Ever since my talk with the Empress, Queen Saruko began spending less and less time in the palace. However, I knew that it did not truly have anything to do with me meeting the ruler of Bloodhaven. Rather, the timing had lined up for it to be right after she had finished training her skills with an avatar.

She would often leave the palace for days at a time whenever a distress call came in. While she was away, she would help the cities who called for her with more mundane tasks, even including manual labor. And unlike before, she would come back to the palace looking refreshed while her avatar was left behind.

After half a month of this schedule, I saw her face darken for the first time since my arrival. She passed me carrying the stern face she used whenever she sat on the throne, leaving the palace and walking towards the gate plaza. Given the fact that she was not rushing, it was clear that she had not received another call for aid. Rather, it seemed as if my advice to her had paid off, and she managed to identify some corruption among her ranks.

During these weeks, I had been diligently studying the plants that the Empress of Bloodhaven had sent over after our meeting. As she had said, they contained heavy traces of a martial spirit’s energy, which proved to influence my formulas quite a lot. However, she did not send any actual martial spirits to aid me in the research of my pill to cure their disease.

From my understanding of the woman, she wished for me to prove my capabilities by creating a suitable ‘breeding pill’ for her people. Only when that had succeeded would she give me direct access to those afflicted. Most likely, her ki domain was able to stabilize patients, so she was in no true rush. As long as she knew that a cure was possible, she felt comfortable with taking her time.

This meant that the pressure was entirely on myself. I had to produce this pill using the materials that she brought me, as well as those that were readily available on the market. Thankfully, I had at least decided the form that I wanted the pill to take. Or rather, the pills, as I had to create them in pairs.

In alchemy, there were numerous types of pills and potions that one could create. For example, you could make a simple healing potion for someone to drink or apply directly to a wound. On the other hand, you could create a potion that explodes into freezing mist when thrown. You could even make a potion that you pour on the ground to make trees grow.

Pills similarly had a wide variety. What I was designing… well, it was hard to classify it truly as a pill. It was certainly a product of alchemy, created through the mixture of herbs and energies. However, it was a bit too large to be considered a pill.

What I was designing in my Mental Archive appeared closer to a black furnace, the careful result of mixing numerous herbs together into a large, almost clay-like structure. It stood six inches high on the table, with one opening at its front. This was the catalyst that I had created for the birthing pill, something that could take the energies of two martial spirits and combine them into a single whole.

Next to this black furnace, I had a pair of white pills laid out, each of them having red lines along their edges. These pills held no purpose aside from storing the energy of a martial spirit. If my calculations were correct, this should work. Two martial spirits imbue their energy into the pills, and place them in the furnace, which reacts to the energies within. The furnace then combines the two energies into a new whole, and spits out a new martial spirit.

When I sent the Empress of Bloodhaven my report, she called me over the internet rather promptly. It seemed that she didn’t want to invade Yuki’s palace without advanced notice. “You’ve done quite good work, Mister Lorient.” She praised, and I could see her eyes flickering to the side, likely looking at the information that I had sent her.

“It still needs to be tested.” I pointed out with a helpless shrug. “And even if it works as I hope… it’s by no means a perfect result.”

Scarlet raised an eyebrow at that, urging me to continue. “The energy capacity of the storage pills is only roughly double that of what I gave you before. While it will still produce a fully formed martial spirit of the same type as its parents… the spirit will not be in a grown state, as they are normally when they’re born. It would be similar to a toddler, and need to mature through time.”

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The Empress paused to consider that, before giving a small nod. “I believe that is fully acceptable. This is meant to help those who have grown fond of one another. To have a child that they can raise together would only further solidify those bonds. I would hardly call it a defect.”

“Did you manage to keep the final product within a reasonable budget?” She flashed a smirk towards me at that, reminding me of how I had mentioned the price problem in our first meeting.

I could only shake my head at her question, as I myself did not know the answer. “The pill furnace is meant to be a reusable item. I don’t know how many times it can be used before it needs to be replaced. If we’re deducting the cost of the materials from your region, each furnace costs five gold, and ten pills cost one gold.”

“My, that is quite a bit cheaper than I imagined.” She chuckled, though of course most of the materials were used from what she sent me. “If you could prepare the prototypes, I can have someone come over to test them shortly.”

I let out a faint sigh at that, nodding my head. “I’ll need another batch of materials. What you sent originally was all used up in my experiments.” She did not appear surprised when I said that. Rather, it could be seen from how she was treating this that she was more surprised that I had managed to complete the task with only the materials she had sent originally.

I knew the worth of my Mental Archive, but it was not something I was willing to share out so easily. While it had ample possibility to be used for good, such as I believed I was doing now, it had just as much utility when in the wrong hands. People could concoct more effective poisons just as easily as they could make medicines.

Sooner or later, a spell similar to the one that I created would appear to link with someone’s Mental Archive. However, that was a problem for someone else to worry about. With how my mission was going, I could not afford a likely heavy blow to my karma by releasing this spell. And so long as I did not release it, I was neither hurting nor helping anyone with that information.

“I’ll have the materials sent over with the volunteers, once I receive permission from Queen Saruko. They will also deliver the first shipment of bloodforged equipment, made with iron from the twenty-second layer of Fyor.” I furrowed my brow briefly at that, unsure what the implications behind the iron’s source would be.

The Empress read the confusion on my face, and let out a light chuckle. “Materials from higher floors of Fyor, even if they are the same type, have a naturally denser structure. This makes them dozens, if not hundreds of times heavier than their counterparts, but also vastly increases their durability and lethality. When processed by my people, we are able to add a path into the bloodforging that lessens the weight penalty.”

“Ah, my apologies. Blacksmithing has never been my forte.” I shook my head with a resigned expression, to which she smiled.

“I am aware. As for your specialty… I would suggest you find some time to play with the herbs grown in Spica. Anything originating from that world is capable of adapting to any environment, after all.” She let her words trail off there, her smile growing before the call was cut.

I could be sure, this time, that she had not left any hidden messages for me to decipher. The pills she wanted were almost ready, and would create a bond between Bloodhaven and Hanbei. They would also signal the deal between myself and the Goddess of Ki being fully formed. That meant that she had mentioned those herbs purely as a bonus.

While I was aware of the trait that the plants of Spica possessed, I had always been wary of them. Sometimes, adaptation could be dangerous, after all. While it meant that exotic plants could adapt to our environment, it also meant that diseases could do so as well. Furthermore, plants with such adaptive qualities were hard to apply to medicine, as they were far more prone to changing in response to other materials in the formula.

Shaking my head, I decided to put it out of my mind, taking the rare moment to relax. Yuki would likely be gone for at least a few more hours, and there was little more that I could do before the visitors from Bloodhaven were approved.

Part of me wondered what impacts this furnace might have on the world, after I released it. Although there were some methods speculated for energy bodies to be able to conceive, I wasn’t able to find any widely-spread information on the subject. If it was there, it was recent enough or obscure enough not to be known to the general public.

Unfortunately, this furnace was only suitable for martial spirits. It would not respond the same way to different types of energy beings, which would require an entirely new furnace. I let out a sigh at the thought, given that materials so closely attuned to energy beings were hard to come by.

“I’m one step closer, Julian…” I muttered to myself, my eyes looking up at the ceiling. Although I couldn’t be sure that everyone who received this breeding method would be good, this was rather similar to one of the pills I had created when I was alive. If that medicine had any bearing on my karma, I could be certain that this would as well. More importantly, I was getting access to someone that could help steer me on the right path.