After a long session of exchanging ideas, Werian bade Meiros and Chrysos farewell. Werian gave a satisfied nod after seeing that Chrysos was genuine when talking about magic with him.
He learned a lot from this exchange. In his entire life, what he has been doing is manipulate fire's form and energy. He unknowingly prevented himself from advancing due to his insistence to use fire and only fire.
So when Chrysos taught him how to apply it using different elements, he saw that fire alone cannot achieve true strength. It needs the harmony brought by other elements to make it more powerful than how it originally is.
And because of that, he didn't regret giving Chrysos everything he knew about magic without holding anything back.
…
Chrysos tapped Meiros' shoulder and asked, "So, what did you learn back there?"
Meiros smiled. "Everything."
"There's a difference between memorizing and learning Meiros, I'm sure you know about that." Chrysos reminded him.
"Master, you underestimate me too much." Meiros responded unhappily.
"Oh yeah, what does the NB-type symbol do with the cleft marking? The base energy is lightning with life energy" Chrysos asked.
Meiros thought for 0.002 seconds and said, "It gives the lightning basic tracking abilities. However, it's too primitive that it can only follow a living creature for 2 seconds before ignoring it afterwards. Not only that, the detection ability of the lightning will be so weak that it will attack the nearest living creature which wouldn't hit the desired target 90% of the time."
Chrysos clapped his hands. "Good. Now what's the basic formula necessary to make the Adietaline chemical?"
Meiros racked his brains for two seconds before saying, "Master, that question is too difficult.."
Chrysos laughed. "You have a lot to learn kid."
Meiros slumped his shoulders down. "Master, I'm not a talented alchemist. Even if I can memorize things quickly, that doesn't mean I can learn them."
With a snap of his fingers, Chrysos said, "See? You actually understood what I meant."
Meiros realized that Chrysos said something about memorization doesn't equal learning earlier. "Ah, I see…"
Chrysos wiped the mist in his gas mask. "Well I don't."
Meiros gave out a light chuckle. "Master, you should be able to make glass, correct?"
"Hm?" Chrysos finished wiping his mask clean and said, "Yes, but glass is too troublesome to smelt myself. I'm an alchemist, but I don't have access to stuff like sand to use as glass."
"But Master, isn't alchemy supposed to be about finding alternatives to solve a problem?" Meiros paused for a short while and said, "Plus, with how talented you are, I'm sure you can make anything given the right ingredients."
Chrysos felt an idea pop in his head. "I have a great idea."
Meiros was immediately interested. "Master, what do you plan on doing?"
"I'm planning to use crystals to make glass that wouldn't fog up when it's humid. Crystalization is an easy thing to do since Ironmountain is very rich in ores and resources, so I don't see why I can't do that." Chrysos really liked the idea.
As the two of them walked, they saw a few homeless people starving at the side of the road.
Chrysos saw this and shook his head. "The Divine Lands in the end is still very undeveloped. People still starve and die because of how poor the living conditions are."
That was just his thoughts. Meiros wasn't able to hear any of it.
Even though Gerald wanted to help, his other self as Chrysos almost doesn't allow him to do so. It gives him a feeling of aloofness which went against his moral code. And everytime that happens, he feels a slight headache every single time.
Chrysos took out bread covered in paper from his bag and gave it to the homeless man.
The man who had his head lowered was a bit startled until he saw that it was someone offering him food. He licked his dry lips and said in a frail voice, "Thank you."
Chrysos also gave the man a glass bottle filled with water before giving a nod.
..
Meiros saw what Chrysos did and said, "Master, you really have a kind heart."
Chrysos shook his head. "I can't really do much. Honestly, I might even be fooling myself by thinking that I'm helping because it's the right thing to do. But sometimes it feels like I'm only doing so because it makes me feel good. If you think about it that way, there is no good in what you're doing."
Meiros didn't agree. "Master, even if you did it to make yourself feel better, in the end, you still helped. And I think that it's a good thing."
"If the reason for helping others is that hideous, then what's the point? But you're right. I think It's more of just a personal dilemma in my case." Chrysos shrugged.
Meiros hit Chrysos' back. "Don't worry Master Chrysos, even if you think that you're a bad person, I'll always think that you're a good person for deciding to help others in the first place. If that isn't the case, I might've been still living in the streets like a rat."
Chrysos was a bit stunned that Meiros though that nicely of him.
Chrysos smiled warmly and said, "I'm actually glad that I have a great student like you."
Meiros laughed, "I learned from an expert, so what can I say?"
"Where did you learn to talk so slick? Tell me, what do you want for dinner?" Chrysos patted his shoulder.
"Mushroom stew with beef." Meiros remembered the taste of the stew and he couldn't help but let his stomach grumble.
Seeing how Meiros was expecting the food, Gerald thought of the days when he was still a kid.
It was all good memories.
He then asked Meiros, "About the spells earlier, what did you get for yourself?"
Meiros snapped out of his daze and said, "I picked a spell that had great battle potential, but it does take a huge toll on ones mental strength. But as a psychic, it was acceptable."
Chrysos felt that Meiros' decision was quite strategic. He picked a spell that makes use of his advantage to strengthen his fighting potential further.
"After we have dinner, want to go for a night quest?" Chrysos turned to Meiros and waited for his response.
"What quest is it?" Meiros was filled with curiosity.
"It's to hunt down an injured Provectis ranked Shadow Tremorclaw Jaguar." Chrysos removed the filter from his gas mask and took out the vial of the pocket oxygen potion and refilled it. "If I saw it correctly, the quest is an advanced quest."
Meiros' eyes almost bulged out. "Master… are you sure about that? Advanced quests are a bit… different."
"Honestly, I want to push myself to become a Provectis ranked alchemist. I just feel that my strength is clearly lacking." Chrysos already had the strength of three boars, a bear, and a viper but that was only his body's physical strength.
To advance in their rank, awakened ones need to use as much Divinium to purify their bodies. However, refining one's Divinium is a very difficult and lengthy process. What Chrysos wanted is the jaguars' liver that has the ability to refine Divinium.
If he succeeds making a Divinium recovery potion out of that, it might help him advance.
Another method would be to use high tiered Divinium crystals to absorb and use it to refine one's Divinium core. But as an awakened one advances, the quality of the Divinium they need also gets higher.
Awakened ones aren't limited to humans. It also includes beasts, plants, animals, insects, and even ores.
..
When the two of them got home, Meiros immediately began trying to learn every spell he had.
Chrysos on the other hand, he researched the strange books from the spatial bag. He looked at the first page and every creature was listed in alphabetical order. Well, alphabetical in terms of the alphabet of the Divine Lands.
Chrysos saw a creature called, "Heat Sight." He flipped through the pages and was relieved that the creature's ability was just as he imagined. It is basically heat vision goggles but it's made of flesh.
Chrysos saw that it was an eyeball covered in an orange transparent film that allows it to see heat. Not only that, the eyeball is connected to nerves that one can attach to the side of their heads in order to connect to the eyeball.
But when he looked at the process how to make this creature and the ingredients, he felt that he could make it better.
In order to make it better, Chrysos tried something small first.
He tried to make biological metal.
..
Chrysos started by making a hearing imp. A hearing imp is a small deformed human with huge ears that can turn at will. It has a miniature digestive system and it also has a mouth with teeth.
Chrysos' plan was to use convertion alchemy to turn flesh into metal. That would be dangerous by itself, but he would keep trying. It will also meet a lot of failures along the way so he understood that this isn't going to be completed in one day.
If he successfully made the biological metal, Chrysos would then attach it to the hearing imp through a large system of nerves and veins.
The biological metal that he was thinking of should be a metal that could regenerate. Although they already exist, they are very rare and expensive. What he wants is something that could be mass produced and could be used in many applications.
Just thinking of living armor that has the ability to attack and calculate things by itself would be amazing to think about.
Wait a second..
Gerald thought over it once more and contemplated if this was him thinking and not Chrysos. When it comes to research, you also need to consider if what you're doing is ethical.
Just thinking about this once more, he could feel that Chrysos didn't feel anything when he experimented on living beings. Gerald thought about it some more and realized that he isn't on earth anymore. Morals that he considered important was nothing more but useless trash in the Divine Lands.
He gritted his teeth and went on with the experiment as Chrysos.
They are only made of flesh, but they don't have consciousness. It's just making machines out of biological matter? Right?
This was his excuse to do it.
..
He went out and bought several ingredients for the creatures that he was going to create.
The ingredients were either related to blood alchemy or material conversion alchemy.
Chrysos has limited knowledge when it came to creating living creatures from mere alchemy. Even though he could use his past self's memories, there were many things that he had to consider in order to make it work.
First of all, flesh and metal are two different things. They cannot be easily merged together. Meaning, this research would at least take months or even years to perfect.
After Chrysos finished getting the ingredients and materials, he began his experiment.
Using the flesh creation formula, Chrysos used Blacklipe Pods. A black translucent fruit of a blacklipe plant. Using his unique ability "Purification," He purified the contents of the blacklipe making it more potent.
He put the purified blacklipe juice into a small container and took a bundle of Bloodwart Stemmed Flowers. He cut the stems and poured it into a boiling pot of water. Chrysos then added Scorpion Ant King Venom into the pot of water.
The mixture of bloody water and luminescent green venom was interesting to look at. Chrysos used "Blending," and then the mixture started to like a glowing pot of pure yellow magma.
Chrysos then took out a large piece of Adulem amber and extracted it. Adulem amber is filled with microorganisms that is required to create rare leveled organic flesh.
The amber turned from a solid gray crystal into a gooey gray liquid. Chrysos dumped it in the pot and added the blacklipe juice as well.
After that, Chrysos used liquefied Divinium and mixed it in the pot. He blended the mixture for ten minutes until he saw something form in the pot.
He used his hands to directly take it out of the pot and laid it on the table.
Chrysos let it cool down, and then after a short while, he was left with a chunk of organic tissue.
"..." Chrysos poked the flesh cube and it was pretty firm.
No reaction, no heat, no life.
It was just a block of flesh.
Chrysos was expecting this to happen. In the book, he was told to use his Divinium in order to shape the flesh. Not only that, the extracted essence of the Behlit Mushrooms mixed with liquefied Divinium is required to make nerves by mixing it in the pot and using one's Divinium to shape the necessary nervous system in the flesh mass.
Chrysos restarted the process again..
..
This time, he used the Behlit mushroom essence to create nerves.
But before he did that, he made a separate mixture of the flesh formula and added Hunter Snake Venom in it. After he did so, the flesh mass started to form into what resembled a hunter snake.
He wasn't going to make the hearing imp, but the eyeball called "Heat Sight."
Chrysos took the fetus-like form of the hunter snake from the pot and took out one of the eyes. He put the eye back into the pot and added the blood of the Bloodwart Stemmed Flowers with a continuous supply of liquefied Divinium. The "fetus" isn't a real living being. It is merely a copy of the snake. Not only that, the reason why it isn't a real living being is because it's all cloned organic tissue and it doesn't really have life to begin with. Hence, the natural disappearance when the Divinium in the tissue disappears.
The fetal snake eye in the pot started to grow at an obscenely fast rate. With the supply of Divinium and blood, the eye matured and was finally ready to use.
Chrysos took it out and placed it on the table. He removed his mask and picked up the eyeball with a strange nerve ending.
The nerve ending is a flat circle that can attach itself when infused with Divinium.
Chrysos attached the circular nerve ending of the eyeball to the side of his head and felt a slight tingling sensation. And not too long after, he could see from his third eye.
"Chrysos, you madman…" He laughed with complex emotions.