By the time Theo sat down to engage in alchemy, he had enough time to — at least partially — process his own circumstances.
That's why, regardless of the trouble he obviously was in, he just couldn't find a single reason to be nervous.
It was a strange, new world, sure. He didn't have the first clue about the local common sense. He didn't know how to spot social traps nor how to navigate the everyday dangers.
Despite being the picture-perfect example of a fish pulled straight out of the water, Theo remained perfectly calm, composed.
And now, as he sat down to cook a bit, if there was an observer in the room, they could glance upon the origin of this almost boundless confidence brimming in Theo's eyes.
'Let's see…'
The wisdom contained on the pages of the books within his library had now turned into concise and precise measurements for both of the recipes. The necessary materials were all within a hand's reach, with the fire slowly bringing the temperature of the cauldron up to the desired level.
"Okay, I have to start with… these…"
Theo's eyes quickly locked on some bluish herbs before he reached out and pinched a few stalks, then threw them into a small stone bowl, with its insides perfectly polished from repeated use.
The young man patiently squished the herbs into a small ball before stuffing it into the mortar's bowl and then steadily crushing it with the pestle. He then continued for several minutes, all the way until the soft, moist stalks turned into a smooth, light-green paste.
"Now, let it settle while under a gentle pour of the room-temperature water…"
With the greenish paste still in the mortar, Theo quickly pulled on a tiny cord, tipping the balance of a huge bowl and thus allowing the water to trickle down into a special wooden channel.
'Hive, set the timer…'
Putting the mortar's bowl into the channel with the slowly running water, Theo leaned back in his seat, following the steps of the procedure to the letter.
To a degree, brewing anything without the direct help of the nanites made Theo feel weird, as if he was doing something wrong…
But for Theo to test whether the theorems he knew about still applied, he needed something to compare with.
And just for that sake alone, he just sat down and did nothing for the next five minutes, using the Hive to keep the precise count on the time.
Five minutes later, Theo pulled the bowl out of the channel before pouring all the residual water away.
'There,' he smiled as he looked down at the bowl, where the paste had now solidified, regaining a bit of its earlier bluish color.
All according to the recipe.
But it was all merely a beginning.
Theo scraped the solidified paste onto a small tray before repeating the process with another herb, although this time using the boiling water from the main cauldron to temper it before adding it to the weirdly dry mix.
The final piece required the most effort, for Theo had to first crush four big seeds of some fruit before adding precisely three stalks of another herb to the secondary mix that he then threw into the cauldron before boiling it out for precisely seven minutes.
And then…
Then, Theo replaced the raw, hot water from the channel with the mixture he just prepared, using it for nothing more than tempering the two seeds of the same type as the one he used just before.
Finally, he gathered all three of the prepared half-products before throwing them all into a spindryer — a spinning tool consisting of several layers of meshes, each finer than the last, that would squeeze down when the tool was spun, removing the very last few bits of moisture from the ingredients inside.
Weirdly enough, however, rather than looking out for what remained within the spinner, Theo meticulously gathered every last drop of the squeezed-out essence before carefully dripping it all down into a small vial.
"That's it?"
Staring at the semi-clear liquid in the vial, not amounting to more than just a few drops, Theo couldn't help but twist his mouth in an ugly, somewhat let-down grimace.
'That's some sort of a drug, isn't it?'
Even before testing it out, Theo could recognize the familiar numbing sensation in his nose from merely breathing out the invisible fumes from the liquid, prompting him to quickly seal it with his thumb.
"Okay then, now, to reiterate what happened."
After using a small bit of cloth further reinforced with wax to seal the vial, Theo gathered all of the materials again before greatly changing the whole recipe.
The first process of mushing the herbs and seeds into a paste was quite simple and physical, leading to the deconstruction of the material's greater inner structure. The tempering part was all about flushing out very specific parts of the herb's effects by using different mediums in doing so.
In the first mixture, the cold water would soak in the poisonous particles that normally could cause trouble breathing.
In the second mix, the hot water boiled away the complex hallucinogen, forcing it to decay into much simpler, shorter, and less potent forms.
Finally, when washed by a hot concoction, the whole seeds of the fruit would get infused with the essence of the fruit boiled out from the crushed herbs, bringing their potency to the desirable level while locking it in through the other herb boiled into the tempering wash.
By that point, all of the half-products would have little to no water left in them, with whatever little moisture they had stuck, bound to the mix of a poison, heavy drug, and a relaxant.
Unprocessed, those three herbs would make one hell of a latent poison when mixed together. But after processing, the poison of the first herb turned into a numbing agent, the heavy drug mixture turned into a chemical no stronger than alcohol, while the heavy relaxant was there to combat the side effects of the former two while introducing a sense of great chill to the recipient.
Obviously, Theo's books didn't hold such specific knowledge.
Thankfully, with the Hive AI, Theo could turn passages like "three drops of the fine powder mixed into the spring dew gathered at noon," into something much simpler, like two grams of finely powdered herb tempered by the flow of four-degree cold distilled water.
Now that he understood not only the steps but also the purpose of each part of the process, however, Theo finally could try to replicate the whole thing through his preferred method of choice.
And with all the necessary ingredients gathered in his hand, Theo smiled at his own thoughts.
"Come out," he whispered under his nose, watching how a gray drop of sweat suddenly formed at the tip of his thumb only to then trickle down into the bunch of herbs he gathered before dispersing into but a thin, faint mist.
The materials in Theo's palms stirred up.
Soon, drops of water started to squeeze out from the bundled bunch of herbs, quickly followed by darkened fragments of the herbs.
A few moments later, Theo brought his hands above another clear vial before allowing a small stream of concentrated, slightly viscous liquid to trickle down into the glass utensil before sealing it post-haste.
Caring not for the potential mess, Theo cast aside all the leftover herbs straight to the floor before grabbing both vials and raising them up to his eyes.
Quite noticeably, the fresher one on the right had a much more intense blue hue to it, while feeling a lot thicker than the potion created from the original recipe.
But that wasn't enough to sate Theo's curiosity nor to answer his questions.
And even though he just spent most of his nanite reserves, he had no other choice but to push his Hive just a little bit further.
'Now go and analyze,' he thought, feeling as if his strength left him through the very fingers he kept on top of the wax seals over each of the vials. And but a moment later, two windows appeared before his eyes, projecting all that the nanites managed to gather from each concoction.
[Unknown Liquid]
[Light Drug: Can induce a sense of general happiness lasting a period of about one to two hours. While in the drugged state, recipient will experience slowed-down perception, decreased pain reception, and slight short-term memory loss]
[Concentration: Average]
[Toxicity: Negligible]
[Unknown Liquid]
[Medium Drug: Can induce a strong sense of general happiness lasting between four to six hours. While in the drugged state, recipient's senses sharpen up along with their creative ability and problem-solving skills. Users can enter a state of heightened focus at the cost of a small risk of developing a dependency and potential addiction]
[Concentration: High - advice: Dilute before use]
[Toxicity: Low]