Several weeks have passed since Oliver went to collect ingredients.
As if to wash away the shock from that time, Oliver started to read the books in the study while cutting down on meals and sleep, just like a child who tried to ignore the facts that are difficult to accept.
Everyone was worried about Oliver's behavior but they did not dare to say anything due to two reasons.
The first was Oliver's atmosphere, which was different from usual and the second was, Oliver took care of all the necessary schedules such as emotion synthesis and classes.
Even while doing his duty, Oliver still reads the book frantically, and he was able to uncover some interesting facts.
For example, the consumption of emotions.
Oliver stumbled upon the fact that emotions, which are energy derived from the soul, possess a kind of expiration date from the time of extraction, and the expiration date can be dramatically increased through special storage methods or black magic but eventually, it cannot avoid evaporation or deterioration.
Oliver was shocked by this fact and looked whether there was any way to avoid expiration.
However, even after reading almost all of the books in the library, he could not find a way to do it.
What was more shocking was that even if the emotions were extracted from the human body, these emotions are like fluids so they can change over time according to their surrounding environment.
Oliver felt a sense of emptiness and loss rather than joy at the above facts, even though he had studied a lot about black magic which he wanted to learn so much.
Oliver felt similar to a man who had money and fame but suddenly realized that everything he had was useless once he died.
Oliver felt a crisis as he thought that if emotions were to change someday, wouldn't the beautiful light that he saw in the Lightning Wizard and Joseph will also disappear someday?
As Oliver silently watched the beautiful emotions in his arms that were collected from Joseph, he felt an emotion that could not be described in words.
Oliver regretted that he couldn’t keep this beautiful light that he barely got on his hands forever.
“……”
Oliver thought for a moment.
Oliver kept thinking about why he wanted to have this emotion in the first place.
Once he thought about it then it felt very strange, since he had never thought of what to do with this.
Oliver’s action was similar to that of a child who picks up and keeps the stones without knowing what to do with them.
It was literally an instinct.
Oliver suddenly started agonizing thinking about what he should do with this emotion.
Oliver understood that if he kept the emotion like this, it would disappear someday.
Oliver thought of how he can make the best use of it.
As he continued to ponder like that, he suddenly heard a knock on the door.
“……Who is it?”
"It’s me, Master. Marie. It’s time to make pilgarets. Shall we make it ourselves? Or would you like to participate too?"
Oliver did not answer and stayed silent.
Suddenly, Oliver felt a spark in his head.
Oliver rummaged through the bookshelf.
‘It must be here somewhere.’
“Ah…”
After a while, Oliver found the book which he was looking for.
It was a handwritten note rather than an official book and it turned yellow because it was old.
The information about the pilgarets was written in it in an easy-to-understand manner.
The actual use of pilgaret, which is currently used as a drug, is a kind of sharing tool that allows someone to indirectly feel the emotions that were conveyed through the ingredients.
Storing the emotions in a pilgaret will extend the expiry date of emotions by several times.
Oliver looked at the writings and looked at the emotions he had extracted from Joseph as if he had finally found a way to use the emotions.
Seeing that there was no answer for a while, Marie spoke again.
“… Master? Is there something wrong?”
“……No. No. I am coming.”
Oliver visited the studio with Marie.
As he got ready to work, Oliver noticed something strange.
He hasn't been paying much attention to anything since he had been distracted by something else, but he realized that he should say something before it was too late.
"Marie?"
“Yes, Master.”
Marie put her hand on her chest and bowed her head while answering politely.
“Did we originally have this much work?”
Oliver spoke seeing more cigarettes and test tubes with emotions greater than he remembered.
“No, Master. There weren’t this many in the first place.”
"Then why….?"
“Pilgaret made by Master Oliver’s emotion synthesis process has been well received. So, the number of orders has increased over the past few weeks. Hence, the amount of production has increased along with the number of emotions delivered to the pharmacist.
Oliver scratched his head.
He entrusted Marie and Peter with the family’s work as he went to read books, but something extraordinary had happened in the short time he was absent.
Somehow, besides Anthony and the Dominic family, the number of people who requested to synthesize emotions kept increasing.
Oliver listened to the story in one ear and let it go in another ear since it had nothing to do with black magic.
“…I’ll try to finish these as soon as possible.”
With those words, everyone began to do their work.
Even the informal disciples were put into the work so that they could be in charge of the sub-tasks.
The senior and intermediate disciples were assigned to the chemical process of mixing the secondary distillate with the emotions.
Instead of directly participating in the work, Oliver observed the work of others as they were in the class and pointed out their mistakes and corrections from time to time.
“Adjust the fire temperature.”
“Please transfer the distilled liquid immediately.”
“That's not how you should cast a spell, you have to do it this way for the emotions to blend better.”
Subordinates in charge of each task responded to Oliver’s corrections each time and carried out his orders.
Of course, pointing out just once doesn't completely improve their performance but they seem to be getting better little by little.
Thanks to this, the work speed was also much faster compared to Joseph's time, and it was similar to the speed of a machine, and when the work had stabilized to a certain extent, Oliver turned his head to look at the finished pilgaret.
Most of the evaluations about the pilgaret were that it was of a higher quality than the one Joseph made and it was probably true since not only the other families but also the pharmacist acknowledged it.
When taking the first sip of Oliver’s pilgaret everyone felt a surge as if blood boiling from anger but soon the surge gets suppressed due to the calming effect brought in by the maternal love.
Oliver soon realized that he, as the creator of the new pilgaret, had never tasted it.
Obviously, he wanted to smoke it once before but he decided not now.
Why?
For the first time, Oliver wanted to taste the pilgaret using Joseph's emotions that were in his hands.
Oliver wondered how to make the most of Joseph's emotions.
He saw everyone working for a while but then he shook his head.
That was not the best way.
It was a delicate work to prevent the loss of emotions as much as possible but in any case, it was a work of mixing emotions with water to increase the quantity.
Oliver wanted to taste every ounce of this emotion, even if the quantity of the emotions collected were small.
Oliver felt that if he didn’t make it in such a way, it was an insult to Joseph's emotions.
‘Then how should I make it?’
‘Should I fuse the emotion directly into the cigarette? No, that would be a little difficult.’
‘There had to be a medium to prevent the leakage of emotions and bind them.’
As he was contemplating what to do, a memory popped into Oliver's mind.
It was the time when Anthony and the Dominic family attended the meeting.
At that time, a muscular man took a drug in order to get rid of Oliver.
A drug made from injecting the muscle-up spell on the liquefied Life-force.
Oliver found what he needed.
After a while, as time passed, the work came to an end.
Everyone seemed exhausted and Oliver gave them formal words for their hard work and ordered them to rest after tidying up.
Everyone was happy to clean up.
While everyone was cleaning, Oliver approached Marie and talked to her.
"Marie."
“Yes, Master?”
“Could you bring me some Life-force that you are keeping? If possible, bring me a fresh one.”
“Oh, yes, I’ll bring it soon.”
For some reason, Marie went away with great joy and soon she brought a test tube with active Life-force.
“Here it is, Master.”
"Thank you."
"…if it's okay, can you tell me where you are going to use it?"
“No, Marie doesn’t need to know.”
It was Cold.
No, it wasn't objectively cold, it was just a formal tone as usual.
It was a mixture of reasonable distance and politeness but for some reason, Marie felt great disappointment and sadness at that answer.
Oliver couldn't understand why she suddenly became like this since she showed her disappointment not only in her emotions but also in her expression.
At that moment, Peter intervened cautiously.
“Master… I have finished cleaning up everything.”
“Isn’t it faster than usual?”
“Ah, that. We all worked together, so we finished it quickly. Do you have any other orders?”
Oliver looked around and answered.
“No. Go back and have some personal time.”
"Yes, We understand."
Peter bowed his head and told the other disciples to rest and sent them out of the manufacturing room as if he knew that Oliver had work to do here.
On the other hand, Marie stood there like a stone.
"Marie…."
“Yes, Master. Is there anything you want me to do?”
“No. You can leave.”
Marie once again radiated a glimmer of disappointment along with extreme loneliness and a rather serious obsession.
“If there is anything I can do to help…”
“No. Not at all. Please go out.”
The same words were repeated over and over again.
In the end, Marie bowed her head and backed away.
She had been like that since the time he personally taught her black magic but somehow Oliver felt like it was getting worse and worse.
Soon, Oliver pushed every distracting thought out of his head along with Marie who disappeared from the room.
At this moment, Oliver's greatest concern was to make Joseph's emotions into a pilgaret without any loss.
Oliver took out the pack of cigarettes he had prepared in advance, the Life-force that Marie had brought, and Joseph's emotions.
“Um… no, no.”
Excited Oliver murmured as if he had realized something.
He was so excited that he thought of making a pilgaret using Joseph’s emotion right away without a trial.
The way Oliver wants to make a pilgaret now is actually a way that no one had ever done before.
He didn't know what kind of problems would arise when he actually tried to make them without a trial.
Oliver felt it was a stupid idea to use Joseph’s emotions right away for this dangerous experiment.
Oliver took out some emotions from the studio locker.
Then, he opened the test tube with emotions and Life-force, and then he started practicing it on the spot without any specific theory.
The first thing he extracted was Life-force.
Beautiful Life-force gathered in Oliver's hand and when Oliver clenched his fist, the life force condensed and gradually turned into a slime.
Then Oliver began to extract emotions and mix them with the Life-force.
Surprisingly, the Life-force blended with the emotion much better than processed distillate, and they seemed to be like one.
No, it shouldn’t be a surprise in the first place because both of them are soul-derived energies.
Rather, it made more sense to mix them together.
Oliver stored this information in his head and further condensed the emotion and Life-force which had been united.
As if they were boiling, they simmered and condensed to become an essence and Oliver injected the essence into one of the cigarettes.
“Awwww”
Oliver looked at the Pilgaret.
The emotions were successfully stored in the pilgaret with little loss and they had a strong effect because of the combination with Life-force.
As soon as Oliver confirmed that this worked, he practiced it again and again.
Once, twice, thrice…to the point of being greedy.
As a result of practicing like that, Oliver did not have much Life-force or cigarettes left, so Oliver decided to go into action.
All the last remaining Life-force was extracted, energized, and Joseph's emotions were put into it.
Surprisingly, as Joseph's emotions blended with the Life-force, the beautiful light that he had seen back then came back to life and Oliver looked at it as if he was possessed.
At Oliver's fingertips, the Life-force absorbed all of Joseph's emotions and condensed them just like in the practice as if nothing could be lost.
It boils in the air and becomes a thick liquid and Oliver puts the essence in the last cigarette.
"Wow…."
The finished pilgaret was in Oliver’s hand.
Oliver looked at the pilgaret without saying a word.
Thump …. Thump …
His heartbeat was heard as if they trembled slightly as he picked up the pilgaret.
Oliver bit on the pilgaret and searched for a lighter.
"ah…."
Later, Oliver realized that he didn't have a lighter.
When Oliver was in a disappointed state, Peter started knocking on the door,
"master."
“What?”
Oliver, who was furious, asked in a voice louder than usual.
Peter got surprised but he calmly said.
“That…A guest has arrived.”
“……Guest?”
“Yes, it’s James, the pharmacist’s employee.”
