"Crypt grass? Dried crypt grass? You think that this will help us make a potion that surpasses a grand potion? No! It's dried too long causing the oils to be too isolated to be used properly. It would cause an unbalance in the water mana before it is exposed to heat to evaporate the water."

"Squirrel leaf? What a waste that it was picked by a child who just learned to rip it out of the ground with a clenched fist, apparently."

"Great, another pile of red maple leaves instead of the red trailing vine leaves. Someone had to check what this herbalist is doing!"

The shouts and rambling had been going on for the last couple of hours. Remey had all the herbs that could be stored outside of Walker's unique spatial storages while she also had the new materials just harvested or finished being dried.

While some were of higher quality, she was rejecting herbs left and right due to them being too poor in quality. While some of those herbs would have fetched a hefty sum on the auction or open market, that didn't seem to be the point. The herbs she was looking for needed to be out of the ordinary. Not just good, not even perfect. They had to be those few that exceeded the norm.

A few of the younger herbalists had expected that Remey would be picky, but now even a few of the older herbalists had become insulted to some degree. Theta had somewhat heard that she could be eccentric, but then when they thought that they could argue back, they had seen the myriad of herbs they hadn't seen in their entire lives. Herbs that they didn't even know existed until now.

She had gone to some god forsaken place to pick herbs? How could she do that and get herbs better than their herbs even though some of the herbs were grown in the most optimal conditions? It was ludicrous to believe that some wild herbs from a far off place were more exceptional than the rapid advancements of the herbalist community!

All this while, as Remey had grumbled and shouted, Ignus had watched over the entire process. He had sensed the innate differences in the fire affinity herbs she brought from the fire elemental alpines. While he had also understood the strength of mana within a few of the other herbs. However, he noticed most of all the changes within Remey.

They had connected at a much deeper level since she had taken some of his core fire mana when they developed together. In essence their bond was soul deep, something beyond just what a dragon and a partner might consider a bond. It wasn't so simple as a bind. Words were hard to find that explained it the proper way.

Regardless, Remey had also sensed the changes in Ignus. The depth of what he could do with fire mana had expanded again and it reflected on his full dragon sized body. His scales appeared sharper while she had noticed he had grown seemingly smaller and slimmer to be specific. Clearly his speed and flexibility had become more of a focus than the larger fire dragon dominator form that he had before. He didn't seem to have changed his racial path in growth but maybe he was unlocking something a little more unique and this was the start of a dominator dragon developing within the world fully.

Nothing stopped at the uniqueness of his flames though. That was where everything really started to spark up to life even more. Ignus had figured out how to use his innate dragon fire to burn certain materials and temporarily wield mixed elemental flames. While this was possible before, it was not to the point that Ignus could even consume other elemental herbs just to use them as a catalyst to mix his dragon flames with. Meaning that he could have roughly mixed dragon breath attacks that somehow left a little water mana in a wound causing some chaos to an enemy.

While the battle ability was major, Remey had seen it as a way to make more potions in her goal. Potions that exceeded the grand potions that they had managed to make. Potions exceeding the expectations of even the higher ranked alchemists in the world. Forget any general grand potions, what she and Ignus could work toward now were much larger and grander.

"This one is good, the bull root has perfect moisture and perfect cutting. None of the earth mana was lost in harvesting or transport. I will keep it in a special storage until it's time to be able to use it better." Remey finally agreed to another herb before sending the herbalists and the attendants out again to search for more of the best quality herbs they could find.

"It doesn't seem like you have a direction yet." Ignus was not mocking Remey at all. He was focused on the fact that she had herbs of various affinities and the best possible quality, but no formulas ready to test yet.

"It's just that there are so many herbs I can't use because we don't have the right manas or the right amounts yet. We are too far behind in materials and herbs right now." She actually seemed pretty lost to this right now. Never would Ignus have expected that Remey would be so in her head about the lesser quality of herbs lately. Even when they were actually very good quality for what they had just a year ago.

"Why not take a thousand bad herbs and condense them as you do with other potions?" Ignus knew that the immediate answer would be time and keeping quality for all the herbs that Remey might need. However, he also understood that there would be a much more controlled product that would be more stable if she wanted to use it for anything even if it wasn't useful for the potion she wanted to make.

"If I could just do that I would. Right now I have a few of the scorpion grass and mushroom bush berries boiling with a few of the high alchemists. They can easily handle that and I can then use the extracted and condensed potions made from them. But if I do that with everything it will just become too processed losing the mana that it has naturally. The mana is the problem. If I replace it all with mana I control then the potion might be just usable for me and no one else."

The issue wasn't new. Many younger alchemists would accidentally replace the manas and make a potion that was more acclimated for their own bodies. Some talented alchemists became specialized in this for others so that unique illnesses could have specific medicines made for only that person. It was a very important feature for some people born with harsher illnesses.

"So what? Wouldn't that make it easier? Who said the potion has to be for everyone? Maybe it has to be made specifically for someone who needs it so that it can reach higher." Ignus was showing his dragon's natural greed, he wanted Remey to benefit from her work and no one else. Then again, he also felt some ownership over Remey, not that she disliked that, they had their own bonds after all and she very much could show ownership over the somewhat mighty dragon.

"It's going to be called a celestial grade potion. It reaches beyond what everyone considered as grand or mastery and would be what people could call divine or godly. If I called it a god potion or divine potion it would be weird though, it's not made for gods or anything. It's just made with the intention that it will be above every other potion ever made. So many people are getting closer to making grand potions anyways."

Remey wasn't wrong in this. Many of the master alchemists who had followed and joined the alchemy guild now say new paths hidden to them. Potential to learn and expand alchemy with the pressure of greed for gold or status to shadow them. They could actually delve in to new paths in alchemy.

"So we will make it possible and make sure they all keep reaching up for new knowledge and challenges." Ignus grinned while he lit a flame in his hand, it danced with manas in the air as Remey also began to light some of her own flames to begin working on potions. They would take whatever herbs they needed and begin producing something even greater than what anyone else had seen.

Whether they needed new tools or more herbs didn't matter. They would find it or have it all made. No one would interrupt them for the next month and if they tried they would be met with a lot more trouble than anything else.

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