Tuk.
Another ruler hit Sol on the back of his head. He turned to see Minlarei glaring at him.
"Last chance! You yell again, and I'm kicking you out! I don't care if you're not done reading!"
'But you're louder than me… You were even snoring a while ago.'
He gave a nod in response and returned to his book. He wasn't about to pick a fight with an old lady. He secretly checked her level, and it was only 26. Even so, he wasn't going to use the difference in power to bully her for technically doing her job. Though she was rude about it, it was his fault for sneaking past her to look through the restricted books himself. He was sure she was still mad about that.
The last forty pages of the book went into fine detail about the research and how one would go about activating the latent power of rebirth. There was a long list of materials, many of which he had never heard of, ranging from potent poisons to the blood of powerful beasts. All of it would then be mixed into a massive pool of blood-like liquid where the blood of the dead descendant of the Serpent Devout would be finally added. The researcher who invented the method realized the easiest way to activate the blood was by simulating the conditions in which Ophis first revived. That was why there was one very important material that Sol wasn't sure how to go about acquiring.
'The blood of a god or the blood of 500 priests. The blood of a god is out of the question, but maybe we can pay priests to donate blood?'
If he managed to gather everything, then there was a high chance it would work. As for why it was a high chance and still not guaranteed, even the author couldn't give a true reason. After a lot of tests with different descendants, they realized it had a higher chance of failure the longer they had been dead. They attempted to find the cause, but by all means, it should work regardless of how long they had been dead as the blood was shown to activate. The author believed it could be because the deceased had already moved on to their next life, and as long as they hadn't done that yet, they could be brought back.
Sol wouldn't miss this chance he was given to fix his past mistake. He used the pseudo-psychic skill to memorize all the ingredients and instructions. Once he was done, he closed the book and returned it to the librarian.
"Huh? Already?"
Minlarei was surprised he was already done; it had only been a little over two hours, after all.
Sol nodded and gently placed the book on her counter. "Yes. I found exactly what I needed, thank you for your recommendation."
The old librarian considered recommending he stay a while longer, as she severely doubted he memorized all of that in such a short time, but seeing his absolutely sure expression, she refrained from doing so. She instead checked the book to see if there were any damages and, realizing it was the same as before, handed back a small metal slate.
"I hope it works out for you then. You can use this to get out."
Sol took the key and said goodbye.
Sol left the third floor and continued to head up the stairs all the way until he finally reached the entrance once more. On the way back up, he didn't see Phineas, who had returned to his duties.
The first thing Sol did was head to the requisition center to determine if they had the materials for the activation of Lapis' blood. Luckily, she left him with two vials of her blood, so he didn't have to go dig up her grave.
After checking what they had available, he found most of the materials were already there, especially the poisons. This saved him a lot of time having to find these materials himself, but there was a small downside.
'The total is over 600 merits…'
That wasn't even all the material, and the rest he could only find himself or request them to obtain. Requesting them to source the rest of the materials would cost more than double its normal price, meaning in all it would be over 1000 merits even with the 20% discount he had from his deal with the Commander.
'I don't have enough merits… for now I'll buy all the ones that are already in stock.'
Sol purchased over 50 poisons, herbs, crystals, and other rare materials and crossed those off his list. He had 428 merits left after exchanging for them and left the requisition center.
Later in the day, he called for a meeting with his squad who met in their private meeting room.
"Umm… What is this?" Nataly asked when Sol presented a short stack of papers of alchemical formulas and a long list of materials. Sol took some time to put the instructions on paper so he could show them to his squad.
"It's a resurrection recipe."
"Huh?!"
Aron, who was leaning back on his chair, almost fell over in surprise.
The rest were shocked, they couldn't believe it. Duncan looked at the formulas, and though he had no knowledge of alchemy, he could still see it was highly advanced.
"How did you find this?!"
"Remember Lapis' request? I followed up on it and…"
Sol recounted the short version of the book. He went over who Ophis was, his connection to Lapis, and the latent power of rebirth hidden in her blood.
Nataly was the first to celebrate. "We can bring her back!"
Rex mumbled in disbelief, "This… sounds absurd. I don't mean to sound negative, but are we sure this can work? If not, then we would be wasting a lot of time, money, and only be left with disappointment."
"It was on the third floor of the Royal Library. It wouldn't be kept there if its contents didn't contain incredible secrets and knowledge," Duncan said. While he hadn't been there himself, he knew that was where the kingdom's most important knowledge was kept; there was no chance of a book with false information being kept in there as well.
His logic convinced Rex, which brought him on board as well.
"Then all we need is to get the remaining materials and a good alchemist. Does anyone know one?"