Chapter 17– Palace Tempering Part 2

Currently, I have decided not to step foot outside of the glade until I finish strengthening my body and can cast magic. With this pursuit, I spent more time working on my smithing, meditation, and shadow sparred with imaginative enemies. I had decided taking another 20 days to finish all this as my progress in mana manipulation began to slow down.

This means, I have reached a point where the amount of impurities within my body are extremely low. Just 2 days ago I reached 200 circulations within an hour. Yet I felt no changes in my body. I didn't even puke a spittle of bile afterwards. Welp,,, Looks like I require even more excruciating pain to purge them… yea, I'll pass on that... for now.

In contrast, my smithing skills were still piss poor to put it in a polite way. I even seemed to gain the laughter of the asshole cat sitting in a tree across the lake (little bitch ass cat… just you wait!!). What troubled me was getting the right ratio when smelting ore into ingots.

Whatever crude ingots I was making simply couldn't handle being shaped by a forge hammer, breaking into dust as a result. I was simply burning through my stockpile metal ore like it was water. Bitter from the loss, I instead focused on tanning leathers and making better light armor for me to use. Occasionally I would glance at the system to get an update on everything. The most recent update showed,

~User Info~

Location: Ancestral Glade – Emeraldshade Forest – Monarchy of Duxley…

Incarnation: Yuriy Markov XV

Age: 6 sol, 265 days

Race: Mixed (Human 79%, Dark elf 20%, Dark Angel (Kaliharda) 1%)

Attributes

HP: 300/300 // Stamina: 150/150

MP: 275/275 // SP: 12/12

Strength: 4 // Charisma: 7 // Endurance: 9

Dexterity: 10 (9) // Vitality: 10 (9) // Intellect: 18 (33)

Luck: 3(15)

Moral Affinity

↓

Good------------Neutral-------------Evil

Elemental Affinity (Scale of 1 – 10 with ten being the greatest)

Earth: 3 // Fire:7 // Water:2

Air:2 // Light: 3 // Dark: 7

Lightning: 3 // Nature: 5

Ice: 2 // Null: 10

Special

Soul of Misfortune (- 12 Luck)

Guardian Angel(?) (+1 Dex. and Vit.)

Soul concussion (- 15 Int.)

Inheritor of Ancient Blood (Incomplete)

Nothing seems to have changed since the last time I've checked with the only exception being my elven blood content growing and all others decreasing. I guess the meditation did something for me, but I have no idea as to how it was able to single out my abysmal elven blood and improve it at the expense of the two other bloodlines.

Anyway, I can no longer hold off on the next step in my training. (Looks like I have no choice but take that painful option now...fuck!!) With this in mind, I began to make preparations for the next body tempering technique. There's no doubt it will push me to the next level. Keep in mind, this is a pre-requisite preparing me for the bloodline ritual I would perform afterwards.

In order for the bloodline ritual to work, I need to open my mana palaces and fill them to the brim with magoi. I had been holding off on creating my palaces for a long while now. Welp, I have no choice but to do it now as I can't purify my body any further.

Luckily, on the way back to the glade after all my hunts, I gathered the herbs and minerals I will need. Uncle said to ensure I open all 15 palaces; I will need natural magoi imbued substances. The best ones to use and are available are clover peach mandrake peaches, magus calcite, silver glade roses, Emerald oak sap copper, and a magic metal called moonsilver.

I was able to get the peaches and moonsilver from the Elder since they have a resident mandrake and all, also the only magic metal which dark elves use for weapons and armor is moonsilver, so the Elder gave me a ton of refined ingots of the stuff. Despite having over 400 ingots, the metal is lighter than the clothes on my back, talk about magical!!!

The forest is made up of ancient Emerald oak trees which have earned a special name being Ancestor oak trees. Their sap is copper in color and despite its liquid consistency, it is tough as metal. Magus calcite can be found anywhere in this forest, but the best quality is by the lake's edge, and silver glade roses are also by the lake's edge, the best having an extremely pure silver color and reflect light.

I first refined the calcite and silver glade roses into a fine powder. Then I smelt 60 ingots of moonsilver with the sap with the ratio not being an issue, making them both blend. If I had been able to use magic, this would have taken 15 to 20 minutes.

Think about it! Fire magic is able to increase the temperature at will. Instead, the smelting process took about 3-4 hours. In that amount of time, I completed everything else while checking on the metal from time to time, adding more ingots and sap copper as I went. Afterwards, I juiced all the peaches and refined the husks into powder.

Now comes the easy part. I gather about 2 10-gallon buckets worth of extremely dense magoi infused lake water. Afterwards, I drew a ritual circle on the ground with the powdered calcite, peach husks and silver glade roses.

In the center of the circle, I placed the 2 buckets near where I will be sitting and grabbed the liquid sap/moonsilver mixture and mandrake peach juice. With this it's time to begin the worst of it. When I reached the center of the circle, I placed both items down and began to apply the liquid metal mixture onto my flesh since I was stark naked after getting the lake water.

At first, I thought the metal mixture would be hot. Contrary to my thoughts, it was actually really cold and tickled my skin. To think, it was cool in spite of being at a temperature which could melt my face off. After I was completely covered in the mixture while being careful around my orifices, I grabbed to peach juice and downed it in one go.

It was the first time since my life on Earth I chugged a gallon of juice in one go. Feeling like a balloon about to burst, I sat down and began using mana circulation. After circulating the magoi for about 30 minutes, the metal mixture began to heat up. In turn tons of the deeply hidden impurities to come out of my skin. The muck and grime later turned to dust flying in the wind. Fortunately for me, I didn't have to worry about puking bile anymore.

After 2 hours, the metal was heated to the point of glowing bright red with the smoke of impurities coming off it like a thick fog. It was here, I began to feel the pain. While the metal was burning on the outside, the peach juice felt like it froze everything on the inside.

Where ever the 2 extremes met, a war of the elements ensued. It just so happened my organs, bones and blood were the battlefield. I wanted to scream, but the metal sealed my mouth shut, so only muffled whimpers could escape. This would last for another hour until most if not all my impurities had been removed. I stopped magoi circulation after sensing the warring elements calmed down. With a bitter expression (covered by metal), I was reading myself for what's to come.

-End of Chapter