Chapter 68: Chapter 68: Memory Adjustment
Siderius placed his bow in the middle of the seals. In the second circle, a handful of white powder was placed in.
That was Calcis Ossivitae, also known as Bonedust. It was the byproduct of removing Phosphorus from animal bones. It lost all of its integrity structure.
However, what it was great at was acting as a base for cells to formulate and structure themselves. It was the perfect ingredient to speed up the process of curing the wood stave and condensing its integrity structure.
Siderius had acquired quite a bit of Bonedust from making Phosphorus.
He started the process with the Salt Isolation Sign. It was the same sign sequence as before.
The salt of the first seal lit up in blue and floated up to the air. Along with it was the wood stave.
The stave flew up, hovered slightly above the ground, with the blue-illuminated salt flying around its body.
The salt formed a mini cyclone around the wood stave and immediately, droplets of water seeped out from under the surface of the bow and joined the salt cyclone.
By the speed that the naked eyes could observe, the wood stave lost its moisture and slowly turned into a piece of dried wood.
However, the fibers within the stave lost their connections. They didn’t have time to settle into a new state, the process that would take months to complete. The cell started to fracture and soon, the piece of wood plank that Siderius had worked on tirelessly would become useless.
He didn’t allow that to happen. Siderius pointed at the second circle and started the second sign sequence.
The Directing Agent was in action. The blue-colored salt did not float up, instead they hardened into a crystallized structure.
The bonedust moved on its own, following the pattern of the crystalized structure and finding its way into the wood stave.
The mini salt cyclone opened up a hole to welcome the bonedust. The white powder covered the entire surface of the bow and fused with it.
The fiber inside the wood stave had its hunger fulfilled. By removing moisture, it had lost the stable state of which it was in. But the Bonedust replaced the lost links between the cells.
That was not all. The Bonedust was the perfect ingredient to strengthen and grow the microscopic structure. Once it had linked all the cells together, the fibers began to change and adapt.
It grew stronger, harder and more rigid. The wood stave settled into another stable state, now with more durability within it.
Leaving the process to finish and the wood stave would harden into this straight, uniform appearance. Working with it, or more precisely, trying to bend it into a recurved shape would be difficult.
That was why the third alchemical process, Memory Adjustment, needed to be done simultaneously with the Directing Agent.
There was also another reason to do this as well.
Siderius pointed toward the third circle of mixed Salt and Sulfur. It lit up in a blue and orange color.
This Alchemical Seal had a new sign sequence. The sequence had a total of three signs.
First was the Access Memory sign.
The index fingers of both hands were bent. The other fingers straightened. Both hands were stacked on each other. The palms faced Siderius. The stack was only half connected, different from the Northern Eye, with the bent index fingers touching each other.
Then, slowly removed the stacked palms, opening up the memory of the stave.
The sign was very similar to the Northern Eye. However, one was used to open the mind’s eye, while the other opened the memory of an object.
The mix of Salt and Sulfur climbed onto the surface of the wood stave and covered it entirely. The stave was now a mix of illuminated blue salt and orange sulfur.
The second sign was Memory Position.
By holding the wrist of the right hand with your left hand, the fingers of your right hand were free to move. Now with each movement of the right hand fingers, the stave changed its shape accordingly.
The index finger was verticality. The middle finger was horizontality. The ring finger was for depth. The little finger was rotation. And the thumb was for density.
By moving each finger, Siderius could alter the memory state of the wood stave and adjust it to be more desirable.
It was at this time that the wood stave slowly bent backward, creating an arrow shape with its body.
Memory Position also allowed Siderius to customize its density and rotation, the two most important aspects for a bow’s performance. The stave was slightly off before but now with a little twitch of finger, it adjusted itself up.
As for density, this could also decide the rigidness and flexibility of the bow. It worked well with the current Salt Directing Agent to give an even more perfect balance between rigidness and flexibility to the bow.
Once the bow had the best shape Siderius could imagine. It was time to lock it.
The final sign was Memory Crystallization.
By using the crystallization ability of Salt, Sulfur was also able to permanently stabilize the wood stave into its new form.
The sulfur burned off and fused into the blue-colored salt. The salt now burned with an intensity.
Suddenly, the flame extinguished itself. A ring of fire started in the middle of the bow and ran across its body.
The salt disappeared wherever the ring went, having fulfilled its purpose.
It was at this time that Siderius released the hold on Directing Agent and let the fibers within the stave settle. The Bonedust fused with the cells. The integral structure hardened.
The bow silently landed on the ground. It had a dark red color with straight lines of bone-white color running on its body.
It had an arrow shape in its final state with the top and bottom curved outward.
Ashe got closer to observe the bow. It was beautiful. The seamless color of red and white. The smooth flawless surface.
It wasn’t like any bow that Ashe had seen before.
"Bring me the string." Siderius said.