“Well, that ain’t right!” Tresk shouted.
Theo stood looking at the system message before him with a creased brow. He had decomposed the alchemy ingredient he had been focusing on and had never seen anything like these properties. Although he had his suspicions about what exactly they meant, they were simply guesses. He turned to his companion with an open mouth and shook his head before reading the description once more.
[Frozen Tear]
[Alchemy Ingredient]
The tear of a long-forgotten goddess frozen into the shape of a flower.
Properties:
[B1583] [M8112] [#$1123]
"Do you feel anything in your core? Is this an error that needs resolving?" Theo asked.
"It is definitely an error, but my core doesn't say anything about it," Tresk said.
The more Theo thought about it, the more he was convinced that these were some kind of designation from the system. Each one of those properties linked to a property that had existed in a different system. It wasn't altogether incompatible with the system they were using, which meant he could likely make a potion out of it. But what the effects were was beyond him. He could only guess and make potions out of it to see if that would help this version of the system interpolate what was going on.
"I have a general sense of what each property does, but it feels vague and distant. I feel something about a freezing property, maybe, and then another water-based one, perhaps, but it's too far away for me to grasp," Theo said. He pulled another example of the flower from his inventory and gave it a closer inspection. "Do we have enough time to test these properties before we have to go watch the games?"
“Watch them?” Tresk asked with a snort. “Sorry, I must’ve said it wrong before… You’re a commentator on the games, specifically the first team fight.”
Theo turned, blinking slowly at Tresk as the fire built in his eyes. “Wanna say that again?”
“Yup, you gotta do commentary.” Tresk said, giggling. “Alise thought it’d be funny.”
The lab was empty today. Most businesses were empty, in fact. The lure of the games was quite strong, and both citizens and visitors had decided to spend their time and money at the arena. The alchemist hadn't planned to spend any of his time watching the games, perhaps further down the line where things got a bit interesting. But as far as he knew, the early days were going to be all low-level people battling it out. He had bigger things to worry about. Eventually, he let out a heavy sigh, resigning himself to the fact that he was the leader of this place and sometimes it was best to act like it.
"Fine, but you have to stay here with me and watch me make my weird potions. That's your punishment for roping me into something so stupid," Theo said. “This first property, the one that starts with a B, feels most like an ice situation to me. My question to you is whether or not we run it through the stills or if we should just make one of my cheat potions instead.”
“The cheat way is faster, right?”
“Right.”
“Let’s do that.”
Using the willpower infusion method to create potions thanks to the Unrivaled Tero’gal Mastery skill might have been quicker, but it took more time on the back end since they had to test everything by hand rather than relying on the system message to make it happen. Theo wouldn't bring this up and got to work right away on extracting the first property from the flower. He infused it into a potion in minutes and held it at length to assess its quality.
A combination of Theo's extensive experience with all things alchemy and his intuition told him this was a potion that would help a person against the effects of cold and ice in general. If he had to label it, he would call it an ice resistance potion. He held it out for Tresk to take, gesturing that she should tip it back. The marshaling shrugged and drank it without question.
Theo was quick to pull a Frostbomb from his inventory and throw it at her face, although Tresk shrieked in terror. The ice that formed on her skin sloughed off, falling to the ground and leaving her completely unaffected. She patted herself, looking around before narrowing her eyes at Theo. "That was a dirty little trick.”
“Looks like complete immunity to frost.” Theo nodded with approval. This was a success in his book. “It might only be low-tier frost or ice effects, but it can feel some amount of general cold immunity there. If you drank this potion and went somewhere extremely cold, you would likely be unaffected. But I can't really see how this is related to an older system. The effect itself feels as though it's from our system.”
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“Did you have to toss it right at my face?” Tresk asked.
“Yes. Want to check out the next effect?”
Although she seemed grumpy, Tresk nodded.
Focusing on the second property, the one starting with an M, Theo created another potion. When it was completed, the consistency of the potion was weird. If he didn’t know any better, the alchemist would’ve said that the contents were completely crystalline. But as he swirled it, the material within moved as though liquid. Whatever effect the potion held was beyond him, as it appeared in his senses like nothing he had seen before.
“That’s a weird one,” Theo said, looking at it from every angle to get a better feel for it.
Tresk didn’t wait. Obviously eager to get it over with so they could go to the games, she snatched the potion from his hand and downed it. The alchemist watched in horror as she changed. It started at the tips of her fingers. The marshling’s flesh took on a many-faceted look, her pink skin adopting the same qualities of a very familiar blue crystal.
“That ain’t good,” Theo said, eyes wide as he watched her change.
“What?” Tresk asked. “Why is everything so colorful?”
Theo grimaced, circling around his companion. Tresk’s skin was now partially transparent, her thin arm visible all the way through. He couldn’t see completely through her head as the contents were cloudy. But nothing of her biological function had ceased, even if this was the most dramatic transformation he had seen under the effects of a potion.
“Do you feel okay?” he asked, flicking her skin. It was as hard as crystal.
"Yeah, I feel fine," Trask said. Her voice had a strange hum to it, as though it was resonating with the very room itself. “You hear that buzzing sound?”
Theo took a knee, inspecting her closer. His first assumption was that she had just taken a crystalline form, not dissimilar to the bark skin potion, but this was different. The crystal wasn't just on the surface of her skin. Instead, it went all the way through down to her vital organs. It had changed her completely, which made him think it was a temporary change. Physical alterations brought by potions weren't impossible, but ones that altered the biology of a person completely were unheard of. Well, this ingredient was also unheard of, so perhaps there was something he could never have expected.
"I don't hear a buzzing. That's likely on your end. It appears you are made entirely out of crystals now," Theo said with a mirthless chuckle. "The crystal itself seems pretty close to what the shards are made out of, and you’re emitting a constant field of energy I can’t identify.”
"Sweet, I'm a shard now," Tresk said, doing a little jig. “What does that mean exactly?”
The only person who could truly answer that question was currently waging a war against the gods. Theo shook his head, studying her a bit more. From what he could tell, the power of the effect she was emitting was waning over time. That cemented the idea that this was a temporary effect, which was good. What Theo couldn't figure out was the purpose of the effect. His curiosity got the better of him, and he took his companion by the hand, falling into the familiar place between places and arriving shortly after at a shard Elrin had placed on the Slagrot Islands.
“Woah. Take a lizard on a date before you bring her to your secret island prison,” Tresk said. She tried to wink, but her crystalline features just depressed a bit and made a weird cracking sound. “Yeah, I’m not doing that again.”
Theo already felt the resonance between Tresk and the shard in the distance. He could have tested this at the one in the farm, but he wanted a more distant location just in case something went wrong. His curiosity about what exactly was going on was too tempting, and he led Tresk toward the tower looming in the distance. The closer they drew, the louder the hum grew until it was burning in his ears, like a keening shriek. He had to plug his ears to approach any closer, even though the sound didn't seem to affect Tresk at all.
“What?” Tresk asked, tilting her head to one side. She walked up the steps, skipping the last few. “What do you mean? No, I don’t really think so… Him? No, he’s my life-partner, there’s a difference.”
“Who the hell are you talking to?” Theo said, closing one eye as a headache formed in the front of his head.
“The shard, I guess,” Tresk said, pointing at the giant floating bit of rock.
Theo gritted his teeth, drawing on Tresk to empower himself. He drew some of her into him, his skin taking on the appearance of the shard. It wasn’t as intense of an effect as the marshling, but it was enough to stop the pounding headache. Then he heard something singing in the distance. The resonating voice of the shard filled his head.
“Oh! He can hear me, too.” The shard’s voice was melodic, like a calming song that floated on the wind. Theo’s headache was gone in an instant, his crystalline eyes focusing on the satisfying shape before him.
The alchemist saw the shard in a new light. He saw the angles and facets differently, as though each meant something completely different. It wasn’t just a random shape, but something forged for purpose. It was the strangest sensation he had ever experienced. Elrin had mentioned an ability to speak to the shards directly, but that was done through some connection or inability he had never wanted to fully explain. This was something different entirely. But had they been led to the flower by Elrin himself or was this coincidence?
Theo had a dark thought across his mind. Perhaps this was Elrin's way of ensuring the future of the world. If there was somebody alive able to speak with the shards and he never returned, then that part of his job was still fulfilled. He didn't want to entertain it, but that seemed like the practical kind of thing the man would do. The alchemist grit his teeth and considered his options. He had dealt with celestial, sometimes impossible to understand beings before. The shard was no less intimidating than the system itself.
There had to be more to Elrin’s plan than this.
“Play it cool,” Theo said, speaking into Tresk’s mind.
“What is there to play cool?” the shard asked, pulsating with every word.
Theo shared a look with Tresk, who nodded. They climbed the steps of the tower, both feeling a strange sense of warmth as the power of the shard washed over them. The energy was a strange mix of comfort and energy that made the alchemist feel as though he was buzzing. The pair stood at the base of the giant crystal, looking up as they were bathed in its light.
“So,” Theo said, trying to figure out where to begin. “What exactly are you?”