Chapter 198: 196 – Stonecrackers

The chef, upon seeing them, beamed with a welcoming aura that reminded them of Quincy, sparking the thought that he was probably glad to have peers to cook for again… Though it wasn’t just that. There was a curiosity to his countenance, directed overtly at Zelsys with a quizzical look as he handed over her breakfast of what she guessed to be giant river crab meat and various steamed, spiced vegetables.

Something in the back of her mind told Zelsys that the change brought on by her steps towards taming the Primordial Self was noticeable to those sufficiently perceptive, probably just enough to be noticed as a change, but not enough to discern what had changed. Not with Zelsys, at least, considering her pre-existing affinity to her instincts beforehand.

Zel recounted the events of her dream as she recalled them over breakfast, not attempting in the slightest to hide her eagerness to push the limits of more precise body control, considering that she’d already made extensive use of Storm Engine to forcefully take control. Then, of course, there was the matter of the breakthrough pills.

Makhus hadn’t been any help with them besides the fact that he generally knew what they were and that he wasn’t willing to even try analyzing one, and so this reminder of them made breakfast as good a time as any to ask Ozmir.

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“Those look like… Stonecracker pills. Where’d you get them?” squinted the cook at the small, half-open box. 

“Dungeon,” Zel smugged.

“Dun- Wait, ours?” he raised an eyebrow incredulously. “Last I was aware it wasn’t supposed to open any time in the next decade.”

Zel sighed, “It’s a long story, too long to recount right now. Point is, the dungeon was forced open early, infested by locust-men, and we got hired to clean it out. The Core gave me these at the end of it. Do you know anything about their use beyond the name?”

He nodded, “We used to have a small stockpile of them, but they were never too popular since our most prominent Azoth Stone cultivators viewed them as high-risk low-reward compared to simply continuing the de-facto default path. A splinter group produced and distributed them among those who sought an alternate path or wanted to get rid of their Azoth Stone-induced mutations, but they fell out of use after said splinter group’s chief alchemist - and the only one able to make new pills - disappeared.”  

“Say I want to take one. How dangerous is it? What sort of preparations should I make?” Zefaris asked plainly.

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“Therapy and personal development,” laughed Ozmir. “No, I’m not kidding. Not entirely, at least. The stress they place upon the soul will mainly strain fault lines, which are usually created by major mental issues. It also gets orders of magnitude worse if you’ve done any degree of Azoth Stone Cultivation, seeing as the main point of the pill is to crack your stone and force your body to absorb it properly, but in this case it’s more so the physical strain and risk of expelling all those impurities in the stone’s shell. Knew a couple folks who drowned in their own impurity, disgusting way to go.”

Ozmir looked them both over, settling on Zef, “I can tell that neither of you has an oversized Azoth Stone, but on the soul front…”

A blink. Wisps of Fog escaped from his tear ducts, his eyes glowed for a moment, then went back to normal after another blink. 

“You’re… Well I won’t say you’re an ideal user, but it’s quite close,” he said, crossing his arms in consideration as he dug through his memory for suggestions. “I’d suggest you prepare for symptoms akin to a bad case of influenza combined with a severe head cold, if your snot were the consistency of pine tar. The stench of said “tar” depends on the impurities, so you’ll likely have familiar trench stench stuck in your nose for a while, soldier. Use our sect baths and whatever means of trapping impurities you can get your hands on, and you should be through it in a day or three.”

“...The dungeon core made it sound like much more of an ordeal than that,” Zel said.

“Of course it did. The Third King probably didn’t expect the types to willingly enter and clear a dungeon to be in the best of mental states, so the core was likely designed to assume everyone who reaches it is a basketcase with a tragic backstory,” the elf responded facetiously. 

Zel leaned back in her chair, swallowing a mouthful of delicious crab before grinning at the cook, “You seem to know an awful lot about a historically fringe cultivation method, Ozmir. What was it that you called your cooking arts? The precursor art to modern Purgation Alchemy? Sounds like something someone who used to make these Azoth-cracking pills would know.”

She meant no threat by it, and to her relief, Ozmir didn’t take it as one, instead putting on an enigmatic smile. 

“Sure does,” he said, then walked away without another word. He turned around after a few steps, adding, “Do let me know when you intend to go through with it. I know of a few recipes that make the expelled impurity stink less.”

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