Prologue: Joanna (Part 6)

It had been three months since Joanna first produced a crystal.

Since then, she'd successfully produced 25 more crystals, taking her safely out of poverty's grasp. In fact, she'd taken it as an opportunity and borrowed books on alchemy and crystallography, refreshing her university basics. She also enrolled in some virtual courses, now formally a late intermediate level alchemist and crystallographer.

In fact, she could now produce crystals with up to 3 affinities by using blood from four different magical creatures. With practice she'd acquired the soul strength to lengthen the time spell from a mere 6 hours up to 12 hours, giving her even finer control. She knew her limiting factor was her own manna pool size, but drawing on demonic manna had a very intense physical backlash. She'd also noticed that her blood faintly emitted sulphurous smoke, at least within the first couple of hours after using her forbidden familiar, after accidentally cutting herself once.

There were also other problems due to her overtures with the demonic. She could hear the voices from the book even while it was closed, so long as she was within a certain range. She'd had to seal the book away using an iron box and a talisman after the voices became too loud, making the house unlivable for her.

The demon didn't give her any visible cause of concern, silent and seemingly obedient, but she could feel its murderous and chaotic intent as it followed her everywhere like a shadow. Occasionally, it would chuckle at her blunders, seemingly waiting for a chance to devour her. She had some terrible nightmares, and she knew it was behind them, but she knew the contract expressly prevented it from doing such, leaving her troubled as to how.

It was getting worse, she'd been attacked once by a street gang who'd seemingly been attracted to her presence while she was walking through an alley; she'd attacked them viciously, revelling in their screams. When she attempted to summon a sun crow, a creature of light affinity to try to help balance herself, the summon failed altogether. The creature had outrightly rejected her.

She woke up in the night, her body was burning scalding hot, her manna pool surging violently. She was in deep pain, her stomach and abdomen were boiling hot, and her muscles and limbs felt very weak. It was a classic example of qi and manna imbalance, something she was not new to.

She hobbled over to the medicine cabinet in her bathroom with great effort. She took blood and qi pills, a couple of healing pills, and painkillers, and dissolved them in an oil solution that she then injected into herself. This did nothing to help her regain some strength, and instead, the pain in her stomach spread into her blood. It felt like lava burning in her veins. She instinctually opened her spiritual eyes and was horrified to see crystal kaleidoscope in her stomach much like in a crystal condensation.

In her now, more vulnerable state, the murmurings from the forbidden grimoire grew louder, into shouts that threatened to drown out her own thoughts. Flashes of memory came to her, herself grinding and swallowing monster cores and some magical crystals. Even now, her spirit vision showed her the crystals and impure cores diffusing into her bloodstream and through her body.

She knew she had to do something quick. There was too much chaotic exotic energy in her body and unless she was able to redirect it, she would likely die. Yet she didn't have the strength to do it on her own, and Gilgamesh would eat her alive if she tried to use his strength in her desperate state.

She struggled to the living room, every muscle in stabbing pain with each movement. She took out her chalk and drew a new summoning circle. Her goal was to get a nature familiar, she could then use the third familiar to aid her control the unstable process going on within her. She was in a hurry, short on time because she didn't know how long the reaction had been going on.

She approximately sketched the lines and circles and rushed through the runes with as much care as she could afford. All the while her mind battered by the evil voices of The Book, and her body wracked with burning pain. She only made one circle of healing oil. Before pouring out her chaotically cycling manna into the circle. It burnt her veins as it flowed into the spiritual energy construct in the midst of the circle, causing the gate to become unstable, warping weirdly as it pulled on something from the other side.