César leaned back in his carved wooden chair, letting out a sigh as he dropped the reports onto the desk. The papers, filled with inventories and formulas, confirmed what he had already suspected: his plan was advancing rapidly.
"This is going well," he murmured, his gaze fixed on the list of new recovery pills.
Unconsciously, his eyes drifted toward the woman in front of him. Maris, the matriarch of the Butterfly Race, possessed an ethereal beauty that contrasted with the robustness of the minotaurs or the roughness of the goblins. César knew that without her, the advancement of alchemy in his village would be practically nonexistent.
'Who would have thought I'd encounter your people,' he thought, aware of how ironic life could be.
In the original novel, the Butterfly Race was barely a footnote, a species that had gone extinct long before the main story began. Humans had wiped them out due to their physical weakness. But César had changed that fate.
He had achieved something unheard of: bringing alchemy into the world ahead of time.
In the original timeline, the protagonist would develop this path alongside the Titan in his ring, but only as a last resort, lacking water affinity for potions. He never truly delved into it.
The second transmigrator, the one who reincarnated as an extra, also attempted it thanks to his mental powers, but his focus was always on commanding monsters, not mass production.
César, on the other hand, saw its industrial potential.
"Maris, you are my lucky angel," César said with a smile, pulling her closer and gently kissing her cheek.
Maris's face flushed a deep red. Flustered but happy at the praise, she curled up affectionately in his lap. César returned the embrace, feeling her tense slightly as she noticed the firmness of his body beneath her, though she did not pull away.
César picked up a small translucent crystal resting on the table: a Desc stone.
Before this discovery, he forced his subjects to cast basic spells of the four elements to determine their affinity through trial and error. It was a barbaric and slow method. However, a group of gnolls had discovered a mine filled with these stones while tracking Varmetal veins.
The Desc was not a legendary mineral, but finding an entire mine in this "poor zone" of the continent was an incredible stroke of luck. And even better was what came with it: the mine was inhabited by Maris's clan.
Butterfly Humans were weak, but they possessed an innate ability: Charm. With his knowledge of the novel, César discovered that this ability did not rely solely on mana, but used mental power as its primary source.
It was the missing piece.
He had planned to use his 'Mental Horses' to train a group in the art of alchemy, but the Butterfly Race had been born for it. By combining their innate mental capacity with his training method, he created the first alchemy division on the continent.
Under Maris's leadership, now his wife and a loyal matriarch, the Butterfly Race proved its worth. They did not produce liquid potions that were difficult to transport; they created pills.
Efficiency: a single healing plant, processed through alchemy, could produce a dozen pills.
Potency: a small pill was enough to close minor wounds almost instantly.
'Alchemy is the manipulation of matter through will,' César thought as he stroked Maris's hair. 'With the recipes I memorized and the butterflies' mental power, I hold a monopoly over medicine. In this world of war, whoever controls healing controls loyalty.'
César looked at the Desc crystal once more. With this stone, he could now classify his warriors' affinities with perfect precision, and with Maris's pills, he could keep them on the battlefield indefinitely. The gap between his village and the elite tribes of the center was beginning to close, not through brute force, but through science and foresight.
"Darling, how are the seed pills progressing?" César asked, finally looking away from the crystal.
Although the realm required to form an Elemental Seed was still far beyond the reach of most, César knew that foresight was his greatest weapon.
He planned for his people to have everything ready for the moment it was needed.
"Darling, the water and earth element seeds are progressing very well," Maris replied softly.
César nodded in approval and stood up. Maris gracefully rose from his lap, adjusting her translucent wings.
"Good. Take me to see how everything is going."
Maris nodded, and the two headed toward the exit. However, before crossing the threshold, César's gaze drifted toward a corner of the room, and he couldn't help but curl his lips into a faint expression of restrained astonishment.
There, protected within a nest of silk and controlled warmth, rested more than a dozen green eggs. They were Maris's children.
Among all his women, the butterfly matriarch was the only one who had given him such a numerous offspring in a single instance. Her insectoid biology allowed for an unprecedented demographic expansion.
Maris stopped when she noticed César wasn't following. When she saw him looking at the eggs, her expression softened, filling with deep love and maternal pride. To her, each egg was a promise of loyalty to the man she loved.
"Let's go," César said at last, regaining his composure as he walked down the corridor.
Maris smiled warmly and walked at his side.
After walking for a while, César and Maris arrived at the restricted Alchemy Zone. Unlike the minotaur quarries or the pigmen barracks, the atmosphere here was quiet, filled with a sweet herbal scent, interrupted only by the crackling of controlled flames.
The first thing that stood out was the demography. While males were the overwhelming majority in the other races of the village, the Butterfly Clan was the opposite: rows of vibrant-winged women worked with precision, while the few males handled specific supervisory tasks.
Inside small rune-carved stone furnaces, the alchemists processed the plants. It was not brute-force labor; with fluid movements, they tossed in the ingredients and stirred them rhythmically. The secret lay in their hands: without ceasing to apply mental power, they shaped the heated mixture until compressing it into a perfect sphere. The alchemist's will was the binding force that held matter together.
César nodded in satisfaction, mentally reviewing the catalog that was transforming his army:
Consolidation Pill: stabilizes newly formed mana cores, saving new mages weeks of tedious meditation.
Muscle Pill: strengthens bone and muscle fibers; a favorite among Aura users, creating bodies capable of enduring greater punishment.
Recovery Pill: restores fatigue and energy reserves, whether mana, aura, or ether; allows for more intense training and prolonged endurance in battle.
Healing Pill: drastically accelerates natural regeneration, reducing casualties and recovery time for wounded warriors.
Miracle Pill: slightly enhances innate talent, though it can only be used once; the true treasure of the village, offering hope to those with little potential.
'It's a good start,' César thought. Although he knew far more powerful recipes from the novel, he remained realistic. Current production depended on the crops cultivated by Maris's people within the mana greenhouses. He could not produce divine elixirs with common plants from the outskirts.
"You're doing well, Maris," César said aloud, watching as a young butterfly alchemist finished a Muscle Pill that shimmered with a coppery glow. "Your people's consistency is the engine that will allow our goblins and minotaurs not just to be strong, but unstoppable."
Maris smiled with pride, her antennae gently trembling. She knew that every pill leaving those furnaces was another step toward the rise of their new home and a silent sentence for their former enemies.
César shifted his gaze toward the greenhouses in the distance.
'The next step is acclimating mid-grade plants,' he decided. 'If I can make the seeds from the Great Mountain grow here, the alchemy of this place will cease to be mere craftsmanship and become legend.'