The Insider System

Chapter 120: Down To A Science Pt.1

After a short period of time where Nancom had readjusted the amounts in the recipe they had done another run where the fire plant had four flowers with four being the most common number with only two of the plants having five instead Nancom seemed to be satisfied. Lake wasn't sure what he had done, but he felt like he could get Nancom to tell him as long as he timed it right.

Nancom came off like he was a little temperamental, so Lake was trying to not get on his nerves with how little he actually knew. Lake would have no business being in the master Lab if it wasn't for his skill Poison control, and he was sure if Nancom thought he was an idiot he would be switched with the two servants back to the grinding room until the servants messed up and they were switched out for him again.

This was just a guess and Nancom might have more patience, but there was no reason to find out if he didn't have to. Once the second round had finally finished Lake saw the same dark brown liquid, and he couldn't tell any difference from the first round he had helped with, but Nancom seemed very pleased, so Lake saw this as an opportunity to ask a question.

"So how did what you did this time make it better? I understand the final product is probably more stable with the amounts of the different acids being closer, but wouldn't that really only increase the amount of time it would affect whoever it is used on?"

"That's a very important thing when you plan to dilute it as much as we do. The dilution will make its active time fall drastically, so the higher it starts the better, but there is another reason. Nisysis gains effects like any other ingredient so they need to hit a curtain level and the fact that the fire plant only had three flowers meant it didn't have enough energy to absorb to hit level forty which meant I needed to add more fire element rich resources for it to be able to grow to forty."

"So when they dissolve it isn't just killing the plants, but giving the poison more effects. I thought the acid they produced was the final ingredient and never even considered they were the icing on top." Lake knew this made him sound a little inexperienced, but he was also complimenting Nancom's work, so he was sure it was fine.

"When you have time you should look into reading a book called Cascading Alchemy. It's what gave me the idea for this poison. It's too bad I can't show you my original recipe, and just this sad excuse filled with substitutions, but with the war we need to ration the ingredients that are hard to replenish."

Lake made sure to look surprised as he asked. "You have an even stronger version than this? I bet it's a memorable experience just seeing it made." Lake was hoping he could stretch this conversation out as long as he could by acting like he was very impressed with Nancoms work so far because he was pretty sure it would ingratiate him enough that Nancom would be willing to actually bother explaining himself instead of just doing everything in silence.

"Well would you like to help me with the next one? Maybe you'll be able to gain more incite into the process if you are actually involved." It looked like he might have gone a little far, and now Nancom thought he was competent enough to actually help. After a few moments of thought Lake doubted he could actually do anything catastrophic as long as Nancom wasn't expecting him to do it himself, so he nodded.

"Ok go ahead and get the catalyst ready, then we can really start." It seemed Nancom was really riding the high of their last success and he didn't want to be the one who caused him to come crashing down, so he got to work right away. Nancom hadn't changed anything this time so it was exactly the same and he was pretty sure he had even shaved a few minutes of the brewing time.

It wasn't because he was familiar with the process either he was pretty sure he was just getting better with his Poison Control skill. He had been wondering why skills had levels for a while and he thought maybe this might be the first clue to actually hitting level two in a skill because with all his time spent in the library he was yet to find a book with any information on how to level skills.

He was also too afraid to ask as he thought it might give away too much information about him if it turned out he was the only one who could level skills. He thought he might need to hit level 1 with the Insider to actually do it though because he thought the golden text in his Unique skills, and the level function might be related.

He really had no evidence of this, but he thought maybe two of the things he had yet to find any information on might be related. The only way he could find out was to actually get the million gold the Insider wanted from him.

Once he was done thinking about him getting better at using a skill, Lake got Nancom's attention. "Master Nancom, I'm ready." Master Nancom came over to look and nodded. "Perfect and fast, good work." Lake could tell he was actively feeding into Master Nancom's positive mood. This fact would cement him in this position as long as nothing bad happened during the rest of the brewing process.

Once Nancom had poured the dirt into the bigger vat they would be using for the poison. Lake thought this might be one of the places they might be able to speed up the process once they got used to working together. Lake was pretty sure Nancom only had the two servants working in a separate smaller vat was because they failed occasionally during the process to make the catalyst.

"Ok I'm about to add the powder. Do you want me to spread it around like I have been or just dump it in and let you take care of it." Lake wasn't confident he would be able to control whatever reactions would start if Nancom just dumped it all in one spot so he said. "Do what you normally do. I just want to help you stir faster for this first run."

"Good choice if I can stir even twice as fast we will save 20 or so minutes during this run." Lake was happy Nancom wasn't being too pushy, and letting him decide how much he could handle. It seemed Nancom didn't really care how much time they shaved off this run, but instead wanted Lake to get used to helping him while still succeeding.

Nancom really seemed to hate failure because he had been treating his servants like they were useless for a 60% success rate on something he would treat as really difficult if it wasn't for Poison Control. Seeing Nancom start to add the powders, Lake got ready by activating Distill and Poison Control.

Taking control of every poison he found in the vat Lake could tell almost instantly which ones were reacting with which. He let them do their own thing until he saw Nancom start to stir. Seeing this as a go signal, Lake started to control the reactions by slowing them down. This might seem counterintuitive if they were going for a good time, but with him controlling the reactions Nancom was free to stir faster.

Lake would worry about speeding up the reactions once all the powder was stirred in because this would let him see what kind of strength he was dealing with. "You can stir faster, but be ready to slow down." Nancom did just what he asked him to and after most of the powder was mixed in Lake was surprised to find the strength of the reactions he was controlling were all underwhelming which wasn't what he was expecting.

It was more of the same kind of reaction he had controlled during the process of making the catalyst which he now understood as the seed powder reacting with the monster part powders that contain elemental mana that the seed powder would use to grow later. This explained why the two servants had been failing, what they had been doing was already as difficult as this first step they were doing now.

If that was the case, Lake wondered why Nancom wasn't doing it himself. Once the reactions had pretty much finished Nancom said. "The second reaction between the seed powder and the troll blood is about to start." Lake didn't know what Nancom was talking about; they were already bonded, so how could there be another reaction?

He also couldn't feel anything from them to signal that anything was about to happen. Right when he was about to open his mouth to ask what Nancom meant, Lake felt something he had never felt inside a potion that was being brewed. Something that was already bonded was trying to do something again with nothing new being added to it.