“How many souls is it worth?” Cece inquired about the “divine essence”.

The serpent of truth considered the question for an infinitesimal moment before answering. “Thirty three. And I’ll give you five for the doppelgänger”

Cece nearly choked out of surprise. “I see.” She said, trying to blow it off.

“Would you like to browse my boons, or was there something specific you were looking for?”

“Is there anything that would let me save on alchemy reagents?” Even as someone extremely wealthy, the most magically potent inks and materials were too pricy to use casually, and although she didn’t mind hunting for her materials, it took up valuable time, and could end up being more expensive depending on what scrolls she used in a given fight.

“Ahh, I don’t have many boons that could aid that particular struggle, but I do have information that could help you.”

“Information?”

“Yes, believe it or not, most of my supplicants trade for knowledge.” The snake said with a touch of condescension. In front of her appeared an extremely large collection of papers, almost the size of her torso, wrapped with cord. “As you have given me a collection of modern alchemy techniques, I present to you every single alchemical refining technique that has ever been known to man.”

“How much will it cost me?”

“Twenty souls. And I would recommend a translation boon to go with it, so twenty two souls total.”

“Twenty two souls? For refining techniques?” Cece asked, suppressing her incredulity. Refining was what it sounded like, it would strengthen the magical power of an ink, the most basic form would be to simply put as much magic into an ink as it would take, although this process was limited. More advanced refining techniques transmuted and transformed the ink on a deeper level, but still there were only so many ways to refine.

“The majority of these techniques are no longer known by mankind, things discovered thousands of years ago, now lost to time. Each of the base twenty one elements has at least twelve refining techniques and some have as many as forty three.”

That shocked Cece, that was nowhere near what she knew of, which is to say what modern society knew of. She almost felt disappointed in herself, knowing there were that many unknown techniques and she hadn’t discovered any of them on her own.

“I see, and how much do you think that will help me?”

“I have limited understanding of your exact needs, but if I were to warrant a guess, if you could successfully chain several refining procedures you should be able to make even a simple pure elemental ink more powerful than what you harvested from that doppelgänger sans any special attributes of course.” That would be a shocking

“It’s a deal.” Cece said, barely letting the snake finish. “Do I need the translation boon though, couldn’t I just learn the languages?” It would require a bit of study, but she should be able to learn exponentially faster than a regular person.

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“You could, but several of those languages haven’t been translated by human kind. I could provide you a guide to each one if you’d like, but it would cost more than the boon, and besides, it’s also helpful for ciphers and the like.”

“Very well, I’ll take those two. Do you have any information on the alchemical uses for an angel’s corpse?”

“There are very few Cece, they’re completely magically inert.”

Cece paused, she hadn’t seen any magic coming from it with scribe’s eye, but had figured that its magic just had thorough internal shielding. “They’re not magical?”

“No, they are not.”

“Erasing my memories was a completely nonmagical event?”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure?” Cece asked, less out of disbelief and more out of exasperation.

“Yes, Cece.”

“If it wasn’t magic, then what was it?”

“I think you can guess, from what I’ve already told you” The snake nearly hissed a laugh.

“Divine essence.” Cece stated seriously.

“Divinity yes.”

“And I don’t suppose you’ll tell me more about it?”

“If you are willing to spend souls I will.” It taunted. Cece considered it for a moment, it was extremely tempting especially with the amount of souls she currently had, but, as lovely as it would be to satisfy her curiosity, it wouldn’t help her fight Solastria.

“Maybe another time, can I see what boons I can purchase.”

“Of course, Cece.” The snake hissed as the text on the obelisk changed to display what she wished to see. She hadn’t expected to have this bounty, but she was going to take advantage of it. The first boon she looked at was the translation boon.

“Translator’s Eye: Any words your eye sees are automatically translated if they are known by Knowledge. Any languages not known by Knowledge are analyzed and partially deconstructed, aiding eventual translation.”

It would be useful, and theoretically it could help decrypt certain treatises. Alchemetrixes nowadays were quite upfront with their discoveries, hungry for the fame of advancing the field, but the alchemetrixes of old often hid their discoveries. They were often retainers for kings and queens so they had to maintain their superiority to continue supporting themselves. She was surprised that it only affected one eye, but upon looking further she found another boon that provided the same benefit to both eyes that was one soul more expensive.

Cece pondered her options for a good twenty minutes before finally deciding.

“Ghostly Eye: Allows one of your eyes to see through physical objects. Vision can pierce up to fifty centimeters of solid matter. Practice can improve strength.”

“Thermal Eye: Allows one of your eyes to see heat. Practice can improve strength.”

“Spectroscopic Eye: Allows you to understand a substance’s alchemical structure by how light reflects off of it and into your eye. Practice can improve strength.”

“Daemonic Ocularis: Allows you to temporarily detach the essence of vision from your eye, creating an invisible daemonic construct capable of remote viewing and sensing. It benefits from any vision enhancing abilities you possess. You will be blind in the chosen eye while the ocularis is manifested.”

“Magical Ocularis Link: Allows Daemonic Ocularis to serve as a conduit for magic, any magic cast in close proximity to you is able to be channeled to the location of the Ocularis. This applies to magic cast by scrolls or grimoires.”

She decided to follow Knowledge’s lead and opt for boons that affected only a single eye, since they were slightly cheaper, it took the remainder of the angel’s divine essence and all of the doppelgänger’s, but it would be worth it for the haul she made off with. She had never bought so many boons at once before, and was excited to see what she could do with them. The first three were fairly weak, but she had several ideas for how they could be used. The last two were truly exciting however, the ocularis sounded like a slightly better version of a silver eye, but with the magical link its utility was far higher.

“The deal is sealed. Come back again soon, Cece.” The serpent hissed.