(MC POV)
"Umm… Are you sure it's ok to follow me, Master?" Brendan asked me with a rather worried expression on his face.
I raised an eyebrow at him, "Of course I'm sure, why wouldn't I be?"
"Well… Umm… My senior sisters…"
"You believe they will get jealous of you?"
"Ye… Yes, Master…"
I waved my hand at him, "It'll be fine. I gave each of them a task to do while I'm here with you so they'll be too busy with that to think about it too much."
"If… If Master says so…"
It sounds like he was still a little doubtful about it but there's no need for me to tell him that I did leave a split body behind to watch over the girls right?
The two of us reached the site of the former Dark Sect hideout that was used to summon Lilith. Now that I know who she really was, it made me wonder what made them worship her in the first place? Was it Lilith herself who guided them to believe that?
Oh well, who cares? They're all gone anyway so it's pointless to think about that now.
"Umm… Does Master know what I'm missing as my last ingredient?" Brendan asked after looking around.
"Well, I do… But I feel like it'll kind of be cheating if I told you actually… I'm honestly surprised to know that you're only missing this last thing to start refining your own Origin Liquid too. This was something I was expecting to take several years, you know?"
"Ah… Umm… Well… I guess I was really motivated to ascend quickly, Master…"
Huh… Probably because his senior sisters were all ascending one after the other and he felt he was getting left behind?
I couldn't help but give him a pat on his head for that.
"Eh… Eh? Ma… Master?"
"Mmm… You've been working hard, Brendan. Good job."
"Tha… Thank you, Master…"
Oh my, he actually blushed.
I decided he could at least use a hint, "Well, I won't give you the answer directly but I can tell you that what you're looking for isn't something that is physical in nature."
Brendan blinked at me, "Not physical in nature? Does that mean I'm looking for an energy of some sort?"
"Oh, smart boy, got it in one! Now just what energy it is I'll leave it to you to figure out~"
Yep, Brendan's a genius alright. It's no wonder he managed to come so close to creating omnipotence in a bottle in less than a year. Anybody else could have spent their entire lifetime researching this and not even come close to achieving what he already had.
I found a spot nearby to sit down while Brendan started setting up his tools to look for what he needed in the area.
He first took out a bottle of bluish liquid from his storage ring and set it on the ground. That bottle was the base of his version of the Origin Liquid and what he had been refining ever since I gave him this task.
He then materialised ten more bottles of potions with different coloured liquids and arranged them in a set formation around the blue bottle, forming a sort of decagon shape on the ground.
Brendan took his time in slowly uncapping those ten bottles which caused the liquids to start bubbling inside those bottles and release plumes of coloured smoke into the air.
He stepped out of the formation and watched as the smoke swirled around to form a multi-coloured cloud in the air.
It took a while more before the smoke completely flowed out of the bottle to gather inside the cloud, causing it to convulse and glow before floating upwards towards the sky.
Oh? That's the Ten Wonders Cloud Formation that allows the user to spread their senses out over an area. It's usually used as a security measure in some Sects but it's quite unpopular as it requires someone to be monitoring it and it's only effective in a small area.
But in this case, it's perfect for Brendan's use to look for that Abyss Energy he was missing.
That wasn't even the thing that caught my attention either. The most impressive thing was… He managed to store a formation into potion bottles?! What the heck, that's amazing!
Whoever heard of breaking down a formation into a liquid form and putting it into potion bottles that could later assemble itself elsewhere?
Brendan sat down at the edge of the formation and started to meditate, syncing his senses to the cloud hanging above us and willing it to spread itself out around the hall until it thinned into mist.
You know, when I said that this journey would take some time, I was expecting him to spend several days scanning around the location and cross checking with the materials he already had on hand to figure out what he was missing.
Then he would have to spend the next few days combining and synthesising the materials together to make the Origin Liquid which should have taken several years at least.
But with this formation that he has set up, he could do the searching part without even moving from his meditation spot. And since I also gave him a clue, I wouldn't even be surprised if he found what he was looking for before the day was ov--
"Found it, Master!!" Brendan yelled out excitedly while leaping to his feet.
… Well what did I tell you? I didn't even have time to prepare tea for both of us.
"It's this Abyss Energy isn't it? It's also a part of existence and it Originated from Master as well, so it has to be included in the synthesis process! I believe traces of it were left here because of Lilith appearing here, wasn't it?"
I couldn't help but smile at him, "Very well done, Brendan. You are right of course. Now you just need to collect it and we can head back home and you'll be able to synthesise it. Here, have a cookie."
"Ah… Hehe… Thank you, Master," He accepted the proffered cookie feeling a little abashed.
Mhmm, mhmm, that's my alchemist for you. Seems like I didn't actually need to prepare to camp out here after all. I was even ready to spend the night here and have a boy's night or something with Brendan too.
Oh well, maybe some other time then.
I stood up and patted myself, "Seems like we don't need to camp out today. Shame, really."
Brendan stopped what he was doing and stared at me, "Eh? Mas… Master had planned to camp out?"
"Hmm? If you had needed a few days to find the energy… Yes? Did you think I was just going to leave you here alone?"
Brendan then poked his fingers together, "Could we… Could we still camp out tonight?"
Oh? What's this? Little Brendan wants to have a camping night with me?
Ahahaha~ Well, I wanted to do it too so I guess let's just do that anyway.
Oh just look at him blushing when he asked the question, he looks so cute now!
Head pats for you!
