Chapter 133: Unexpected

Zach managed to keep his eyes open during his next try. He could clearly see when he managed to grab hold of something inside the flower and drag it out. Gradually, that something became visible and took the shape of a jelly-like worm.

Zach continued extracting from the flower until the worm ended. The flower turned into a dried husk again. He dumped that in a basket that Yanael had brought to clean up the last flower. He put the worm in a container next to Alzara. He did the same with the next flowers as he started getting the hang of his skill.

The worms came out with different sizes, shapes, colors, and textures, even from the same sources. During that process, he realized that the first worm had been surprisingly big. It was almost shocking how big of a worm had come from such a small flower. The other worms were a little more proportional to the size of their sources.

After learning how to use the skill, Zach started aiming for consistency.

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Since Alzara was busy testing a bunch of things with the first worm still, he didn't try for anything else, not that he knew what he needed to do to improve the quality. But it was like with his first skill. Through practice, he would improve and develop more ways to use the skill.

Just like with most everything else related to summoning and his skills, Zach was enchanted by it and soon forgot any fatigue as he focused solely on understanding the use of his skill. His surroundings seemed to fade, and time passed by in what felt like a flash. He still had a sense of Alzara's activity and Yanael's presence, but it was like soothing background noise.

His two familiars and their being close and doing their own things helped Zach relax and focus on practicing Material Extraction. It was such a nice atmosphere that he didn't even notice when Nora came and brought food for him to eat.

Suddenly, there was just a table with food and drinks next to him. He glanced around for a moment and saw Yanael and Nora standing off to the side. It looked like they were talking about different ways to handle weapons and stances.

Zach was content knowing they got along, though he wondered if Alzara and Yanael would ever get along that well. Then, he returned to his worm-making.

At the end of the night, right before dawn, Alzara was finally done with the preliminary tests on the first worm. And Zach was beginning to feel pretty done with life. He was tired. He had been so caught up in his skill that he didn't realize that, just like Blessed Defense, it drained his stamina when he used it a lot.

However, Blessed Defense's energy loss was minimal as long as the barriers didn't break. Material Extraction didn't use as much as when the barrier broke, it also didn't seem like there was any backlash, even if he made an ugly worm. But each worm was like taking a walk or going for a light jog.

After a stack of worms, Zach was drained.

But it wasn't for nothing.

The worms at the top of the pile were more regular, more uniform in color, and had a more even shape.

Alzara looked at the pile of worms with a regretful expression before facing Zach with her head hanging forward until her chin almost touched the base of her throat. She clasped her hands together.

"I am sorry for making you do this much, Master."

"It's fine. It's good training."

"No, I should have concluded my tests and stopped you sooner." Alzara lightly shook her head. "Your skill is great. It makes the potent substances in the resources much easier to work with. However…"

Alzara took a quick breath before continuing.

"These worms you create contain both the useful materials and all the impurities. And they're seamlessly blended together. Since the worms are so easy to work with, I can still separate them. But it ends up being about the same amount of work as if I were to try and extract the useful materials from the raw resource." Alzara bowed in apology.

She had made Zach work through the night only to tell him that everything he had made when he was done was the same as him having done nothing. She had indirectly called all his hard work useless.

Zach stared blankly at Alzara for a moment before raising her upper body. Bowing, being apologetic, and anxiously awaiting what he was going to say didn't fit her. He was a little surprised to see this side of her that he hadn't expected.

But Alzara hadn't expected Zach to throw so many valuable resources at her. It was more and more precious than she had thought she would ever get, even if she asked for everything. And while she wasn't familiar with the Empire, the Academy, or most of the resources she had received, she knew how to discern between things that were useless and things that were precious.

Zach had poured a boatload of wealth into this endeavor at her thoughtless request.

There was no way she could just joke around right now.

"I mean, it would have been useful to know that earlier, but now, I got to play around with my skill and experiment without a goal in mind. I got to research and discover on my own without worrying about achieving something specific. If I had tried to only get rid of the impurities, I might have missed something else.

Besides, did you discover everything about these worms from that one?" Zach nodded at the remaining charred, sliced, diced, melted, and stretched worm stump.

"...No, I still have a lot to learn, Master," Alzara admitted.

Zach nodded. Sёarch* The novёlF~ire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

"It works out in the end. Use these for experiments. You know the details better than I do, so just do what you want with them. And I'll start figuring out how to get rid of impurities of worms that you can use when actually crafting potions that we will use or sell."

"Okay…" Alzara meekly nodded and continued experimenting while Zach slowly ambled over to the bed Nora and Yanael had brought.