Chapter 244 - "Frogy... date?"

The arts of phantom potion making were complex, and demanded a specific skill set dedicated to them. Timothy realized that as soon as he entered a chemistry workshop!

Now, this line of work wasn't shunned upon, entities practiced it openly, and those who did practice it, were either really powerful or really wealthy, so they had nothing to hide. One could set up such a business in the ghost world, and if they were skillful enough, they could become really wealthy! Although the currency here was useless in the physical world, it was still the standard currency of trade here in the city, and across the entire Kingdom of Mors Florentes, meaning that hundreds of thousands of ghosts used this currency! It was a good place to be skillful.

With all of that considered, Timothy could simply walk into the workshop, and its entities welcomed him into it, they didn't feel threatened at the sight of a stranger whatsoever. The workshop was well established, so they considered him a customer, and he was free to ask questions.

“How can I help you, sir?” A fine, blonde woman in a white coat welcomed him, with the utmost professionalism one could portray. “What are you after?”

“I want to work in your workshop,” He answered, “Who do I have to talk to?”

“Me, sir.” She added, “We don't get many visitors here, so I'm assigned to a lot of tasks, including the assessment of skill, and intelligence of any and all applicants. Now tell me, what do you know about Entity Filtering and Condensing?”

“I know that you use hollowed mana channel patterns on it, but that's about it. I've only visited the ghost world a couple of times, so I don't know much.” He followed along.

“Oh? So in a way, you're a Rogue Student?” She asked, “That's the official term for entities that learn everything by themselves. Now don't get me wrong, that's very impressive, especially since you're not dead yet, from the looks of it, however, you unfortunately do not qualify for the job. You need a specific set of skills if you're to succeed without blowing us all up, because we're working with gas here, after all.”

“Hmm… yeah that makes sense. So is there any other workshop that you think would accept me?” He followed along.

Timothy didn’t care for formalities, and he would be part of any shop that would take him! He was in here for the knowledge, any bit of knowledge he could sponge through.

“Well, even the simplest potion can blow you up if you don’t know what you’re doing, so I’m sure that no one would accept you. Officially, no one would take the risk, un-officially, however… how about you meet me out there after about four hours?” She said, “I’m Lena.”

…

Timothy killed time for about four hours, and then walked back near the workshop’s entrance, to wait for Lena the shop clerk to come out. She had offered to help him understand the branch of phantom alchemy better, and this was good, but the more he had thought about this matter, the more nervous he became!

Enima, the guard, had spoken a lot about the importance of following the rules, and not breaking the laws in this city, so it didn't sound so good for the two of them to study alchemy in secret! It was unprecedented, and Timothy even worried that Lena might try and steal his very soul for the sake of some experiment!

Nevertheless, his curiosity got the best out of him, so he met her. The main feature he noticed about her now, was her nice physique, as she wasn't wearing her white coat anymore. Timothy got so distracted by her looks, to the point where he forgot what he was worried about!

“I wonder if she's alive…?” He thought, “I'd love for her to bear my children!”

Timothy had pushed himself off topic. In fact, the first couple of minutes after he met her out here were a bit of a blur to him, so it wasn’t until after that he realized that he was following Lena across the street! They entered a house together afterwards, which was sandwiched between two other buildings, and he assumed this was her house, since she had a key for it. Afterwards, they went into the basement.

The stone house was designed in a humble manner, and its interiors weren't extravagant either, as to some people, it might not make a lot of sense to over-invest in a ghost house. In this case, the most valuable part of the house that they were in, was the lab which was spread out across the basement!

“So this is your lab, huh? Pardon my questions, but is it legal to have a lab in your basement? The guards seemed very strict about the rules.” He pressured.

“The guards are a bunch of gas suckers,” She answered, breaking the silence, and breaking her ongoing streak of professionalism. “If it was for them, and their rules, the city wouldn't have ever been built to begin with. It takes risks to reach great advancements!”

Timothy didn’t care about the rules to begin with, he just didn’t want to get kicked out of the city anytime soon. He did, however, like her answer a lot! Everything that she said resonated with how he lived his life himself, and even her swearing was similar to his, so he was really enthralled by her!

With that considered, he couldn’t help but go off topic. “I don't know if you're alive or not, but maybe we can meet in the physical world someday? Back there, I’m sure that I can help you feel like a student again.”

“Maybe…” She nodded, oblivious towards his flirting. “I'm a frog back in the physical world, and a weak one at that, because I focused most of my time strengthening my soul. We could meet, but for now, how about you and I mess with some potions?”

“Hell yeah!” He exclaimed, believing that he got himself a date.

Afterwards, they started working in the lab. The lab was quite medieval, with even a large cauldron taking a great amount of space in the basement, but this wasn't too weird, because most of the work was done through one's skill set alone. Knitting mana channel patterns barely required cauldrons, or any containers, come to think of it, it just required a lot of skill.

In order not to blow themselves up, Lena was to teach Timothy the basics today!