Pandora Unchained B1C10 - The Alchemist’s Guild

A strong medicinal sent assaulted Sorin the moment he walked through the bloodwood doors leading into the Alchemist’s Guild. It was a large guild given the size of the outpost, but still much smaller than you’d find in a proper city.

The building was made of stone and had far too many chimneys. It was split into two parts: the storefront in the front and the workshops that occupied the back and three other floors.

“Welcome to the Alchemist’s Guild,” greeted the shopkeeper standing guard over shelves of pre-pared medicines and exotic medicinal ingredients on display. “Whatever you’re looking for, I’m sure we’ll be able to find what you – Physician Sorin, what can I do for you today?”

“I’m not a physician anymore Henry,” said Sorin, walking up to the counter. “Given your connections, I’m sure you’ve heard why that happened, and how.”

Henry laughed uncomfortably as he scratched the back of his head. He was around thirty years old and had a cultivation stalled at the peak of blood thickening. “I heard there was a commotion at the adventure’s guild last night. Something about the Kepler Clan. But I didn’t connect the dots until this morning when a red-eyed Gabriella came to fetch some potions and pills.”

Sorin frowned. “She’s doing courier duty? Doesn’t one of the nurses usually do that?”

Henry shrugged. “I have no idea what’s going on, but she didn’t look too pleased about.”

Sorin made a note to visit Gabriella in the future after things calmed down. Visiting now would only further incriminate her in Marcus’s eyes. “Let’s not talk about such things for now. I’m here for business.”

“Tch. You act indifferent, but I know you care,” said Henry. “You should talk to her. Let her know your difficulties. Let her know you’re there for her.”

“The day I start taking love advise form you is the day the Seven Evils awaken and this world is destroyed,” said Sorin wryly. Henry had a reputation for failed relationships. “Besides, there’s nothing going on between us. And I’d like to keep it that way – for her own sake.”

“Fine. Fine,” said Henry, holding up his hands. “I won’t get involved in your mess. Hope only knows how many hearts I’ve led astray. So, business it is. You’ve regained your cultivation, and I’ve heard that you’re now a poisoner. Quite a big change in profession, I’d say.”

Sorin shrugged. “We do what we need to survive, Henry. My path as a physician was obliterated long ago. Fortunately, those skills are still useful in my current profession. Tell me, Henry – do you still carry fossilized cockatrice grass?”

“Fossilized cockatrice grass,” said Henry, tapping his fingers on the store’s wooden desk. “I think I recall seeing something like that in the back. Not many people look for it – it’s only useful in the most extreme cases for a doctor, and only a few two-star alchemical recipes require it. So the ingredient is rare, and the price won’t be cheap.”

“Then I’ll trouble you to bring me ten stalks,” said Sorin, who’d long since grown used to the man’s rambling.

“Ten stalks? I don’t think we have that much. But let me check,” said Henry.

“Then bring out the weight difference in breathstop mint,” said Sorin. “Actually, I on second thought, make it a half and half mixture.” He probably couldn’t afford using only cockatrice grass. “The Ten Thousand Poison Cannon was extremely useful in this regard. It not only described poisons in vivid detail, but it also described their sub-types and combability.

Henry returned five minutes later holding five thin boxes and one larger box. He popped open one of the smaller boxes and allowed Sorin to inspect its contents.

“How old are these exactly?” said Sorin, gingerly poking a piece of grass with a crystal needle. A piece cracked off and crumbled into dust that settled onto the bottom of the case.

“These were obviously the freshest goods, obtained only a few weeks ago,” said Henry. He lied as easily as he breathed.

“Oh?” said Sorin, poking the grass again. It broke in half. “If that were the case, this stalk would be no more than 3 months old. How curious that its medicinal properties have degraded so much that a small needle prod would break it.” He then opened the next five boxes and grunted as he inspected them. They weren’t much better off. He then opened the box of breathstop mint and snorted when he saw the contents. Altogether, he might barely have enough active ingredients for his purposes.

“Thrown in a half litre of liquified mana extract and I’ll give you thirty gold,” said Sorin.

“Thirty gold?” replied Henry. “Why don’t you just rob me?”

“You and I both know this is expired inventory,” said Sorin. “By all rights, you should be throwing it away.”

“Tch.” Henry shook his head and picked up the six cases. “Fifty gold, or I’m putting them back.”

“Thirty-five,” countered Sorin.

“Forty, and I won’t go any lower,” said Henry.

Grimacing, Sorin took out a one-star demon core. “Would you take a one-star flesh melting demon spider core?”

“What did you say?” said Henry, grabbing the core with a gloved hand. Exactly how he’d put on the glove so fast or how he’d fetched the magnifying glass from the back counter, Sorin had no idea. “Hm. A juvenile.”

“Otherwise, it would have been a two-star core,” said Sorin. “I might be new to adventuring, but I’m not an idiot.” He’d done some reading up on the creatures native to Bloodwood Forest before heading out.

“I can reluctantly accept this as payment,” said Henry.

“The going rate for a core like that is 70 gold,” said Sorin flatly.

“Then you can try selling it through your storefront,” said Henry with a grin. “Oh wait. You don’t have a storefront.”

“Throw in 20 more gold as change,” said Sorin.

“No,” said Henry.

“Ten more then,” said Sorin.

“N. O.,” said Henry. “No.”

“Cheap bastard,” muttered Sorin. “Fine. You win. But I need glassware that can handle these poisons, the liquified mana extract I asked for, and a workstation for the next 6 hours. That’s my bottom line.”

Henry hesitated, but reluctantly agreed. After all, this deal wouldn’t really cost him anything extra. “Fine. Someone with your background surely knows how to use glassware, and we happen to have a workshop available. Just don’t kill anyone. Or hurt anyone. And if you break the glassware, you’re paying for it.”

He first had Sorin sign a contract before leading him to the back of the guild to what looked like the smallest, dirtiest laboratory Sorin had ever seen. The glassware hadn’t even been cleaned since last usage, so he would need to spend an hour cleaning things up. But beggars couldn’t be choosers, so he swallowed his complaints and took over the workspace.

It took an hour of cleaning and washing to get everything he needed in order. Mixing medicine was complicated, and for someone like Sorin, who didn’t control the wood, fire, or water elements, the only thing that could be relied upon was clean and functional equipment.

The first thing he did was heat up a beaker of liquified mana extract. Mana extract was strange in that it didn’t have to be one phase or another at a given temperature. Once it was liquified, it would stay in that state regardless of how much you heated it. And in a gaseous state, it wouldn’t condense no matter how much you cooled it.

Sorin adjusted the flame and heated it to maintain a temperature of 235 degrees. He then walked over to a fume hood and removed the fossilized cockatrice grass stalks from their cases and crushed them using a jade mortar and pestle. He ground them to a fine powder, then meticulously cleaned off the mortar and pestle before moving on to the breathstop mint.

The two powders easily dissolved when added to separate beakers of liquified mana extra. Sorin simmered them for three hours before filtering out the solids and tossing them into the disposal chimney. He was left with a glowing beaker of thick white liquid and a minty-fresh beaker of breathstop mint. Breathing in fumes from either liquid would stop his breathing for several seconds, so he made sure to use a fume hood as he dripped the breathstop mint extract into the white liquid.

Poisons, alchemical ingredients, and medicine reacted differently than normal chemical reagents. With chemicals, you only needed to worry about various reactions like acid-base reactions, polymerization, substitutions, and so on and so forth.

But when mana got involved, you needed to know the specifics of what you were dealing with. These two poisons, for example, were in a compatible category and capable of devouring each other. His plan was to use the breathstop mint extract to revitalize the expired cockatrice grass extract.

Sorin fed the white liquid until it suddenly let off soft green glow. Looks like I calculated it correctly, thought Sorin. The ingredients in the breathstop mint are exactly what the cockatrice grass needed to revitalize itself. It was only thanks to the Ten Thousand Poison Cannon that he knew about the predatory nature of these respective poisons. The stronger poison on the food chain would devour the weaker one.

In the end, he was left with a hundred milters of opaque green liquid. The rest had been absorbed by the reagents to revitalize themselves.

Sorin waited a half hour before the liquid was fully cooled. He stoppered the contents in ten vials, then dropped the remaining few drops onto his skin. His flesh solidified for a few seconds before the poisons native to his body rushed in to devour the intruding poison and carry it off to various parts of his body for assimilation.

Even with the Ten Thousand Poison Cannon, it took time to assimilate poisons. Sorin carefully observed his body and took notes as the small amount of cockatrice grass extract was taken into his body. It’ll take an hour to assimilate a millilitre in the beginning, thought Sorin. But as I get used to it, my rate of assimilation should increase.

Absorbing the poison only weakened him slightly, and his organs received a much smaller shock. Moreover, doing so in this way would give him time to get used to mana as it changed and solidify his cultivation as he progressed.

Satisfied with the result of his trip to the Alchemist Guild, Sorin packed up the ten vials into his pack using a sturdy case and tidied up one final time before heading out.