Pandora Unchained B1C9 - Mithril String

The next day, Sorin returned to the Adventurers Guild to meet with Lawrence and the others and to run a few errands. Most of his equipment had been destroyed, and Lawrence had ideas on where to replace them; he was about to leave when suddenly, Percival arrived and whisked Sorin away.

Sorin sighed as he entered the Kepler Manor. It was as though a storm had rampaged through its spacious halls, ripping up walls and peeling up carpets.

“The first thing they took was your books,” explained Percival. “They couldn’t retrieve the Divine Medical Codex from the safe, so they ripped the entire thing out of your office.”

“They didn’t even spare young master’s desk,” said Clarice, who was currently sweeping up rubble into a pile so it wouldn’t get in everyone’s way. “Also, please avoid the basement for now. It’s full of broken glassware contaminated with chemicals. Fortunately, I stopped them from running your bedding while they upturned your room looking for anything you might have squirreled away.”

“Mr. Kepler…” said Percival from behind Sorin. “You don’t need to bother yourself with all this. Me and Clarice will pick it all up. I just thought I’d let you know.”

“Why bother?” said Sorin, shaking his head. “This place has always been a prison. It’s only now that it looks the part.”

After witnessing the aftermath of his family’s raid, Sorin was in no mood for shopping for replacement equipment. He retired to his bedroom and pulled out bandages and a weak healing ointment, then began to gingerly pull away bloody bandages from his healing arms.

Deep, stitched up wounds were still oozing small amounts of blood and puss. It was only thanks to Sorin’s innate poison secretions that the wound left behind by the flesh melting demon spider wasn’t infected. Having reached the fourth stage of blood thickening and having unblocked six main meridian channels, Sorin’s healing abilities were over ten times faster than those of a mortal. Even deep wounds like these would eventually regenerate.

Even so, he carefully cleaned up his wounds with water and applied ointment to the raw flesh that was in the process of regrowing. You could never be too careful, because you never knew what new ailments Disease might come up with.

Once his bandages were changed, Sorin inspected the rest of his body. His mana was finally flowing semi-smoothly thanks to his opened-up meridians. There were only six main meridians left to open, but these would require a more concentrated form of mana and perhaps some medical assistance to force open. He would attempt to do so once his cultivation increased by another grade or two.

As for his hidden meridians, those were more complicated. For one, they could only be opened once the original twelve main meridians were fully opened. For another, each person had a limit to the number of hidden meridians they could naturally open. For Sorin, this was four.

Opening additional hidden meridians would require alchemical pills, medical intervention, and most importantly, luck. Unfortunately, he was sorely lacking in all three departments.

One pleasant upside of his increased cultivation was his much-improved organ function. The flesh melting and iron melt poisons in his blood had fused to form something extremely corrosive, and his body had naturally made use of it to clean up his system.

Not only was his general health improving, but also his other meridians were also on the verge of clearing up. Maybe I should be selective with my poisons going forward, thought Sorin. It’s something even my family overlooked – using poison as medicine for fledgling cultivators.

Time waited for no one, and repetition was the mother of learning. He performed a series of mana manipulation drills, first generating small balls of mana that he rolled across his finger, then generating a needle of mana that he tossed up and down like a toothpick.

My poisonous blade, poisonous palm, and poisonous needles are only the most basic applications of mana, thought Sorin. Since I don’t have any skills for my poison mana, I can only rely on those for now.But lacking ranged attacks wouldn’t do. He needed to think of a solution.

The range limit of his poison needles was roughly ten feet, barely better than attacking with his dagger. During his examination, Sorin had noticed that opportunities often presented themselves within 30 feet. Some rogues use darts and crossbows as weapons, thought Sorin. Either one would work for my purposes. But high quality and fast loading crossbows are too expensive. Darts might be the more affordable alternative.

Sorin spent the next three days training and stabilizing his cultivation. Since he was basically re-training and reinvigorating his blood, consolidating his cultivation didn’t take much time. But suddenly increasing one’s cultivation like he was doing would get increasingly risky. Slowly imbibing poisons over time might be a better alternative.

“Mr. Kepler,” greeted Percival as Sorin came down from his room on the morning of the fourth day. “Breakfast is ready, and you can begin at your convenience.”

Breakfast wasn’t something Sorin typically ate, but seeing the spread of food on the table, his stomach growled, leaving him no choice but to sit down and eat up the entire thing.

“Perhaps you would like some fruit or some tea to finish things off?” asked Percival.

“I’m fine,” said Sorin. “I’ll be taking off to do some shopping soon. Feel free to relax while I’m gone.” It was as clear dismissal, but Percival blocked Sorin’s way out. “What is it now?” asked Sorin.

“It occurs to me that I’ve yet to thanks Mr. Kepler for the ordeal three days ago,” said Percival.

“Thank me?” said Sorin, surprised. “For what?”

“Well, it isn’t unusual for masters to discipline their servants when they have wronged them,” said Percival. “I fully expected some sort of reprisal but have received none whatsoever.”

“That’s because none of this is your fault, Percival,” said Sorin. “You were just listening to orders from above.”

“Even so, Clarice and I are thankful,” said Percival. “So we went through the trouble of putting together a package for you. A small gift to express our gratitude. We would be ever so grateful if you accepted it.”

Percival handed Sorin a worn leather pack. It was a large adventurer’s pack, complete with a bedroll and a small tent. It wasn’t magical, but the materials were well-made, albeit worn like the pack.

“You shouldn’t have,” said Sorin, his heart warming for what seemed like the first time in three years.

“You should open the pack and go through it’s contents before leaving,” said Percival.

Sorin took the pack to the table and began taking out items one after another. Inside was a mana-lighter, much more reliable than flint and steel, roughly ten days of dried rations, a slightly magical water-purifier. There was also a medical kit of acceptable quality.

But what caught Sorin’s attention wasn’t these things but a dagger and a long piece of string. “Both are made from corrosion-resistant mithril,” Percival explained. “As you might know, Mithril is an excellent metal for accepting mana. Back in my adventuring days, I made use of metal-aligned mana to amplify their power.”

“You were an adventurer?” asked Sorin, surprised.

“Clarice and I both were,” said Percival. “Did you ever wonder how she can clean so quickly? It’s all thanks to her magic spells. She used to be a mage; not a great mage, mind you, but an acceptable one given her one-star ranking.”

“How about you?” asked Sorin. “I’ve never been able to tell your cultivation.”

“I was a two-star adventurer, once upon a time,” said Percival. “But I got injured one too many times and had to liquidate most of my possessions to pay my hospital bills. It’s actually how I ended up in the Kepler Clan’s employment.”

He ran his finger along the dagger then picked up the mithril string. A weak current of mana poured out into the string, causing it to whip about in a seemingly chaotic manner. “Metal infusion allows a string to cut through flesh and bone. As for poison infusion… I frankly have no idea. You’ll have to experiment.

“But before you experiment, I first advise you to master these basic movements. Wrapping.” The silver string reached around a chair leg and made twenty turns around it before Percival yanked the table into the air, flipped it over three hundred and sixty degrees, and adjusted its position ever so slightly so that it landed in the exact same spot it had been in originally.

“Lashing,” Percival continued. The string uncoiled from the leg and drew back like a whip. It struck the table clean in the center, leaving a deep gouge that looked intentional on its polished wood surface.

“Trapping.” The string suddenly shot to a side of the room before cutting a sharp angle and crossing it along a different path. It did so two dozen times before the entire length of string was used up.

The sweaty butler, clearly exhausted from manipulating the string, tossed an apple at one of the strings. The apple was cleanly cut in two, and these halves proceeded to strike other strings in succession. In the end, there were a total of twelve apple pieces lying neatly on the floor. Percival picked one up and ate it before retrieving the mithril string and handing it over to Sorin.

“I’ll practice using it every day,” Sorin promised solemnly.

“I have no doubt that you will,” said Percival. “Adventuring is a hard life, but it can be oh so rewarding. One last thing. Take this.” He tossed a pouch at Sorin, who caught it. Within it lay ten gold coins. There were a hundred silver coins to a gold coin, so this was twice as much money as Sorin had to his name.

“I can’t accept this,” Sorin said, pushing the pouch to Percival.

“I’m afraid you must,” said Percival, pushing the pouch back. “You see, Clarice and I have been skimming off the top this past year without you noticing. Given recent events, we felt bad about it and decided to return the funds to their rightful owner.”

Sorin shook his head. “It’s the Kepler Clan who pays for the manor.”

“But as far as we’re concerned, the Kepler Clan should have belonged to you,” said Percival. “So anything we can obtain for you from the Kepler family can be argued to be legitimately yours. Please don’t argue with me on this matter.”

Sorin’s wanted to push the pouch back, but ultimately chose to keep it. By banning him from practicing medicine, Marcus had cut off his meager source of income. He would need to go adventuring and risk his life to secure the funds he needed to increase his cultivation.

“Thank you,” Sorin finally said.

“Thank you,” said Percival. “Will you be coming back for dinner tonight?”

“I’m afraid I promised Lawrence, I’d see him at the Adventurers Guild later,” said Sorin. “Something about a lucrative mission.”

“Then promise me to prioritize your safety,” said Percival. “Get yourself some light armor if you can. Adventuring is a brutal profession, and the slightest slip-up can mean your life.”

“Don’t worry, I’m very hardy,” said Sorin. “If someone tries to take this life of mine, they’ll be in for a rude awakening.”

“I’m sure they will be,” said Percival. “But your life is precious, and Clarice and I would very much like it if you kept it.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” said Sorin. He finished re-filling the pack and slung it over his shoulder before walking out the door. His destination: the Alchemist’s Guild.