Yuzuriha heard a metallic click which was followed by the heavy clunk of something large being drawn back. The first sound was probably a lock being undone, but the second one was a mystery.

  It was only after a damp, salty old smell invaded her nostrils she had an idea. The stench was so potent she nearly pinched her nose shut in reflex, but she restrained herself. Without knowing what that was, doing so would come off as being rude.

  So she put on a brave face and toughed it out.

  'Ah. What's happening now? Is that a potion?'

  She thought for a bit, before subtly shaking her head. Potions naturally had a weird smell to them since they are created using all sorts of herbs and such, or at least that's how the ones from her previous world were made.

  However, the scent of the potion they smelled when she and Marcille arrived at Grace's apartment had a pleasant and floral scent, so this was unlikely.

  'So what is it then? I mean, it does smell weird. To be fair this whole room smells weird. But this one's not too bad though. Yes, it's not too bad per se'

  She convinced herself of such a blatant lie.

  "Prepare yourself to marvel at this…"

  The woman said as she shifted her body around then paused. Since she wanted Yuzuriha to marvel at something, she must have been holding something out with a grand ceremony. At least that's what she assumed.

  'Oh, wonderful. She's showing me something. Amazing. Riveting. I'll just take it all in. With my functional eyeballs!'

  Yuzuriha made that sarcastic remark internally and her lips twitched into a faint smile for a moment. The workshop had suddenly gone silent. Grace didn't say anything and that was starting to make things awkward.

  "...Uh-huh. I appreciate the visuals here"

  The silence stretched on for two more seconds before realization hit. Grace gave a small awkward cough.

  "Oh, right, I'm sorry. I forgot you…I mean…Iet me start over"

  Grace cleared her throat before the sound of something heavy being put down on the table.

  "This Sacrament…is what I have been working on in secret for the past two months. The thing I come here for every morning. Even Benedict has no clue about it…"

  "Just show me already"

  Yuzuriha muttered under her breath, which thankfully went unnoticed. Grace was taking such a long time introducing it, she almost lost her patience.

  "I call it, Azure Ooze"

  Her voice carried a sense of pride as she called out its name.

  "It is housed in this reinforced glass vial right now. To give you a general idea of what it looks like, its form is slime-based. Think spherical, smooth, iridescent blue. Texture similar to protein gel.

  I based its body structure on a hybrid of slime molds and some chemical gelatin composites. However, the main material that brought it together was the saliva of the World Serpent, one of the Three Primordial Beasts"

  Yuzuriha frowned slightly, for one, she had no idea what half of what Grace had said, but something that did catch her attention was the last part.

  'Three Primordial Beast? She said that so casually like it's no big deal!'

  She racked her mind about that piece of information but came up blank. Before she could ask about that, the woman continued.

  "In case you're wondering. They're just myths, really. Nobody has seen one in person before so they are often thought of as not actual creatures or anything. You know how these things get exaggerated"

  One question was answered, but this gave rise to another one…

  "Wait, if they are not real, then how did you get your hands on the saliva of the World Serpent?"

  Yuzuriha asked out of curiosity, but without missing a beat, Grace ruffled her hair as she said.

  "Of course I was just playing with that. The truth is I just purchased some materials from the Guild, one of them happened to be slime. That one cost me a lot of money too, 10 wens in fact!"

  Oh right, this world's currency. It wasn't relatively complicated or simple either. In comparison, it was similar to her old world, but here it was called 'Wens'. For now that's all she could think about, mostly because this didn't seem like an appropriate time to think about money.

  Anyway, Grace kept talking.

  "Azure Ooze hasn't been properly classified yet. The Ryoal National Regulation Authority won't touch unverified substances without a formal test cycle, but if I had to take a guess…it easily qualifies as Special Class, or Mythical Class. It perfectly fits the two, just basing that on its adaptive capabilities and potential for astris conduction"

  Yuzuriha blinked even though she knew that would accomplish nothing.

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  "I don't follow"

  She muttered to herself, Grace was saying a lot of things she couldn't follow on, but since they were going to be important in the future, she tried her best to store whatever piece of information she could.

  So she stayed quiet and leaned slightly forward to signal she was in fact listening to every word. To which she was.

  Grace jumped on that.

  "I wanted to create a Sacrament that could help your condition, Yor. Something like…a pair of glasses"

  She tilted her head in confusion.

  "...Glasses? But I'm blind, they would be wasted on me"

  It was obvious though, for a moment she even thought Grace had a poor sense of humor because that was not funny at all!

  But she was not joking.

  "I figured, since Azure Ooze can conduct and react to astris, then maybe it could be used to interpret the surrounding flow of energy and translate it into something perceivable. With the right calibration and a good enough interface, you could potentially 'see' using astris itself"

  Yuzuriha kept her expression flat, but internally she was in awe. Just how much of a genius did it make her to be capable of such? Even though she didn't understand half of what Grace was talking about, she could clearly tell what she was trying to do was….incredible.

  'She's a genius!'

  "But there's a problem. Or rather…a dozen"

  And just like that, Yuzuriha's excitement dropped.

  Of course there were.

  "Whenever I separate the slime. Just a small amount like a droplet. The split portion vanishes, dissolves, or maybe reabsorbed somehow after a minute"

  Grace began to list out the issues the Sacrament had.

  "Even containment has been hell. I have to replace the storage vial weekly. Any longer and it starts to corrode the container. Reinforced glass like this one breaks down, eventually."

  Yuzuriha heard her pace a little and then there was a sound of fingers raking through hair frustratingly.

  "I'm starting to run dreadfully low on funds. Ten wens was just the initial material cost, but keeping it stable is draining my teacher's salary faster than I can replace it. And don't even get me started on how it reacts to temperature changes, or how—"

  ?? Appraisal???

  As Grace was going on and on about the Sacrament, Yuzuriha suddenly heard a voice she hadn't heard in a while. It's been a couple of hours but that still qualified as a 'while' didn't it?

  Well, it made her flinch and broke her concentration of listening to Grace. Ignoring it the first time might have been easier because it was plain rude to just cut off someone for the sake of another person who just showed up out of nowhere.

  'Really? You did this with Marcille. Not now. I'll hear you out after this. I promise!'

  As rude as her assistant was, she at least proved something again. Yuzuriha slightly lifted her head in the direction of Grace who was still talking about Azure Ooze.

  'Seems like I really am the only one who can hear Sawatari. Why is that? No, nope. That doesn't matter now. She mentioned something about appraisal. Appraise what exactly?'

  ?? Appraisal???

  It went off again.

  There was something about that Sacrament that triggered Sawatari, or that could be just her primary function. Either way, she wasn't going to shut up any time soon. Like that time she kept ringing in her head with Marcille present.

  ?? Appraisal???

  Yuzuriha sighed, whether she liked it or not, she was going to have to listen.

  'Sorry Grace, but this won't stop until I respond. I'll hear you out some other time.'

  Having said that in her mind, the next thing was figuring out how to accept the appraisal.

  She thought for a bit before saying.

  'Appraisal'

  For a moment, it was quiet, save for Grace's rattling. Thinking that merely saying 'appraisal' wasn't going to be enough, Yuzuriha was prepared to follow up with 'accept appraisal' but…

  ?? Appraisal confirmed. Due to lack of visual aid, direct physical touch with the subject is required to glean information??

  …it wasn't necessary.

  'Direct physical contact huh?'

  Yuzuriha stiffened upon processing the request Sawatari asked of her.

  'Are you crazy?! This thing is sealed behind reinforced glass for a reason. No way I'm touching something like that!'

  If that slime was capable of breaking reinforced glass, then it could definitely be compared to a dangerous chemical or poison.

  Maybe she could compare it with one of the most violently reactive chemicals known to man—Chlorine Trifluoride. Often called the "Devil's Chemical" or "Substance N".

  It was capable of burning through glass, concrete, and skin instantly. In fact it was so dangerous that even experienced chemists feared handling it.

  'Mhm, maybe I'm overexaggerating'

  Maybe she was, maybe she wasn't. But there was nothing wrong with being cautious. You can never be too careful after all.

  "Um, Aunt Grace…could you open the containment glass?"

  Yuzuriha blurted that out. She didn't allow herself to think it over cause overthinking is the killer of progress. So before she could talk herself out of it, she said those words.

  What made her feel bad though was that she just cut Grace off in the middle of her sentence. She went quiet for a second before responding, clearly caught off guard by this strange request.

  "What?"

  "I mean, I want to… touch it with my bare skin. Just for a second. I think I can understand it better if I—"

  "Absolutely not!"

  Grace wasted no time turning her down. And after considering the possibilities, Yuzuriha didn't blame her, in truth, she also didn't want to touch it. But it was what Sawatari wanted so there must have been a pretty good reason why.

  "I don't care what you have to say, Yor. Azure Ooze hasn't been properly tested for direct physical contact. Who knows what could happen!"

  Yuzuriha grimaced inwardly. Even so, she wasn't going to give up.

  'You may not know this but you're dealing with an ex CEO of the biggest corporation in Japan. I've dealt with tougher clients than this!'

  She lowered her head slightly, not in deference exactly, but as if she were offering something.

  "I understand your concern, aunt Grace. But if I heard you correctly, you said I'm the intended user, right? You made it….for someone like me"

  Grace didn't respond, which meant she had her thinking. Now to push on!

  "Let's put it this way, if it works, if I can make contact safely, then you'll have proof it's viable and your months of hard work wouldn't have been for nothing"

  As she learned in her previous life, playing to people's interest was one of the best ways to get them on your side. The same was true with a woman playing mind games to have her way with a man.

  This had to be a universal truth…but after a silent bit, Grace responded back.

  "Yor, sweetie. I'm sorry but this isn't something you can touch. It's barely stable, I use special equipment to do it. Also I don't understand half of how it will behave if it comes in contact with bare flesh. It could have some severe consequences"

  She snickered while patting Yuzuriha's head.

  "Request denied. I like your spirit and thinking, but Marci will eat me alive if I allow her little sister to mess with an unsafe Sacrament. How about we focus on something else, potions for example. I got just the one to musk body smell. Interesting right?"

  Yuzuriha winced. She had failed to convince her.

  It wasn't that Grace was wrong. She was… annoyingly reasonable. And the last thing she wanted was to get herself melted into goop just to satisfy her hunch.

  But she didn't want to leave it at that.

  There had to be something Yuzuriha could use to somehow convince Grace to let her touch the thing, but what?

  After thinking for a bit, her lips twitched faintly. She turned her face slightly toward where she heard Grace walking off to, and this time, her voice came out more measured.

  "...You said no one else has seen this before. Not even your husband, Mr. Windsor, right?"