"Alright, now we wait," the old woman said. "In the meantime, I can teach you some more."
"Actually," Ning said. "Before that. Do you mind telling me what happened to the vial of Aether I gave to you? I saw that you didn't use it at all."
"Of course, it's in my storage," the old woman said and her face scrunched up in suspicions as she asked, "You won't be taking it back, will you?"
"Oh, no no," Ning quickly explained himself. "I was just wondering why you weren't taking it. You will rank up to Aether King, you know? Many people spend their entire life dreaming of reaching such a stage. But for you, it's in the palm of your hand."
The old woman sighed and shook her head. "I don't have such a dream. My only dream now is to rear this one child properly," the old woman said.
"I kept that Aether you gave me, and I will give it to this girl when she's of age," the old woman said.
"Can't you just take it, grandma? You won't have to struggle as much if you do, right?" Helena asked from the side.
The old woman said nothing aside from simply shaking her head.
She diverted the topic back to the potions and started teaching Ning about the various ingredients and what they did.
"I am not an all-knowing Potion maker, so if you want to learn it, you will have to experiment a lot of it for yourself," she said.
"Don't worry, Mrs. Gaani. I plan on spending all my free time for the next three years simply teaching your granddaughter and making potions," Ning said.
That was the amount of time he had until Alexis fully disappeared from this world. The goddess was dying and Ning planned to fulfill her final wish by then.
After nearly an hour of learning with the old woman regarding the various theories and recipes that were prepared by herself and her ancestors, it was finally time to refine the potion to just the liquid form.
Once again, she took out a clean set of white cloths that she put over a large bowl and filtered the hot water.
After that, she left the water to shimmer on the black cauldron again.
"Why do you use such an old cauldron? If you cannot afford new pots and pans, I can buy it for you," Ning suggested.
"Well, money is part of the issue, but it's more so my family tradition," she said. "Ever since I was a little child, I've seen nothing but only these black cauldrons being used by my mother and grandmother. So, I am a little sentimental towards these."
"Yeah, grandma really likes those cauldrons," Helena said from the side. "One day, I accidentally broke one of them, and she scolded me so much that I felt like my ears were bleeding by the end of the day."
"That was because I had told you to be careful, and you didn't obey me," the old woman said before turning back to the task at hand.
Ning put the yet to refine potion in the glass beaker that the old woman had brought out and let it boil away the excess water.
While learning some more about potion making, Ning waited for the simmering liquid to condense.
When he noticed it was a tenth of what it had been, he reckoned that this one beaker full of potion could be used for about 200 small vials.
However, when he told the old woman that it was time to take it off the heat, she had simply said, "The customer has asked for something strong, so we will let it go for another 5 minutes."
With such a low amount of liquid, in the next 5 minutes, the remaining liquid ended up being able to fill just 20 small vials.
The old woman took out the vials she had prepared and slowly started pouring the potion into them.
Each drop shimmered in yellow color as if liquid gold. The old woman enforced her entire body so as to not have a moment of slight shiver, or unsteadiness when she poured it.
Ning was quite impressed at how easily she poured the thick liquid into the 20 small bottles.
She then packaged it up and handed it to Ning.
Ning looked at the vials with a confused look and asked, "Why are you giving me this?"
"You are going back to the tower, aren't you? That was requested by the lord of the tower, so give it back to him," she said.
At the same time, she brought out multiple other vials and handed them to him as well, letting him know which one was for who.
She wanted him to deliver everything to the tower for her. He chuckled a bit and accepted. He didn't really have to do anything after all. He simply had to hand over these bottles to the reception and those fellows would do the rest.
"Come back tomorrow at this exact hour. I will have the ingredients for this same potion prepared for you tomorrow, and will test you on how much you learned today," she said.
Ning nodded and thanked her.
"You don't need to thank me," she said. "Just don't forget about your promise regarding my granddaughter. When do you think you will start teaching her?"
Ning thought for a moment. He was planning to start a few weeks later, but it felt bad giving such hopes to a young kid like her and making her wait for so long.
"Practical training will take a while since most of my time will be spent on learning about the potions," Ning said.
"But… I will try to prepare books on Aether and how to use them. At least the beginner versions, so that when we start, she will be ready for the training," Ning said.
"Good," the old woman said. "Also, if you can't make it, at least let me know beforehand. This little girl will give you our number."
Ning nodded, thanked her again, and left the house.
