Hearing this, Lucas was disappointed, but not entirely surprised. He knew that it was a long shot in the first place, so he quickly composed himself, "Thank you, Aunty Sasha."
Seeing the down expression on Lucas' face, Sasha felt a little bad for not being able to help him, especially when he had given her and her family such a valuable gift in the form the Unarmed Foundations Martial Art. Wanting to offer at least something useful to her nephew, Sasha suggested, "A Rising Sun Merchant Guild caravan should be passing through town sometime in the next few days. I can put in an order for a bottle of Bathing Cream for you if you'd like, Lucas."
"Really!?" Lucas was naturally ecstatic, though when he recalled how both his mother and Aunt Sasha said it was a very expensive product, he felt awkward and lowered his head, "Y-You don't have to do that, Aunty Sasha. I don't want to cause trouble for you."
Smiling warmly, Sasha just shook her head and declared, "Just think of it as a late birthday gift from all of us. Besides, even if it's the Rising Sun Merchant Guild, there's no guarantee that it will be possible to obtain such a product. On top of that, if it is possible to put in an order, it will still take a while as it will likely have to come from the capital."
Looking around and seeing the looks on everyone's face, Lucas knew it would be rude to refuse any further, so he nodded sheepishly while trying hard not to smile. He wasn't sure why he was so interested in obtaining this 'Bathing Cream', he just knew that every time he rinsed himself off after working up a sweat, he felt as if he wasn't really clean, which was bothering him quite a bit recently.
Ending the lessons for today, Anna went to oversee the Town Guard's patrol and training schedule while Charles went back to his office to finish up some paperwork he hadn't gotten to this morning.
Eris was reluctantly dragged off by Sasha to wash off their sweat, though the latter hadn't actually perspired much since she was already in the Sixth Step Vein Opening Realm and didn't find Lucas' lesson all that taxing. As for Lucas himself, he made his way back home, which didn't take long as he lived practically next door to the Town Lord's Manor.
Arriving back home, Lucas went to see what his father was up to, and upon finding Drake hard at work in the smithy, with a focused look on his face, the young boy decided it would be best not to disturb him and instead began doing his daily chores.
After putting away the dry laundry and bringing some firewood over from the woodshed to the kitchen, Lucas went inside and opened the stove to empty out the ashes when he suddenly paused and stared at the dark grey material in front of him.
Recalling what his parents had said about using wood-ash to clean up blood on their clothes when they were adventuring, Lucas couldn't help falling into his thoughts. Something about the idea of wood-ash, cleaning, and Bathing Cream had jogged his memories.
Not his own memories, of course, but the new ones he had acquired after the accident.
Unlike with the Unarmed Foundations Martial Art, this new set of memories was quite vague and indistinct, and it was taking a lot of the young boy's focus just to recall even the slightest details about the washing product he wanted to acquire so badly.
I know Aunty Sasha called it Bathing Cream, and both her and Mom said that it was a thick white liquid, but if I'm not remembering incorrectly, the thing I keep thinking about was a solid… almost like a small brick, Lucas thought to himself.
As he tried his best to call upon his newfound memories, Lucas saw himself washing his body with some kind of bar, that when he scrubbed with a cloth produced a lot of bubbles. There seemed to be a lot of these memories, like washing himself with that bubbly cloth and bar happened frequently, but similar to how he couldn't recall what he had for dinner a month ago, only that he had eaten dinner, the boy couldn't clearly see what it was he was doing during those bathing scenes.
As an aside, it was through memories like this one that Lucas was able to confirm that whoever he inherited these new memories from was indeed a man, a fact he was very grateful for; after all, having the memories of an adult woman in his head would probably be… taxing on his mind.
Lucas figured that the Bathing Cream his Aunt Sasha talked about, and the strange bar he saw in his memories, were different versions of the same thing, which made sense as both products seemed to have very similar purposes. He also had an inkling that wood-ash was somehow related to these products as well, though he had no idea how.
The longer he pondered on this issue, the more frustrated Lucas became.
Eventually, the boy smacked his own cheeks and decided that the best way to figure out this mystery was to run some experiments. Since nobody could tell him how these bathing products were made or how they worked, he would just take what he knew, and try things himself until he got what he wanted.
Of course, there was always the option to just wait and hope that his Aunt Sasha could get him a bottle of Bathing Cream to use, but Lucas didn't know how long he would have to wait for that, or if it was even possible.
What's more, assuming he did get a bottle of Bathing Cream, just how many times could he wash himself clean with it? What would happen when he ran out? If it was really that expensive and difficult to acquire, finding a way to make something similar himself was still his only option if he wanted to regularly feel clean from now on.
Feeling determined, Lucas began emptying out the ashes from the stove into a bucket before carrying it outside and looking for his dad again.
Drake seemed to be taking a break from the heat of the furnace, so when Lucas came toddling over, he smiled and asked, "How was the lesson, Son?"
"It went well. After we reviewed the Stances and Figures, I taught Uncle, Aunty, and Eris some more of the Motions. Big Sister Eris picked them up right away while Uncle and Aunty needed a little bit of time to understand them," Lucas began prattling on and on about his day, seemingly forgetting all about why he had come looking for his dad in the first place.
It wasn't until about a quarter-hour later that Lucas finally recalled his original purpose and asked, "Dad, do you have any old pieces of cloth that you're not using anymore? And some small buckets would be good as well."
Confused by the strange request, Drake naturally asked, "What do you want old cloth and buckets for, Lucas?"
"I want to run some experiments with them!" Lucas replied enthusiastically.
Tilting his head to the side, Drake frowned for a moment before asking, "What are these… experiments you're talking about?"
Feeling like he hadn't explained himself very well, Lucas said in a rather nonchalant manner, "Well, after our lesson today, Mom helped me ask Aunty Sasha about that washing product I was talking about this morning, and she said it was something called Eu… Euphor… Euphoric Cleans… Euphoric Body… something called Bathing Cream."
Now better understanding why everyone referred to it by its short form, Lucas was forced to wonder who came up with such a ridiculously long and cumbersome name for this product.
Shaking off this minor distraction, he continued, "Anyways, Aunty Sasha said that this Bathing Cream is expensive and hard to get, so I was going to try to make some myself. I have a few clues about it from my new memories and I think if I keep working on it, I'll be able to remember more, the same way it worked with all the new exercises and equipment I was able to recall. If I'm right, then…"
Before Lucas could continue his ramblings, Drake waved his hands to get his son's attention and interrupted, "No no, not that. I meant, what are experiments, Son?"
"Huh?" This time it was Lucas' turn to be confused; after all, experiments were experiments, weren't they?
After a short silence, Lucas realized his mistake.
Once again, he was talking about something that inherently made sense to him, but was clearly a foreign concept to his father, which could only mean one thing. The word 'experiments' and the concepts that defined it came from his inherited memories.
This was beginning to become a bit of a bad habit, blurting out things he wasn't supposed to, but Lucas had no idea how to control that, so he set that matter aside for now.
Rubbing his forehead, the young boy tried to organize his thoughts and memories before explaining, "Experiments are a method of testing out ideas you have to try to answer specific questions."
Seeing the half-understanding, half-confused expression on his father's face, Lucas knit his brow trying to think of a better way to describe what seemed like basic knowledge to him. Fortunately, upon looking around, Lucas had a burst of inspiration and asked, "Dad, how did you learn how to turn an iron ingot into a sword?"
Although he was even more confused by his son's sudden question, Drake still answered, "I learned from an old acquaintance many years ago. He was a blacksmith by trade and your mother and I would often go to him to have our equipment repaired. I took an interest at the time and decided it would be a good idea to learn a professional skill that didn't involve risking our lives for the day we decided to stop adventuring."
"En en," Lucas nodded, probing again, "And did you know the best temperature at which to heat the metal in order to work with it right away?"
"Of course not," Drake shook his head, "It took me a long time and many attempts to get a feel for it.
"Exactly!" Lucas clapped his hands excitedly, "You must have heated up pieces of iron for different lengths of time and to different temperatures and then hammered them to see if you got it right. If you did, great, if not, you adjusted your process. That is the process of experimentation."
"Hmm, I think I understand what you're saying now," Drake muttered as he began pondering to himself. The old blacksmith he was talking about had indeed given him some lessons, though they never formally became Master and Apprentice, so Drake himself had to fumble around quite a bit in the early stages to teach himself more about how to work with metal and make useful items. Fortunately for Drake, that old blacksmith allowed him to use his shop whenever he was in town in exchange for some discounted Beast materials.
Looking back on it now, Drake realized that he had done a lot of 'experiments', as his son had put it, in order to raise his skills to what they were today. In fact, this whole concept of experiments was nothing new to him, it was just that he had never heard anyone refer to the process formally in such a way. Thinking as such, he couldn't help asking, "What's the difference between an experiment and simply learning by doing?"
Rubbing his chin, which would have made him look older were he not literally 9-years-old, Lucas tried his best to explain, "Learning by doing isn't an organized process, I guess? For a proper experiment, one should ask a question, guess what the answer might be, find a way to test if that guess is correct, collect and analyse results from their test, then refine their guess before performing more tests."
Drake reviewed what his son had just taught him and felt that this would indeed be a more efficient method of learning than simply fumbling around until you got it right.
Drawing on his own experiences, Drake imagined that when he had first started hammering metal, if he had recorded exactly how long he heated an ingot before taking it out and hammering it, depending on if it was underheated or overheated, he could have found the right timing faster than just doing so by feel and experience. While the latter method certainly worked, it was clearly less efficient.
Drake even felt that some of the projects and products he was working on right now would benefit from using this method of 'experiments'.
My son really picked up a lot of useful knowledge. Even a different method of approaching problems can be quite valuable, Drake couldn't help thinking to himself.