The lighting in the workshop had been adjusted to the ideal brightness for brewing—clear enough to see by, but not so harsh as to cast misleading shadows along the edges of the glassware.

Pandora stood before the central workbench. Three categories of primary materials were arranged in front of her.

Three improved potions. Designed specifically for Aurora.

The first, she had named the “Immune Modulation Compound.”

The core material for this one was among the small number of precious items Pandora actually carried on her person—a solid extract derived from Blood-Weep Worms.

A fine powder, deep crimson edging into black, sealed inside a crystal vial no larger than her thumb. It rested quietly on the specialized isolation rack to the left of the workbench.

It was the only material in the entire list that Pandora had supplied herself.

Blood-Weep Worm extract was typically reserved for high-grade potions at the Third Rank and above. But with extraordinarily precise calibration and handling, it could play a decisive role at the Second Rank as well. The dosage, however, had to be kept under absolute control. The margin for error was nearly nonexistent—too much, and the potency would invert and tear the user apart from the inside.

The intended effect of this potion was something quite particular: a dynamic immune modulation.

In the early phase after ingestion, it would temporarily suppress the immune system’s overreaction, helping the body accept the aggressive Alpha strain without fighting it. Then, as the compound slowly metabolized, it would silently shift function—becoming an immune catalyst instead, accelerating the body’s clearance of the infection’s remnants in the later stages, and compressing the recovery window.

The second and third potions were the “Cellular Energy Compound” and the “Neural Stabilizer,” respectively.

The former was designed to deliver precise energy support to Aurora’s cells during the extreme metabolic stress she endured while enhancing, reducing the cellular damage that came from energy deprivation.

The latter focused on stabilizing her nervous system—lowering the risk of losing control during the infection process, and easing the mental strain that came with it.

After extensive internal calculation and iteration, Pandora was confident that once all three compounds entered Aurora’s body together, they would form a subtle triangular equilibrium. Each supporting the others. Each catalyzing the others. The combined result approaching the same effect as the original twenty-seven-potion stack.

Possibly surpassing it in certain individualized metrics.

That was the theory, at least.

Real efficacy would depend on the final quality of the brewing, and on how Aurora actually responded after taking them.

In practice, though, Pandora felt a quiet, solid confidence about this particular session.

For an ordinary alchemist, taking twenty-seven potions with overlapping side effects and divergent functions and condensing them into a set of three—while maintaining full effectiveness, and making individual adaptive adjustments for a specific person’s constitution on top of that—

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It was a challenge that edged close to inventing an entirely new formula from nothing.

Perhaps the sheer volume of preliminary groundwork involved wasn’t quite comparable. But in terms of pure technical difficulty, and the comprehensive demands it placed on an alchemist’s foundational mastery, it might actually be harder.

Setting everything else aside, even just making adaptive adjustments to existing potions so they fit a specific individual’s unique constitution perfectly—that alone was one of the core benchmarks for distinguishing a truly excellent alchemist from a merely capable one.

A few months ago, Pandora couldn’t have done this.

The theoretical knowledge had been there. The depth of practical experience had not.

Now, it felt like something that had simply arrived when it was ready.

The seven months behind her could be divided roughly into two phases. 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

The first three months had been spent mostly tucked away in that small, warm house in Tsukimidaira. Working from the theoretical foundation in potion science she’d built at the Academy, she had gone further—grinding through the dense, difficult alchemical texts and annotated notes she had brought out with her.

Not skimming. Not speed-reading. Poring over every character. Verifying every claim. Building models in her head, turning them over and testing them, until every reaction equation and every material property became as automatic as breathing.

The following four months had been devoted entirely to hands-on brewing.

At the start, she’d relied on the supplemental function of the Alchemy Apprentice’s Ring left behind by the Library Ghost—using its assistance to barely produce acceptable finished potions, unlocking the System’s 【Assisted Alchemy】 function in the process.

But as she churned out potion after potion, repeatedly producing those near-artistic 【Perfect-Grade】 results under the System’s guidance, her technical skill transformed at a rate that shouldn’t have been possible.

It wasn’t just production.

Every successful brew had come with one of those System-granted flashes of insight—moments that felt like revelation, like something speaking directly into her understanding. And each time, they had taken the rote theory crammed into her head and converted it into genuine, embodied craft. Knowledge she owned, rather than knowledge she stored.

The pace of that transformation had left every conventional alchemist’s apprenticeship trajectory far behind.

So far behind, in fact, that it had taken less than a single month for her to drain the Alchemy Apprentice’s Ring completely dry.

A ring that should have been a generational heirloom for any apprentice-level alchemist. Gone in under thirty days.

After that, she had been able to brew without it. Independently. Consistently producing mid-to-high quality results—across the full range from First Rank to Third.

In any conventional framework for evaluating alchemical talent, a growth curve like that would have been enough to send shockwaves through the potion faculty of every institution in the world.

But Pandora hadn’t stopped there.

Her eyes had already moved past the ordinary benchmarks, locked on the highest classification in the System’s evaluation hierarchy.

【Perfect-Grade】.

That was where “Pandora-Grade” had come from.

It wasn’t only her personal label for the highest quality potions she could sell. It reflected something deeper. An expectation she held for herself. A kind of ambition.

She wanted, one day, to brew a truly 【Perfect-Grade】 potion without the System’s 【Assisted Alchemy】 function. Using nothing but her own knowledge, her own accumulated experience, and whatever that mysterious, ineffable thing called inspiration actually was.

That would mean something.

It would mean she was no longer just a person who used the System.

It would mean she had genuinely become—

A master.

Of course.

The path toward that particular standard was destined to be grueling.

Since the System’s enhancement was removed from the equation, those moments of inspiration she’d experienced so many times before—like lightning striking in a clear sky, like something divine whispering directly into the work—had never returned.

Not even a shadow of them. Not once.

And brewing without the System’s support, relying entirely on her own craft, felt like being pulled from an extraordinary, luminous paradise and dropped into a dull and ordinary hell without warning.

Her skill was undeniably improving throughout the process. That part wasn’t in dispute.

But having seen perfection. Having touched something close to the divine. When she turned that same gaze on her own unassisted work, all she could ever see was how flat it was.

How unremarkable.

How mediocre.