The quality of a potion depends on multiple factors. Many authors quote higher quality ingredients as one, but there are caveats they rarely mention. The ingredients need to be balanced coupling a hundred-year-old blaise with a dozen other five to ten year old ingredients to brew and antidote won’t make a better antidote, it will ruin the concoction.

  — Excerpt from Thoughts on Pots and Brewing

  Day 153, 1:30 PM

  Slightly miffed because I failed to save Brand, I sprinted into the jungle’s depths for an hour before snapping my neck. Under normal circumstances, I would’ve killed myself the moment Brand had died. But with the cultists involved and with the outer gods’ ability to observe the world for one hundred and sixty years after my death, doing anything suspicious around them could spell the end of my short life in the Eternal Light Empire.

  While claiming the outer gods worked together with the cultists was a pure guess on my part, a lot of humans fought on their side in my vision. And if someone is expected to collaborate with eldritch abominations from beyond the stars, my money is on the guys calling themselves cultists. So I took extra precautions before returning to the cave and re-sculpting my realm back into the most optimal state I could work it into.

  I even took an extra day to finish the sixth layer. Then, instead of working around Newt’s alarm, I told him I would return in twenty-odd days, and sprinted straight to the rendezvous point, picking some berries along the way.

  “So, you’re one of those alchemist Coldridges? Are you also an alchemist?” I asked Brand after we had made our introductions.

  “Yes?” A nervous note danced in Brand’s voice. “And yes?”

  “I’m also a bit of an alchemist myself. Close to earning an expert’s badge.”

  “Oh?” The tone was a bit too condescending for my liking, but I didn’t mind it.

  The next two days passed in pleasant theoretical discussions about potions, flames, herbs, and runic seal setups for brewing, during which Brand confessed that he was only an honorary expert member, since he lacked internal mana.

  He was a completely different man when I wasn’t pumping him for information about cultists and his family. His nervousness vanished, replaced by surprisingly strong opinions on alchemy-related topics.

  Instead of taking the same path as in the first loop, I veered off course a dozen miles. We were a mile away from the jungle’s edge, walking a section with darker, thicker canopy lacking bushes. The fact allowed me to spot our ambushers from a hundred feet away before they sprang the ambush.

  “Run.” I unslung my staff from my back and pushed Brand back. Redo was available, my new course as much a play to buy time as it was to avoid the hunters, and yet they found us with ease. They had to have a way of tracking Brand, which begged the question of why they didn’t hunt him down themselves.

  “How did you find us?” I shouted as Brand turned tail and ran back towards Summersweald’s heart.

  They didn’t answer, the uncooperative bastards, fanning out instead. The cultists were the same, the broad-shouldered one who drank his companion’s lifeblood the last time, heading straight for me along with the one I found the most competent amongst the ones I had killed.

  I dashed towards them. Yielding ground would only hurt my cause, since I wasn’t of interest and they would ignore me if I moved out of their way. From five steps away, I threw a dagger into the broad-shouldered cultist’s face. He blocked. The blood shield grabbing my dagger’s hilt. His reaction speed was insane. Then again, a peak third realm mage had a considerable advantage over me in terms of senses and processing speed.

  In terms of raw power, however, they fell behind by a landslide. My staff screamed at his head. He ignored it, stabbing at my gut with his sword. The barrier of blood appeared, and my staff smashed right through it. The mage’s mind was so quick he managed a look of horrified surprise before his skull burst, the blow throwing the corpse to the ground.

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  I caught the whistle of icicles and ducked as they flew above me. My staff screamed again as it tore through the air, steel slamming at the cultist’s midsection, but he angled his shield in a clever way. Instead of blocking my blow, he placed it so that my strike pushed him back out of my reach, the spell followed by another pair of icicles flying at my head.

  I bent back, responding with a flying dagger of my own. The cultist screamed. My blade took his eye, but the blood shield materialized in time to prevent steel from entering his brain. He ripped the dagger out of his eye, clutching it, but I was already running for the pair of cultists next.

  I hope Brand can escape one when he’s not stunned by my kick. The mistake didn’t weigh too heavily on my mind, but I did play a part in Brand’s death last time. The least I could do to make it up to him was to ensure his survival.

  The duo toward which I was running spotted me, the closer one turning to face me, trying to buy his teammate enough time to reach Brand. I glanced back just before engaging, but the one-eyed Jack was also running for Brand instead of pursuing me. I could only hope the competent alchemist was fast enough.

  He wasn’t. When I finally reached him, Brand lay dead, a glowing red dagger in his back. I killed four of them, leaving only the one-eyed cultist, but any of them reaching Brand was a death sentence for the man.

  The whole thing was annoying, I went deeper into the jungle again and snapped my neck. And again, and again. Keeping Brand near me killed him faster, then I tried something similar to the second attempt, but once more, a cultist reached him, riddling him with bloody icicles.

  I sat on the ground, looking at him as a plan formed. When we’re in the bushland, the cultists waited for us to leave the jungle. When we were in an area free of undergrowth, they set up an ambush half a mile from the weald’s edge.

  I had a plan, but the only question was whether I should go relax a loop, or head straight to helping Brand.

  “I’ll chill the next loop if I fail.” Failing to save a random alchemist half a dozen times irked me, and I could only hope I didn’t take too many loops to get him to safety.

  I once again shaped my realm perfectly and snuck out of the cave without letting Newt know because I had a good feeling. Brand seemed optimistic, not suspecting I had already let him die a bunch of times, and trusted me. Fortunately, alchemy was a huge field, and despite talking for the better part of two weeks with him, there was still enough room to discuss new concepts.

  Once more, it was day one hundred and fifty-three since I reincarnated. I had chosen an extra bushy way back, and a mile from the jungle’s edge I ordered Brand to hide in the shrubs.

  “Why?” he asked.

  “Because I say so, and because I smell an ambush. Just lay low, and I’ll come pick you up. If you hear me shouting for you to run, run back into the jungle as fast as you can. Got it?”

  He looked at me and nodded, deciding to trust me.

  Ten minutes later, I was once more looking at Brand bleeding on the ground. He was still alive, the final cultist dead at his feet. Unfortunately, the zealot punched a hole through the alchemist’s chest five seconds before I caught him.

  “Sorry, Brand. Better luck next time.”

  Instead of relaxing in Thunderbluff, I gave it another shot. Instead of leaving Brand a mile from the jungle’s border, I had him hide a mile and a half away from it.

  I walked the rest of the way alone, and as I rustled my way out of the thorny bushes, muttering curses, the five men made a wide half-circle with me at the center, looking at me with confusion just like they did last time.

  “That’s not him,” one muttered while the most competent one closed his eyes.

  “He’s still in the jungle, a mile or so away.”

  “Did you see a man in the jungle?” a third asked, and I raised my woven basket filled with berry goodness.

  “I was completing a quest for the guild.”

  Like last time, my realm combined with the basket made them lower their guard, and they focused on the jungle again. I put the basket on the ground and started patting the leaves and branches stuck to my clothes.

  “Get the fuck away from here, newbie.”

  “I’m going, I’m going.” I patted my shoulder, grabbed my steel bar of a staff, and lunged towards the most competent cultist standing at the center. Last time I made a mistake and started from the right, but eliminating the most powerful in a surprise attack was admittedly a better option than my standard approach of first culling the weak.

  The cultist opened his mouth, managing a “No!” as he summoned a barrier. It was weaker than usual, a rush job, and it shattered like glass, followed by his head. Last time, he shouted at them to run into the jungle and find the target. This time, no such order came, and the confused cultists attacked me after a moment’s hesitation.

  Before they could mount a proper response, the second most competent member of the group was down. The fight with the three remaining ones could be summarized in two words - mop up.