There is a shelf in the Seventh Atelier that remains perpetually draped in heavy, velvet shadow.

It is not that I am hiding what sits there; it is simply that the sun, in all its local arrogance, is far too "loud" a light to be in its presence. My patrons often come for the Sands of Time or a jar of Space Traveller’s Fuel, their eyes scanning the labels, the leather, and the glass. But occasionally, a customer—perhaps one more observant than the rest—notices the soft, rhythmic pulsing coming from behind the velvet.

A heartbeat? Perhaps. Or perhaps just the sound of a secret breathing.

Behind the curtain sits a vial of Ein Sof Essence.

In the trade of alchemy, we speak often of "rare ingredients." We trek across the Silent Peaks for frost-moss or barter with mermaids for salt-crusted scales. But the Essence is not an ingredient. It is a precedence. It is the "Item Zero" from which all other flavors in my collection are merely echoes.

I am often asked what it tastes like. I tell them it tastes like the moment before a star is born—a sharp, electric silence followed by an overwhelming warmth.

I am then asked, invariably, for the price.

I have been offered the keys to cities that haven't been built yet. I have been offered a way to reverse the gray in my beard and the weariness in my bones. I have declined them all. Not because I am a saint, but because the Seventh Atelier is built on a single, fragile promise: that some things in this vast, sprawling multiverse are not meant to be possessed. They are only meant to be remembered.

For now, the velvet stays closed. But its influence... well, if you’ve tasted the latest batch of my Ether Tea, you might have noticed a certain "shimmer" in the aftertaste.

Consider that a gift. Some secrets are too heavy to carry alone, but they are light enough to sip.

— Professor Eldrin Nightshade Chief Archivist