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"Confound this stick" was all that Valentino could say at the stick that dared not even stick to the mixture. It had dared to deny Valentino and would suffer a fate worse than paper walls.

Valentino would be sure to light this little sucker on fire as soon as he could.

Xiu grinned at the idea of anyone trying to eat incense, no matter how good it smelled, and simply shook her head. "It probably wouldn't taste very good, I imagine!" Not at all!

She paused so that she could eye the gum of arabic, her tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth as she eyeballed the thing and poured some into her mixture. Satisfied that she had poured enough, Xiu worked on mixing everything up again, noting with delight that the mixture was beginning to become dry to the touch. This was pretty cool!

With that careful part done, she turned to cast Levi a curious look. "What kinds of things does Popcorn usually like to eat anyways?"

(( Entering ))

Raziel had snuck in a few moments after the class had already started, only missing the very first bit of introduction where their teacher told them his name. Raziel was sure he'd pick it up soon over the conversation, and chose not to worry about it.

As the horseman talked, he paid careful attention. There was no chance he was going to screw things up this time in a place that he was unfamiliar with. When the bundles of things were passed around, Raziel turned them over carefully in his hands, examining them from all sides and trying to memorize the details of the objects.

Invictus continued to explain exactly what they were to do as students, and Raziel waited patiently, outlining the steps in his head so that he would hopefully to everything correctly. At the end of the horseman's lecture, Raziel removed the top try from his box and pulled out the Cedarwood Oil, Rose Petals, Nutmeg, Citron and Cumin.

He blocked out the noise and every other student in the room to focus on the task at hand. Raziel placed his ingredients together and carefully took his time to grind them into a fine powder. By the time he was done, the particles would have fit through spaces only water and air could manage.

Next, Raziel added the Charcoal Powder. Though because of how fine the grains of his other mixture was, he didn't add quite as much as he probably should have, reasoning that the more charcoal was needed for chunkier mixtures of ingredients.

Now it was time to add the Gum of Arabic to the powdery mess. kneading it all together, Raziel created a lump of stuff that seemed to all hold together, though it was overly sticky. He ended up with nothing but a bit of powder on his hands and it took a little bit of extra work to get the mix to adhere to the incense stick.

Raziel wasn't exactly known for being the patient sort and didn't wait very long for his incense to set. In fact, he hardly waited at all.

Step 1 Result: Cedarwood Oil, Rose Petals, Nutmeg, Citron and Cumin - 10
Step 2 Result: 2
Step 3 Result: 7
Step 4 Result: 7
Step 5 Result: 3

[Entering]

Sepheran listened carefully as Invictus spoke detailing how they were to complete their assignments. Sepheran thought to take things one step at a time, first choosing his ingredients. He finally decided on the ones from Batch 2 and began to grind them down. The more and more he worked on it the finer the ingredients became before the reached a point where he couldn't grind them down anymore.

First step reached he moved on to the next step. Grabbing some charcoal dust he started mixing it in, though a shift from Liannan made his hand release prematurely putting in more then he had originally planned. Still, nothing he could do about it. Sepheran decided to try and continue on anyways.

For the next step Sepheran grabbed some Gum of Arabic and added it to the mix unsure of how much to really use. He had already began to muck things up by using too much charcoal so he added a little less gum in hopes to even it out, though it didn't seem to help, in fact it was making it so much harder to bond. He tried to bond it to the sticks but it just wouldn't do. He would have to add more Gum to get it to stick.

Step 1 Result: Frankincense, Cinnamon, Nutmeg, Lemon Balm, Citron - 10
Step 2 Result: 9
Step 3 Result: 4
Step 4 Result: 6 <- even have to try again
Step 5 Result: 2

Charcoal, on the other hand, was not Jack was not a fan of, the dark stuff inking up his fingers, which only blackened as much as the fur on his ears and tail, streaking haphazardly and making it all the more difficult for him to work, his nose wrinkling from the minor sneer that he had plastered on his face as he added it meticulously to his mixture, trying to nurse it together so he wouldn't use too much.

After tipping what felt like a little too much charcoal in to the concoction, he mixed them together, his face softening up after the frustration started to wisp away, the smells coming through again and calming him a little. Sure it was going to burn a little slowly, but Jack-be-damned (how odd is that to say), he would enjoy this incense, even if it was out to kill him.

After a few minutes to cool down and some deep breaths, Jack went to work again on the bonding materials, his previous attempt sticking to his blackened fingers like a second skin, peeling here and there and just being an odd feeling.

Taking a little bit more time and going a little more slowly, he figured it out - after a lot of trial and error, and in the end the bonding stuck . . . well enough at least. Putting it aside, he came up to the final part, the boring part.