CH667 Alex’s Rune-Tech Alchemy III

***

However, about a minute in, a change finally occurred.

The liquid inside the tub began to glow.

The divine energy within the statues also seemed to drain out at the same time, giving the impression it was flowing into the pale golden liquid and causing it to radiate with a soft, sacred light.

At the same time, Alex’s body swayed weakly.

His face turned pale, and even his crimson eyes seemed to ’dull’, fading into a softer ruby-red.

He quickly reached out and grabbed the rim of the tub for support.

"Are you alright?" Zora moved immediately to steady him.

Dalton Asheton and Lady Rosa Mercier also looked at him with concern. However, beyond concern, there was unmistakable shock in their eyes.

They had never heard of a non-clergy manipulating divine energy.

Yet not only had Alex moved divine energy from one divine statue—he had done so from three.

Even most clergy could not achieve such a thing—at least, publicly.

After all, clergy were bound by the deity they served. They could only wield the divine energy of their own god and were naturally restricted from interacting, much less controlling, the divine power belonging to another deity.

But Alex appeared completely unaffected by such limitations.

"I’m fine. Just a little vertigo. I’ll recover shortly." Alex replied.

He and Zora exchanged a brief knowing look.

Though Zora did not know the full extent of what Alex was planning, that single glance was enough for her to understand that her husband was putting on a performance. Naturally, she played along.

Alex then ’forced’ himself to sit down beside the tub and entered a meditative posture to ’recover.’

Zora and the nearby Fury soldiers immediately formed a protective perimeter around him, while Dalton Asheton and Lady Rosa Mercier tactfully stepped back to give space.

Meditating to recover lost energy was an extremely vulnerable act. It was not something one normally did in front of outsiders unless absolutely necessary.

This only reinforced the impression of Alex’s ’weakness’ in the minds of the two BattleBane guests.

Meanwhile—

Alex was not meditating at all.

He was quietly feeling the symbol on his hand.

Unbeknownst to the guests, Alex himself had done absolutely nothing to the statues.

It was Lord Bonsai who had appeared—as usual—to drain the statues of their divine energy and divinity.

The glowing of the golden liquid was caused by Lord Bonsai’s phantom briefly injecting a minute amount of divine energy into it before withdrawing, making the liquid light up dramatically.

The liquid itself was not some mysterious, never mind sacred, concoction like Alex had deliberately made it seem.

It was simply beast blood that had been purified and refined by AetherKindle.

The beast cells and genetic material had been completely stripped away, leaving behind only a refined liquid capable of holding mana and other forms of energy.

In essence, it had become an artificial mana—or energy—liquid.

With the blood stripped of most of its original constituents, what remained possessed an extremely high luminescent response.

Even the slightest infusion of energy would cause it to glow vividly.

Thus, Alex was able to create the illusion that the divine energy had been poured into the liquid, when in reality, Lord Bonsai had absorbed the overwhelming majority of it for itself.

Could Alex have simply carried out the entire process in private, away from prying eyes? Of course.

So why go through all the effort of putting on this elaborate performance?

Simple—how else was he supposed to justify demanding such a high price if no one witnessed just how ’difficult’ the refinement appeared to be?

It was not exactly the most honest business practice, but Alex had no intention of being underpaid simply because he was so competent that his work looked effortless.

Anyway, after confirming that Lord Bonsai had fulfilled his part of their arrangement, Alex finally ’awoke’ from his ’meditation.’

His complexion had regained its healthy colour, and his movements no longer looked weak or strained.

He walked over to the cauldron, performed a few hand seals for appearance’s sake, while in truth prompting OmniRune to withdraw the glyphs securing the lid.

He opened the cauldron and retrieved five pills from within.

"What is that?" Dalton Asheton asked before he could stop himself.

"This is an alchemical pill." Alex replied. "It is a method I created. It condenses the medicinal essence of the final product into a tightly sealed form, preventing loss of efficacy before and during use."

He then turned to the nearby Fury soldiers.

"Load up four barrels," he instructed. "And make sure the liquid doesn’t touch your skin." he added as a warning.

Lady Rosa clearly wanted to ask more about this pill method Alex had introduced so casually, but his body language made it obvious that he had no intention of elaborating further.

The Fury soldiers quickly moved to obey, loading up the four barrels as instructed.

Meanwhile, Alex scooped a portion of the remaining liquid into a wooden wine cup, then dropped one of the Greater Cleansing Pills into it.

The liquid immediately began bubbling violently for nearly ten seconds before finally settling down.

Alex then handed the cup to Dalton Asheton.

"Drink." he said.

Dalton stared at the cup for a brief moment, scepticism and hesitation flashing across his face.

Then, as though deciding to simply trust fate, he accepted it and downed the entire contents in one gulp.

Ba-dump!

A loud, violent thump echoed through Dalton’s body.

He clutched at his chest and doubled over sharply.

"Ahhh!!"

A raw cry of pain tore from his throat.

Lady Rosa recoiled in shock. She had never expected Dalton to cry out like that.

She shuddered, unable to imagine the kind of pain required to force a Combat Master into such a reaction.

Dalton dropped to his knees on the floor, his fingers clawing desperately at the ground beneath him.

"Are you—"

Lady Rosa finally snapped out of her shock and moved instinctively to check on him, but Zora raised an arm and stopped her.

"Just watch." she said calmly.

A nauseating, nefarious black-gold energy suddenly began oozing out from Dalton’s pores.

The foul energy crawled across the surface of his skin like living poison, slowly travelling upward toward his forehead.

"AHHHHH!!"

Dalton’s body arched violently backwards as he roared in agony toward the sky.

The black-gold energy gathering at his forehead began to take shape, condensing into a strange Sigil script.

Curse.

The moment the black-gold divine curse energy fully coalesced into the Curse Sigil upon Dalton’s forehead, another energy emerged from deep within his body—a pale golden light.

That pale gold energy formed a ring around the Curse Sigil, wrapping around it like a shackle, as though imprisoning it in place.

A seal.

***