The Mirror (1)
Veterans left their mark in every field imaginable.
Alchemy was no exception. Of course there were veterans who had made that art their own.
Elixirs that artificially forced something close to a rebirth of flesh and bone. Spirit pills that grafted a special trait onto one's constitution. And beyond those, doping drugs that amplified a skill's power, potions that granted a buff erasing one's very presence, and more besides. They had manufactured every secret the craft possessed.
I remember every one of those recipes. What was there to hide? Bihyung himself had once lived and breathed alchemy. For the record, the secret elixir of an artificial rebirth had been his own creation.
"Th-that can't truly be so, can it, Lord!?"
He had dressed the veterans' tales up a little, telling them as if they belonged to people who had walked this world, and Eodugi swallowed hard. A smile, quite the opposite of that awe, tugged at Bihyung's mouth.
"Yep. I remember all of it, and I can make it."
He thought of the spirit-pill ingredients sleeping in his bag.
"For now, there are two things I need to make right away."
An elixir that would add a special trait to one's constitution.
And—
An arrogant name, claiming it could treat every illness there was. In practice, though, it had shown an effect close to exactly that.
Swallow it, and it stays stored in the body. The moment disease or poison gets in, it treats them on its own. It was a one-use item, gone the instant it did its work, but it left a resistance-related skill behind as a parting gift. There was a hidden piece to be gained through it. Worth making, and worth having on hand.
"Oooh!"
Eodugi cheered at the news.
"Truly miraculous, Lord! To have devised an alchemical method such as this—Lord, you are worthy of all reverence!"
Bihyung scratched his cheek. The one who actually made this wasn't even him.
Those sparkling eyes are weirdly hard to take. It felt like staring straight into a child's innocent wonder. Waking him from the dream seemed a bit cruel, so he decided to leave it be.
"But, Lord. What does it mean, this talk of a special trait added to one's constitution?"
"Ah, that? Just think of it as gaining one extra constitution. Easier that way."
A constitution that granted all manner of bonus stats through the simple act of eating. That was the shape of it. Of course, it only triggers on something you're eating for the first time. By the late game, the gap those stats opened could not be ignored. Above all, it applied to spirit medicines and the like as well. Take a spirit medicine, and its efficacy settled in stronger than it had any right to. Obtain the constitution early, and the efficiency would be absurd.
I've already found another way to deal with the Nine Yang Severed Meridians, so there's no need to waste a spirit medicine on them. By feel, exorcising about three anomalies ought to be enough to resolve the severed meridians too, with no need to take a spirit pill at all. And if yokai power was as good as a spirit medicine, what else did he need? Aside from the first time the acupoint at my heart hurt, there's been no more pain. It didn't even feel like a death sentence anymore. The yin-cold nature of his yokai power was holding his yang energy still, keeping it from moving.
At first the yokai power was the troublemaker, and the yang energy was its reins. Now the situation had flipped on its head. So this was why people said you never knew the road ahead.
"Anyway, we'll swing by the alchemy room later."
Bihyung spent the night in cultivation, and the moment day broke, he moved. He tucked Eodugi into his shadow and left the dormitory. He hurried outside and had been walking the academy grounds only a short while when he saw it in the distance: a place where acrid medicinal fumes rose thick into the air.
The alchemy room. Bihyung opened the door and stepped inside.
Early as the morning was, the place was crowded with people. No. With zombies.
Yikes. Every last one of them looks half dead. Not zombies, strictly speaking. Students who looked about ready to keel over. They shuffled along in a sway, now and then walking their heads straight into a wall. Just how long had they gone without sleep?
If they're in the alchemy room, they must dream of becoming alchemists... Looks like they're playing assistant under a professor. He had heard plenty, in that other world, about how terrifying graduate students were. This world, it seemed, was no different.
Bihyung brushed past them and entered a private alchemy room. Here he could focus alone, with no interference and no eyes on him.
"First... a little Overseer's Herb, some amanita mushroom, and the liquor of the Seven-Treasure Soul-Severing Thread..."
Ingredients whose names alone conjured thoughts of lethal poison. Correct. Every one of them was poison. Eodugi took one look and had a fit.
"L-Lord! You said you were refining elixirs—why are you setting out to brew poison, Lord!?"
Hm? This is alchemy. For the record, the ingredients going in now were precisely the ones that belonged in the Cure-All.
"...Could it be, Lord, that curing every illness means curing the illness by killing the patient!?"
Bihyung let out a hollow laugh and went on. As if. The poisons I'm adding from here, get the ratios right and they crash into each other until every trace of venom drains away. Strip the poison out of poisonous qi, and what do you have left? Nothing but energy. Harmonize the energies these things carry, and the Cure-All is what comes out.
He set the ingredients into the cauldron in their proper ratios and brought it to a boil with spiritual power. Then he fetched a mixer of the sort one might use for baking, set it to stir the cauldron, and that was the end of it.
"This one has to sit for about two hours. I've got the other to deal with."
This time, the pill that added a special trait to one's constitution. As before, he blended the ingredients in order, boiled the cauldron, and brought the mixer over.
"Done."
The moment Bihyung stepped back from the cauldron, Eodugi's face soured.
"Somehow... it feels as though the world I knew is crumbling, Lord."
"Why?"
"I had believed alchemy to be a field demanding tremendous concentration and profound deliberation, Lord."
That's how it originally was. But since when did veterans enjoy a game while stuck inside a fixed frame? These were the sort of people who, when bored, would attempt a clear in nothing but their underwear, with no gear at all. That's collective intelligence for you. Bang enough heads together, and a method always turns up. Wasn't there a saying that even a sheet of paper is lighter when two people lift it? ...That wasn't even the right saying for a moment like this, was it?
Anyway. That, from start to finish, was a veteran's alchemy.
Bihyung leaned against the wall and waited for the elixir to finish forming. At last, two hours passed.
Clunk. Drrrr—!
The mixer stopped turning. He looked into the cauldron. The contents had gone from a viscous liquid to something like dough beaten smooth. Violet, with a sheen of light running through it. It came out right. A failure wouldn't even turn to dough like this. In other words, it was safe to eat.
Bihyung scooped the contents out, packed them firm, and rolled them into neat bite-sized rounds. Roughly eight pills.
"Eodugi, you eat one too."
He tossed over a Cure-All, and a voice on the verge of tears rose from within the shadow.
"L-Lord... is someone like me truly allowed to eat a treasure like this, Lord!?"
"Once you've taken it, there's no effect from the second time on. So eat it."
"Loooord!!"
Ignoring Eodugi, who wailed something just short of a scream, Bihyung went to the second cauldron.
The Gluttony Pill. That was the formal name of the pill that added a special trait to one's constitution. This batch is exactly one pill's worth. He scooped out the dough and swallowed it whole, without even bothering to shape it.
Ding!
The response was immediate.
You have ingested the Gluttony Pill.
The Pleasure of Gluttony is bestowed upon your flesh.
The pill's energy settled through his organs. Satisfied, Bihyung gathered up the Cure-Alls. He would take one of those later, when the time came to claim the hidden piece.
"All right. Shall we go?"
"...Where might we be going, Lord?"
"Where else?"
The domain of the anomalies. Bihyung grinned and left the alchemy room.
Raise my proficiency, and treat the severed meridians while I'm at it. Two birds with one stone. Whatever it takes, I'll have it done before regular classes. And for that— I'll need a little help from Mina. A bodily buff drawn through the Divine Beast Thread. With that, it should be fine to push himself and run the Ghost-Slaying Art.
"Haa... haa..."
Training that had started in the early morning. Mina forced out what stamina she had left, keenly aware of a breath that was running short.
This isn't it. She was checking the ability that had climbed when she entered the 2nd Rank, but the arts would not manifest as she willed them. What's the problem? It felt a beat slower than when she had been at the 1st Rank. It isn't, in reality... but my senses keep registering the arts as slow. Measured on the training room's timer, from the moment of activation to the speed of a direct hit, she was markedly faster than she had been at the 1st Rank. Sensation and perception had fallen out of step.
What's the problem? She had to grow quickly. If only for her ailing mother.
......
Mina set her teeth again, and was just about to manifest her arts.
Ding!
Her phone announced a text. She went to it at once. The only person who would message her was Bihyung.
"What's going on?"
She tilted her head as she opened it, and her eyes flew wide.
Stripped to its point, the message said he had made a spirit pill called the Cure-All, and that he meant to give it to her. While he was at it, he was heading for the domain of the anomalies, so if she had the time she should come out. He needed her help.
...The Cure-All.
Mina's eyes went blank and unfocused. If something like that... really existed... Instinctively she remembered her mother as she used to be, laughing, radiant. And then she remembered Bihyung, offering it to her with no price asked at all.
Wh-why would he give something like this to me...
She wiped the rising tears away with her sleeve. When she had entered the academy. When she had received the cultivation method. And now, again. She had only ever been on the receiving end with Bihyung.
...How am I supposed to repay a debt like this? The weight of it felt as if it might crush her. And yet her gratitude toward him was greater still. She would not forget this thankfulness. And she would be of help to him, no matter what.
Mina scrubbed away the tears that had been falling until a moment ago, then rose with the look of someone who had made up her mind.
"He said he needs my help, didn't he? I should get ready right now."
She hurried into the bathroom to wash. Steam gathered, thickening, in the stream of hot water. She finished washing her face quickly and stepped into the stall to shower.
And so she did not see it.
Srrk.
The place where she had been standing only a moment before. In the mirror opposite, steam gathered in a shape exactly like a person—and then it was gone.
Nor did she see the rest.
A grin.
That it had looked, for all the world, as if something were smiling.