In the temple's alchemy room, Victor sat rigidly upright on a chair, his face grave. The situation demanded caution. Progress in knowledge always came with a price, and in the old days there was one step no new potion could skip: someone had to be the first to test it.
After a moment of brooding, he tipped his head back, drew a deep breath, and downed a vial of pale green liquid in one gulp.
Victor forced himself to focus on every change inside his body. As the medicine took hold, the boy slowly let out a deep, raw roar—ancient and hollow, like something dragged up from the earliest parts of the world.
Outside the lattice window, the warning signs of a summer afternoon thunderstorm arrived with brutal speed. In barely half an hour, dark clouds swallowed the sunlight, turning the sky a heavy slate, nearly night.
At last… the boy's lips curled into a relieved, satisfied smile.
The brew had worked. He slid a dozen vials from the same batch into a rack and packed them away in a sealed storage case.
With the case tucked under his arm, Victor's mood soared. Next, he had to go tell Mother Nenneke—report his results.
What was the point of pulling off something impressive if you couldn't share it with the people who'd known you before you ever had anything to brag about? And in a more practical sense: if you achieved something real, you showed it to someone who actually understood it—because anyone else wouldn't even grasp how hard it was.
When he rose from the chair, his legs wobbled for an instant, but he steadied himself quickly and returned to normal.
…
After the afternoon's teaching discussion ended, the priestesses filed out of the classroom one by one. They would pass on what they'd just learned to the younger novices.
As Priestess Iola left, she brushed past Victor where he waited at the doorway, smiling as she gave his arm a light pat.
Victor inclined his head in polite respect.
Priestess Hrosvitha kept her face stern. She didn't like Victor—she was an ascetic, after all—but she still offered a small nod, because the boy was a guest of the temple.
Victor returned the nod with the same courteous bow. He respected these women. What they thought of him didn't matter.
Once they were all gone, he stepped inside, grinning.
"Mother, I'm here!"
"You look very pleased, child," Nenneke said, seated in the instructor's chair. She casually set the book she'd been reading onto the desk. "What is it you've come to see me about?"
Victor pulled up a chair and sat across from her, placing the storage case beside the lectern. Beaming, he said, "I did it! Mother. I've developed a new potion! And this potion will solve the problem of Sir Tailles threatening me!"
More than ten days of work had finally borne fruit. His joy was overflowing—whether this was blazing a trail from nothing, or resurrecting a lost recipe, either way it felt like victory stacked upon victory.
That pure, uncomplicated thrill… like the instant a puzzle clicks into place, like the moment the last block locks into a tower—like the happiness of building a world.
Feeling the boy's excitement, Nenneke patted the back of his hand kindly, coaxing him to calm down.
She knew that aside from his work in the greenhouse, Victor had been spending every day shut away in the alchemy room mixing and refining—but she'd never imagined he was researching an entirely new potion.
As the archpriestess of Melitele, she understood better than anyone how difficult a new formula was. Simply learning each herb's nature, recording unknown reactions when ingredients were combined—those things took long, grinding years. And to reach a stable effect with a specific outcome… that took luck. Not a little luck—an absurd amount of it.
So creating a new, working recipe in a little over ten days was something she wouldn't have dared to imagine. That belonged to ancient legends—tales of people the gods favored. The more you knew, the harder it was to believe. If she were being blunt, Nenneke had long suspected some "records" were embellished outright.
But their steady exchanges in the greenhouse, the understanding built over those ten days—she knew Victor wasn't the sort of boy who boasted without substance.
He was cautious, level-headed, and far too mature for his age.
So she half believed him… and half wondered what on earth he'd actually made.
Still patting his hand as his breathing steadied, she said gently, "All right, then. Start from the beginning. Tell Mother—how did you do it, and what exactly have you made?"
Having reined in his rush of joy, Victor adopted a deliberately flat tone that didn't fool anyone.
"It started the day Tailles came," he said. "I was slicing mimic mushroom—an herb the records say can ease chest pain—"
Nenneke nodded. She knew the fungus that hid in dim corners, its rocklike skin easy to overlook. It didn't need much care, either; the greenhouse was enough for it to thrive.
"And that night, after a simple test confirmed it wasn't poisonous, I tried eating a slice," Victor continued. "And I discovered it had a… very special effect."
Something sparked in Nenneke's eyes. Yes. New potions so often began like this—an unexpected discovery.
"I got up," Victor said.
"…Pardon?" For once, the archpriestess—so unshakable, so perpetually composed—looked genuinely puzzled.
Victor fought down a laugh and repeated, stressing each word: "I got up."
"…Oh. That kind of up," Nenneke said at once, the shift in her expression making it painfully clear: Mother Nenneke was, indeed, Mother Nenneke, and she understood adolescent troubles perfectly well.
It was an interesting discovery. She nodded—and immediately pressed him. "But how can you be sure it was the mimic mushroom that caused it, and not simple instinct, or some other factor?"
Victor couldn't explain that—not truthfully, anyway. He'd confirmed it through an unbelievable alchemical method: if mimic mushroom could be used as the primary ingredient to produce a stiffening draught, then its effect was proof enough that the fungus possessed a powerful… uplifting property.
So he said, with absolute conviction, "I made a guess. I boldly assumed it was the mushroom!"
Nenneke considered it, then accepted the answer. Many herbal remedies had been found in exactly that sort of way.
Past that hurdle, the rest was easy to sell.
"And I didn't expect that by my third attempt at combining herbs," Victor said smoothly, "I'd land on a recipe that doesn't harm the body, and pushes the mimic mushroom's effect to its absolute peak."
In truth, he'd brewed multiple times, worked backward from the best result to find the best combination, then started optimizing from there—skipping a mountain of trial and error.
But Nenneke didn't challenge him. Even she couldn't deny that sometimes a formula really did come together as if blessed by the goddess.
Just then, the darkened sky finally broke. Rain erupted all at once—window glass rattling as fat drops slapped and drummed against it, crisp and relentless. The thunderstorm the air had been nursing for hours had finally decided to show its teeth.
Victor naturally stopped talking. No matter how much you explained, in the end what mattered was the result—the finished product.
He slid the storage case to the center of the desk.
"This new medicine," he announced, "made with mimic mushroom as its main ingredient… is called—"
With a click, he flipped the lid open, revealing twelve crystal-clear, emerald vials.
"Megatron!!"
At the exact instant the name left his mouth, lightning cracked through the piled storm clouds. Thunder rolled in a roaring cascade, shaking the air with a triumphant, endless rumble.
In the strobing flash, Victor's plain face seemed to shine with the undying glory of science.