This was a rare thing to happen. All of the trade routes and towns were a buzz and all of Baltil was full of talk. It would certainly be a few days of excitement, booming trade, and perhaps a good show or two. After all, it wasn't every day that Alchemists from all over the world flocked to Baltil to participate in forging challenges.

It was a good thing too. If they did, then perhaps the dragons would wake, and the mountain cities would be completely destroyed, if not just by the hands of the accident prone alchemists alone. 

Scarlett had better control over her potions and enchantments than that though. She was there to represent the Dwarf Guild that had taken her in and trained her into the alchemist and artificer that she had grown to be over her lifetime. This was her chance to learn techniques from others and to show off her own work. She found a butterfly of excitement in her stomach as she walked through the crowded bazaar where the visiting Alchemists and Artificers had sent up stalls to show off their wares. She saw some things she was pretty impressed with, but nothing could beat her own work just yet. She doubted she would see anything that would. Her work, after all, was some of the best, and very few if any of the dwarves in Baltil would dispute that. 

"You should totally enter that contest in Baltil, Lise! It's for alchemists, so I bet it'll be fun! I'm not gonna sign up with a festival coming up back home, so why don't you sign up for it instead?" She heard about the upcoming alchemy competition which was being held in the dwarven city from her professor on a visit to Ataiyo. Liselotte had been content with conducting experiments with reagents and ingredients in her laboratory at home, occasionally venturing out to find new items or collect bones and scales to be distilled down. Preferring self-study over contests, it wasn't a surprise this didn't reach her ears until now. But Professor Ryou had pestered her so, and with a pinky promise that she wouldn't get kidnapped by horned goat-demons again–the half-elf was now back in the bustling mountain city. Signing up and entering as a contestant for the challenges was simple enough, but she was unsure if she would be able to last to the very end. Her specialties tended to take several hours for producing a satisfactory product, and left her mostly waiting.

She was watching a flask of distilled plant extract purify, keeping a close eye on the heat. It was a very painstaking process of evaporating the water from the oil without heating the oil into fumes. A condenser was attached above to catch the water vapor and condense it so it wouldn't fall back into the extract vial to be purified. She had taken inspiration from a stall selling rose perfume in Arri months ago, and thought of concocting her own mixtures that would have varying effects on the body. As extracts were the purest essence of a plant, their properties would be concentrated tenfold. And if mixed with a crystallizing agent she could produce floral-scented smelling salts, create fragrances with the addition of other oils and water, or add a single drop to imbue medicinal properties to plain water. Perhaps plain compared to complex enchantments and dazzling explosions, but it was fitting for her.

With the now-potent essence of snowbelle stabilized with melted amethyst dust settling, the once-clear liquid took on a lavender hue and thickened to a smooth consistency. This was the first time she was making this, so she had nothing to base her assumptions on. Liselotte carefully set it to cool, and observed. She noted that as the flask of essence cooled down, it did so quickly and made the surrounding air cooler. The addition of gentle heat temporarily slowed the rate of cooling. Pleased with her result, she moved it aside to a small pot with a mango seed. Taking a single drop from the flask, she dripped it directly onto the exposed seed. The seed glowed faintly for a moment, before the essence was absorbed. There seemed to be no obvious change, so she covered it up and gave it a sprinkling of water before casting a spell to accelerate its growth. In seconds, a green sprig pushed out from the soil and a small sapling had emerged. Now, it was time for the final test. The alchemist placed nevermelting icicles around the mango seedling before covering it with a bell jar. Frost immediately began to form on the glass, and she watched it carefully. 

The icicles would bring the temperature down to nearly freezing in minutes, far below the temperature mangoes typically grew in. However, something curious happened–or rather, didn't happen. The sapling didn't show any signs of frost damage to its leaves or stem, and was getting along just fine. Communing with the little sprig, she asked it how if was feeling and it replied that it felt perfectly fine, albeit a bit sleepy. This was great news to her! She might have stumbled upon something revolutionary; a new way to grow plants originating from different climates without years of plant crossbreeding and temperature-regulated greenhouses. Though she couldn't say for certain just yet, she would have to perform more trials to confirm her hypothesis.