kscans

Chapter 276 - Buying Catalysts 1. Various Catalysts

As a result of his fruitful meeting with the enchanter, something new rose in priority for Yuri to acquire. Catalysts.

The first thing Yuri wanted from "enchanting," after all, was to avoid the dangerous "Accidental Enchantment." To that end, it was important to "repeat enchanting with the correct procedure and establish a proper form," which basically meant "repeat enchanting practice." Therefore, securing catalysts for that purpose was an inevitable and unavoidable course of action.

Under this theoretical justification, Yuri gleefully went on a shopping spree for things that could be used as catalysts.

For the catalysts used in basic enchanting, the enchanter Omo had given him a list. Looking it over, there were several items that could be obtained on Salt-Sour Mountain. Some of them fetched a high price in the outside world, but if they could be gathered on Salt-Sour Mountain, there was no need to buy them here. So he skipped those and focused on buying things that were hard to come by on Salt-Sour Mountain. Interestingly, among the items that were originally used and distributed for other purposes, there were several that could be repurposed as catalysts for enchanting. Some of these were things Yuri had never paid any attention to before. So he bought those anew. ...Yuri had never imagined that there would be something among women’s cosmetics that could be used as a catalyst.

Regarding the types of catalysts, he initially relied on the list he got from Omo, but Yuri had a sudden idea and, discreetly, used [Appraisal] on the objects. As a result,

(Wow... a description saying it can be used as a catalyst has been added...)

It seemed that with the unlocking of [Enchantment] as a sub-skill of [Rural Life Guide], the content of [Appraisal] had changed. It now seemed to display whether something could be used as a target or catalyst for enchanting.

Yuri was surprised by the list from Omo and the teachings of Professor [Appraisal] to find that unexpected things could be used as catalysts, and that as a result, the types and numbers of catalysts he could obtain were surprisingly large. That said...

(Hmm... as expected, many of them are used as materials for alchemy and pharmacology. They probably tried things they had on hand when looking for catalysts for enchanting.)

Yuri discerned this trend from the list he got from Omo and the teachings of Professor [Appraisal]. Obtaining alchemy materials was a bit of a hassle, but medicinal herbs and the like could be obtained relatively easily. One might want to say that medicinal herbs should also grow on Salt-Sour Mountain, but in fact, the types that grew on Salt-Sour Mountain, while having high medicinal effects, were often unusable as catalysts for enchanting. When considering their use as catalysts, the lower-grade substitutes sold in Laurenzen were more suitable.

So Yuri went on a shopping spree, focusing on such medicine-related items. Of course, behind this was the ulterior motive of trying to cultivate them in his own village if he could. To "cultivate" a completely dried crude drug would sound utterly ridiculous to an onlooker, but Yuri had his cheat-like [Wood Magic] and the [Magic Remodeling] skill. He hadn't been able to tissue-culture from dried fruit the last time he tried, but it might become possible in the future. In anticipation of that time, it wouldn't be a waste to collect even just samples. There were also recipes that used fresh medicinal herbs, and if that was the case, it wouldn't hurt to buy and take back such herbs, regardless of whether they could be used as catalysts.

At any rate, with that plan in mind, Yuri was diligently collecting medicinal materials... but among the things he collected were some that were a little different from what you would call "medicine."