"Roger, you had better not leave us homeless." Jessica left him with that warning, then returned to the living room and, for the first time in her life, turned on the television to listen to the BBC News.
A few days earlier, she had taken the agreement to a Muggle bank. The Muggles there had poured out a flood of financial jargon, and by the end of it, Jessica had not understood a single useful word. Still, she understood one thing very clearly: she could not reclaim the house any time soon, because her son now owed hundreds of millions in Muggle money.
Hundreds of millions. Jessica had never seen such a terrifying number in her life. She had pretended nothing had happened, returned home, tidied the house, and continued taking care of her son as usual.
Privately, however, she swore that no matter how this ended, she would never let Roger touch another Galleon in the house again. It was simply too frightening. Oh, and from now on, his monthly allowance would be cut in half as well.
"Phew…" Roger still had no idea that his financial freedom had quietly died upstairs. He hurried back into the laboratory and took out the bottle containing Dragonhead leaves.
Dragonhead leaves had to be harvested within three days before or after the full moon. When used, they had to be cut into evenly sized pieces with a silver knife, while Starlight Bear Fruit and the other materials had to be ground, sliced, or stored according to their own requirements before being placed in stainless steel containers or dark glass.
Roger carefully processed most of the materials, then picked up the most crucial ingredient: moon dew. Collected on the night of a full moon, it could balance the violent power hidden within dragon blood and allow a young wizard to sense the magic of the moon.
It was also the most expensive ingredient in the entire formula, and its handling requirements were brutally strict. After the cap was opened, there were only three usable seconds. Once that brief window passed, the precious moon dew, priced by the gram, would turn into ordinary pure water.
Roger checked the prepared materials once again with extreme care. Yet when his gaze returned to the final bottle of moon dew, he hesitated for a long time.
He kept suspecting that he had overlooked some crucial step or hidden variable in the brewing of Blue Moon Essence. Worse, that missing detail was very likely connected to time.
Roger stared at his watch and began the simulation precisely at six in the evening. "Start simulation."
The panel unfolded in his mind. First, he began brewing the potion, and the moon dew successfully extracted the starlight contained within the bear fruit. Second, when he extinguished the flame, the silver-blue potion suddenly exploded just before crystallising.
"Stop simulation." Roger opened his notebook and wrote down the result.
At 6:01 p.m., the simulation showed that the liquid exploded just before crystallisation. Judging from the colour, the potion had already reached the ideal silver-blue state at that point, which matched the prerequisite for crystallisation in the formula.
"Everything goes smoothly before cooling. The problem always appears during the final cooling and crystallisation." Roger wrote those words heavily, then circled "cooling and crystallisation" several times.
After repeated comparison and verification, the simulation function on the panel had proved extremely useful in potion-making. Its results were very close to the real experiments, and most differences came from small deviations in Roger's actual handling. Since the simulation showed failure, there was no need to waste the final batch of ingredients.
Roger picked up the original formula again and examined it carefully, confirming that no information was missing. He had already spent nearly a thousand Galleons on this potion. Surely he had not gained nothing from all that failure.
He tossed the formula aside and began going through his previous experimental records, analysing and comparing them one by one. "There haven't been any major problems in the recent operations. The only real difference is timing."
Roger drew a straight line across the notebook, divided it into small sections, and marked the hours along it. Then he estimated the completion rate of each experiment and plotted the results into a rough bar chart, with the simulation results above and the real experimental results below.
"Just as I expected." Roger clenched his fist in excitement. "The nine o'clock batch was the brightest silver. The noon batch was the worst. It stopped reacting the moment it turned deep blue."
He had finally caught the fox by the tail. Since the completion rate was higher at night, Roger removed the daytime experiments and recalculated everything from scratch.
A curve gradually appeared before his eyes, increasing as the date approached the full moon. Roger stared at it, and the answer struck him like a spell.
"Positive correlation. I finally know what you were hiding." Roger looked up toward the window. The sunset had not fully faded, but the bright moon had already risen into the sky. "The fuller the moon, the higher the completion rate. No wonder it's called Blue Moon Essence."
Roger slumped back in frustration. "I must have lost my mind. How did I not notice something so obvious?"
In truth, he could not entirely be blamed. Potion-makers rarely revealed every detail of their formulas without reservation. Sometimes the key to success was hidden inside one insignificant word, a vague phrase, or a condition that seemed decorative rather than essential.
That was why potion-making was not something just anyone could learn. It required talent, willpower, Galleons, and a reliable teacher.
"Damn it, what a rip-off. Brewing a potion requires checking the moon phase, and the author couldn't even write that down clearly?" Roger gritted his teeth in hatred for the anonymous potion-maker. The worst part was that he could not even find the author's name.
"August eighth was the waxing crescent, and August sixteenth is the full moon." Roger took out the calendar and calculated the date, only then realising that tonight was also a ridiculous summer lovers' holiday. "Why should single people care about that? Focus on the potion."
Roger took a deep breath, calmed himself, cleared his mind, and forced away the unpleasant emotions. Then he mentally rehearsed the entire process from beginning to end.
The full moon was now clearly visible outside the window. Roger opened his eyes and began the true brewing.
He added the glow beetle powder, moon dew, and Starlight Bear Fruit into the gleaming silver cauldron, then waved his wand and guided the glass rod to stir counterclockwise seven times. Next, he raised the flame until the mixture boiled, then gradually lowered the heat and continued simmering for five minutes, waiting until the liquid turned a deep blue.
"Wingardium Leviosa." Roger waved his wand and lifted the cauldron away from the flame.
After stirring three times clockwise with the glass rod, he added the glowworm powder and stirred quickly and forcefully ten times counterclockwise. Then he returned the cauldron to the flame and continued simmering it over low heat, stirring only occasionally until bluish-silver steam began to rise.
Roger counted the wisps of steam, his eyes fixed on the full moon outside the window. There were no clouds tonight, and the moonlight shone bright and magnificent over the river.
"Six… five… one…" Roger's hand tightened around the bottle. "Now!"
He quickly opened the moon dew and poured in the fragments of Starlight Bear Fruit. The moon dew possessed extremely strong penetrating power, and in less than a breath, it extracted the starlight hidden inside the fruit.
The liquid in the glass bottle changed from silver-white to silver-blue, becoming so dazzling that tiny stars seemed to float within it. Roger had no time to admire its beauty. He gently poured the moon dew into the cauldron without spilling even a single drop.
"Beautiful." Roger extinguished the heat source within seconds, flipped the hourglass on the workbench, and waited for the reagent inside the cauldron to cool.
Three minutes later, silver-blue light shimmered inside the cauldron, mysterious and captivating. Roger waved his wand and watched with both excitement and terror as the reagent gradually crystallised.
Under his unwavering gaze, the silver-blue potion fully crystallised. Then, as if touched by moonlight itself, it miraculously transformed into a viscous, smooth fluid.
"It's done." Roger jumped up in wild joy, and it took him a long moment to calm himself again. He carefully poured the Blue Moon Essence into a test tube and tightened the cap.
At the same time, the panel changed, adding a new potion category. It now read: Roger Williams, Magic Power: 0.6/2.3, Mental Strength: 12, Talents: Dark Affinity, Strong Will, Night Vision, Skills: wandless spellcasting and advanced potion-making, Potion: Blue Moon Essence, Spells: Lumos Lv3, Patronus Charm Lv2, Levitation Charm Lv4, Scourgify Lv4, Transfiguration Charm Lv1.
"That's it. We finally succeeded." Roger held up the potion bottle, and the moonlight passed through the liquid, bathing the entire room in a silver-blue glow.
Starting from nothing, days of hard work had finally produced a sweet result. This was not only the priceless Blue Moon Essence, but also the first milestone of Roger's potion-making journey.
He could hardly wait to try it and experience the magical boost it would bring. But now, there was one final step before he could obtain the perfect Blue Moon Essence.
.....
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