Chapter 9: Magic Pharmaceutics (Part 2)

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

There were two reasons for Saleen’s slow progress. The first reason was that his lack of affinity to elements did not improve. Even though he had been taking the pills from Jason daily, he still was unable to perceive elements clearly. The second reason was that Saleen would learn the next magic only after he had perfected the current one.

That was to say, Saleen could now skillfully carry out Double Release, as well as control the Double Release. He could continuously release four Grade 0 spells, with the four spells being released separately, at the same time, or in sequence. When released in sequence, the last three spells were in an instantaneous state.

Because of his innate deficiency, he needed to put in more effort on his skills. Saleen believed that as long as the magic strings were formed, he would be a perfect magician.

Through this six months of practice, Saleen gradually knew that Jason’s actual age and how old he looked were the same – thirty-five years old. It was very rare to have a thirty-five year old Grade 5 magician in the Qin Empire.

Jason was not only talented, but also possessed formal magic lineage. His teacher was a Grade 9 magician. Jason had left Qin Empire, because his practice was stuck in a bottleneck as he was about to progress to Grade 6.

As they advanced from Grade 5 to Grade 6, the magicians would form their own unique style. Only when they reached Grade 7 could they develop the magic string to perfection. Jason was a very confident person, so he left the Qin Empire, away from his teacher’s guidance. He had wanted to be a unique magician.

Saleen was lucky. A regular magician would not have the ability to provide so many magic books. Even if there were one, one may not have been able to carry them into Ceylon City. That required a large space prop.

An ordinary space prop was only a few cubic feet, and would definitely not fit the books in these few rooms.

Jason had travelled a long way, and came to Ceylon City when Saleen had almost starved to death. Where Saleen was concerned, this was a miracle of fate. Saleen’s earnest learning attitude was a good fit for Jason’s temper. Saleen was also smart enough, which was why Jason had decided to formally guide him after testing him a year later.

A regular apprentice of magic would receive his teacher’s guidance only after he had passed Grade 6 apprenticeship. Saleen had spent a year to attain the Grade 2 apprenticeship. If it were other magicians, they would have long ago completely given up on him. This was because Grades 1 to 3 apprenticeships were the simplest. Normally, they would enter Grade 4 apprenticeship in the second year.

Saleen finally completed reading through the basic knowledge of magic. The bookshelves in the back began to contain more in-depth content on principles of magic. These could not be simply learned through memorization, and Saleen started to make his choices.

The principle of magic required a combination of brief understanding and Jason’s guidance. For the rest of the time, aside from practicing new magic, he could also gain more knowledge – Alchemy, Magic Pharmaceutics, Magic Array, Summon Skill and so on.

Summon Skill was excluded by Saleen, as this type of magic was extremely unstable. Too many possibilities could occur when summoning living creatures. It was said that during the second dynasty, magicians could arbitrarily summon the designated creatures. Unknowingly, the Summon Skill had become a type of random magic in the third dynasty, which was five-thousand years ago.

During battle, the last thing Saleen would want was to summon one grass-grazing rabbit after another. It could even be a housefly at times.

Magic Array was also abandoned. One needed powerful affinity to elements to learn Magic Array. Saleen’s learning had been hindered by this limitation. His body’s magic elements were not even sufficient for him create a Grade 0 Magic Array.

Between Alchemy and Magic Pharmaceutics, Saleen finally chose Magic Pharmaceutics. Although Alchemy was profitable, it would be of little help in his own battle. After Saleen understood the importance of power, he had planned for himself clear learning goals. He needed to become stronger, even stronger.

Magic Pharmaceutics was undoubtedly the most practical for Saleen; even the cheapest material could produce boosters. As long as one had sufficient mental strength to control the blending of the pharmaceuticals, the chance of failure would be reduced. After determining his direction, Saleen started on the arduous learning process.

To manufacture magic medicine, tens of thousands of materials could be used. They were mainly plants, with minerals making up ten percent. The rarest of all were materials from living creatures, such as the blood, hair and horn of a magic beast.

Saleen asked Jason for a set of equipment to be used to refine medicine, and built a small-scale laboratory in his bedroom. Saleen’s ancestral home was an aristocratic building with a fortress-like structure, such that explosions from experiments would not destroy the walls. This was the reason why Jason had eyed Saleen’s house.

As he could continuously cast the Reading Magic four times, Saleen’s speed of learning had also quickened. He had used three months to memorize the tens of thousands of pages of material maps. During this time, he did not sleep and depended solely on meditation to recuperate his energy.

After he was done with the material maps, Saleen did not systematically learn the formulae. Beside the commonly used medication, he began to search for some rare formulae.

On one day, Saleen sat on the ground with his back against the bookshelf. He was reading “Summary of Magic Pharmaceutics” when suddenly, he felt the top of his head throbbing. He looked up. A huge book came hammering down and landed on Saleen’s nose. Blood spluttered.

Saleen had not learned the Invisible Shield spell. He had read continuously for a long time and his energy was somewhat depleted. Even if he had felt danger, he could not hide.

Oh…

Saleen covered his nose as he looked for the hemostatic agent in his pocket. This time, it was a hard smash and that book had weighed more than 10 kilograms. Saleen felt that the bridge of his nose was almost broken.

After he had tilted his head and applied medication, Saleen felt a buzzing sound in his head and his vision became blurred. Could this be a symptom of a concussion as described in pathology? He had better not have knocked himself dumb.

He picked up that thick book and held it in both hands. It felt unusually heavy.

This book was almost squarish, a meter wide and half a meter thick. There were no words on its black cover, which was lined with dark golden patterns. Saleen was pretty familiar with magic patterns. The pattern on this cover was very unfamiliar, and he could not tell which era’s style it was.

Opening the thick cover, on the title page was “Ridiculous Magic Pharmaceutics,” written in Myers Language.

Saleen was attracted by the book title. Magic Pharmaceutics was a very normative science. It was very perfect from its principle to operation. Using the word “ridiculous” to describe Magic Pharmaceutics was an absurd notion.

Flipping to the first page, the preface was handwritten by the royal organization. Saleen turned to the back of the book, but could not find any writer’s inscription. He then began reading from the beginning.

This book’s author had negated the structure of the Magic Pharmaceutics in his introduction, and deemed Magic Pharmaceutics as a skill of experience which had many loopholes in its guiding theory. Only through constant experiments could Magic Pharmaceutics continue to improve. Otherwise, it would lead to a dead end.

Up to this point, Saleen felt that the author was spouting nonsense and playing to the gallery. Magic Pharmaceutics had a history of tens of thousands of years, even before Magic Formation. This author was definitely insane.

However, he got more terrified as he read on; the author was able to pinpoint the error in the logic of Magic Pharmaceutics. The author pointed out that even the purest mineral could not possibly solely correspond to one element. It was even more so for herbal and animal materials. Magic medicine was invented according to the pharmaceutical formula in the Magic Pharmaceutics and was the most common medicine, but it was far from being formulated perfectly.

The purification in Magic Pharmaceutics was an even bigger mistake, as the real development direction in Magic Pharmaceutics should be laboratory science. It should entail the investigation of magic to determine the structure of the pharmaceutical material, followed by continuous experimenting in order to achieve the perfect formula. There would be slight variations when using the same material in different places. A real pharmacist should be able to distinguish this.

Saleen continued to read on, and he discovered that not only was the author gifted in the Magic Pharmaceutics, but his accomplishments in magic were also pretty great.

In the element agglomeration medicine, the author pointed out the mistake of this medicine and even gave three examples of three spells. He pointed out how to match with actual medicine when using the three spells, and eliminate the damage caused by the medicine.

Saleen had never heard of these three spells. Since they were advanced magic, he made use of Reading Magic to memorise them and keep them for future validation. However, Saleen was getting a headache from looking at the formulae the author had provided; there were more than 600 kinds of basic materials. Alternatives were listed for more than 50 kinds, with the medicinal properties and analysis of the proportion for most included.

Saleen simply flipped to the front of the book and used the Reading Magic to memorize everything from the beginning. From afternoon till nightfall, by the time Saleen was at the last page, he felt his eyelids twitching.

The last page was written in magic language, in such small handwriting that It could hardly be read. Everything was in red as if it were a warning. Saleen was so shocked by the miniscule title that his mind went completely blank: The Formula of Magic String Medicine!

In this world, nine out of ten people could become an apprentice of magic. But among 100 apprentices, only one or two could advance to being a qualified magician.

This was because the formation of magic strings was too difficult. But the author of this book unexpectedly contributed a magic pharmaceutical formula. This formula could help apprentices form their magic strings.

Saleen thought that he was overly eager and hallucinating. He read it carefully again to ensure he had not read it wrong. This formula really was specially designed for creating magic strings. Regardless of the apprentice’s grade, he would immediately form magic strings after taking this medicine.

Saleen’s hands were trembling, his breathing became laboured, and his nose was about to bleed again.

It felt as though one had starved for half a month, and suddenly received a sweet-smelling bread. Saleen sneakily sandwiched the book “Ridiculous Magic Pharmaceuticals” and returned to his bedroom. After careful thought, he felt that such formula was against nature and a little unrealistic. If magic strings could be formed through this method, then why did all the magicians not know this these tens of thousands of years?

He cast a Detection Magic spell on the opened page. Sure enough, a layer of golden words emerged among the red words. Saleen broke into a cold sweat as he continued to read word by word.

The golden words were the real formula for the magic strings. If one had consumed the medicine formulated according to the red words, even a Grade 9 Magic Beast would die from the poison. Was the author joking? Someone so malicious would probably be hated when he was alive, which was why he had not left his name on the book.