Chapter 14

Junichiro carefully ran his index finger over a shallow groove he'd just finished carving into a silver colored ring. It was the final part of a rune on a slightly overly wide ring covered in runes. Finding that the carved line was smooth and perfect for his purposes, he picked up a nearby spool of gold wire. He was a bit clumsy using his wooden right hand still, it'd only been a week since he got it, but he'd found his work had suffered from it. Not unexpected but definitely annoying.

Thanks to that drop in quality, he'd decided to make something to help him with the strength and control of his prosthetic, a Ring of Minor Telekinesis. Unlike making a wand with a limited charge, a ring could have a spell impregnated into it that would use the casters own pool of magic. So, the ring could only work as long as he had power to spare. On top of that, the materials used to make it, Mana Steel and Gold, along with the low tier runes, gave the ring a hard limit on how powerful the telekinesis could be. Thus, minor. Though, anyone familiar with D&D could equate it to a much stronger version of the Mage Hand cantrip.

Junichiro cut off a small piece of gold wire and placed it in the carved groove on the ring. Then, using a jewelers hammer, he carefully tapped on the gold to gently crush it into the groove. Doing so would lock the gold into the ring and some gentle sanding would smooth out any excess gold to leave a perfectly smooth surface.

Once all of the gold was tapped into place and wouldn't come back out without some serious effort, he removed the ring from the small vice and examined the entire surface looking for any defects. The ring was as wide as two normal rings giving him more space to cover in runes. The rune set he chose actually looked similar to tribal markings so any mundane person seeing it wouldn't pay a whole lot of attention to it or even be likely to think it was fake arcane stuff. His whole goal was to attract as little attention as possible. Not something that's all that easy being under Azazel's wing and all... He'd still try though dammit!

Finding no flaws with the ring, he moved onto sanding the excess gold off the surface to smooth it all out. After that he'd polish it to a nice shine before pouring his mana into it. Once he had the ring he had something else he wanted to make. He set the ring down and took a small box out of his pants pocket. Flipping it open revealed a dozen or so hand rolled cigarettes. He plucked one out along with a cheap lighter. A moment later it was lit and Junichiro was taking a slow drag on it.

Interestingly, the scent that came from the cigarette and the exhaled smoke smelled nothing like any tobacco on the planet. Several of the herbs that Azazel had gathered for him worked best when burnt and the smoke inhaled. That didn't mean they couldn't be used in other fashions, but they lost some of their effect. In this case he had a blend of the herbs that had been finely chopped, mixed, and made into cigarettes. When smoked the combination of herbs boosted focus, stamina, mana recovery, and overall health. The burnt herbs didn't do any of that to an extreme degree, but having it all in one package that he could smoke all day long was pretty nice.

…

It also made him feel cool.

It also didn't help that he'd been a bit of a smoker in his previous life. He hadn't realized how much he missed that particular aspect of his old life. At least what he was smoking now wasn't anywhere near as bad for him as tobacco cigarettes. Though any form of smoke would always do some form of damage to a humans lungs, they weren't meant to inhale smoke. Hell, when a building was burning down the smoke killed people long before the fire could for that very reason. That wasn't going to stop him though. Plus, he really liked the scent of the mixed herbs as they burned. It'd probably make an excellent incense stick.

He smoked away until he finally finished the last bit of polishing on the ring. Having high end machines made the process significantly faster and easier. After a final once over to make sure the ring was pristine and as perfect as he could make it, he slipped it onto his left hand ring finger. It fit perfectly, naturally.

With the ring on he channeled some of his magical power into it and felt the connection form. He looked at his bench and focused on a scrap of sandpaper. After a moment of concentration on his part, the sandpaper wiggled and slowly rose into the air. Junichiro grinned as he proved the ring worked. He'd need some practice with it, but it would make things a lot easier for himself in the future. Especially when he decided to make his second prosthetic arm in the near future.

Before then though, he needed to make some money so he could purchase replacement materials from Azazel. The leader of the fallen had been extremely generous with everything that he'd provided but there would be no more free handouts. Thankfully, he could use the new item to improve his workmanship back up to the appropriate level and sell some kitchen knives. Though, he would much prefer to get some custom orders again. Those always brought in the most money and in the supernatural world he could charge a real fortune for something nice.

He continued to think about how he should move forward to make some cash to buy more materials. His grind loop was pretty standard, though what he made could change at his whims. Speaking of, rather than forging, maybe he should change to Alchemy? Potions could have all kinds of crazy effects, yet he wouldn't need to get into that territory. The simplest most classic kind of potion would be worth a fair bit in this world.

The healing potion.

While healing magic did exist, it was either Twilight Healing, or slow and inefficient such as how Rias seemed to need to sleep next to the person and use her demonic energy to heal them. There were probably more healing methods, especially for Angels. He had no idea if the Fallen could heal or not and the Angels was really just a guess. There was also probably a breed of Yokai that could heal too. Still, a simple potion anyone could drink to heal injuries? Should be worth a fair amount of money.

Granted, a single lesser potion probably wouldn't sell for all that much since it would only heal minor injuries and they couldn't just be chugged over and over to heal any injuries. Real life didn't work like video games. Taking more than one healing potion, of any strength, without the proper nutrients readily available could cause all kinds of issues. Though that's what nutrient potions were for! Selling two potions to handle one job efficiently. That sounded like a nice bit of money. Perhaps he should give smithing a break and switch to potion brewing.

He continued to waffle back and forth as he stepped into the dining room. A single inhale through his nose had him letting out a little groan of pleasure. Mittelt seemed to be really going out with making dinner tonight. Their relationship hadn't changed all that much over the last few days, why would it? Though, Mittelt had taken to small little things to try and annoy him. For example, she'd started going all out to make the most lavish, hence delicious, meals. Not because she wanted to feed him good food, no, because she wanted an excuse to have him wash a bunch of dishes.

It wasn't every meal that Mittelt went all out on, but when she did... She might have been trying to annoy him or something but he couldn't care less. Let her make a mountain of dishes. He'd happily spend the next two hours washing them all with her delicious meal resting in his stomach. He'd never dined in a five star fine dining restaurant in either life, but he imagined that Mittelt's all out cooking was right up there with those places.

As he sat at the table, Mittelt came out of the kitchen with the last plate filled with food. Lucky for him, the food budget was pretty big and there were always left overs of Mittelt's cooking for lunch the next day. As she sat across from him, he could see the knowing smirk on her lips. It didn't seem to occur to her that she put just as much effort into cooking the meal as he would into cleaning it. Or at least, that was how it used to be. With his new ring he'd have an even easier time of cleaning up later.

Once she was comfortably sat, she gestured to the food, "Dig in."

Junichiro started collecting bits of the different dishes onto his plate while he addressed Mittelt, "I was wondering something. I'm kind of waffling on what I want to make and sell."

Mittelt gave him her full attention at that. This was definitely a part of her job working with him. Seeing she was focused on him, he continued, "At first, I was thinking of continuing what I'd done before, kitchen knives and the like. But, now I'm wondering how well something like a healing potion would sell? Not something super powered but good for cuts and bruises or at least partially closing a more dangerous wound in an emergency."

Mittelt hummed for a bit as she thought that over, "Well, things capable of healing are pretty rare. There are some Sacred Gears that can, but not many. And each race has their own little things they can do, but it's never enough. So... yeah, I think something like you're describing would sell pretty well. Though the strength of it doesn't sound like it would be worth a fortune. Can you produce it in large quantities?"

Junichiro nodded along as she spoke, it was about what he figured, "Yeah. I can make large batches really easily. Maybe sell it in bulk with a dose size?"

"Does the dose matter?"

Junichiro nodded vigorously, "Very much. Too little is useless. Too much can, potentially, be deadly. The healing potions I can make use the bodies resources to repair the damage with a smidgen of help from magic. Taking too many too close together can lead to some serious deficits in a bodies reserves. You have to replace what's lost before you can take another dose. Basically, just like any other drug in the world. Too little is useless, too much will kill you."

Mittelt nodded at that, "Makes sense. Well, if you can make a big enough batch, it'd probably sell for a decent amount. I say, go for it."

Internally, Mittelt was really starting to see what had caught Azazel's attention. This kid, a kid with no training or history with the supernatural, was doing the impossible. People had tried to make potions and items that could heal before, some with small success, but nothing had ever come close to Sacred Gears, Angelic healing, or the occasional gifted Yokai. Many had tried, few had ever had minor success. Yet here was Junichiro talking about healing potions as if they were a foregone conclusion. There was definitely something extremely odd going on here. She'd keep a closer eye on the kid to see if she could figure anything out.

Junichiro moved through his lab looking over the various ingredients he had available with a bright smile on his face. He hadn't stopped smiling after he'd seen the pout Mittelt had given him when he used his minor telekinesis to wash the dishes last night. She'd looked really adorable doing it, and the look of rage when he'd said so was priceless.

Now though, he was focusing on making a nice sized batch of healing potion. Finding good ingredients was a bit of an issue. The recipes he'd gotten from the Essence were useless, naturally. But his knowledge base was enough for him to make it using replacements. He just needed things with the right properties.

Speaking of, he collected an herb that helped with blood clotting, "That should be enough."

He looked over a collection of seven different herbs with various healthy or healing properties. They would form the basis of the potion with a bit of his own magic to finish it off. As he got to work on the potion he couldn't help thinking about the knowledge he had on Artificer culture. Unlike one might expect, Artificers did share their knowledge with each other to expand on everyone's capabilities.

Well... they did after a certain amount of time. If an Artificer made something new, say a potion, then they had exclusive rights to it for ten years. Now, any Artificer worth their salt could reverse engineer a potion to learn the ingredients. Then it was just a matter of experimenting to recreate the process. Some magics could give hints on what to try to further improve their odds. However, only dicks tried to rip off someone else's hard work. So, naturally, that was a lot of people.

To prevent recipe theft, especially in potions, Artificers now used what would be called Copyright Protection Magic, in modern terms. Essentially it was a small part of the potion making process when the creator was infusing their magic into the potion that would scramble any attempts to decode what was in the potion.

All of that meant no one, except Azazel, would be able to figure out how to make his potions. While he hadn't found anything to prove Azazel was spying on him in the workshop, or house, he was going to assume it was happening. Azazel seemed like the type to be willing to record and monitor every single aspect of his entire life to figure out how he makes the things he makes. The dude was obsessed that like.

So, Azazel might be able to make his own copies, but no one else would. Aside from that, Junichiro had no plans to make anything truly outrageous inside of this place. A standard world breaking one would be something to enhance fertility. Devils would go batshit insane and do whatever it took to get their hands on something like that. The Fallen, might? He honestly wasn't sure how easy or hard it was for Fallen Angels to have kids. The only one he could even remember was Akeno. So, they might go crazy for it too? Well, whatever. Any race with reproduction issues would want to get their hands on it. That's what mattered and what would give him a massive amount of power in the future. No way in hell was he letting Azazel even get a hint of how to replicate it. The same went for more powerful healing potions and items.

Once he had a place that was his own, preferably hidden, then he could get to making the items that would make him world famous and give him power to protect himself with. He was still young and had years to go still until he really needed to worry. He had plans, but they could change. So, for now, he planned to just go with the flow and do whatever he felt like doing. Though getting a copy of Sword Birth from Azazel was still one of his top priorities. He'd be willing to make something pretty powerful for that.

Over the next hour, Junichiro focused on producing the healing potion. In his mind a healing potion should come out blood red, fitting really, but the potion he finished caused him to frown slightly. It was a rather unattractive brown color. Channeling his mana through it showed him that it should work as he wanted it to, it definitely had all the right markers and properties of a healing potion. It was just... very unattractive looking in color.

Just to make sure, he extracted a single dose, which was one hundred milliliters, using a large syringe. He set it to the side and picked up the small knife he used to chop up the herbs, when necessary, in his wooden hand. He took a deep breath before giving himself a cut on his left forearm. He didn't cut very deep, this was only a minor potion after all, but it was enough to draw and somewhat alarming looking amount of blood.

He grabbed the syringe with his telekinesis and quickly squirt the dose down his throat. Healing potions had to be taken orally and, thankfully, the potion didn't taste nearly as unappetizing as it looked. With a small hiss and a bit of steam, the wound quickly closed as the cells around it went into overdrive. Within moments the wound was healed completely, as if several weeks of normal healing had passed in those moments. Junichiro nodded at that, the potion definitely worked properly, he was even feeling a bit hungry now, as expected.

With a bright smile, he made his way toward the kitchen. It was his turn to cook dinner and he was looking foreward to seeing how much he would make with the potion. He'd need to spend a bit of whatever it was on more ingredients. He also needed to see if Azazel could get him whole, or parts, of various magical creatures to experiment. The leader of the fallen had only given him flora, no fauna, to work with. He would need at least some fauna to make more complex potions.

All of that could come later. It was time for dinner!

AN

And there's another chapter done and dusted. I've been on a roll writing chapters for Pat-reon slash thomasdarkrose so they've been getting posted here more often. As long as I have the time an inspiration, I write. I'm even having a bit of fun with the latest chapters. I'll see you all again when the next chapter comes out!