Failure Alchemist – Chapter 5

Translator: Flowingcloud  Editor: Elena

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Let’s Create a Potion (1)

 

If you are reading from a pirate or aggregator site, please read from the translator’s site: yado-inn (dot) com I have to put the link like this or else the bots will remove it, sorry 🙁

I’m still reading [Introduction to Alchemy: Part 1] in my room today.
I was even properly sitting on a chair at the desk while I read the book. 1 After all, what I’m going to start doing today is potion concoction! The muscles on my back naturally straightened.

“The materials for this potion are healing herb, mana grass, and water……”

I wonder how I can get my hands on some……

I walked to the detached gardener’s hut and paid the gardener, Dan, a visit. “Good day, Dan.”

Dan was surprised by his sudden tiny visitor. “Oh, it’s Daisy-Ojousama. Do you have some business with me?”

“I want some healing herb and mana grass, do you know how I can obtain some?” I asked Dan who was puzzled.

“The easiest way would be to go to the city and buy them at an herb store,” Dan informed me.

……Well, I would need Mother’s permission then.

I went to the living room that Mother was most likely to be in right now. Mother was in the middle of embroidering together with Ellie.

“Oh my, Daisy. What’s the matter?” She stopped the finger that was moving the needle and looked up at me.

“I want to make a potion, but I need some healing herb and mana grass. When I asked Dan, he told me that they’re at an herb store.”

When Mother heard that, she tilted her head as if slightly troubled. “You are still five. It’s a bit early to go shopping in the town…” She said with a worried look on her face. Ellie slipped in a few words at that moment.

“Madam, wouldn’t it be fine if you used a free maid?”

Mother clapped her hands, “You’re right!” 2

Thus, I was able to get my hands on six bundles of healing herbs and three bundles of mana grass.

“Hmm, this isn’t fresh, is it?” I muttered as I looked at the healing herb and mana grass that I received while walking to the laboratory.

[Healing Herb]

Quality: Normal
Details: A bit of time has passed since it was harvested. A bit shriveled.

[Mana Grass]

Quality: Normal
Details: A bit of time has passed since it was harvested. A bit shriveled.

……I guess I’ll look into how to get better materials later.

I arrived at the laboratory. First, I washed the healing herb and mana grass sufficiently. According to [Introductions to Alchemy: Part 1], you put the healing herb and mana grass in water with a 2:1 ratio, then extract it.

I roughly cut the healing herb and mana grass into a size small enough that it can enter the beaker, submerged it in the water, covered it, then left it alone overnight. Of course, I used distilled water.

The next day, I tried to Appraise what had been made.

[Potion???]

Quality: Very Low
Details: Dilute. The active ingredients were hardly extracted. Even if you drink this, there will be no effect.

……First off, what is “???”? Wait a minute, I made it according to the book!

I wonder if I needed to stir it round and round, I thought, then I tried mixing it with a spoon.

[Potion???]

Quality: Very Low
Details: Still dilute. The active ingredients were hardly extracted. Even if you drink this, there will be no effect.

……Does that mean that just following along with what’s written in the book isn’t enough? I became extremely troubled. I wonder if alchemy requires trial and error.

Do I grind the leaves? Soak the dried ones? Heat the water? Just thinking about it, various possibilities came to mind……

Come to think of it, I dabbled in only one volume of the books I received. I wonder if there’ll be an answer if I properly read all three volumes? I decided to go back to the basics for the time being and try to finish reading the books.

I put the remaining healing herb and magic grass in the storage room in the slightly damp basement.

If you are reading from a pirate or aggregator site, please read from the translator’s site: yado-inn (dot) com I have to put the link like this or else the bots will remove it, sorry 🙁

  1. Flowingcloud: Let’s be real, reading on our bed lying down is the life though.
  2. Elena: Oh, come on. You didn’t think of that?
    Arocks141: Elena, Japanese side-chars don’t come equipped with a brain.

5 thoughts on “Failure Alchemist – Chapter 5”

  1. Thanks for the chaapter. I was a little lost during the previous chapter until I played a crafting game and it made a whole not more sense.

  2. I wonder if the author has never worked with herbs before. When making potions, you don’t want fresh herbs. You want dried herbs. Fresh herbs simply means the herb has a lot of water. Dried herbs lack water. So when you grind it and boil it, the minerals in the dried herbs easily leaches into the water as the herb soaks in water.

    Anyway, thanks for sharing.

  3. Yeah, I thought so too, but maybe mana herbs are diifferent. Who knows how mana works. But I agree with you, dried herbs are usually much more potent. Which reminds me of dried hibiscus tea and chamomile tea… rose perfume… I tried it when I was little, it doesn’t work with raw fresh plants.

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