Subduing the irrelevant thoughts back into the depths of his Heart, Alnea focussed on the task at his hand. He had already decided what Glyph he would inscribe on the stone tablet. Next, all he had to do was to select the best combination of materials for his need. Preferably four to five materials. It would be best if he could make do with three materials. And if that was not possible, he had to restrict himself to five materials at most, all the while ensuring that the materials conformed to the Glyph he had selected.
Most importantly, the materials had to be the kind that he could use right away, instead of the kind that had to be processed. Maybe that would result in wastage of some materials. No, not maybe. It would surely result in wastage of materials. Not to mention that unprocessed materials tended to be a little unstable. He still vividly remembered how just a drop of unprocessed tree sap had resulted in an explosion that left crater more than ten metres wide and two metres deep.
But that was a very precious drop of sap. The materials listed on the Assistant Panel could not compare to that drop. Even if they exploded, at best, they would just char his hand, or corrode a layer of his skin. A risk he deemed worth taking. After all, he did not have the time or the leisure to waste on processing materials. Neither did he have the time to waste on his thoughts though, so he quickly went through the list once again, selecting the materials he needed.
It was just that when selecting the materials, he was faced with another challenge. He had never heard of most of the materials listed in front of him. And from the name of those materials, he was sure that none of them had the inherent trait of Destruction. Normally, that would not have been a problem. After all, carving Glyphs did not require any extra materials. Just the carving knife, resting next to the giant stone slab, was enough.
However, the instructions of the Trial were clearly to inscribe a Glyph, and not carve it. Especially with the third record… He had to ensure that the Glyph he carved could keep working for days on end with just one activation. As for inscribing an active Glyph… It would be difficult to truncate an active Glyph, and downgrade it by a Stage. Regardless, whether it was an active or passive Glyph, to ensure that it kept working for a long time, and not die out the moment he withdrew his Spirit Power, he had to carve it with materials that could carry the Mysteries of the Origin Sea.
More specifically, he had to use materials that could carry the Mysteries of Destruction. But he could not find any materials associated with the Mysteries of Destruction. The next best thing was trying to combine the materials to gain the traits of Destruction. And yet, once again, he had never heard about any of the materials on the list. As such, he could only select the materials with his intuition. And some logic, of course.
For instance, Twin Tailed Colourful Snakes were one of the most venomous species of Oren Beasts in the Black Desert. From nerve paralysing poison to corrosive poison, and even some hallucinating poison, they were masters of all kinds of poison that one could think of. In fact, they were so venomous, that sometimes, they ended up poisoning even themselves. It was for this reason that their bodies adapted to their poison over the long years of evolution. But adapting to their poison meant that their blood also gained a trace of their poison.
Of course, normally, this trace of poison would lay dormant in their blood, giving the snakes a hint of immunity to their own poison. But if traces of some exotic poison, the kind that the snakes did not have mastery over, were to be added into their blood, the dormant poison would surely flare up in response to fight the exotic poison. And if this exotic poison was strong enough to contend with the poison in the snake’s blood, their resultant clash would surely induce a hint of Destruction. It was just that finding such exotic poison was not easy.
As masters of poison, there was barely any poison that Twin Tailed Colourful Snakes were not acquainted with. And even if there was such a poison, it would surely not be something that could be found in the Black Desert. As such, Alnea could only opt for the next best option, and search for a catalyst to excite the poison within the snake’s blood and make them clash with each other to induce the trace of Destruction. A catalyst… like the Flame Scorpion’s Poison Sac.
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Unlike the Twin Tailed Colourful Snakes, who had mastered tens of poisons, Flame Scorpions did not have many poisons to their name. Even their ‘poison sacs’ were filled with just some dark red viscous liquid. It was only when they activated their Innate Ability, that they would infuse Mysteries of Fire into the red liquid, granting it with corrosive and burning properties, turning it into a kind of elemental poison. A very potent poison that could kill even some Peak Stage False Wanderers if not treated in time.
Most importantly, it was a poison that the Twin Tailed Colourful Snakes could never master. It did not matter that the liquid itself was not poisonous on its own. He was going to use it just as a catalyst anyway. The breath from the Mysteries of Destruction in the Glyph should be enough to turn the liquid poisonous enough to catalyse the poison in the snake’s blood.
And yet, it was also because of the breath from the Mysteries of Destruction that there was a chance for the mixture to become too volatile to act as ink. As such, aside from the Twin Tailed Colourful Snake’s blood and Flame Scorpion’s poison sac, the mixture also needed something to control the rate of catalysation, and act as the stabiliser. Something like… Black Sand Essence.
A neutral substance formed from the crystallisation of the sands of the Black Desert, Black Sand Essence had mild soothing properties. Especially against the poisons that could be found within the Black Desert. When used in limited quantities, it should be enough to control the catalysation of the poison. Or so Alnea guessed. After all, he had never used any of the materials that he had selected. He could only make some guesses based on things that he knew.
Still, unless he experienced the effects of the materials in person, and did all sorts of experiments, he would never be able to say for certain how they would react with each other. What if the rate of catalysation of the poisons was too slow to induce the trait of Destruction? Or what if the catalysation was too fast? It was for such cases, that he quietly marked a few more materials in his head. Like Black Lizard’s tongue and Sand Eater’s saliva.
Of course, for any of those cases to occur, his guess had to be at least partially true. If the clash of the poisons did not even manage to induce a hint of Destruction, and failed in capturing the breath of the Mysteries of Destruction altogether, then he…
Alnea shook his head, clearing his Heart of all distracting thoughts and doubts, before decisively selecting the three materials he had chosen earlier on the Assistant Panel. Almost immediately, a vial filled with greenish red blood, a fist sized sac, and an ink black crystal, roughly the size of a thumb, manifested next to the carving knife.
Not willing to waste any time, Alnea quickly walked up the stone slab, and began dealing with the materials. Opening the vial’s stopper, he brought the scorpion’s poison sac over the vial’s mouth, before squeezing the sac, allowing the poison within to drip into the vial and mix with the snake’s blood. Or at least what he could squeeze out of the sac. Most of the scorpion’s poison probably just stuck to his hand, while part of it fell outside of the vial.
It was a very inefficient method of handling the materials, that wasted most of the poison in the poison sac. Given the constraints of the time though, it was the best he could do. After squeezing the sac dry, he put vial’s stopper back into its place, before giving it a good shake, not stopping until the blood within had turned a shade lighter.
Thankfully, that was all that mixing the two poisons did. After all, he could not have the ink of the Glyph becoming volatile before he even summoned the Mystery. He did not know exactly how long the mixture would remain stable though, so he proceeded to the next step without wasting any time.
Holding the vial in his left hand, he removed its stopper and tilted its mouth until a drop of the light red liquid fell out and dropped onto the blade of the carving knife in his right hand. Done with all the preparations, Alnea finally took a deep breath, before putting the carving knife to the stone slab, and began inscribing the Glyphs that he had chosen.
