The alchemist can be found in the cellar of the miller's house in the Broken Valley village. Each time you level up you can also go check various merchants who can carry food and potions.
For the creature you need to talk to the necromancer (in a cave above and north of the destroyed chapel in the starting section of Broken Valley, near where there is a teleporter shrine and a teleporter pad that asks for a password), and then find a crystal skull, in a mine in the far west of Broken Valley, south of the enchanter and fortune teller (I reached the enchanter on level 12, and made it to 13 clearing the black ring members in the area south of there).
I was lucky enough to find a formula for level 10 healing aura in the cellar of the enchanter's house (with a bit of reloading), and adding that to two pieces of jewelry really made a difference at that level. Any healing aura requires a relatively rare malachite gem, though several are available for purchase or as quest rewards in Broken Valley, and if you reload at malachite viens it wouldn't be terribly hard to get a couple dozen throughout the game. For non-healing auras, the effect of level 9 is almost the same as level 10 (which require a malachite gem), but they only need relatively common ingredients, so that was all I used.
If you are playing a warrior, level 1 of Life Leech should help (not sure what the level requirements are for the Regenerate skill are).
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