“Oh crap.” Storbon shook his head as he thought about just how nasty that must have been.
“So when the walls came down, most of the people couldn’t give a damn because their plumbing was all messed up and a quarter of the city were walking manure!”
“Did he mean to?” Storbon asked.
“If you ask him now, of course he did. He had no damn idea what would happen. Should have seen the look on his face, confused as hell—didn’t know what was going on. And we gave him a new nickname.” Roska took a moment, clearing any tears that might have appeared on her face.
“Well, what is it?” Storbon grinned.
“Shitaccaine Wu!”
Storbon let out a short laugh between his teeth as he shook his head. “He’s not going to lose that one for a while.”
“Nope. Which is why he’s probably hiding in the Alchemy lab.”
“As long as he doesn’t go near the sewage treatment plant, we should be all safe,” Storbon said.
“Yeah, we don’t need to see Shitaccaine Wu on the horizon.” Roska snorted.
“So what do you think our new orders are going to be?” Storbon asked.
Roska shrugged. “No clue. You might be sent off to the Second Realm or maybe the Third. We just got back, so I’m hoping for some more downtime—train with the rest of the fighting force, battlefield dungeon, get some good rewards.”
“I hope we can get more time down here, do some cross-training. When fighting the Zatan on a one-by-one basis, they weren’t that hard to deal with. I want to finish off body tempering at least and have my people advance their Body or Mana Cultivation more. Fighting against the beasts in the battlefield is one thing but we haven’t really fought against humans until Zatan. People might be weaker but they’re cunning,” Storbon said. The tactics they used were to leverage humans against one another, but doing the same thing with beasts was likely to bite them in the ass.
Storbon had a serious expression on his face. He had dealt with people back in the Second Realm but the people from Alva hadn’t.
“Also, I feel like we’re getting distant from one another—you know, on the side of the different teams—just because we’re all off doing our own thing. I’m putting forward the idea to mix up the parties and special teams so that people who want to go into the battlefield dungeon don’t need to go with their own people. They can go with others, learn to work together despite being in a different party or team,” Storbon said.
“That makes sense. I’d back it,” Roska said as they both got a message. The meeting had finished and they were being called to be debriefed.
The two of them finished off their mulled wine and headed for the barracks.
Walking through the dungeon, they saw familiar and new faces, new construction and signs of growth.
“I wonder what it’ll look like in another year?” Storbon asked.
“Bigger?” Roska shot back.
Storbon let out a laugh at her lightning-fast response as they kept walking.
Chapter: Pill Preparations
When Erik got word from Old Hei, he told the others in his group and rushed to the testing rooms. Using the right medallions, he was able to gain access to the testing room. Guards were standing outside. Knowing Erik already, they quickly checked him before letting him enter the room.
Old Hei had put a number of items on a table and then activated a formation.
Erik took in a deep breath. There were Alchemy tools and a cauldron on the table as well as a number of ingredients. Once the formation stopped, Erik pulled out more items and replaced them.
“You might be wondering what I’m doing. This testing room is a lot different from the pill-scape illusion formation that you were in. In that formation, you were given ingredients that were peak grade, though in real life all plants are different. With this testing room, it is possible to copy the ingredients that will be used and add them into the illusion. That way, there shouldn’t be any surprises when we begin. I have entered in my Alchemy tools as well. The closer the test is to reality when dealing with such an important thing, the closer the simulation will be to what we’ve got to do in the real world afterward. Enter in your tools as well and then we will start with the ingredient preparation.”
Erik pulled out his Alchemy tools and placed them on the formation.
Once that was complete, Old Hei activated the illusion formation again.
The room changed as the ingredients reappeared on a workbench with their tools located on it.
“Now we get started.” Old Hei pulled out the formula sheet and passed it to Erik.
Most of it had been relayed to him as they were traveling, but seeing it in front of him, Erik read over it all to make sure that what he remembered and the information contained in the formula lined up.
“Ready?” Old Hei asked after some time.
“Ready,” Erik said, his eyes firm and his resolve solid. This was not just another pill: it was a Master-ranked pill and with it, Erik would be able to directly help Rugrat get over his affliction. He had noticed the darkness creeping into Rugrat’s eyes and how his smiles had become forced. It was the reason that he had been down after the fight with the bandits with the White Orchid Trading Company.
Erik wanted to say something, but he knew that it would just be taken as him talking down to Rugrat. All he could do was throw his all into this pill.
“Take these.” Old Hei pulled out a box filled with pill bottles.
Erik opened one. “These?”
“Mind Calming pills to focus the mind and remove distractions of the world. It will allow us to work faster without loss in concentration,” Old Hei said.
Erik took in a sharp breath. To so casually give him a few dozen of the Journeyman-level pills, just so they had a greater ability to recall information and be relaxed for what was to come… The scale that I make pills and the way that high-tiered alchemists do is on completely different levels.
Erik and Old Hei moved to the ingredients, examining them one by one, preparing them, passing information back and forth as they worked, stopping only to eat and rest when they had reached their limits. Days passed as they reached the point that they could prepare the ingredients in their sleep. Then they moved to the formation stage.
***
Erik didn’t know how much time had gone by. Both he and Old Hei had been focused on forming the Mana Channel Revitalization pill time and time again. Old Hei was dealing with the cauldron and the reactions happening directly within, while Erik sat there, not daring to breathe loudly, lest he distract Old Hei.
There was a rumbling noise from the cauldron and then nothing.
Old Hei pulled back his flames and gave Erik a tired smile. He tapped the side of the cauldron. The top opened and a pill in the formation stage appeared in his hand.
Erik looked at it and then back to Old Hei.
“Okay, that’s three in a row, and one without the Mind Calming pills. I want us to complete two more before we try it,” Old Hei said.
“Sleep and eat?” Erik asked.
“Yes. We’ll start again tomorrow once we’re fully recovered.”
Erik nodded. Alchemy not only needed a great amount of concentration and knowledge, it also required one to have the patience to know when to rest and when it would be the best time to concoct a formulation.
Erik went to sleep and woke up to Old Hei checking over the ingredients and their tools once again.
They sat down for a simple breakfast. Even the food gave a passive buff to them.
==========
Increase in concentration, increased Stamina Regeneration for 8 hours.
==========
“Meals seem just a little overpowered. Pills can create great changes but then a well-made meal can have effects that last two or three days, though it doesn’t give numbers,” Erik said.
“Yes, well, meals usually give bonuses to hidden stats, stats that have an effect, like hunger on a person, but how can you quantify
how hungry you are? Kind of a hard one.” Old Hei smiled.
They quickly finished their food and moved to the workstation.
“For the first one, we’ll use the Mind Calming pills; for the second one, we’ll do it without,” Old Hei said.
“Okay.” Erik checked all of the tools and retrieved the first batch of ingredients. The pill formation was especially complicated: one not only needed to start forming the pill and combining the ingredients, some of the ingredients needed to be prepared and used at the same time the other ingredients were being combined. It put a massive strain on the person making the concoction, which was where Erik came in. He had to anticipate Old Hei’s needs and pass him the ingredient prepared just right so that it would not only perfectly mix, but Old Hei wouldn’t need to split his attention.
Thankfully, some of them could be prepared beforehand.
Old Hei sat down and closed his eyes, rotating the Mana in his system, calming himself as he had already taken a Mind Calming pill. Erik, meanwhile, used his tools to prepare the ingredients, storing the ones that didn’t need to be used right away but could hold on for a longer time. Then he moved to the starting ingredients.
“Beginning preparation phase one,” Erik said. The two of them talked constantly to keep communication flowing and the other informed.
Erik concentrated on several ingredients: heating, cooling, crushing and cutting them. “Complete!” Erik said.
“Temperature attained.” Hei opened the cauldron and raised his hand. Erik passed him a bowl with a prepared ingredient. Old Hei took it and put it inside. Erik passed him a vial filled with liquid, a crystal, and a glass-looking bead. Hei took them, adding them into the cauldron. Some ingredients were combined together while others were kept separate, needing to go through final changes before being added to the others.
Erik didn’t watch; he was focused on the second phase ingredients.
In the preparation, some of the ingredients needed to be combined before being added into the formation stage.
It was as if he was making low-Apprentice and high-Novice level concoctions, but instead of being final products, they were just small building blocks for the Master-level pill.
Erik had done this time and time again. The rote repetition had wiped away other thoughts, the Mind Calming pill turning him into an Alchemy demon.
The two of them moved in a complex series of actions that somehow flowed, becoming yin and yang, two parts of one whole.
Their actions were calm, their expressions solemn. Everything might have looked calm on the surface but the cauldron was filled with the raging power of all the ingredients. Too much or too little of an ingredient, if the preparation was just off slightly, or the control and combining of the ingredients wasn’t just right could transform it from a calm mixture into a raging explosion, destroying tens of Mana stones’ worth of ingredients in one fell swoop.
***
At this time, a group of elders were walking through the area.
“Elder Mo’s skill has improved greatly to create the Golden Python Poison Curing pill,” one of the elders said, fawning over the young man in the middle, who had a pleased look on his face.
“Come, Elder Ran, it was only through luck that I was able to complete the high-Journeyman-level pill.” He laughed.
The others smiled, knowing the work he had needed to put into the highly difficult pill.
“It won’t be long until we welcome a fourth pill head to this Third Realm!” another said.
“Elder Mo, with your young age and your ability, you could go to the Fifth Realm to the Alchemy schools there!”
“The Alchemist Association guides us but I can only hope!” Elder Mo laughed. The others joined in, a few of them hiding their envy and jealousy deep in their eyes.
“Hmm, this?” Elder Mo sniffed as they passed one of the testing rooms. A faint mist could be seen coming from under the doorway between two guards standing there.
“Is this…?” another asked, noticing the mist. His face turned complex.
“Pill mist?” another elder said. Her voice held a note of surety as others looked from them to the mist, their faces showing myriad emotions.
“These are Pill Head Hei’s guards. Might he be creating a Master-level pill?”
“Mists descend upon a low-grade Master concoction. Heavenly rain falls on a mid-Master concoction; plants offer their spirit and the world creates a concoction, high Master-level concoction.” One of the elders recited the words they had repeated so many times to themselves that it had left an imprint never to be removed.
The pill mist was just reaching outward as it stopped its advance and was ripped back into the room.
“Did he fail?” someone asked in a low voice.
None of the others knew what to say.
“I have never seen this before or heard of it. To have the pill mists leave like that? They will dissipate, blessing the area around with greater vitality for being the birthplace of such a concoction, or it will be burned away in failure. But swept up and sucked back in?” One of the senior elders looked at his fellows, his face filled with questions that they didn’t know how to answer.
***
Erik saw the mist appearing around himself and Old Hei, its epicenter lying at the cauldron.
This mist was filled with a powerful medicinal power. Letting it just escape the cauldron would only be a waste!
Erik had seen Old Hei make this pill three other times and they had discussed what happened every time. They had practiced making it more than twenty times that number. Erik knew that the odd mist appeared as the pill reached the embryonic stage, but with all of Old Hei’s concentration on the pill, he didn’t have time or the ability to split his mind and contain this power.
Erik spread out his Mana. As he had increased his Mana pool, regeneration and the increases that had come with his Mana King title, the Mana in the area fell under his domain, allowing him to affect the world around him through it.
He created a cage and dragged the mist back, concentrating it around the cauldron. It was a tonic for the pill contained inside the cauldron. Erik could feel the mist thinning and being sucked into the pill.
Erik felt the effects of the Mind Calming pill coming to an end. He quickly took out two pills and sent one to Old Hei, who swallowed his without thought, placing absolute trust in Erik. Erik took his own pill and continued to force the mists closer to the cauldron.
Old Hei kept on grilling the pill inside. Erik couldn’t see what was happening but the power of the pill was increasing, neither slowly nor quickly but completely under Old Hei’s iron control.
That didn’t mean that it got easier. Instead, the difficulty only increased as Old Hei was now pushing his own ability, testing his strength.
There was a shift in the power inside the cauldron as the pill left the embryonic stage and entered the formation stage. The mist around the cauldron was sucked in, disappearing from sight as Old Hei continued to grill and refine the pill more, looking to increase its grade and efficacy.
Time had lost meaning to them but now as Old Hei was pushing harder than ever, his Mana started to dwindle and decrease.
“Erik, more Mana!” Old Hei demanded.
Erik didn’t hesitate, pushing his hand against Old Hei’s Mana gate located at the base of his neck. He let out a thread of Mana; adjusting, he poured out more. It was like sending it into the abyss as he could feel the hunger for more Mana within Hei’s body.
His Mana pool was already low, with little Mana left in his Mana channels and his Mana gates straining to draw in more Mana from the surrounding area.
Erik took a Mana potion, stirring up the air around them both as he pulled in the concentrated Mana and allowed it to flow into Old Hei’s body. It was only due to the purity of his Mana Erik could do so. If his Mana had one attribute or another in it, then it could adversely affect Old Hei’s Mana system.
To supply another with Mana was a dangerous thing, much like
supplying one with blood. Erik’s Mana was like O negative blood, able to suit all others. But if it had been AB positive and Old Hei A negative, they would have had an issue and it could have placed more strain on Old Hei instead of less.
It showed just how much information Old Hei knew casually about Erik to know the purity of his Mana.
Still, the Mana he poured through Old Hei’s Mana gate was barely enough.
There was another change in the cauldron but Erik no longer cared about it. Seeing the concentration on Old Hei’s face, that this was not just a pill for him, that he was expanding his own pill making ability, everything was focused on the cauldron in front of him as if he had gone into some sort of meditative state.
Is this enlightenment? Erik had no time for other thoughts as he pulled out Mana stones and crushed them up. The Mana filled the area, increasing the density and increasing the rate that they pulled in energy.
Finally, he drew out the Temple of Earth’s Divinity dungeon core. The Mana in the surrounding area had been causing the air to pull at their clothes. Now it was as if they were in the middle of a hurricane as the Mana, filled with impurities, was dragged through the dungeon core in Erik’s hand. He directly channeled the purer Mana through his left hand and out of his right hand, into Old Hei’s Mana gate.
Old Hei seemed to get a second wind. In the midst of that chaotic Mana flow, the wind tearing at his clothes, he stood like a lighthouse in the storm, guiding the pill, altering and changing it.
Old Hei’s hands moved with his flames, causing them to dance, man and Alchemy combining their efforts.
The Third Realm Page 47