Chapter 245

“Describe counter- and inter-sympathy,” Sabina said. “And some interesting examples.”

As expected, difficulty was ramping up. This was still a common conceptual question, though moving beyond the basics, especially since she’d asked for interesting examples. Zoey mulled it over, finding it increasingly difficult to keep her thoughts in order with her teacher standing naked in front of her. And with how Zoey herself was currently wearing a tight-fitting black latex bodysuit that was surprisingly pleasant in its own right, conformed to fourteen inches of aching girlcock.

“Counter sympathy describes the unwanted, negative, or muting effects of certain reagents,” Zoey said. “It’s essentially the same as normal reagent sympathy toward a concept, though counter-sympathies are rarer and less potent, and thusly less studied. Still have to be aware of them, though, since they could affect a brew—especially if there’s some counter sympathy harming the primary desired effect. Hm. Inter-sympathy is more interesting. Some reagents will affect potions in specific ways only when used together or in certain groupings or ratios.”

She hummed.

“Interesting examples,” she said. “For counter-sympathy, willow bark. It’s associated with pain relief and fever reduction, a natural healing reagent, but it has a counter-sympathy to blood flow. So in a healing potions where that’s important ... well. You know. Careful using it. An example of inter-sympathy would be,” she mulled it over for a second, “lavender, rosemary, and sage. Used together in equal parts, they produce clarity effects beneficial to mages beyond what would be expected from the sum of their parts.” She hesitated. “There’s probably more interesting examples, but those come to mind.”

Thankfully, Sabina didn’t seem disappointed in the standard examples she’d chosen. Zoey assumed that was because she was only a student of less than a month; she could hardly be expected to be an expert in alchemy. There were probably all sorts of counter- and inter-sympathies that were truly fascinating, and Zoey obviously wouldn’t be able to name any that impressed her teacher, who was, Zoey figured, even more capable of an alchemist than her advancement would suggest.

“A satisfactory answer,” Sabina said, and Zoey knew she meant it, even if she hadn’t impressed her. There was nothing a student could say to impress the master. “Drink this.”

A potion had appeared in Sabina’s hand, a thin vial of glass which she held toward Zoey.

Zoey grabbed it while peering at it curiously. It looked familiar.

[Potion of Virile Output]: Greatly increases the virile output of the consumer.

Ah. Right. That was Sabina’s ultimate goal, after all. After a lingering attention on the murky orange liquid, she uncapped the vial and downed it. It was thick and sweet—a more pleasant taste than most potions. She shivered as it went down, a reaction that accompanied basically any potion. It was, after all, magical fluid she’d ingested.

Her cock twitched heavily, which Zoey gave equal odds to simple excitement at what consuming the potion meant for Sabina’s eventual goals, and an actual imbuement of virility. She already tended to spurt out some impressive finishing payloads, so what would a potion like this—hand-crafted by Sabina—make her upcoming climax like?

The demand for Zoey to put on her latex bodysuit made sudden sense. Assuming Sabina was going to get ... more involved ... than usual, the suit would mean valuable ‘reagents’ would be preserved. Trapped inside the suit like with a condom. It would even work if Zoey finished inside Sabina, rather than milked out into some device.

Was that Sabina’s goal? For her to finish inside?

Even if it wasn’t, Zoey’s heart started slamming at just the possibility.

“Sixth question,” Sabina said, and Zoey couldn’t find it in herself to be disappointed the potion had been her only reward for the fifth. Not with the realizations that had come. “Hermetic sealing.”

Zoey blinked. A part of her almost wryly pointed out that she hadn’t actually asked a question, but that would be pedantic; it was implied.

Hermetic sealing. She dug through her memories, the hours spent poring over Sabina’s suggested alchemy texts.

“Not just physically sealing a potion away in a container,” Zoey said, “which is necessary for a potion to settle properly. But a total isolation enforced with magical wards—a supernatural level of isolation. It allows for higher potency as the potions sit and distill.”

“Quite correct,” Sabina said approvingly.

“Do the d’Celestins have a vault for that? Hermetic sealing?”

“They do,” Sabina said. “There’s little they don’t have. Though frankly the benefits of the process are minimal.”

“Small benefits add up,” Zoey pointed out.

“Indeed. Yet it’s nonetheless cost prohibitive for the average alchemist.”

“But if cost isn’t an issue...” Zoey led with a shrug. Which might become the case if their business really took off. And it surely would, seeing how they were offering a suite of products unique to this world.

Sabina inclined her head in agreement.

“My,” she said in segue. “Such a lucky teacher I am, to have a student so brilliant.”

Zoey flushed. There was a hint of genuine appreciation there, but honestly, Zoey wouldn’t call herself brilliant. If she allowed herself some benefit of the doubt, her middling grades throughout high school had been thanks to disinterest, not a lack of intelligence ... but she felt like that was making excuses.

Regardless, Sabina sounded like she meant the compliment, however much she’d delivered it halfway as a tease. Maybe there was something to say for the modern academic processes she’d grown up with. Zoey had been taught how to learn, something most medieval societies—though medieval surely wasn’t the correct word, not really, to describe the Fractures—wouldn’t give to the average citizen. By the standards of this world, Zoey was a scholar of sorts, if simply because of how much focus the modern world, comparative to previous time periods, gave to education.