Chapter 421: Chapter 421 - Don’t Think... This Is What A Charcoal Scrub & Cleanse Means
The smell of boiling tree sap mixed with the earthy scent of well pulverized bark created an aroma that could generously be called ’medicinal’ - and more accurately described as ’revolting’. Elua crouched beside a series of rough, essence-heated stone vessels... each containing different stages of her mass culinary refinement project.
Her silver dress was finally more pristine than it had been in days... and it had been ’abandoned’ hours ago in something like a protective shrine. While there was a variety of plant that made for good, broadleafed coverings - El was not about to wear something so flammable next to fires.
’Not twice. Well, four... five times? If you count the time I was doused in that substance that I was not aware had such a low ignition point.’
For protection, there was instead a tight barrier of Gas latticed with a spiritual energy barrier over top something else for modesty. Altogether it wouldn’t stop a determined cultivator attack but could at least withstand splashes of boiling hot, concentrated plant matter.
And perhaps a lightning bolt or two.
To fuel her cauldrons to cook down the trees, she had first burnt some to make charcoal. While separating out the valuable gases and compounds being produced in the process... the sulfur bearing ones had kicked a memory or twelve-hundred. Sulfuric acid was once a big favorite of hers, after all.
’A lot of bad and good memories, there.’
However, she had learned of lots of gases produced by various natural processes as well as more industrialized ones in the belt of large, truly *truly* ancient Exclaves that housed the majority of those cultivators above the Defier realm.
"I’m glad I paid attention to that ’chemist’. Though even he would probably think what I’m doing is both magnificent and ridiculous."
One of the densest insulators she could remember him describing would be labeled by the chemical designation Sulfur Hexafluoride. And luckily enough... there was a ton of fluorspar in the caverns below. The overlaid cubic looking stones were quite common, and plenty of the octahedral versions could be found around hydrothermal vents.
Even luckier, she had picked up quite a number of them already, intending to crush them for use as a flux whenever she did not feel like manually isolating out the potential gases in the slag formed by any steel smelting she may do in the future. Only about two pounds of it was more than enough for her latest gas barrier.
Though actually manufacturing enough had been a mentally intensive process of gradual isolation and manipulation as the fluorine was freed up in the heating. Mixing with the elemental sulfur to create the appropriate gas structure... while separating out the very toxic impurities and reheating them until they decomposed.
’With such a sudden idea, I did not have all the tools to save every component. My apologies, poor Exclave atmosphere... I have tarnished you a slight amount~’
About an inch thick at one atmospheric pressure, the resulting gas was heavier than normal air, very stable, non-toxic, and also a very good thermal and electrical insulator... at temperatures under nine hundred degrees Fahrenheit. Above that, the chemical bonds risked collapsing into highly poisonous Sulfur Tetrafluoride. Which for the most part only made her more dangerous against potent Fire cultivators.
’They can turn my defense into an attack without any effort from me, that would be kind of them to let me return tit-for-tat.’
All in all, she had cackled a lot during the start of her preparations as she ’found’ how to catalyze one of her new favorite substances in this life. So much that it drove off the attempts of Sevra to track her down and talk in person. And the spiritual fluctuations since she ran from their conversation made her not want to approach her hiding place on the other side of the Exclave in her Astral Avatar alone...
"Almost time for that one."
Steam rose from the largest cauldron as she stirred the thick, dark liquid with a long wooden paddle. The consistency had finally reached what her calculations suggested would provide optimal physical energy density per volume consumed. The taste would be horrific, but efficiency mattered more than palatability for her plans.
Three other containers held various experimental batches - different tree species, different concentration methods, different additives she’d found in the Exclave’s diverse ecosystem. One was just a box of ’sap candies’ that tasted like chemical death and made even her cramp up and double over despite her efficient and iron-stomach techniques.
All of this highly methodical approach to a cultivation problem felt familiar and soothing after weeks of the scattered perfection of construction work and fully imperfect emotional turmoil. Smiling visibly even with completely dull mint eyes, she reached for another armload of prepared bark chunks.
The fibrous material had already already been stripped and processed in mineral soaks and loosening steams according to the techniques she’d adapted from knowledge and recipes spanning several lifetimes. Physical energy could always be extracted from organic - and sometimes inorganic chemical matter - if you knew the right processes.
Elua er Goltbred, or as she once was as the ’Acid Tongued Villainess’... she’d always been thorough about learning such useful skills. No matter how much it smelled like-
"Something must have died in that cauldron. Twice."
The familiar voice made her look up from her work. Madrigil stood at the far edge of her makeshift laboratory. His expression changed between curiosity and horror as he took in the scope of her operation.
All the stacks of processed material on stone shelving. Essence extraction arrays carved into the stone. Multiple brewing stations working simultaneously. He was sure she’d only been gone less than a week, but it looked like an operation that had been running for months.
"Well. It’s not supposed to smell pleasant. That wasn’t a contributing factor to my goal. It’s supposed to be remotely edible and not cripple me, that’s all."
Her tone carried the sort of flat state that was not quite as dull and lifeless as it used to be... but more like the one anyone would use when focused. No facade, no sweetness, and no... monotone. Just the ancient cultivator who’d learned that sometimes survival required unpleasant, practical choices.
And she felt like she was fighting to survive all of a sudden, as peaceful as it was here. Like she’d discovered a disease she had been born with. One that she was determined to cure.
"I actually wasn’t looking for you, originally. I’ve been exploring the outer reaches of this place. Didn’t expect to find... whatever this is. Are you trying to grow immune to poisons? Or is this some sort of panacea..."
The formerly mad noble stepped closer at that thought. His own time in the Exclave had been spent mostly in the meditation of ’new discoveries’. When he wasn’t doing that, he was only left with careful experimentation with his disrupted Astralism. Something he was not all that keen to do.
Madrigil had seen the potential in her spiritual constructs and was sure that in time they would be so highly refined that they would look like nothing he could imagine. Which was why finding the sigil expert engaged in what looked like primitive, manual alchemy was... somewhere other than ’expected’.
’But still within the realm of probability I’d calculated. Rather, it would likely end in a higher ratio of success to *always* assume that there are no improbables with this... woman-child.’
He wasn’t sure it was acceptable to him to use such a haphazard methodology, but it did make him feel less pressure. Figuring out the ancient cultivator fully was not on his list of current tasks in the first place... it was just an interesting diversion between studying any of the new sigilry groupings the girl slammed down like it was the most obvious thing to anyone.
He always learned a thing or two - and that was enough.
"Poison? No. Panacea... no? I’m trying to sustain myself through a process that’s going to require significant energy expenditure. So I am making what most would not exactly qualify as food, but serves the purpose better than anything others eat would."
"So, poison."
"Just how toxic this would be to a mortal not running our common conversion techniques is not the point. Why would I limit my abilities when the fact of the matter is I’m a cultivator?"
Holding his hand over his face, he shook his head side to side before speaking into his palm. Of course, El could still hear him... but it seemed rude!
"I beg to differ that it is not relevant. I’m getting lightheaded from all the way over here. Therefore, I think you are cheating by filtering out something instead of breathing it."
His step closer had been the only one he performed. He regretted it, but was not about to take it back. Not when he could study the sigils better from there! Of course, Elua knew what he wanted... but today she wasn’t feeling as generous so did not throw an illusory blueprint out for the intruder.
She gestured toward the cooling batches with her stirring paddle, droplets of the concentrated mixture falling back into the cauldron with small steaming splashes. The concentration of gas that could qualify as ’anesthetic’ was not as high over there... and the inactive sigils were still ones she was sure he’d never seen. That bought her exactly an hour.
"What kind of process requires you to brew... that?"
The emphasis on ’that’ made her mouth twitch in what might have been the start of amusement under other circumstances. For she’d tasted worse things in her previous life. Though admittedly not by choice... in all but a single instance.
’I’m sure any good wife would have tried their cooking, not just me.’
For a while, she said nothing. Then after tapping her stirring rod on the side and setting it in the holder by the cauldron, she took a few quick steps to be directly in his space. Where he could see the tenth of an inch thick distortion of dense, jelly like gas placed on top of a fine layer of adhered carbon powder that hid every inch of her skin below the neck.
And the somehow terrifying barrier of spiritual energy that threaded through the tight essence control of it all. If it wasn’t for great cultivator eyesight, he would have already thought she was merely a floating brunette head in the darkness.
"The kind where you have to tear down everything you think you know about how your body works. Where you rebuild it from nothing in the way it needs and wants to be instead of clinging to the ideals of a dead woman."