One failure compounded on another, but there was a mounting sense of momentum as each step brought him closer to reconstructing the technique from the ground up. He first had to change the bowl from stone to glass, Moxlin offering a small beaker she carried, then starting to vary when lightning was distributed across the ingredients, settling on needing to do it throughout the process.
Idle strands of current cut into his mouth as Axl had to constantly put the materials in and out of his mouth mid-cycle, to maximize how often the lightning got to quicken the purification. Eventually, he transitioned to using lightning within his mouth, every step of the process now within his body, at the peak of what he could control.
His senses narrowed to cut out the external world, leaving behind only his mouth and its glyphic construction, only punctuated by moving ingredients from his pouch to either above or below his tongue. Occasionally, he felt Moxlin poking at him, but he couldn't stop.
If he stopped, the pain would come, the stretches of shock-burns and bleeding in his mouth would become tangible, and he'd have to deal with that situation. He simply let the blood pool down his throat before he cleared it with quick, mechanical swallows and continued. The lightning spell became more and more tightly focused, aiming for a single thread flowing through the ingredients as they mixed, shocking the Mana particles of different natures into a forced union, a lattice of emergent vibrancy.
As he pictured what the lightning was supposed to do, he realized a small corner of what the [Selsin Clan Glyphic Compendium] had been trying to tell him all along, what making a potion actually meant. He turned on [Mana Shroud] again, his mind teetering at the edge of collapse at the strain of dealing with the glyphic production and the Skill. But now he could maneuver the purified Mana of the materials through the lightning arc, not in a line one after another, but just as they mixed into two opposite slabs, molded to the shape of the arc, the very essence of their Mana clicking into place into something greater and altogether different.
As the glyphistry and [Mana Shroud] synergized in a single moment, a burst of liquid filled Axl's mouth, and he swallowed. He expected the healing potion to start working as before, starting to mend the damage to his body, but a few surprising notifications appeared before him instead.
>>Alchemical empowerment potion consumed (G-Grade):
>>Effect: +4 to Str, End, Wis, Vit
>>Oocile rebalancing activated.
>>Effect: All Attributes +2
>>Achievement Obtained:
>>Early Alchemical Ascendance (Consumable):
>>Use a self-derived variant alchemical process for producing an alchemical empowerment while at the G-Grade.
>>Reward: Greatly upgrades the reward from basic glyphistry training quest.
>>Quest: Basic glyphistry training.
>>Update: Quest Complete
>>Reward: Alchemical Impartment
>>Accept: Yes/No?
Axl smiled, seeing as he did the impossible, and actually managed to finish the alchemy quest. But as soon as his lips started to curve upwards, his mind reeled in pain. His body convulsed in shock, breaking his cross-legged stance as he coughed out a shocking amount of blood, his face somehow against the ground. It felt like his mouth was a single expanse of open wounds, a folded dimension of endless pain.
The burns inside were paralyzing, his tongue barely more than a chunk of meat surrounded by coal. One of his cheeks was entirely gone, a fist-sized hole blasted into it, and most of his teeth were shattered or missing.
He wished he could pass out and let his Vitality start patching him up, but no such luck, the pain was simply too all-encompassing. The only reason he was even slightly sane was the protection of [Mind-Soul Bulwark], but the rectangular protection around his soul was vibrating ominously, as if under constant attack, and he realized the blood coursing out his cheek was too much. Even with his superhuman Attributes, he'd bleed out very soon.
Something was put against his lips, a liquid, and he drank, not having the ability to even think about what was happening. The healing of the potion spread through his mouth, not even making it down his throat, and some untold time later, more liquid appeared, then another dose.
He started to regain his senses as the third potion drew a thin film of flesh over the gaping hole of his left cheek and stopped the last of the bleeding, the pain only excruciating now. Moxlin's indistinct figure was in front of his face, holding a makeshift vial to his mouth. So that's where the healing came from.
A single potion later, he was able to sit back up again. He tried to thank the small spider, but even attempting to speak reopened a universe of pain. Taking a long re-centering instead, he hazily looked out to the alchemical setup further back, the equipment he had earlier discarded, and realized the small spider had hurried to make potions herself, seeing the peril he'd put himself in.
He then looked at her, gingerly standing on one of his knees, and Axl's eyes widened in shock when his eyes finally adjusted their focus. Half the fine fuzz of her black body was replaced with burns, two of her eight eyes missing entirely.
"Don't do anything!" her voice was frantic, too loud. "You almost died who knows how many times. Focus!"
"Y-you…" was all Axl managed to mutter, trying to raise a hand at her. "Hurt."
"I'll be fine!" she threw up her forelegs, the motion reassuringly smooth. "It's worse than it looks, triple-promise! But you need to rest."
Axl nodded and returned to his seated pose, closing his eyes and focusing on [Mana Shroud], directing the external Mana into his internal stores and trying to use as much of the refined energy into his recovery as possible. After a few hours, he felt good enough to take some tentative sips of water and eat small morsels of food, carefully channeling the material with Mana past his wounds. An agonizing eternity later, he felt himself half-sane enough and his wounds stable enough to sleep, and he practically collapsed into a dark, restless slumber.
He woke up with a startle, the pain in his mouth flaring, and looked around, reassured when he saw Moxlin in a corner, her legs tight against her body. She looked eerily still, and a stab of fear crossed his mind, pushing the pain away as Axl rose, [Mana Shroud] active.
He breathed out in relief, seeing her Mana was normal. Its density was lower than usual, but stable, so he sat back down, frowning at the slow realization of how utterly idiotic he had been.
If he died in some nameless cave, Terrania's quest would go unfinished, the risk he took to fulfill a non-critical quest beyond reckless. He got carried away by the artificial urgency of the situation and took it too far, not to mention he would've died if not for Moxlin's healing.
He stared back at the spider again, her small form looking so incredibly frail, like his brother's desiccated hand peeking out from his covering as Disposal took out his corpse. The memory surged, an unwanted distraction, so Axl focused on the quest he had nearly died completing.
"This better have been slitting worth it," he muttered and accepted the reward.
Expecting another out-of-body experience like with the Dao Vision, Axl was surprised when an oval expanded in front of him, as if a thin cut in space. Beyond was only a murky darkness, but it felt like it expanded onwards in an unfathomable depth. He looked at it suspiciously with [Mana Shroud], but saw only the absence of Mana. He also walked around it, but the other side was fully opaque, a sheer black wall also devoid of any Mana.
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This was a rift, like the many that littered the surface of Luna, spewing out annoying little critters that had to be cleared out before they formed a dangerous swarm. But this one was much larger and stable-looking, what he imagined the rifts in the more Mana-dense areas like Terra or the Jovian moons could be like.
Bracing himself, he stepped through, not expecting a fight but still with his hand on his sword's hilt.
A world of overwhelming brightness met him, the Mana so thick it started crushing his body. But just as he felt it, he was surrounded in a protective bubble, the pressure lessening immediately. It was still by far the highest density of Mana he'd ever felt, even compared to the antenna back in Luna or Oocile's statue, and it was everywhere. [Mana Shroud] was forcefully deactivated a moment later, unable to deal with the sheer magnitude of the Mana all around him.
Blinking, his eyes slowly adjusted, and he found himself in an endless field of gently rolling hills dense with soft, shimmering grass, lines of tall people standing neatly next to each other crisscrossing everywhere. They all wore immaculate orange robes, and were of various lineages, from every type of elf to humanoids with animal heads and orcs, to creatures of bizarre, often nightmarish proportions. All were calmly standing, a content smile on their faces, the lines of countless people extending endlessly in every direction, forming unknowable patterns.
But all this was nothing compared to the massive figure that loomed above Axl, a cow the size of a mountain, its head over three hundred meters across, a resplendent halo above its tiny crown of horns, as if the sun of this world. The massive face lowered towards him, as if the world itself bent, the subtle smile on its face soothing and terrifying.
"An interesting solution, young struggler," a tender voice filled the air. "It has been a long time since the Heaven's hand sent me one so early in their Path. It's quite the delight, I must say. You may call me Quelling, Priant sow of the thrice-woven pasture."
"I—" Axl gulped, trying to calm his frazzled mind, unable to comprehend the magnitude of the creature in front of him. "I great honor to be in your presence," he fumbled, then took a deep breath to calm down. "Your glyphs are beautiful."
He froze, unsure why he said that, his eyes darting to the lines in the distance, his mind nearly crushed as he tried to piece together that smallest part of the cow's massive pattern, woven with entire people. It was even greater than at first sight, tiny glyphs even sown into their clothing, formed from the positions of their fingers, how they stood, endless depth to build on every scale.
The cow's smile grew, her black eyes wrinkled with mirth. "And I get a charge so attuned with the glypic arts, as well. A waste that you have been touched by this so-called Balanced Path. It is a rather na?ve construction, I'm not surprised it has been severed. But it shouldn't be a serious issue for you for a few centuries, given your early subversion."
Axl's eyes widened in shock. How much could this creature sense about him?
"Everything," she continued. "You need not worry about the uniqueness of your quest to establish a Foundational Nexus, nor your origins in Sol. The war you fight against a single kin of elves is but a narrow thread in the vast tapestry of struggle. But perhaps I do you no service in saying such things? How easily I forget how all seems so crucial in your first millennia of cultivation, how urgent."
"Can you do anything to help in our war?" he asked, the thought coming out, his body unable to stop saying the words. "Humanity would be very… Grateful?"
"Would it, now?" Quelling chuckled. "I wonder."
"I would be, at least." He immediately felt beyond embarrassed at the thought, at the very notion he could offer anything to the impossibility in front of him.
"Nevertheless, such is not what I am willing to offer, human clone turned water-elf. You are here so that I may help you with what you call Alchemy. I can do so in many ways, but these are the options I think are best suited to you."
>>Soul-bound Companion: Creation Roc
>>A bird born from the sundered heart of a Metal Titan. Her mind and soul yearn for belonging.
>>Spiritual Organ: Gastric Cauldron
>>A true alchemical stomach upon which all glyphistry may be expressed.
>>Constitution: Lightning
>>Your body becomes a vehicle for Heaven's wrath.
>>Body Tempering: Watery Fathoms
>>Refine yourself in the deepest waters, a consolidation of being.
These all seemed very strange, to the point that he had a hard time parsing what tangible benefits they would give him. Was this really the result of improving his rewards twice? They definitely didn't seem better than an extra Skill.
"Can you tell me more about each of these, Honorable Elder Quelling?" he asked, annoyed at his complete inability to hold himself back, now fully aware this was something Quelling was doing to him.
"Apologies on the crass glamor, for indeed I am forcing your thoughts into action, tired as I am of dealing with the blubbering paralysis of those brought before me. It is but a harmless trick, I assure you. Indeed, I can give you further information. If a princeling from one of my outer worlds showed such ignorance, I would downgrade the rewards as a lesson in proper diligence. However, I would be unduly cruel to expect your familiarity with such concepts, given your humble origins.
"The first option is introducing you to a being that is guaranteed to resonate deeply with every need for companionship I see in your mind and soul. She is also a competent fighter and decent artisan, so together you should form quite a force. I place this choice first since it is the benefit most likely to help you complete your Foundational Nexus quest.
"The Gastric Cauldron allows for you to produce alchemical creations, talismans, and other forms of glyphistry in a space that is simultaneously within your body and not. It allows for far greater control of the ancient scars while not interfering with all the mundane material functions a body usually engages in. It is equivalent in potential to the cultivator's core that the elven lineages tend to gravitate towards.
"A lightning constitution is a way for you to engage with the element more thoroughly. Of the four, it is by far the most powerful and most dangerous. I only offer it since the heavens insist that I should provide such a choice."
"Body tempering is a form of harmonizing one's body, mind, and soul, despite what it's called. It’s usually quite risky as a focus of cultivation, second only to battle. However, I sense your Balanced Path is uniquely suited to the practice, even if its creator never uncovered this synergy. The tempering I offer is the best one your Lineage may obtain, even at the F-Grade, and paves the path to a straightforward Lineage evolution."
Axl's eyes widened at the options presented to him. One was even offering him something equivalent to a cultivator's core, and it wasn't even the most powerful choice? He was almost overwhelmed at how wrong he was before, and all of these started to look better than just another Skill.
Immediately, he ruled out the third option, trusting in Quelling's implicit suggestion that it was a bad idea, even if the System wanted it offered for some reason. The Gastric Cauldron felt like an odd choice, not really seeing how it could be better than a Cultivator's Core. But he figured that if it let him make potions inside his body, it might let him seamlessly take them even during battle, which might be insanely powerful.
The final option was distasteful to Axl, feeling that it would only align him more with water, like his previously offered [Aquatic Laser] Skill. Thankfully, it didn’t seem that overwhelmingly strong, and he actually suspected it was offered only to give him a strong hint that he should look into body tempering. He carefully filed away that nugget of information, together with the equally tantalizing hint that the practice was linked to evolving his lineage. It also shocked him with how powerful this giant cow was, that she’d immediately figure something like this out from just looking at him that Oocile himself died without realizing? Impossible. Just how powerful could cultivators get?
Shaking off the distraction, Axl considered the first option for a long time, finding himself conflicted. On the one hand, it was the obvious choice the moment Quelling said it would be the most helpful in finishing Terraria's urgent quest. What else could matter in the face of that? But he found the idea of thrusting another person's life into his in this way very uncomfortable, reminding him of the matched breeding some families back in Ost engaged in, hoping to get more profitable children. Oh, slit, would she want to have children with me?
The idea made him sick to his stomach, a visceral, fumbling fear he couldn’t quite explain. Taking care of himself and his brother had been more than enough for him, he couldn't even imagine why people wanted to do the far harder version of that. And the more he thought about it, the more it felt like an abandonment of the very nature of his own creation—he was born from a vat through the designs of the best minds of Terrania’s golden age, would he turn his back on that for the insight of this alien creature, as powerful as she seemed? Or maybe her choice was indeed excellent, but would only drag him further into this water-elf's body, away from humanity?
"I chose the Gastric Cauldron," he said, his thoughts pulled out of his mouth as if by a taut string. In all honesty, it was a profound relief, and he inwardly thanked his benefactor for the excuse of not having to pick the first option out of duty.
"You're welcome," the massive cow knowingly smiled at him as he was pushed back into the cavern, a small weight resting at his gut and a new line on his Status screen.
Name: Xel-389b (Roken)
Level: 16
Class: Usurpation of Balance (Rare)
Core: (none)
Spiritual Organs: Gastric Cauldron (G)
Lineage: Water Elf (G)