Chapter 13: Boss, I Want to Learn This!
"50 grams of Gray Rock Ore, crushed into granules; Green Skin Frog, ground into powder, take 30 grams; Silver Wing Bat, ground into powder, take 30 grams..."
In the alchemy room, Vivian followed the detailed process provided by Charlotte for making the hemostatic potion and prepared the necessary materials for alchemy.
These materials were the various dried corpses of creepy crawlies and strange substances that frightened her when she robbed Charlotte yesterday.
She had always been afraid of these things. The shriveled Green Skin Frog, as big as a palm, had its internal organs hollowed out and dried, yet it still had a pair of bright red eyeballs bulging.
The Silver Wing Bat looked even more lifelike, with its silver wings reflecting a mirror-like light under the candlelight. However, its grayish-brown mouse body made Vivian shudder.
Using a pair of tongs, Vivian picked up the Green Skin Frog and threw it into the stone mortar. Gripping the pestle, Vivian took a deep breath and struck down with force.
Splat!
A large red eyeball popped out and flew toward Vivian.
Ah! Ah! Ah!
A scream instantly echoed through the clinic.
Charlotte, who had just picked out the materials for making the cleansing potion, arrived at the entrance of the alchemy room and saw a shadow flash by, with an additional pendant hanging on him.
"What happened?" Charlotte lowered his head and looked at Vivian hanging on his neck, asking somewhat helplessly.
"It... its eyeball flew out!" Vivian's emotions were on the verge of collapsing.
Charlotte glanced at the Green Skin Frog in the mortar, missing one eye, and his expression turned cold. "If you can't even handle a dried Green Skin Frog, you can leave. In the Abyss, no one will spend money to keep a mascot that only knows how to scream."
Vivian seemed frightened by Charlotte's stern words. Her hand loosened, and the eyeball dropped to the ground with a thud.
"I... I'm sorry, I'm sorry..." Vivian quickly got up from the ground, bowed her head, and repeatedly apologized.
Charlotte looked at the teary-eyed girl without any sense of guilt.
He spoke the truth. To survive in the Abyss, ordinary people had to work twice as hard.
He was struggling to survive, almost being kicked out because he couldn't afford the rent.
His expectations for Vivian went beyond being a janitor. As a water mage, she had a natural advantage in potion brewing.
If she could become an excellent alchemist, she would alleviate much of Charlotte's workload.
Moreover, the excess potions could be sold to Harry's Material Store. Even if the price was lower, they still yielded considerable profit.
"Your task this afternoon is to process the remaining hemostatic potion materials. I need to optimize a new potion today, so I hope you can maintain a quiet state," Charlotte said to Vivian.
"Okay." Vivian nodded heavily.
Charlotte shifted his gaze away from her and walked into the alchemy room.
Vivian looked at the eyeball still rolling on the ground, conflicted within herself. Nevertheless, trembling, she reached out her hand and grabbed the eyeball.
A strong sense of nausea surged, her face turned pale, and her hands trembled uncontrollably. She almost couldn't help but throw it away.
But when she thought of Charlotte's words earlier, she restrained herself.
She didn't want to be kicked out on her first day of work!
It would be difficult for her to find another place that would accept her and be willing to conceal her identity.
She needed time to grow stronger and a haven where she could hide the ledger.
Her father said that as long as the ledger remained in her hands, they wouldn't kill her mother.
Trembling, she walked back to the mortar, squatting down and placing the eyeball back into the mortar. She picked up the pestle again.
This time, instead of standing far away dramatically, she squatted directly on the ground, gripping the pestle with one hand and pressing the mortar with the other. With a determined expression, she resumed the process of grinding the ingredients.
Thump! Thump! Thump!
The rhythmic sound of grinding quickly turned the Green Skin Frog in the mortar into powder. Occasionally, some fragments flew out but were quickly picked up and thrown back in by her.
Charlotte glanced sideways at the scene, a faint smile appearing on his lips.
There were disgusting things everywhere in this world that were worse than the Green Skin Frog. To establish oneself in the Abyss, one must overcome the fear within.
No longer paying attention to Vivian, Charlotte focused on researching the formulation of the cleansing potion.
For clinics that received a large number of trauma patients, the cleansing potion was a crucial medicine.
As the lowest-tier medicine with only cleaning effects and no therapeutic effects, the formulation of the cleansing potion was particularly simple.
To borrow the words from the diary of his predecessor, it was simply "If you have hands, you can do it."
"Blue Silver Grass, Withered Leaf Vine, Spotted Bamboo. After chopping them into pieces, stew them in a pot. Once the water turns reddish-brown, it can be poured out and set aside. One pot can be boiled three times."
After reading the diary for a while, Charlotte still felt that this formulation was too simple.
However, he realized that the cleansing potion was just a basic auxiliary medicine for wound cleaning, with average effects. So, a simple formulation was acceptable.
And when patients use this cleansing potion, it causes obvious irritation to the wounds, focusing only on its disinfecting and sterilizing effects while neglecting the experience of the patient.
Of course, in a place like the Abyss, survival and saving money are far more important than the user experience.
Closing the notebook, Charlotte took the three ingredients and weighed them on a balance scale, starting to brew the cleansing potion.
"What kind of potion are you making?" Vivian looked up at Charlotte, curious about what he was putting into the pot.
"A cleansing potion," Charlotte replied. After throwing all the ingredients into the pot, he took a few steps back.
After the chaos that happened yesterday, he realized that alchemy was a dangerous job.
"Is that it?" Vivian looked at Charlotte just putting three types of weeds into the pot, wondering if that could be considered a potion.
"The cleansing potion is the lowest-tier potion with average effects. It can only provide initial treatment for ordinary wounds, so simplicity is expected," Charlotte explained calmly. "But this is a basic medicine for the clinic, and the consumption is high, so we need to produce a larger quantity each time."
Vivian nodded, her eyes filled with curiosity.
For Vivian, who had an academic background, potion-making was an entirely new field.
She didn't have the time to pay attention or learn about it before, thinking it was a task deeply involved with mages, where magic bestowed magical effects on those bottles of potions.
But everything she encountered today completely overturned her worldview.
The cleansing potion was made from three types of grass, and the hemostatic potion with hemostatic effects was made from Green Skin Frogs and bats. The brewing process involved using a pockmarked iron pot heated by coal.
And as for magic?
There was no magic here.
"Do these potions work when brewed like this?" Vivian couldn't help but express her doubts.
"At this point, let's bring out our old friend, our dedicated tester—Jerry," Charlotte said, leading Vivian out of the alchemy room and opening a drawer behind the counter.
In the corner, a little white mouse that was sleeping all sprawled out with half a piece of black bread woke up as it was jostled, its dazed gaze landing on Charlotte. It instantly woke up, trembling and huddling in the corner.
"Meow?" Anna jumped from the cabinet to the counter, peeking at the little white mouse, her claws scratching the tabletop, eager to give it a try.
"What's this?" Vivian looked at the trembling little white mouse in the corner, puzzled.
"Let me introduce you. This is our professional tester in the clinic, and you can call him Jerry," Charlotte said, scooping up the little white mouse and deftly tying its limbs to a nailed wooden board, exposing its round belly.
"You don't want to know the efficacy of the potions?" Charlotte took a bottle of cleansing potion and a bottle of hemostatic potion from the cabinet and took out a short knife from the drawer.
Vivian suddenly realized what Charlotte was planning to do and exclaimed, "Are you going to cut it?"
"If you're interested, you can give it a try too," Charlotte replied, flipping the handle of the knife and handing it to Vivian.
"No, it's better if you do it," Vivian took two steps back, refusing.
Anna approached, sniffed the little white mouse, and then raised her paw with sharp claws.
The previously struggling little white mouse immediately stopped its movements, trembling and feigning death, tilting its head to the side and pretending to be unconscious.
Anna swiped at the little white mouse a few times with her paw, seeing no response, and lost interest. She hopped back onto the cabinet.
"Frightened to death?" Charlotte lightly pressed the little white mouse with his finger. Its heart was still beating. If it wasn't scared unconscious, then it was playing dead.
Charlotte cut the wound that had already healed from yesterday with the knife, and fresh blood immediately flowed from the shallow cut.
Vivian clenched her fist, her expression filled with pity.
The little white mouse visibly trembled but still kept feigning death, tilting its head.
Charlotte dipped a piece of cotton into the cleansing potion and gently wiped the wound twice, then switched to another piece of cotton and dipped it into the hemostatic potion, applying it to the wound.
The bleeding wound, under the effect of the potions, immediately stopped bleeding and began to visibly heal.
In just three minutes, the wound completely healed.
Vivian watched this scene with astonishment.
(ΩДΩ)! The wound stopped bleeding and even healed!
For Vivian, who had always believed that healing magic was the best, this was nothing short of a collapse of her worldview.
"Jerry, thank you for your cooperation. We'll continue next time," Charlotte released the little white mouse from the rack and put it back into the drawer.
"Thank you!" The previously unconscious little white mouse flipped over and crawled back to the corner, curling up and wallowing in self-pity.
"Do you have any more doubts?" Charlotte looked at Vivian and asked.
"Boss, I want to learn this!" Vivian's eyes sparkled as she looked at Charlotte as if she had discovered a new continent.
If she learned how to brew potions, she could treat and save people without using magic!