Chapter 22
Surprisingly, the raw material brought by the instructor was… willow.
“Now, everyone, this willow contains powerful pain-relieving and fever-reducing properties. It also interferes with blood clotting, but since all of these effects come from a single compound, we need to focus on that and use extraction magic to get the best results. The effectiveness of the extraction magic is higher when we understand the properties of the substance we’re trying to extract,” the instructor explained.
Upon hearing this, Idnia sighed in relief.
‘Ah, thank goodness. It’s salicin.’
Salicin is the pain-relieving and fever-reducing compound found in willow trees. The refined version of it is acetylsalicylic acid, commonly known as aspirin.
‘This was one of the questions on the entrance exam. Salicin…’
Idnia had been an employee of a well-known bio-tech corporation in her previous life.
Born as the eldest daughter of a poor family, she worked hard to study and joined a large corporation that dealt with chemistry, materials engineering, bio-sciences, and cosmetics. She was constantly plagued by requests for money from her parents afterward.
“Now, our eldest daughter, repay the money spent to raise you to this point.”
“Can you give me the security deposit for the house?”
“Dad hit someone after drinking, can you pay the settlement fee?”
“You’ve ruined businesses multiple times, but can you open a store for me? You don’t have money? Fine, you’ll have to take out a loan for the deposit.”
The one thing that had comforted her in that terrible life was ‘Awakening Girl Concert.’
‘They said the lottery was brutal, but compared to my life, it’s just sweet!’
So when she suddenly transmigrated into the role of a villainess in a game, Idnia wasn’t at all shocked.
Someone’s playing with my life?
This world was a massive model garden created by someone?
Well, her life on Earth had always been manipulated by others.
She just needed to do her best in her assigned role and live according to her own sense of justice. Whether it was in this world or the game world, as long as she had no regrets, it didn’t matter.
“Now, there are ten extraction wands, so please, ten of you, come up and try the extraction.”
Ten students stepped forward and grabbed the extraction wands. The wands had chains attached to prevent them from being taken away by others.
It was like a phone display unit in an electronics store.
Seeing the anti-theft chains, Idnia understood that there must be a lot of people wanting the extraction wands, even among the academy students.
‘It makes sense,’ she nodded.
“Now, repeat after me. ‘Yong chuulhara!’”
“Yong chuulhara!”
As the students mimicked the chant, their mana was sucked into the wands, and salicin began to be extracted from the willow!
“Now, collect it in a bottle!”
The students carefully transferred the sparkling extract into bottles. However, during the process, some students collapsed.
“Gasp?!”
“Creak!?”
“Ugh?”
Saliva drooled from their mouths, and their limbs trembled uncontrollably. The teenagers, full of life, were now reduced to barely hanging on.
“Ah, burnout has occurred,” the dryad instructor, Niallia, said casually.
“Mana burnout is a state where a large amount of mana is consumed, creating a void. It doesn’t kill you, but it causes terrible neural pain. I’ve never experienced it, so I wouldn’t know.”
“Burnout?”
“No, the neural pain. Humans say it feels like a sharp toothache that spreads to your limbs, neck, and spine…”
“……”
The students gasped at the explanation. Wasn’t that an excruciating pain?
“Next!”
“……”
As another group of ten students stepped forward, Niallia stopped them.
“Not like that. The fallen students step out, and you take their place. The others continue.”
“Excuse me?”
“What do you mean… do we have to stay in place until we collapse?”
“Yes! That’s it! Heh. This is why alchemy classes are practically useless for actual alchemy. Got it? Make sure you take chemistry. And right now, you can get my sexy bromide calendar for free!”
“……”
In other words, they were expected to extract mana until they reached complete burnout.
“No, is this okay?”
“Aren’t they crazy?”
The students grumbled but slowly took their turns. Another round of extraction magic, and those who had initially stepped up collapsed.
Niallia checked if the students had really experienced burnout or were just faking it, and only then allowed replacements.
“Next!”
One by one, the students collapsed. Usually, it took only one or two rounds of extraction magic for a student to collapse and get replaced quickly. The few who could endure lasted three or four rounds at best.
Now, Astraea’s Mari and Izolde Folchen entered the extraction lineup.
“Yongchuulhara!”
“Yongchuulhara!”
Mari and Izolde Folchen both shouted the activation chant simultaneously.
“Whoa!?”
Niallia was impressed.
Izolde Folchen’s extraction magic pulled more salicin at once than four or five people combined.
This moment revealed just how outstanding Izolde’s magical abilities were, even among the academy’s brightest students.
But what about Astraea’s Mari?
“Yongchuulhara!”
“Yongchuulhara!”
“Yongchuulhara!”
Her mana seemed endless.
“What is this…?”
“Ugh!?”
Izolde was surprised by how Mari was unaffected even after repeatedly casting the extraction spell.
“Wow, did you see that?”
“This is unreal. We were barely standing after one use, and she’s… still going?”
“Definitely a Saintess!”
Other students marveled at Mari’s immense mana.
“But the amount she extracts at once is too small. It’s less than one-fifth of Izolde’s…”
“Did you do more than that?”
“Well, no…”
“Then shut your mouth. Why are you complaining about Mari?”
“Yeah, why am I? I’m not usually like this, but everything Mari does lately… I don’t like it. Did I get cursed or something?”
“……”
Izolde was shocked by Mari’s enormous mana but quickly calmed herself.
‘Alright. She’s a Saintess candidate, so that makes sense. But I’ve never fallen behind anyone in terms of mana either.’
Izolde cast extraction magic again. At this point, it felt like a competition between Mari and Izolde.
Izolde pulled more salicin at once, but Mari kept casting and extracted just as much by using her mana to keep up.
They both filled their bottles at nearly the same rate.
“Ah, how delightful! Oh-ho-ho, how much… ah, I mean… ahem.”
Niallia sprayed water on her feet with a sprayer while trying to maintain her composure.
Even though other students were collapsing, Izolde and Mari continued to extract.
“Hmm. Amazing.”
“Right? I knew Izolde was good, but this Saintess candidate is impressive, huh?”
The noble students like Lord Lorenzo Mazdari, who had used extraction magic five times, and Lord Karl Oxbach, who used it four times, stepped aside, wiping sweat from their foreheads. Though they had reserves, it was clear they were drained.
They, too, began to take interest in Mari, Astraea’s Saintess candidate.
‘Phew, it’s finally getting close to the original routine. Thank goodness.’
Idnia felt genuinely happy seeing Mari, the academic underdog, gain the attention of the noble students, not in a bad way, but because of her talents.
But then…
“Ugh.”
Crown Prince Rudolf set down his wand. While other nobles had exhausted themselves after four or five rounds, Crown Prince Rudolf managed to do seven.
However, Mari had already cast her spell 20 times.
Izolde had managed around seven as well, but her extraction amount was tremendous, and she was still going.
“There’s still plenty of willow left. But if I had known, I’d have chopped down dozens of them.”
“…Excuse me, Professor?”
“Ah, yes. You want to know if Dryads can chop down other trees? Well, everyone kills each other, don’t they?”
Niallia responded as she continued bringing willows from the storage, excitedly speaking.
However, what she said sounded eerily like a confession from a psychopath.
Meanwhile, as the other students collapsed, it was Idnia’s turn to step up.
“Hmm… Yongchuulhara?”
The wand glowed red. But that was all.
“Ah, I ended up channeling aura instead of mana…”
Idnia had infused aura into the wand by mistake.
Strangely, when aura was used in the wand, magic wouldn’t work properly.
Was this why it was so difficult to train both aura and magic at the same time?
Idnia took a deep breath, focused, and concentrated on the salicin instead.
‘Salicin, the precursor to aspirin. The molecular structure is a hexagon, with the acetyl group at the tail… I think I need to remove the acetyl group to make it acetylsalicylic acid…’
Idnia grasped the wand, focusing on the molecular structure of salicin.
And with that…
