While Hiesenburgle saw to the metalworking, Lucas spent the rest of the week playing with potions and working on his swordplay. The potions took priority. Even though Heisenburgle forbade him from any more showy displays, he was given complete license to go through the man's reagents and make whatever he liked.

That lead to progress on a number of fronts. The first and most important of which was that he was able to get another achievement, which he figured out how to make a slightly more potent version of his Potion of Divine Grace. His endurance potion would still take some work to get to level three, but 2 was promising.

Maximum Alchemical Potential 2: 2/2 increase two attributes to 35+, the maximum for any single mortal attribute. Your attribute maximum has been increased to 37. To achieve Maximum Alchemical Potential 3, increase any three attributes to 35+.

He was also able to nudge his Divine Potential up by another couple of points, though that achievement was nowhere near being accomplished. Still, that achievement enabled him to try out the difference between a strength of 35 and a 37, several days apart.

Lucas's previous attempt at weightlifting had been with a strength of twenty. He'd been able to lift up hundreds of pounds with just that much. With 35, though, he was able to lift up the largest anvil in Heisenburgle's workshop. It was a huge industrial thing with rollers that they used for making sheet metal. It had to weigh at least a ton. When Lucas tried again with a stronger formulation a few days later, he had to journey into the woods and find a damn boulder because it was the only thing that was small enough that he could get a grip on it but heavy enough to be a challenge.

The ease at which he'd been able to do that astounded him. I can be Superman for ten minutes at a time, he told himself as he lifted it over his head before slamming it down on the ground. After that, he even punched the thing hard enough to split it right down the middle, which was enough to make him laugh hysterically.

Of course, he wasn't laughing an hour later when his hand was aching. "Note to self," he said as he went hunting for a healing potion to fix his fuck up. "Do not punch a rock with a strength of 37 when you only have an endurance of 34."

The more he experimented, the more Lucas was sure that endurance was the most important attribute he had. So much so that he spent six points to increase it by three. That brought him down to 21 remaining advancement points, but he decided that would be worth it.

Not only would that let him Achieve Maximum Alchemical Potential 3 the next time he popped his max strength potion, but it would also let him stand up to the increasing strain his other concoctions were placing on him. The last thing he wanted in any of these fights was to be so strong he could tear himself apart. While that was a laughable statement most of the time, when he was hyped up on alchemy and tossing boulders, it was a real possibility.

Name: Lucas Sharpe Class: Magical Chemist Level: 9

Agility: 13 Endurance: 14 Appearance 10

Intelligence: 14 Strength: 11 Soul: 10

Health: 100% Mana: 100%

Status Effect: None.

Imbued Equipment: Ring of Vanishing (Fine Quality)

You have unspent points. Please use them to increase your ability scores or gain feats/perks.

After his hand healed, he did a few experiments on exactly what an endurance of 37 looked like. He already knew he could run pretty much until the potion ran out, but the idea that he'd been able to hurt himself raised other questions.

If I can punch a boulder and come away with nothing but a cracked knuckle, what else can I do? He wondered. The answer, as it turned out, was quite a lot. While he took things slowly because he didn't want to find himself crippled when the potion wore off, he recruited the lab assistants he'd helped with their illicit alchemy project a few weeks before, and he had them beat the crap out of him, or at least let them try.

Neither of them was particularly strong, but he knew if he asked one of the guards, word of his crazy experiment was much more likely to get around. He had something on these guys, so they were less likely to talk about his impromptu fight club.

"Don't take it easy on me," Lucas admonished them as the three of them stood there in a disused storage barn that had been built against one wall. "But do stop when I tell you to stop. I'm not exactly sure how this will go."

Both of them agreed though they seemed almost more nervous than he was. The men started with their fists, but those started to hurt before he did. So, they switched to tools like shovels, which promptly broke as their wooden shafts shattered against his back. With every strike, they were less afraid of hurting him, and he, in turn, was less worried about being hurt.

"I cannot believe this," he thought, realizing for the first time that Heisenburgle might have a point about the dragon's toughness. He'd been using entirely too much logic and not enough magic in his plans. If she was as tough as he was in this moment, it would be hard to pierce her skin in even her weakest spots, and with her thick scales, it would be absolutely impossible.

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Lucas was too busy thinking about her and not focusing enough on the men who were trying and failing to beat the snot out of him. As a result, he didn't notice that one of them was thrusting right toward his stomach with a pitchfork. "Whoah, whoah, whoah!" Lucas said, raising his hands as the man did that. "That's—" His words were cut off by the three metal tines pressing against his belly.

Strangely, though, nothing happened. Even though he flinched and turned away, the only damage was to the farm implement, which was bent slightly. In a contest of toughness between him and a piece of cheap steel, he'd won.

That result surprised him, even though it shouldn't have. Afterward, he only had three small bruises to show for it, too. He wasn't even sore anywhere else, despite how much the junior alchemists beat on him.

Unfortunately, despite all of his other efforts, his experiments with duration weren't going nearly as well. Strength wasn't a problem, but the minute he tried to stretch that strength into something that lasted half an hour or an hour, it cut the strength of the boost potion in half, at a minimum.

The good news was that if he tried to make something with long-lasting ingredients, he was given the option to make that duration last even longer with his empowered alchemy. If he used mana to make any of those flasks, they were worlds better than the flask he'd made to help him when he was recovering from his owlbear attack.

His Long Lasting Curative Flask had increased his endurance by 3 for four hours. He could make an endurance 8 flask now that lasted all day or an endurance 12 flask that lasted for twelve hours with the right combination of ingredients, but he'd yet to make anything in the twenties that could last for even an hour, which seemed about as short as he should expect a fight with a dragon to last whether he won or lost.

Unfortunately, the idea of being very strong for a long time wasn't nearly as interesting to him as being fantastically strong for a short time, but there was little he could do about it. Even after searching through his talent abilities, he found he already had the best duration expanding talent in the form of Enduring High.

He talked with Heisenburgle about this some, but for once, the gnome had little interest in alchemy. He didn't avoid Lucas exactly, but he locked himself in his workshop until all hours of the night and focused on nothing but temperatures, metallurgy, and precise angles.

Instead, that conversation had to wait for Sir. Milen's first appearance at Black Gate later that week. "Don't tell me you've gone soft again after your little vacation, Lord Parrin," the man admonished him.

"Soft?" Lucas laughed as he shook his hand. "Who you talking to?"

"My tardiest, least talented student," the man answered with a roguish smile. "You show me you haven't forgotten what I've taught you, or I'll have you running laps around the walls of this strange place until you can't."

"This is one of the crown's properties," Lucas explained as he led the warrior to the barn he'd used so recently for his beat-down experiment. "Best not ask too many questions."

The man exchanged swords with him first thing, noting, "You might find that one a touch unbalanced. It's a bit overfull."

Lucas smiled at that, and that moment of distraction very nearly led to getting hit in the face with his opponent's blade. Lucas cursed under his breath as he took a step back. Then he got serious.

"Careful, you're going to hurt someone," he said, trying to show the man just how much he remembered with a series of rapid strikes.

"That would be the point," Sir. Milen answered dryly, using a riposte to tag Lucas on the chest, scoring what would have been a fatal wound.

For a moment, Lucas was tempted to tell him about the ice troll. The only reason it didn't was because it would have begged lots of questions, chiefly how the fuck was he still breathing.

Instead, he buckled down and focused on this moment. Bragging wouldn't help me beat the knight. Neither would being distracted. Tomorrow, he could work on everything else. Right now, he needed to get every little thing he could out of this training.

So, they fought brutally for the next three hours, almost without a break. As they did, his instructor shredded him with critique almost as much as his weapon, and by the end of it, Lucas didn't feel like he had anything to be proud of.

"Well, now that you've thoroughly kicked my ass, there's something I want to show you," Lucas said, panting as he pulled three small vials out of his pouch.

"Some new product?" the knight asked. "You didn't strike me as the type to use your own drugs."

"I would never," Lucas agreed, "But these aren't drugs. Their boost potions."

"Ah…" Sr. Milen said with a nod. "I know a few men that use potions of strength to rise to the challenge, but you must remember they are tricks, and tricks will never replace skill."

"They are," Lucas agreed, as he felt strength and energy surging through him as the magic of his alchemy took hold. "But I've been dying to find out how these babies will do when combined with all you've taught me."

The knight grinned fiercely at that, but instead of saying anything, he gave Lucas a mock salute and resumed his stance. Lucas delayed only a moment then before he struck.

With his ability scores boosted over twenty, there wasn't anything that, Sir. Milen could do. The man was better and more skilled than him but turbocharged as he was, Lucas was untouchable. He parried so firmly that he stopped even the most powerful strikes in their tracks, and though Milen tried to dodge, he might as well have been moving in slow motion as Lucas went on the attack.

While Milen won all the other bouts as always, in those final three, even if he went all out, Lucas won handily. After that, when they sat together on a dusty bench resting, the knight told him, "I've never seen anything like that. Maybe you should start selling that stuff as well as your Blue. I imagine, Sir. Tristin would pay a pretty penny to have a couple doses of that lying around just in case."

"These can't be the first boost potions you've ever seen," Lucas answered.

"Not even close," his instructor nodded, "thought the same thing could be said about their power. Nothing I've ever seen or tried was even close to whatever you just drank. What's your secret?"

"Very expensive ingredients," Lucas said. It wasn't even a lie. "It's a project for His Majesty's army. Not a personal project."

"I see," Sir Milen answered, though his eyes never stopped gleaming with curiosity. He tried to bring the topic back up several times, but Lucas played it off, grateful that he hadn't shown the man anything stronger.

They exercised a bit longer, and his instructor gave him some specific tips to work on before their next lesson, and then Lucas was once more on his own. No sooner had he returned to his room, though, than he ripped open the sword and found four small notes. Three were from Danaria, and one was from Kar'gandin. He read Kar'gandin's first, registering annoyance at Lucas' continued absence more than anything.

'Yer house is near to halfway done, and ye still ain't been by to see it!' he complained. Since the dwarf didn't report any major problems, though, Lucas largely ignored it. Instead, he focused on Danaria's messages, which were much cuter.

He'd expected some impatience from her, but he found none. Instead, she mostly stuck to little bits about her day. One was about how cute it was that she could visit him as a bird and sing to him. He loved that. What he didn't love was that he had to destroy them. These were things that he should have treasured, but he didn't dare leave them lying around for someone to find them, not even in their hiding place.

Later, he talked to Hiesenburgle, and the gnome promised him a demonstration soon, though he was still too obsessed with his projects to break away from them. "Here's my fuel recipe for the Hyperquadabulator," he said, handing Lucas a folded-up piece of paper. "See what your talents can do to optimize that, and make me a half-pound charge of your flash powder to test with."

Lucas promised that he would the following evening. Unfortunately, he never got the chance. A few hours after Lucas crashed out, he was woken by unfamiliar guards. He found that surprising because it never happened, but when he asked what this was about while he got dressed, it got even worse. "You've been summoned by the Prince. You are to meet with him at the castle immediately."

Shit, Lucas thought. He knows.

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