57 Antidote

'What the fuck is going on?' Thought Jack to himself seeing the nine golden red-eyed dragon figures now in the shape of a cauldron floating completely harmlessly within his spiritual sea.

For a brief moment, he couldn't help but wonder whether he'd successfully fought back against the poison and instead was hallucinating in the final moments before his death. However, he quickly discarded that thought remembering the pain he'd gone through and how much he'd struggled to overcome the hardship.

He turned back to examine the cauldron and probe it a few more times to incite a response from the dragon figures. He received none beyond their total submission. After another brief moment of hesitation wherein Jack weighed the pros and cons of the situation, he ultimately decided to try and refine the cauldron into his spirit sea.

The main reason behind his decision was that he was more than confident that he would be able to react and destroy the cauldron's spiritual personification if it decided to fight back, even though that would mean suffering a spiritual backlash which would take him a long time to recover from. Thus, he decided to trust his gut instinct and try to refine the cauldron.

Jack urged his spiritual sea to spread over the cauldron and wrap up around it in order to pull it in fully within itself and refine as well as integrate it into the spirit sea. The process ran smoothly and the dragon-figures didn't fight back in the slightest.

Jack let out a sigh of relief when he felt that the integration had taken place without a hitch and that the cauldron was now a part of his spiritual consciousness much in the same way that his arm was one of his body parts. In other words, the spiritual manifestation of the cauldron and, by extension, the physical cauldron itself, was now completely under his control.

Alongside the completion of the process, a plethora of information flowed into his mind pertaining to the true nature and capabilities of the cauldron. It was as if the dragon figures or the cauldron itself was telling Jack of its origins.

The cauldron had been forged many years earlier by a supreme craftsman who used a drop of blood essence from nine true dragons in the process. This allowed for the cauldron to have a spiritual conscience, elevating it to a supreme tier as a refinement artefact. However, at the time, it was merely in its infancy and didn't have a true consciousness.

For aeons, the cauldron had been fought over by refinement masters due to the myriad benefits of owning it would give them until, one day, it was lost in the flow of time. During that time, with every new master, the cauldron would develop its consciousness further. It had only reappeared when Erik had found it a few years earlier and now it had fallen into Jack's grasp.

There was no exchange of words, only feelings. Despite its ancient status, the cauldron couldn't communicate with sentences and was limited by its artificial nature. That being said, it longed to evolve into a true being with a genuine consciousness; this was why it had sought to devour Jack's spiritual sense. The cauldron had felt a powerful spiritual and physical strengths within Jack's essence blood, to the point that it was roused from a long slumber and directly entered into his consciousness in order to reap the benefits of nourishing itself with Jack's spiritual sea.

Jack sighed to himself. Although he refused to allow another entity devour him, he could understand and respect the cauldron's desire to further its evolution by stepping on him. After all, during his time in the Abyss, he had done the same thing to an uncountable number of beings. The cauldron could only lament being weaker than Jack and losing in the battle of souls.

That being said, Jack was once again marvelled at the deep pools of power he had drawn from the Harmony of Everything. Put differently, it is true that he already had a powerful spirit due to him being ten thousand years in the Abyss as well as previous life on Earth and that the nine dragon figures weren't exactly living beings with a soul; however, he would have still lost the confrontation if he hadn't strengthened his soul power using the method described by the Harmony of Everything.

Evidently, he had seriously underestimated it.

Whatever the case, the cauldron was now brought fully within his control and, with it, he was enlightened as to some of its refinement capabilities that were genuinely heaven-defying.

Jack emerged from his spiritual consciousness and laid his eyes on the cauldron in front of him, which hadn't had its appearance change in the slightest; it was still a pitch-black cauldron with intricately designed nine dragon figures in flight in its exterior design. In addition, it was still performing the refinement process of the blood, albeit far more slowly.

Jack waved his hands and a vortex appeared inside the cauldron which made the blood flow counter-clockwise like a centrifuge. This made the entirety of the blood flow against the inside walls of the cauldron and soak them up completely. As this happened, the eyes on the dragon figures lit up once again and the cauldron began absorbing all of the impurities within the blood itself.

In just the span of time it takes for half candle stick to burn, Jack was able to successfully refine all of it. He slapped the side of the cauldron and a pure blue liquid emerged from within it and landed inside a large bottle that Jack had prepared beforehand. Overall, he managed to produce a little bit over a pint of antidote.

And that's not all. One of the mystical properties of the cauldron was that it could accentuate the effectiveness of whatever was refined within it; meaning that Jack's antidote refinement efforts not only had been successful, he had produced enough of it that, once it was watered down, could easily be spread amongst the infected peoples of Groamburk and rid them of the poison.

It must be remembered that the common folk were only being affected by a small amount of poison that had been spread thin, whereas Jack had used a concentrated dosage of it alongside the original strain of the poison to develop his antidote. Its efficiency was on a whole other level compared to what was currently afflicting the people of Groamburk.

With a smile, Jack retrieved the bottle with the concentrated antidote into his storage ring and turned to face the cauldron. With a small wave of his hand, the cauldron disappeared from in front of him and entered into his spirit sea, overlapping with its consciousness. In other words, the cauldron now existed within his consciousness as a part of him.

Jack sighed ruefully. He would have to explain himself thoroughly to Erik.

--

Erik sat leaning back on his chair with the palms of his hands pressed gently together in front of his face. He tapped his fingers a few times and watched Jack with a scepticism as he studied the young boy's features in search for any indication that what he had just been told was a lie.

Jack and Erik were currently sitting in the latter's room without Jadelere, who had run out with the bottle of antidote in order to water it down and have it distributed amongst the afflicted persons. It would be a monumental effort to get enough antidote to everyone who was afflicted with the poison, but Jadelere swore that he would get it done as swiftly as possible.

Erik's room was small. In fact, it was the smallest in Hare manor, but the man had strongly insisted that it should be so. He didn't have many possessions and it was all neatly organised and well-placed. Every book was meticulously catalogued, every piece of clothing carefully tucked away, and the desk beside a small window was completely immaculate. Nothing was out of place, and not a speck of dust could be found.

Jack felt uncomfortable standing before Erik like this. He had told Erik about what had happened with his treasured cauldron and he hadn't replied in a long time. The only thing he did was sit back and stare at Jack; the boy, however, didn't feel like it was right for him to press Erik into saying something and so he stood patiently and waited for what the other had to say.

Finally, Erik sighed and waved his hand nonchalantly. "Very well, thank you for being honest with me."

"Uncle Erik, I swear to you that I will give you a suitable explanation for this…" Jack was interrupted by Erik lifting his hand in a gesture indicating Jack to turn silent.

"Good young master Hare, don't insult me." He said warmly. "Take it as a gift from a teacher to his student, a mark that you are to inherit my academic legacy."

"Uncle Erik…" Jack wanted to say something but was once again stopped by Erik.

"I will not be flexible with this." He said sternly. "And do not mock me by refusing my gift."

"Thank you, uncle Erik." After a moment of silence, Jack bowed at the waist and accepted Erik's good wishes.

With that, Jack turned around and left towards his room after taking his leave. He was exhausted and needed to rest to recuperate from the efforts he invested in the refinement process.

Erik sighed when Jack closed the door behind him. He had felt a small pang of pain in his heart when he heard Jack's tale about him having accidentally integrated the cauldron into his spirit sea. In fact, he had been disbelieving at first and had almost erupted in anger.

However, he saw the state Jack had come in. His face was pale, a sign of loss of blood; his eyes were slightly bloodshot, an indication of the heavy strain on his mind and the amount of effort Jack put into the refinement process; and a blood-stained piece of cloth wrapped around his wrist. All of this wasn't faked, and Erik wasn't shameless enough to allow an eleven-year-old boy to go through all of that effort by himself and also demand an explanation for his cauldron. His skin was not that thick!

Furthermore, he had long suspected that there was more to that cauldron that what could be seen at first glance but he had never been able to unlock its secrets. If Jack had been able to accomplish what he had failed to do for more than half a decade, then it simply meant that Jack was fated to the cauldron and he was not. As such, he was more than content to part with it as long as it was gifting it to Jack.

Erik waited until one hundred breaths had passed and then whispered in a muted tone: "Thank you for giving my life a purpose, young master."

--

Jadelere fulfilled his duties with admirable efficiency whilst Jack rested and recuperated.

He first watered down the antidote using very specific proportions and dilutions. After that he called in a large number of favours owed to him by a number of guards under the city's employ, met up with them and gave very clear instructions as to how the antidote should be spread across the hospital and other houses where there were confirmed cases of the spread of the poison. He did so clandestinely in a manner that there would be no evidence of his direct involvement in the matter.

The guards obeyed Jadelere and delivered the antidote in the manner which they had been told under the guise that it was a cure procured by the city lord. After that, it was a question of watching the antidote take effect slowly but steadily.

At first, the city lord had almost vomited a mouthful of blood when he heard there were rumours of some unidentified guards spreading a cure to the plague which had purportedly been commissioned by him. However, as the cases of people infected by the plague dropped and its contagion was halted, the city lord could only swallow any and all of his protests and take all the credit for it.

The plague which had beset Groamburk was completely eradicated in just two short weeks after Jack had refined the antidote.