[Year 20XX, Martius IX, Spring]
Back in my room, I thought about drinking first.
That plan didn't really go anywhere.
I ended up lying on my bed and staring at the ceiling for a while before giving up on sleep entirely. Around 4 A.M., I went to the training dummy at the back of the mansion instead.
I threw the wooden sword at the dummy and hit its weak spots. Then I retrieved it and did it again.
I kept doing that until my arms found a rhythm that didn't require me to think too much about what I was doing.
That was the point.
I had not really looked at her properly before.
That thought came somewhere around the fourth or fifth throw.
It was strange to realize, but since arriving in this body, I had been too busy adjusting to everything. I had to figure out the layout of the spare mansion, manage Jane, deal with Adele's debutante, train Peter, deal with Peter's sword, and take care of my ribs.
There had not been much time to stop and think about what Josephine actually was.
Now that I was looking, the picture was very different from what I had expected.
She had chased magic, trained in swordsmanship, and learned artisanship. She had done all of it alone, in a spare mansion at the edge of a duchy that barely paid attention to her.
Nobody watched her.
Nobody cared whether she improved.
She got better anyway.
For someone the novel had written off as talentless, that was an impressive amount of dedication.
The word for it, if I was being honest, was probably psychopath.
I meant that respectfully.
In my previous life, I had practiced kendo seriously enough to reach fifth dan. I had still thought of it more as a sport than a fighting style. It had been a hobby, even if it was a serious one.
Last night had made the difference very clear.
There was a huge gap between having a hobby and doing what Josephine had done by herself in this place.
If I hadn't had her strength behind me, Peter would have beaten me in the second exchange, and that would have been the end of it.
I looked down at my hands.
The calluses were still there across my palms and fingers, exactly where they appeared after years of sword training. They were proof that Josephine had put in the work.
From Josephine's perspective, it was a tragic backstory.
From my perspective, it was a useful resource.
I wasn't sure how I felt about the difference between those two things.
The tragedy part wasn't really necessary for me, though.
I wasn't here to mourn Josephine's story. I was here to use what she had left behind and survive.
I tightened my grip on the wooden sword and started hitting the dummy again, this time with more intention.
My movements settled into something between kendo and whatever Josephine's muscle memory did when it took over. It felt more natural than it had the night before.
That was probably a good sign.
After wiping away the sweat, I sat down and turned a magic stone over in my hands.
Then I started filling it with mana.
I continued until the stone crumbled into dust.
Then I did it again.
I kept going until the technique stopped feeling like something I was copying and started feeling like something I actually understood.
In the novel, Adele used this exact method to increase her mana. It required a large amount of mana, and most people couldn't continue for long enough to make a real difference.
Josephine's reserves, however, were not normal.
"Jane, prepare my breakfast in my room. I'm just going downstairs for something quick," I called.
I heard her answer from somewhere nearby.
I appreciated that she didn't ask why I had been training at 4 A.M.
I didn't have a good answer.
I mixed the magic stone powder with some healing potion in a flask. After mixing it thoroughly, I added undiluted holy water and shook the flask well.
Once the mixture settled, it became a mana potion.
In the novel, this had been a huge discovery for mages when Adele first figured it out. The potion restored mana, and taking it every day would gradually turn a person's blood into mana blood.
That would increase both mana reserves and magical power.
The purer the ingredients, the better the result.
Josephine's laboratory had very pure ingredients.
I set the flask aside.
I had to find out whether the author's knowledge actually worked in practice.
The far side of the mansion was dusty and clearly hadn't been touched in a long time.
Josephine had kept that area off-limits to Jane on purpose.
I understood why when I found the old library.
The shelves were covered in dust, and the room smelled of old paper with something chemical underneath.
I walked to the chimney and pulled out the correct book without needing to think about which one it was.
The rear door opened.
I stepped through it, went to the second door, entered the passcode, and waited.
The door opened.
In the novel, Adele had stood in this place after Josephine's death and still failed to find the laboratory.
I thought about that while looking around at what Josephine had built here.
She had built it alone.
In the dark.
With nobody watching.
The laboratory was filled with alchemical materials, books of origins that I would generously describe as dark, ritual items, and several things I didn't have names for yet.
The room was eerie in the way places became eerie after someone spent years alone inside them, doing things they couldn't tell anyone about.
I stood there for a moment.
What I felt was close to respect and close to pity, but it wasn't quite either.
After searching through the drawers, I found Josephine's diary in a separate compartment.
I opened it and flipped through the pages.
Most of it was sad in the way I had expected. The contents were more or less the same as what her memories had shown me.
I sighed when I reached the entries that were just different versions of:
Please notice me.
Please look at me.
Honestly, Josephine shouldn't have clung to them until it became an obsession.
But she had.
The diary proved it.
Page after page.
"Found it," I said when I reached the entry I had been looking for.
-
Journal Entry #261
It was said that there was a legendary gem called the Philosopher's Stone, which could turn metal into gold.
It was the ultimate goal of alchemy. It could turn a mana-less person into an archmage and grant strength beyond the great hero Ashkart.
Luckily, while searching through my ancestor's records, I found the recipe for it!
Unfortunately, the recipe is so vague that it is almost useless.
"Mana potion? What the hell is that?"
Whoever told me that probably only wanted to prank me.
I'll just think of other ways to get my family's attention.
-
I closed the diary and set it down.
Josephine had been that close.
She had nearly found the recipe, but she had walked away because she didn't know what a mana potion was.
I knew what a mana potion was because I had made one forty minutes ago.
I had made it using a technique Adele had developed, kept to herself, and never shared with anyone.
The irony was not lost on me.
The Philosopher's Stone existed.
Josephine had almost possessed the recipe.
The only ingredient she had been missing was the one thing I had just learned to make.
"Huh."
I wasn't planning anything.
I wanted to make that clear.
The information was simply sitting there, being interesting.
Interesting information was difficult for me to ignore once I noticed it.
So I sat in Josephine's laboratory at 4 A.M., surrounded by dark books and alchemical materials, and thought about it for a little longer than was probably necessary.