Supreme Magus novel Chapter 231

Back in his room, Lith used Invigoration on one of the few boxes he had left, carefully studying its pseudo cores, mana pathways, and the mana crystals that sealed it.

He had taken notes on everything he learned so far about them, and thanks to Soluspedia he could remember everything with but a thought.

He started simultaneously attacking the mana pathways and the mana crystals, letting the energy they contained leak at the same rate. While both were draining, Lith also had to prevent the three pseudo cores desynchronizing.

The last time he attempted opening the boxes, he failed because he had never wielded a crystal embedded item. Therefore he didn’t know that the only way to prevent the prevent destructive desynchronization was to imitate the mana signature of the crystals and inject mana in the pseudo cores every time they would go out of phase.

The process was long and required surgical precision. Lith had already learned that if he damaged the mana pathways too much, making the energy leak happen too fast, the box would just explode.

He had to bide his time, slowly eroding the pathways and corrupting the crystal with darkness magic while using spirit magic to keep the pseudo cores stable.

’Damn, how can normal Forgemasters open these frigging things without Invigoration? I already consumed thrice my whole mana reserve and I have a lot of it.’ Lith thought.

When the box was finally opened, Lith was drenched in sweat.

’Don’t push yourself so hard! You have yet to recover completely. Remember there’s only so much Invigoration can do until you are back to your peak condition.’ Solus was still worried about him.

After the breakthrough, Lith’s body had quickly returned to its old appearance, except for the grey streaks in his hair. She had no idea how having lost so much life force would affect him in the long term, but Solus was certain there would be a price to pay.

At the moment, Lith was around 80% of his full strength and was getting better by the day. Yet because of his injuries, using his full focus would make Lith tire faster than usual and Invigoration could only restore his mana up to his current limit.

Lith nodded. He couldn’t wait to take a hot bath and relax. A long time had passed since he had a vision of the future, he had yet to understand if the boxes still held any significance.

He pressed the blue crystal in the center of the briefcase-looking box and watched it unfold. The box grew bigger and bigger until it became the size and shape of a huge wardrobe. When Lith opened it, he remained flabbergasted.

Inside there was the closest thing to an Earth portable chemical lab he had ever seen. To make things even weirder, it seemed to be completely automated. Mechanical hands opened and mixed the content of several glass containers.

There were even a few Bunsen burners that the hands would light with a flintstone and use them to briefly warm up some of the liquids. In a few minutes the process was complete and one of the hands placed a small flask containing a transparent liquid at the center of the cabinet.

Chemistry and Alchemy were too different for Lith to understand what he had just seen. Also, most of the ingredients were magical in nature and had no counterpart on Earth.

’Solus, you are the one following the Alchemy lessons. Any idea of what has just happened?’ Lith asked.

’Beats me. I only have fourth year knowledge.’ She mentally shrugged. ’I can prepare fire seeds, low tier potions, and some basic wands but that’s all. This stuff is advanced Alchemy, to the point where I have seen this machine perform at least five reactions that Professor Ryner told us were impossible.

In theory, everything should have been blown up to pieces. Whoever did this is a true genius!’

Lith took the flask, examining it with Invigoration while it was still sealed with a stopper. Whatever it was, it didn’t seem to be magical in nature. With no other option, Lith conjured a small but strong barrier around the flask, fearing it would explode.

Then, he opened it from a distance with spirit magic. Once again, nothing happened.

’Damn, I hate riddles. Couldn’t they add a warning label or an instruction manual? There is only one way to understand what the heck this is.’

Lith removed the stopper, taking a single droplet of the silver liquid it contained with water magic and put it on his own tongue. It was tasteless and odorless too, making it impossible to understand its nature with an external examination.

Lith was forced to swallow it and keep an eye on it with Invigoration. Everything that followed didn’t make sense to him.

The droplet didn’t disperse nor did it mix with his saliva. It went straight for his stomach, remaining unaffected by the acids, then it entered the bloodstream via his intestine and then spread out evenly through all of his body.

Lith didn’t feel any better or worse for it, but he wasn’t willing to ingest another droplet blindly. He used Invigoration to cleanse it from his system, instantly recognizing the unpleasant feeling that followed.

The liquid was resisting his efforts, nullifying part of the mana he employed as soon as they made contact. Yet he had cleansed so much of that toxin that the procedure was second nature to him, easily purging it out of his body.

’F*ck me sideways! This is the anti magic parasite toxin! In an even more powerful and effective form at that. Why the heck did they send it to the White Griffon academy? Poisoning someone with this thing makes no sense.

’As soon as a mage loses their powers, the scheme would be revealed. Killing someone with this stuff takes weeks. Also, why send all this terrible contraption? Why didn’t they just give their accomplices the flask?’

Lith received the answer to his question a few minutes later, while he was still remembering the details about his vision. Both the droplet he had extracted from his body and the liquid in the flask became cloudy before turning into a fine dust.

’That’s some first rate paranoia!’ Solus blurted out.

’That’s why. Once the stopper is removed, the toxin must be used quickly or it self destructs, leaving no proof behind. Still, it doesn’t make sense. You, Marth, Manohar, there are a lot of people in the White Griffon that would immediately recognize it.