"Let's go." Said Jerigh in a low voice, before walking towards the entrance of the mess hall.
When looking at Jerigh's back, which quietly got further and further away with time, Cynna felt some form of unwillingness build up in her mind. She was a prodigious warrior, and she couldn't stand the idea of losing to someone whom she couldn't even put a name on.
"You are just going to leave without even telling me who you are? Nor give me the chance to look for you, and pay you back for this humiliation?!" She asked with an audible anger which grew for each of Jerigh's steps.
Now at the door, Jerigh finally stopped and turned to look back at the furious girl. He then said with a deep and calm tone, "You think too much.." then left without uttering another word.
Alesia followed Jerigh out of the hall in silence, while Serf, which was still closer to where Cynna was, said with a faint smile "His name is Jerigh.. You can usually find him at the Golden Karma company." He then quickly walked out of the hall as well, and joined Jerigh and Alesia in the corridor.
Cynna stood up from the part of the floor she was sitting on, and walked out of the mess hall as well. She then looked at the corridors to the left, and to the right.. But the trio had already disappeared.
—–
"It doesn't surprise me. A water treasure requires water and something inside which water's comprehension can be forced.. Where else if not an inhabited underwater world.. The question is, why are you out here and not down there?" Asked Daniel to the Ancient red carp.
He was quietly sitting on the edge of the rocky platform, while dipping his bare feet into the water and chatting happily with the large aquatic beast.
"My kind used to guard the entrance of the underground aquatic world.. We used to live in the sea that now you call desert, and were even allowed to visit during our youth." Responded the red carp with a hint of melancholy "Now it's only me left."
"Because of the winds?" Asked Daniel with pure curiosity. He had heard the mention of the strong winds when he had been called out of the pocket dimension by Roley, and now the pieces were starting to get together.
The red carp remained quiet in apparent hesitation, then said "Not the winds.. The beasts that brought it.. But now I know what it actually is.."
"You mean a perfect wind treasure? Unlikely. There isn't a treasure that can chip away at a sea's water in the world. Unless.." Responded Daniel casually. Even if he had just learned about the winds, he was now more of an expert in natural mana than most, as he possessed a perfect comprehension of numerous essences.
What else could create an area in which the winds could potentially rip a common human to pieces if not a perfect sphere? But what were the chances that an airborne race of beasts could own one?
These questions came and went inside Daniel's mind in a matter of moments.
For all Daniel knew, perfect spheres had an extremely long duration of at least a few thousand years. Who knows how many times a similar treasure could have changed hands in such a long time.
"Unless what?" Asked the red carp with clear interest. It had spent so much time under constant threat, that the single mention of a 'likely reason' for his suffering, had lit his interest like nothing else had ever done before.
"Unless.. The beasts arrived after the sphere."
Roley, Heimart and Der, which were quietly sitting by themselves and listening to the conversation between Daniel and the Ancient red carp, now turned to look at Daniel with deep interest. "What do you mean, Dan?" Asked Heimart.
"That maybe, and I'm not saying that this is true, there could be a perfect wind sphere somewhere in the desert which attracted the airborne beasts, and that caused the sea to turn into a desert." Responded Daniel with uncertainty.
Just as Daniel finished speaking, a portal formed in the empty area right next to Der.
On the other side of this portal, one could see the plaza in front of the castle within the pocket dimension, and right in front of it, were Serf, Jerigh, and Alesia which quickly stepped through and arrived on the platform within the underwater cave.
Daniel waved his hand faintly, as a smile caused by Alesia's appearance appeared on his face.
"Dan, where are we?" Said Serf through a confused expression. He was looking around, trying to find out where Daniel's friends had taken him.
"What do you mean where are we? We are at the laboratory! I'll make the antidote right now!" Said Daniel before standing up from the border of the rocky platform, and walking towards him while leaving a clear trail of wet footprints.
"Now? You don't even have any instr-" Muttered Serf to himself before being interrupted by Daniel's words.
"Do you still have the letter that your sister used to poison me?" Asked Daniel plainly.
Serf struggled to hide any form of reaction to Daniel's words, but in the end, he gave up and said "How did you know it was her?.." His tone was dispirited, and apologetic. He didn't feel worried that Daniel could find out about this.. Instead, he was sorry about omitting the culprit of the act that had almost killed his friend.
"Are you joking? Who in their right mind wouldn't realize that your sister is a psychopath after meeting her? Hehe.. Don't worry about it, I'm not angry about the fact that you haven't told me it was her doing. She is your sister after all." Responded Daniel casually.
What he said was true. Daniel was not angry with Serf, after all, he also had a sister, and even if the nature of the relationship between the two pairs was extremely different, and despite all of the things he had seen, he couldn't come to think that a brother would willingly let his sister die.
Of course, this way of thinking was caused solely by Daniel's ignorance. Had he known of the real relationship between the two siblings, he would have killed Alana the instant he had seen her for attempting to poison Alesia.
One could say that the only reason why Alana was still alive, was because her action had not only failed, but had ultimately given him a chance to be noticed by the poisonous rose.
Despite sparing Alana's life, Daniel had still decided to destroy the reputation of Serf's family. That was something he didn't care about, as they were still part of a collective of groups whose main goal was to create one weapon of mass destruction after the other, and they deserved far worse.
"I'm sorry.." Said Serf before making a bundle of tissue appear in his hand, and handing it over to Daniel.
Daniel quietly grabbed the item in Serf's hand, and after noticing how mortified he looked, he decided to give him a friendly nudge with his elbow, and say "Come, take a look."
He then moved to the middle of the platform, and took out each and every ingredient that he had gathered in the past couple of weeks.
The ingredients were divided into three small groups, two of which he needed to treat separately in two different methods.
Without wasting too much time, he used his own immortal essence to form two small fires. He then used the concept of melting of the earth and fire essences to create three glass containers.
Inside two of these glass containers he put the two poisons that needed to be boiled, along with the two ingredients that they needed to be boiled with, while the third was placed upside down over the first container in order to prevent the vapors from wasting in the air instead of condensing into the required state.
Once done, Daniel put the two pots above the two open flames, and focused on controlling the intensity of the heat.
Daniel could, in theory, increase the heat of these two flames to over a thousand degree and cause the two liquids to boil in an instant.. But he only had one set of ingredients, and he didn't want to risk burning them.
In the open pot, he put the poison of the white-scaled snake, along with five of the indigo puffer fish's thorns, while in the covered pot, he put the poison of the black opal snake, along with a previously cut part of the dryad queen's heart.
He then waited patiently.
Small water-like droplets started to condense on the internal surface of the upside down pot, which Daniel immediately extracted in order to prevent them from dripping back down into the mixture.
At the same time, Daniel increased the power of the flame that was boiling the uncovered pot, causing the moisture to evaporate, and turning the mixture denser by the minute.
After more than five minutes, Daniel found himself with a small bottle of transparent liquid, and a lump of black paste.
His attention turned towards the last ingredient.. The green-skinned snake's saliva.
Suddenly, a head-sized wooden mortar and pestle appeared in front of him, and without wasting anymore time, he put the black paste, the transparent liquid, and the green-skinned snake's saliva into it, just like the instructions had told him to.
He then grabbed the pestle, and started to mix the three ingredients over and over again.
The mixture of the black lump, watery liquid, and viscous substance quickly started to merge into a grey dense paste which Daniel kept mixing again, and again, and again just to be sure that none of the ingredients were left out.
Once finished, Daniel unwrapped the letter whose touch had caused him to almost drop dead, and with a single thought, he covered it with his immortal essence and made it burst in flames.
The fire wasn't bound by the combustive effect of the letter, and instead, was constructed by Daniel's immortal essence, therefore, it was not going to disappear just because the letter had been burned completely.
Instead, it kept burning quietly until its ashes started to deposit on the tissue which Serf had used to wrap the letter. Only then did the flame disappear leaving no trace of light or warmness behind.
Daniel carefully grabbed the four corners of the tissue which contained the letter's ashes, and moved it above the mortar which contained the grey paste, then, he let go of two of the four corners, causing the ashes to join the rest of the mixture.
Once again, Daniel grabbed the pestle and started to mix the grey paste with the dark grey ashes, which after every movement of his hand, caused the mixture to turn to a darker shade of grey.
It was only after the paste became homogeneous and the liquids were absorbed, that Daniel stopped.
The system's mission had told him the entire procedure, but it hadn't told him to which quantity of the paste one pill corresponded.. All he knew, was that this dark grey paste was enough to produce exactly thirty-six pills.
With one more thought, his immortal essence turned into a metallic spoon which scooped the entirety of the dark grey paste out of the mortar, then expanded into a flat slab of metal above which the paste was evenly spread.
This slab was divided into four rows, and each row was divided into nine columns of small squares.
Daniel approached the metallic slab, and after making sure that the portions were even, he unsheathed his sword, and made eight horizontal, and three vertical slashes, splitting the paste into thirty-six identical portions.
The thirty-six split slabs of metal quickly wrapped around the portion of dark grey paste that they were supporting, and pressed them into a perfectly spherical shape.
Daniel finished the entire procedure by cooling the thirty-six metallic spheres that were currently floating in mid air, causing the just as many pills contained inside them to solidify into firm pills.
Finally, Daniel let his immortal essence dissipate, and personally controlled the finished products to float in the air.
Right now, Daniel stood in front of his friends, while surrounded by more than thirty seemingly worthless and dull-looking pills.
