Haste spell. He was shocked enough to see how quickly he created the spell-infused glob of mana, but not so surprised at the essence’s reaction.

“Why doesn’t it want spell mana?” Tresk asked, tilting her head to one side.

Theo simply shook his head, discarding the spell-infused mana and withdrawing a pure strain from his chest. This one was untainted by spells, dragons, or the celestial energies. When he held it close to the essence, it also repelled. This was only moderately confusing, since essences could desire certain types of mana. Why this essence wanted nothing but dragon and celestial energy was beyond him.

“I suppose we learned something,” Theo said. “Maybe. I’m not really sure yet.”

“Yeah, yeah. Come on. Just make the potion.”

Theo rolled up his sleeves, withdrawing more of the potent mana from his chest. He watched as the mystery essence pulled through the air, fighting against his control to assimilate with the mana. Before proceeding, he double-checked his barriers and focused on the danger sense gifted by Omen. He might not be able to see the future anymore, but at least he could know if he was about to be blown up.

But he sensed nothing.

As the essence combined with the mana, it began glowing. The light was almost blinding as the two things combined, filling the cave with shimmering silver, purple, and green that danced across the walls. The temperature increased significantly, rivulets of water running down the ice frozen to the cave walls. Theo clenched his jaw, feeling the essence itself push back against him as though challenging his will. He doubled down, forcing more of his willpower into the combination. The cave itself rumbled, those loosening sheets of ice falling from the walls to shatter upon the ground.

“Woah, that’s a serious potion,” Tresk said with a nervous chuckle. “You okay, buddy?”

“This isn’t going well,” Theo grunted, putting more of his massive willpower into combining the two materials. This wasn’t even the crafting portion of his new skill. He couldn’t help wondering how difficult that would be.

But there was no time to consider the future. As Theo poured the last of his willpower into keeping the newly forming essence from exploding, he felt the barrier before him buckling. The instant it had been infused with everything he had, the reaction calmed down and he realized something. The amount of willpower required to calm the reaction was equal to the amount of willpower his latent mana contained, which was to say all his willpower.

Breathing a sigh of relief, Theo watched as the essence calmed, combining to create a dark, tar-like liquid floating in the air. He dropped the barriers, transferring the contents to a flask and giving it a better look. Lurking within were properties he could only hope to guess the effects of. The next phase was to ‘brew’ the potion, which meant he would use his overpowered willpower to force the process. There was no elegance in it, but when one had so much willpower, why not use it?

Theo forced his willpower onto the flask, backing off immediately. Dabbing his forehead, he felt the dampness there and let out a heavy breath. His danger sense had gone crazy for only an instant. “I can’t do the whole thing at once,” he said, withdrawing a vial from his inventory. “We’re not even talking about an explosion anymore. This is something else. Like the potion is going to overtake me.”

“Just be careful,” Tresk said, her voice containing an uncharacteristic edge of concern.

Theo wouldn’t remind Tresk that this was her idea, not his. Instead, he put some of the mixture from the flask into his vial and got to work. In such a small amount, about two-units worth, it was much easier to handle. He infused his willpower into the mix, watching as the liquid within changed. The tar-like substance became much clearer, taking on the familiar hue of their draconic Tara’hek. Purple mingled with blue in striations throughout the potion, running in bands along the side of the vial. The alchemist felt a pulse of power from within.

A visible wave of power shot from the vial, threatening to break the glass. But it held. For now.

Theo held the vial up to the light filtering through the cave’s entrance. His brows knit tightly. “Uh, that’s not normal.”

“What?” Tresk asked.

Theo turned, holding it out for her to see. He shook his head. “It has an item description.”