After listening to Lucas go on and on about how he had suddenly gained inspiration from his trip to old Butcher Farah's shop, Anna and Drake couldn't help bursting into a fit of laughter.
Their son, who for the past few months had always been so calm and collected, had actually gone into a kind of frenzy just because he might have found the secret ingredient he needed to complete his own Bathing Cream.
The two adults found it quite amusing.
On the other hand, seeing his parents laughing so hard caused Lucas to pout, wondering why they couldn't understand his joy and excitement.
Eventually, Anna and Drake regained their composure and wiped away the tears from the corners of their eyes. They then comforted and apologized to their sulking son before volunteering to help him.
The offer of assistance was enough to perk Lucas right back up as he first asked his mom to start rendering the boar fat. After that, the young boy turned to his dad and asked him to make him a set of 3 wooden bowls to use for his experiment.
Drake was a blacksmith by trade, but he also did a fair bit of woodwork, so together with his son, the pair managed to carve out the necessary bowls in just over an hour. They weren't pretty, and certainly weren't good enough to eat from given their rough, uneven surfaces, but they would do as simple containers.
By the time the father and son were done, Anna had also finished rendering the fat from the boar trimmings and cooled it down to the point where it was still liquid, but not too hot to the touch.
All that was left now was to make some mixtures.
With the necessary ingredients and equipment in front of him, and his experimental notebook open, Lucas carefully added 1 spoonful of his Ash-Water to one of the bowls, 2 scoops to another, and 3 scoops to the last one.
He then added 2 scoops of clean water to the first bowl, and 1 scoop to the second.
Next, Lucas added 3 spoonfuls of lard to the 33%, 67%, and 100% concentrations of Ash-Water and stirred each one vigorously.
Lucas was planning to stop here and wait to see what happened, but once he was done stirring up his different mixtures, he noticed that all of them, even the one with the most lard in it, were still quite runny.
He didn't know if this was what it was supposed to look like at this point, but it instinctually didn't seem right to him.
Thinking so, Lucas decided to add another spoonful of lard to each cup, and then another, and then another before he finally stopped. The mixtures now had the consistency of porridge, which he somehow felt was closer to what it was supposed to look like.
Making adjustments on the fly like this went against his usual rigorous mindset, but Lucas was just guessing and following his instincts right now, so he figured there was no such thing as a mistake at this point. Noting down which cup had which concentration, he then set them aside, uncovered as they needed to dry, and nodded in approval.
Turning around, Lucas caught his parents smiling at him and couldn't help blushing again.
"Now what?" Anna took the initiative to ask.
"Now we wait for…" Lucas started to reply, but then realized he didn't know how long he should wait for.
Seeing their son in an awkward position, Drake walked over, patted him on the head, and suggested, "Let's leave them for today, and check on them tomorrow."
With no better suggestion to offer, Lucas nodded meekly before thanking his parents.
For the rest of the day, Lucas was distracted, to say the least. He still got all his chores done, but his mind was clearly wandering back to his Bathing Cream experiment.
It took a great deal of willpower for him to not run over every hour to check on the drying process.
Eventually, the day passed and night fell, with Lucas tossing and turning for quite some time before he finally fell asleep.
…..
The following day, for the first time in months, Lucas overslept, waking with a start and jumping out of bed only to realize it was too late for his morning exercise routine. Shaking off the lingering drowsiness, the young boy raced around, getting dressed before dashing into the kitchen where his parents were waiting for him with breakfast already ready.
Sheepishly lowering his head, Lucas avoided the smiling eyes of his mother and father as he sat down and began eating his porridge and boiled duck egg.
There was some light conversation around breakfast about the new sword Drake was working on in his smithy and about the Town Guard's progress with learning the modified Unarmed Foundations Art, but the topic of the Bathing Cream was carefully not brought up.
Anna and Drake, while slightly amused at their son's behaviour, decided not to tease him too much about it. As far as they were concerned, it was a good thing he was acting more his age, getting all excited and worked up over something he was interested in.
Finally, as the family of 3 were finishing their meal, Anna asked the question, "By the way, Lucas, why don't we try using your new Bathing Cream to wash the dishes today?"
"Yes!" Lucas practically shouted as he jumped out of his chair and ran over to where he had left his experimental Bathing Cream yesterday, drawing wry chuckles from both Anna and Drake.
Upon arriving at a corner of the kitchen, Lucas grabbed the first of the 3 rough wooden bowls and began inspecting it excitedly. However, his enthusiasm was just as quickly dampened when he found a wet slurry with a few soft solid chunks floating in it.
According to the label, this bowl was the one with the 33% concentration of Wood-Ash. The mixture had only partially set and resembled more of a chunky soup than the solid bar he was hoping for.
Frowning slightly, Lucas pulled the 67% mixture over and was relieved to see that there was a big, solid piece in it. However, this chunk appeared a bit rough and there was still some excess water in the bowl. Perhaps if he let it dry out for longer, it would fully come together, but Lucas didn't think this was what he was looking for.
Seeing the progress made from the 33% mix to the 67% mix gave Lucas hope, however.
With great expectations, the boy reached for the 100% concentration mixture, and what greeted him brought a grin back to his face. This mixture had solidified completely, and while it was still a bit soft and crumbly to the touch, it nearly held its shape when he pressed his finger against it.
Immediately, a bunch of new thoughts rushed through Lucas' head about how to proceed next. He needed to measure the amount of Ash-Water and fat more carefully, he needed to see if using different kinds of fat worked better, he needed to see if waiting longer for the solid Bathing Cream to set was necessary, and so on and so forth.
But, the first step thing he needed to take was to see whether this prototype actually worked.
Setting aside the two failures, deciding to let them dry out for another day or two and see what happened, Lucas picked up the 100% concentration bowl, tried to remove the puck of Bathing Cream, and right away discovered a problem.
It was stuck.
Try as he might, there was no way to pry the puck out with his fingers, and even turning the bowl over and tapping it against the counter didn't produce any results. Eventually, Lucas had no choice but the bring the bowl over to Anna and with a faint blush on his cheek explain, "Um, Mom, I think this one is a success, but it's kinda stuck to the bowl. I think the only way to get it out is to scrape it out with a spoon or cut it out with a knife…"
Stifling a laugh, Anna rubbed her son's head and comforted him, "Alright, Lucas. Just remember to think about how to avoid this happening next time."
Nodding meekly, Lucas mentally added 'how to get the solid Bathing Cream out of its mold' to the list of things he needed to look into.
It didn't take long for Anna to extract the puck of Bathing Cream from its mold, though there was still a fair bit of it left stuck to the wooden bowl. Regardless, this was more than enough for an initial test.
Lucas wrapped the small chunk of solid Bathing Cream in a kitchen cloth and dunked it into a basin of water before scrubbing it vigorously. It took a while, but eventually a kind of slippery, foamy substance built up on the cloth, causing Lucas to cheer out happily.
It took much more effort to develop this bit of foam, and there weren't nearly as many bubbles as when he used the real Bathing Cream, but Lucas didn't care about that in this moment. Right now, he was just overjoyed to get even this kind of modest result as it indicated he was on the right track.
Grabbing a dirty bowl from breakfast, Lucas began scrubbing it with the foamy cloth and found that it was indeed much easier to get the leftover bits of food off of it. What's more, after rinsing off his hands, while they felt a bit dry, they didn't itch like when he used Ash-Water alone.
Looking over at his parents, Lucas flashed a huge smile and declared, "It works! It really works!"
Smiling warmly, Anna and Drake gave their son a big hug and encouraged him, "Good for you, Lucas. Keep at it and you'll soon have your very own unique invention! Who knows, you might even be able to get rich from selling it!"
Anna and Drake weren't just coddling Lucas when they said this, as they were well aware of how determined their son was to make his own Bathing Cream.
They had no doubt he would eventually succeed.
As for Lucas getting rich once he perfected his new solid Bathing Cream, that wasn't just empty talk either. Thanks to Sasha's recent purchase, the two adults knew that a small bottle of Bathing Cream from the capital cost about 1 Gold and 4 Silvers. Although a significant part of that cost was due to Redwood Town being so remote, the base cost was obviously still quite high; probably at least 1 Gold Coin.
On the other hand, the ingredients to make the small puck of solid Batching Cream Lucas was using right now cost less than 20 Copper Coins, almost all of which were from purchasing the lard as wood ash and water were essentially free.
Even if it ended up costing Lucas 50 Coppers to make a fist sized block of solid Bathing Cream, as long as it worked even half as well as the real Bathing Cream, the boy could easily market it for 2 or 3 Silvers a piece and still have people tripping over themselves to buy it!
The prospects for this new product were so astonishing that for a moment, Drake seriously considered whether it would be worth it to switch from blacksmithing to just helping his son make solid Bathing Cream.
Of course, this was just a fleeting thought as getting into a totally untested business was a big risk and he also quite enjoyed his life as a blacksmith. Still, that didn't stop the proud father from deciding to fully support his son in this endeavour.
As for the inventor in question, Lucas wasn't thinking about profit or future benefits, he was just happy he would soon be able to have all the Bathing Cream he wanted and would never have to endure that icky feeling of not being clean ever again.
There were still a large number of experiments he would need to run in order to perfect his new product, but that didn't dampen his enthusiasm in the slightest. In fact, the whole process of discovery and invention brought a great sense of fulfilment to Lucas, making him very eager to get started.