Pandora Unchained B1C28 - Earth Flame Poison Refinement

The Alchemists Guild was unusually quiet when Sorin arrived. The ingredient shop’s regulars, whether it be alchemists or the adventurers, were nowhere to be found. As for the workshops at the back, it was clear from the chimneys belching out smoke that every available earth flame in the guild was currently in use.

“Sorin!” welcomed Henry. “Who would have thought you’d be back so soon. Did change your mind on the minor poisons? Or perhaps you’d like to rent a flameless room?” He didn’t seem so optimistic about either, but Henry was a professional, and wouldn’t allow the simple drying up of business dampen his mood.

“I really wonder how the travelling alchemists will survive without earth flames to rent,” Sorin said to Henry. “And without the traveling alchemists, I can’t see how the outpost will be able to stockpile poisons before the demon tide.”

Henry’s smile faded somewhat. “That’s life, Sorin. And business for that matter. No earth flames means that what few travelling alchemists we did have moved on to another outpost. Its only regulars with their own flames and long-term rentals now.”

Marcus’s pilfering of the earth flames was a vicious move that didn’t just hit Sorin, but the entire outpost. There was no telling how many more casualties they would be taking as a result.

“Anyway, there won’t be a shortage,” assured Henry. “The guild has somehow got into a lot of money, if you get my drift, and will be importing the difference from Dustone. All our alchemists are also on contract to make as many healing and mana potions as possible. They’re contractually not allowed to make anything else.”

Sorin had been wondering how Marcus would prevent him from hiring an alchemist to concoct his poisons, so the news came as no surprise to him. “What about blood thickening potions?” asked Sorin. “If they don’t make them, how will people advance? Actually, can I buy some right now? I’m worried about inflation.”

“No can do,” said Henry, raising his hands. “Everything I’ve got is sold out, and whatever is coming in by train next week is already paid for. Double, sometimes triple the usual price.”

What a good-for-nothing, short-sighted move,” thought Sorin. All because a two-star physician decided they wanted to throw their weight around.

There was a silver lining to the shortage of potions, however. It confirmed for Sorin that while Marcus had struck his weakness, it was more incidental than on purpose. The shortage of blood thickening potions – aids to increase one’s cultivation in the blood thickening realm – had likely been orchestrated by Marcus as well. He likely thought Sorin dependent on them. Fortunately, what Sorin was actually lacking was poisons, a problem he would be remedying shortly.

“If a flameless workshop is all you’ve got, I’ll have to try my luck and see what I can pull off,” Sorin said to Henry. “I’ll need the following ingredients. What do you have in stock?” He wrote down a list of 50 or so common ingredients and passed it to Henry.

“I can give you most of these, but not the blood thickening lichen,” said Henry after perusing the list. “And I can’t give you the fleshknit grass or the manabrew root. My entire supply’s been taken away by the guild master. Nothing I can do about it.”

Once again, Sorin had to praise Marcus’s ingenuity. Others might not see it, but to Sorin, it was clear as day. The requirement to reach 1 star alchemist was to be able to brew both a mana potion and a healing potion one time out of four. Yet without these ingredients, it would be impossible to practice this crucial bit of alchemy, let alone take the examination. Sorin would therefore not be able to become an alchemist and join the guild and would therefore be helpless to prevent Marcus’s tampering.

“I guess I’ll have to be happy with what you’ve got,” said Sorin to Henry. “Bring them all up to the workshop you’re giving me, and we’ll see if I can come up with something new and innovative.

Before long, Sorin was standing in one of the crippled one-star workshops. Official alchemists were a tidy lot, so he didn’t have to scrub it down like the one before.

He first went through the glassware and the heating, isolation, and ventilation arrays and confirmed that save for the heating array, they were all functional. As for the heating array, the spell circle was only missing an earth flame to serve as its core.

“Alright Lorimer,” said Sorin. “Time to show me what you’ve got.” The rat hopped into the spell circle and began to glow with red and orange earth flames. The spell circle lit up, and Sorin let out a sigh of relief.

He then spent the next half hour organizing the medicinal ingredients he’d purchased. In all, it had cost him an entire 405 gold pieces. As for the room itself, it cost 20 gold per day – he’d paid for 5 consecutive days to avoid potential sabotage by Marcus.

It’s as good thing, the Ten Thousand Poison Cannon contains methods on potency enhancement, thought Sorin. But still, I wonder exactly how many of these poisons will end up working.

The Ten Thousand Poison Cannon was an encyclopedia of poisons, and naturally contained recipes for all manner of poisons. Concocting these low-level poisons also didn’t require much skill. The temperature control and ingredient nurturing skills often used by alchemists didn’t matter as much when one was just hyper-concentrating ingredients and blending them in the simplest of fashions.

In all, Sorin had enough ingredients to make 14 intermediate 1-star poisons. The first step to refining these poisons was extraction and preliminary enhancement. Sorin used his experience with the cockatrice grass extract and expanded it to the 47 reagents he’d acquired.

There were only 10 beakers and 10 regular heating stations. Since the purity and potency requirement for these poisons was high, he spent a whole sleepless day to produce 156 tubes of reagents that had undergone preliminary enhancement.

He then rested for half a day before moving onto the next phase: merging and enhancement. Sorin took two vials, one violet and one blue, and brought them over to the rat-powered heating array. He placed a small alchemical cauldron atop the stand and poured in one vial, then used his spiritual force to command the spell circle to increase the temperature to 365 degrees.

The violet ingredient was called thistlehorn paralytic extract, and its boiling point was just above 365 degrees. Sorin maintained the temperature for 20 minutes, giving the mixture just enough time to nourish itself with the rat-flame. He then poured the other vial of poison into a small dropping funnel and began adding in the blue demonic mayflower extract drop by drop, carefully adjusting the flame as a sickly yellow poison formed on the bottom of the cauldron.

Thirty minutes later, Sorin was left with one 10 millilitre vial of coldblood poison. It was a bright yellow poison that would turn clear and odorless when mixed into water, but sweet and tangy when mixed into something caffeinated like tea or coffee.

“One down, thirteen to go,” muttered Sorin, setting the vial on an empty rack.

Sorin spent the next two days mixing and blending poisons. His days were so busy that he ate only field rations and slept in the workshop cot.

In the end, he failed in mixing 3 of the poisons, leaving him with only 11 vials of deadly 1-star poisons. Some could be added to weapons like daggers or arrows, while others had to be slipped into food or drink. Two of these poisons were even contact poisons that could put a person into anaphylactic shock with only the slightest skin contact.

Sorin stared at the 11 vials with trepidation. As a physician, he knew all too well how terrible one’s fate would be if they ingested any single one of these poisons. But here I am, prepared to drink all of them, thought Sorin.

There were still a day and a half left on his rental contract, and Sorin, still unsure of how Marcus would react to the disappearance of his medicinal reagents and his earth flames, decided to cultivate in the workshop for the remaining time.

“Well,” Sorin said to Lorimer. “If I die, you can eat my body. Bottom’s up!” He broke the cork on the vial of coldblood poison and downed the entire contents. It went down his throat like a glass full of razor-sharp ice shards and slowed his heartbeat down to a crawl. Sorin’s body temperature plummeted, and within seconds, he entered a near-death state.

This state of suspended animation continued for several hours. Then… warmth. Just enough to grab the second vial of poison called innard-scorching life syrup. Ironically, it was a medicine that could be used in small amounts to kill parasites in the intestinal tract and stomach.

The second poison infused Sorin with a current of energy. He used the sudden burst of life to drink the third vial containing living dead serum, a strange poison that was sometimes used in underground gambling dens and would give the drinker a fifty percent chance at life and a fifty percent chance at death.

The addition of the third poison brought the first two poisons into equilibrium. With the three poisons somewhat under control, Sorin was able to mobilize his five poisons to devour them bit by bit.

The five poisons grew stronger, and a sixth poison lacking any of their properties appeared in their midst’s. It rapidly grew as the remainder of the three poisons was devoured, until finally, the poison established itself as an equal partner in Sorin’s body.

Sorin’s blood surged. His primary meridians circulated aggressively to provide the massive amounts of mana the poison required. And when there wasn’t enough, Sorin was forced to crack open a fourth vial containing bloodberry tongue exploding poison; it didn’t even get a chance to act on him before the sixth poison pounced on it and assimilated it.

This final dose was exactly what Sorin needed to break through. His body transformed. His ten primary organs were strengthened. As for the four hidden meridians that Sorin had previously unblocked, their bottlenecks loosened slightly.

Invigorated by his success, and knowing that time was not his friend, Sorin directly took in two more vials of poison. It took an hour for them to reach an equilibrium, after which he directly drank the remaining poisons, pushing himself once again to the brink of death.

There were two ways to break through quickly in the cultivation world – one was combat, which poked at death like one might poke at a sleeping bear with a stick, while the other was putting oneself in a true life and death situation.

According to Sorin’s calculations, he had a 90% chance to live, and a 10% chance to die. A 10% chance might seem small, but it wore away at his limitations like a grindstone and forced his body to either accept the poisons or perish.

Unfortunately, the six poisons in his body were unable to react quickly enough to subdue seven poisons Sorin pitted them against. His body became a warzone. His flesh necrotized, and his internal organs teetered on the brink of failure. Neither side wanted to give in, and it was his body that paid the price.

Did I move too quickly? thought Sorin. Should I have waited a little longer before pushing forward?

No, he decided. The others had broken through to the 8th level of blood thickening after their return. The 8thlevel was a dividing line that would greatly strengthen one’s abilities. The only way to not get left behind was to break through quickly. But if these poisons won’t behave, I’m really going to end up dying.

Sorin opened his bloodshot eyes and focused on Lorimer, who was nibbling at a flask in the corner of the room. “Lorimer!” Sorin whispered to the rat in a ragged voice. “Get over here and roast me!” The rat squeaked and ran over, and to Sorin’s surprise, it began sending a stream of what appeared to be insults and expletives. “No, you idiot! I want you to use your earth flame scorch my mana!”

A ball of poison appeared in Sorin’s hand. It contained his original 6 poisons and 7 other streams of energy that were slowly devouring them. Neither side wanted to concede, making Sorin the greatest loser in the exchange.

“Quickly!” he whispered. Lorimer, bound by his slave seal, could only comply.

A gentle stream of earth flame floated over to the ball of poison and attacked it. It could not differentiate between the 6 original poisons and 7 new poisons, so most of either group was annihilated.

“Again!” called out Sorin.

He pulled mana from his blood to increase the size of the mana blob. All 13 poisons were reinforced by the infusion, enabling them to resist the earth flame once again. The flame came in waves that repeatedly tempered Sorin’s mana, increasing its quality.

As for the 13 poisons, began to show signs of reconciliation. They began cooperating to fight against Lorimer’s earth flames. Eventually, they reached a tipping point where one of the poisons defected and joined the original group of 6. Then, using the earth flame as an external stimulant, they devoured the remaining six poisons and used them to temper and strengthen themselves.

“Stop!” a half-dead Sorin finally said. Lorimer grumbled as he pulled back his earth flame and returned to the half-eaten beaker. As for Sorin, he didn’t bother stopping the rat, and instead focused on his own internal condition.

His blood broke through and thickened once again, bringing him to the 7th level of blood thickening. His poison became a 7-poison fusion that was not only much stronger than the original 6-poison blend, but also attacked the mana blockages in his extraordinary meridians.