Chapter 347: Settling for Second Best

Chapter 347: Settling for Second Best

After spending a long time with him and seeing him roll around in his dragon body in the laboratory or fly high above the artificial beach only to enjoy a silly free-fall into the water, Annie completely abandoned that thought. A deity… wouldn’t be that ridiculous, right?

Pretending? Under the watchful eyes of the four witches, if this guy was really pretending, then he was incredibly skilled. If he could truly hide it so well, then she would accept it. In any case, Zheng Yichen’s ability was strong and over power ing, but its dominance was reflected in an invisible form of inclusion. Therefore, the things he made only had an ‘inclusive’ characteristic for ordinary people, meaning anyone could use what he created.

However, they could only accept the effects these things brought them, and couldn’t think about influencing these items themselves. This included magic potions. Magic potions personally made by Zheng Yichen—if someone tried to forcibly prevent their effects from activating?

It wasn’t impossible, but it was very difficult. If you let the potion take its course naturally, nothing would happen. But once you resisted, it would trigger the characteristics of his ability within the potion. The resisting force would be assimilated. Even if it didn’t change the ownership mark, the assimilated power would ignore the potion’s intended effect and let it work naturally. In simple terms, the more you resisted, the more exhausted you became. If you lay still without struggling, it was fine for both parties.

Quite special, right? And it seemed easy to figure out at first glance, didn’t it?

Yet very few people could discover it. Inertial thinking existed. For a magic potion that was beneficial to oneself, who would drink it and then resist its effects? As for other external forces trying to stop the potion’s effects, those weren’t the user’s power, so the user wouldn’t notice anything wrong. Up until now, all the magic potions Zheng Yichen made were beneficial, not meant to harm people. Moreover, once a magic potion took effect, the part of his ability that seeped into it would disappear.

This was the influence of Zheng Yichen’s ability on the products he made. Loris’s ability carried a tainting property. Even if she made a life-saving magic potion, if someone drank it, they would likely die. Loris’s ability was simply not suitable for making anything beneficial, especially something directly consumed like a magic potion.

Having her make harmful magic potions would be like adding wings to a tiger. A potion that drained mana, if made by her hands, would probably not only drain the target’s mana but also permanently destroy part of their maximum mana capacity!

That was Loris’s situation. As for Annie, if she made a harmful magic potion, it would similarly have the opposite effect. Regarding Irene, if she made a mana-draining harmful potion, the result would probably be a different kind of recovery potion. It would first drain some mana as a cost, then rapidly restore mana, with the restored mana carrying a temporary ‘super-magic’ characteristic.

This was another major reason why Annie knew the witches dabbled in potionology but didn’t choose to specialize in it. Their abilities destined them to unintentionally create products that were laughable or even disastrous when making magic potions. Zheng Yichen’s ability, however, was enviable. Even though it didn’t add special effects, good things became better, and bad things became worse. It was very comprehensive.

“Learning a bit more knowledge is also fine.”

After Annie pointed out her own flaw, Loris remained calm and unhurried. Her expressions were few, and now she was using an alchemical avatar, so even fewer emotions could be seen.

“Learning more knowledge? I think you’re a bit panicked.” Annie chuckled, which was met with Loris’s silence. Her ability was destruction… completely focused on damage. In terms of pure destructive power, she was the strongest among all the witches here. She could even crush the mysterious, invisible force generated by Dan Marina’s prophecy art. However, everything Zheng Yichen was currently learning and mastering had little to do with destruction. As for those earth-style modern weapons? She didn’t understand them and couldn’t offer any advice…

“Not just you, even I feel a bit jealous now. Why were you the one who met him first? That first impression… it’s really like a newborn animal imprinting on the first being it sees as a parent. So, what exactly are you worried about?”

“…That doesn’t conflict with my wanting to learn something.” Were witches stupid? Of course not. Including this ‘senior’ who often got tricked by Dan Marina. For some special matters, Dan Marina might have genuinely tricked her, but for more things, she probably just pretended to be tricked. If anyone really thought she was stupid… even Dan Marina wouldn’t think so. To believe that would be incredibly naive.

No matter how young her mindset was, Annie was ultimately one of the longest-living ‘seniors’ among most witches.

“Ah~ learn then, learn. Anyway, at our current level, improving power is already very slow. Putting energy elsewhere doesn’t affect much. If you want to learn, just follow the path you should take. Don’t think about crooked ways that waste your energy.” Annie waved her hand.

Hmm, it was also a habit of living a long life for ‘seniors’ to like lecturing others.

“Alright, see, I’ve made such big concessions in terms of words and status. As a senior, I feel quite embarrassed. So, about the matter of descendants…”

“I’m going back.” Without waiting for Annie to finish, or perhaps simply ignoring what she said, Loris turned and returned to Zheng Yichen’s workshop. Seeing him sitting on the only chair she had previously used, frowning as he compared and calculated the formula, she placed the potted plant she was holding back in its original spot. Then, picking up the introductory potionology book placed nearby, she left the workshop.

That saying about having many collected books not meaning having read many—just take it with a grain of salt. The books in the library had accumulated over time. ‘Not having read many’ referred to not having studied them in detail. Otherwise, when Zheng Yichen initially had no other witches around him, how could she have given him advice in many areas?

In short, when facing those ‘elders’ who had lived for centuries, there was really no need to show off one’s achievements in a unique field. Perhaps they hadn’t truly been involved in that area, but that didn’t mean no one else besides you had been involved. It was even possible that those they had been in contact with were more skilled than you. And with sufficient communication and exposure, in terms of theory, you might very well be outmatched.

…All of this was based on the premise of being able to encounter such ‘elders’.

“Hmm, adding some neutralizing materials can reduce a few conflicts, but what about these last two?” Zheng Yichen had a headache looking at the new plan he had modified. Beside him lay a thick book heavy enough to crush someone, used for looking up information. At that moment, he missed things like computers. If he could just find a way to scan all the content in this book, he could simply search for keywords to find whatever he needed!

Wait, wasn’t Bona Kaine’s Magic Book based on a similar principle? But how was that thing made? He couldn’t just dismantle this legendary magical grimoire from the outside world to figure it out. There was only one copy; if he broke it, it would be gone for good. It felt a bit like destroying an antique.

He knocked on his own head. Never mind. A new plan had emerged. He would deal with the magic potion formula issue first. There were still two unresolved conflict points. If he didn’t resolve them, this thing would remain incomplete and unsustainable… Wait, why did it have to be sustainable?

As soon as this thought popped up, Zheng Yichen immediately felt the impulsive urge to just quit and not overwork himself. But he quickly suppressed that impulse. What a joke! If he didn’t put in the effort, what about income? What about the future?

Every single thing he did now cost a fortune. Without enough money, many plans would stall, let alone long-term future plans. Achieving his true goals required vast resources, and the path to obtaining large amounts of resources without raising suspicion was, naturally, money!

This world didn’t have issues with unclear bank fund flows, nor would it be subject to investigations in that regard. If you had money, you could spend it. As long as you were careful, it wouldn’t be easy for others to trace.

“This is giving me a headache. How about removing these two conflict points first? After all, these two conflict points only affect the potency and influence of the potion…” Being the last to handle, these conflict points definitely had necessary reasons. They were very important. They determined whether the magic potion made would have a deep or shallow influence. A deep influence was like fully activating an account, while a shallow one was like a temporary account activation, letting you experience it for a while before you couldn’t play anymore.

That was the version he initially tested on lab rats. However, Zheng Yichen had later improved it a lot, fixing issues like slow activation time. The improved version could reach maximum effect within ten seconds of use.

After removing the materials associated with these two conflict sections, Zheng Yichen scratched his head. Well, he still needed to adjust the formula. After all, the formula with these conflict points was adjusted by Zheng Yichen for maximum future compatibility. Because it was an adjustment, some parts definitely wouldn’t achieve the best effect.

This affected the potion’s effectiveness and success rate. Now that he had removed part of it, there were fewer chain reactions to consider, and the room for adjustment increased quite a bit. He could create a more complete and stable formula. Higher stability meant a lower failure rate. A lower failure rate meant lower costs. Lower costs meant increased production. All of this meant money.

Adjusting to a new formula wasn’t very difficult. Zheng Yichen had been doing just that before. Now, with the difficulty reduced, it was naturally familiar and easy. Before night fell completely, he had preliminarily completed the new formula. After that, he could do a simple test and then perfect it further. Using his special ability to cheat in research, he could first mess around to get a result, then conduct reverse research on the outcome to straighten it out. This research method of flipping cause and effect around was truly comfortable…