Chapter 62: A Failed Potion

No sooner had Leonard returned to his room than his owl, Gray, caught the scent of mice and began hopping excitedly around its open cage.

Leonard cast a helpless glance at the bird, whose eyes were shining with anticipation. He pulled a mouse from the box and tossed it into Gray’s enclosure.

The unfortunate creature let out a sharp squeak, but before it could even steady itself, a powerful talon pinned it down. Gray gave two excited cries, watching the struggling mouse closely. Its beak struck, and a long, drawn-out squeal echoed from the cage.

Then came only the sound of tearing.

While Gray enjoyed its rare meal of fresh blood and flesh, Leonard placed the three cages of mice beside it for safekeeping. At Leonard’s request, Felim had separated them into three cages so he could feed each group differently.

After warning Gray not to eat the rest, Leonard went to the window, set the newly purchased pot of aconite on the table, and began preparing extracts.

As soon as Leonard started working with the potion-making equipment again, the Ancient Sprout hidden in his sleeve wriggled out, curiously observing his actions. It watched as he extracted liquid from both the aconite root and the aconite berries.

He then took several bags of corn kernels Felim had given him as feed and divided them into three portions. One batch was soaked in pure extract, another in aconite root extract, and the last in enhanced aconite berry extract.

Leonard conducted his experiments with care, making sure to account for every variable.

By noon, he retrieved the soaked kernels, labeled three slips of paper, attached them to the cages, and poured the corn inside.

Though the extracts carried a strong alcoholic stench, the mice—hungry after fasting all morning and made restless under the gaze of a predator—devoured the kernels greedily. They even fought each other for more.

It wasn’t long before the corn was gone, and all three cages of mice had slipped into a drunken stupor.

This was the effect of the alcohol. Leonard wasn’t surprised; he simply checked his pocket watch and studied their reactions.

The first changes appeared in Cage Two, the one given aconite root extract.

Within a minute of eating, the intoxicated mice began convulsing. Their chests heaved weakly, rising and falling at a sluggish pace.

Classic alkaloid poisoning.

In ancient China, aconite was often used to coat arrowheads. According to the famous tale of General Guan Yu having poison scraped from his bone, the toxin he endured was most likely this very one.

Leonard gave the pitiful cage of mice a single glance before dismissing them.

Those rats were finished. Once they died, he would dispose of them rather than feed them to Gray. True, animals killed by aconite poisoning could be safely eaten afterward—Leonard remembered that soybean juice and salt could neutralize it—but why take the risk when he could simply buy more?

Before long, the rats in Cage One, which had been fed the pure extract, woke up. Their only symptoms resembled a hangover—just signs of heavy drunkenness.

The rats in Cage Three, however, behaved strangely. They occasionally twitched, but their vitality didn’t seem impaired.

So the toxicity of aconite berries was weaker?

Did that mean ordinary rue might be sufficient, without the need for enhancement?

For now, Leonard wasn’t inclined to strengthen too many plants. Without a fixed place to cultivate them, he had to carry the altered specimens with him. If anyone noticed their unusual traits, it would put him in a very difficult position.

Time passed, and about half an hour later, half of the rats in Cage Three were dead, while the rest were barely hanging on.

Though still weak, they seemed to have escaped immediate danger.

“The toxicity really has weakened. I just don’t know how it will behave once brewed into a potion.”

Leaving the rats alone, Leonard went downstairs for a quick meal, then returned to begin brewing. The Ancient Sprout twitched restlessly at his sleeve, clearly eager for potion-making.

Leonard, happy to let it take charge, cleared his mind and followed its guidance, mixing ingredients without much thought.

But to Leonard’s surprise, the Wolfsbane Potion—supposedly foolproof with the Ancient Sprout—failed spectacularly.

The potion inside the cauldron suddenly burst apart. The violent force shattered it, potion splashing onto the floor with a hiss of white smoke, while fragments shot out like bullets in every direction.

Gray let out a frightened cry and flapped away to hide behind Leonard’s trunk. The caged rats weren’t so lucky—screams rang out as they convulsed and collapsed.

Leonard, who had been standing right beside the cauldron, remained completely unharmed. A silvery-white light flared around him, blocking the potion and shrapnel. Though the glow dimmed slightly afterward, it quickly regained its brightness as Leonard felt magic flowing within him.

When the light finally faded, Leonard frowned at the wrecked room, puzzled. Failure was always a possibility, but facing it firsthand still left him a bit frustrated.

The Ancient Sprout drooped its branches like a child being scolded, looking utterly dejected.

“It’s not your fault. The potion formula was the problem,” Leonard said, stroking one of its leaves reassuringly.

At those words, the sprout’s pointed leaves perked up again, looking as if it had come back to life.

After soothing the childlike sprout, Leonard drew his wand and gave it a gentle wave.

“Reparo.”

At once, everything in the room began to return to normal. The walls and floor, scorched with corrosion, seemed to regrow whole again. Cauldron fragments floated obediently back into place, reassembling into a complete vessel.

Other than the dangerous potion and the poor rat it had killed, the room was restored in the blink of an eye—looking even fresher than before.

Such was the strength of the advanced Repair Charm.

But Leonard felt no pride in it. Instead, he frowned, turning over the mistake in his mind.

“I really was too careless,” he admitted with a sigh.

Trying to use the same recipe when the primary ingredient had changed so drastically—it was foolish, so foolish Leonard could hardly stand to admit it was his own doing.