"There! All set and done! Aetherium luminata!"

The chanting voice of Phyldiane filled the dark, cobblestone-lined room with trembling echoes, as her cooking pot over the brightly-blue sparkling flames glows with its embers. It was a success! And the slightly charred pot was filled with a cyan liquid, whose turbulent, oil-like essence swirl amidst the heat.

"I did it! Ha! A lightning buff potion!"

She danced quite a bit upon her success. She was so proud of her work. And what's more, none of her fellow classmates at the Incantorium Academica ever knew that she only spent a meager 5 white pearls on her ingredients.

"Take that, Mistulia! Once I show this to them tomorrow, that shoddy witch can shut the hell up on me!", she uttered in a gruntled tone as she slowly brews the cooked potion onto her glass bottle. In her mind, she insistently remembers what happened earlier at the Incantorium with the confrontation she has with her after class.

"You crazy! That's impossible, flea den.", Mistulia insisted, looking straight at Phlydiane's face. "Either you have to pay for a diamond crystal for it or you take months of cooking for that lightning buff potion to get."

"Nah, I can do it in hours, even tomorrow!", Phlydiane confidently told her. "Don't make it sound impossible just because I am better than you.", she said as her eyes rolled out.

"Oh, look who's talking. That one girl who thinks she is so good and can defy magic rules just because she got an A+ score in Mrs. Gemphrian's test!", Mistulia said in a mocking tone. "You will never do that, flea face, that is what the Book of Incantarions say is the minimum."

"Your rules don't apply to me, oh please. Unlike you who sticks with your books, I can make my own ways and explore. You are just smart, but not creative."

Mistulia casually puts her hand in her bag as if she is getting something.

"Alright, let's make a deal young lady. If you don't have a lightning buff potion by tomorrow, you drink this!", Mistulia said as she shows a bottle of brown liquid.

"What the hell is that?", Phlydiane asks in quite disgust.

"Oh, just my little ventrem confractio bottle. Drink it, and see how you puke your guts all over the place to my heart's desire!", Mistulia said with a grin.

"Deal! However if I brought, YOU drink that crap.", Phlydiane told her.

"Oh sure, either way. I will not drink this, trust me. You better off prepare your leather bags as you barf all over the place. Face me tomorrow, 2 AM at the moonsilver fountain at the plaza."

Phlydiane agreed to her demands, and walks away while being stared at with her classmates around her.

"Why are you staring at! Get off your lives, suckers! I got a job to do!", she said angrily as she hurried home.

Phlydiane, just finished with he potion work, raises her lightning buff bottle. At that moment her father, the great mage-alchemist Pernigcian, enters her room.

"Oh, what's that young lady? An experiment underway? You like to follow my work, don't you?", her father said as he folds his magic robes away. Chaffed with a beard and wearing his spectacles, he turns towards his daughter as she spoke.

"Yeah, I did this potion. Because my classmate couldn't believe me that I can make this in just a short time. So I made a bet on her."

"Really? You making bets now? That doesn't sound too nice for you to do."

"They just don't know your methods, father. They don't know your ideas and kept insisting that age-old Incantations book! Your ideas of alchemy can change magic!"

Her father laughed quite a bit, and patted her on her shoulder.

"Phlydiane, be responsible, okay? I don't want to reveal this to anyone. I trust you to keep it a secret."

"Why do you want it to be secret? This is marvelous!"

"Phlydiane, I don't know what will happen. If people found out about this, they might saw us as sorcerers, using black magic. And all I just want is your safety. I don't want you to get into trouble. So please, keep our methods secret, okay?"

Phlydiane reluctantly agrees as her father embraced her.

"Care to take a look at what you have done?", he asks her. Phlydiane reaches out her glass bottle.

"The lightning buff aetherium luminata. Let me guess, you used coal for this, right?" Phlydiane smiled a bit. "Coal and diamond are just the same form of one thing, just arranged differently. And that is what makes this possible. You will really make expense of doing it the old way. But hey, this is the last time you will do this. Keep it hidden as much as possible, okay?"

"Very well, father. I'll keep my promise.", Phlydiane agrees.