Saturday afternoon at the Bramble Lane Apothecary smelled like seared ribeye fat, roasted garlic, and highly illegal battlefield ordnance.
After a very long, very quiet lunch—during which Seraphina ate a sixteen-ounce steak with the focused reverence of a monk meditating on nirvana, and Tax Evasion licked his saucer of beef gravy so hard he pushed it all the way across the floorboards into the umbrella stand—I cleared off the stone workbench in the back conservatory to tackle our newest windfall.
Sitting in the velvet-lined box in the center of the table was six ounces of shimmering, violet-black Mana-Eating Ash, freshly ground from the roasted carapaces of Master Corvus’s sabotage beetles.
Seraphina stood on the opposite side of the table, her sleeves rolled up to her elbows, methodically hollowing out a dozen dried clay-rind gourds with a curved paring knife. In the Lower Quarter market, street vendors sold the small, hollow gourds as two-copper baby rattles. When sealed with beeswax and packed with compressed alchemical powder, however, they made the finest fragmentation casings in the Empire.
“You were quiet during the walk back from the butcher,” Seraphina remarked, scraping the dried pith from the inside of a gourd without looking up from her blade. “Usually, when you fleece the Student Council and the Guild in the same morning, you spend at least an hour gloating about your profit margins.”
I paused with my brass measuring spoon hovering over a jar of yellow sulfur.
It was slightly terrifying how fast she had learned to read my silences. Four days ago, we had been standing on opposite sides of the Grand Atrium waiting for the script to force us into a blood feud. Today, she knew the exact cadence of my victory rants.
“Just doing some long-term risk assessment,” I said honestly, setting the spoon down and leaning my palms against the cool stone slab. “When I put that ointment jar on the reception desk this morning, I got a close look at Master Corvus’s spectacles. He had a fleck of refined Blood-Lotus Ash stuck under the silver rim.”
Seraphina’s paring knife stopped moving. Her slate-gray eyes snapped up to meet mine.
Unlike pampered Rose Spire nobles who only knew about monsters from illustrated library books, Seraphina had grown up on the northern border. She knew exactly what that name meant.
“Blood-Lotus only grows in the southern quarantine wastes,” she said, her voice dropping into a low, combat-ready register. “And the only people who refine the ash are smuggling rings trying to hide the scent of Rift-rot past city hounds.”
“Exactly,” I murmured, glancing toward the front window to make sure the shop door was still bolted for our afternoon break. “Which means our pompous head apothecary isn't just skimming gold from the Infirmary’s Band-Aid budget. He’s handling Rift-corrupted tissue somewhere on campus—or right underneath it.”
In the original timeline of Crown of Thorns, the big Act One Twist during the November Catacomb Raid was that an anonymous insider on the faculty had been feeding dead Rift-beasts to a dormant Grade-1 Abyssal Brood-Mother beneath the Academy sewers to weaken the imperial wards for the Demon Cult. In the game, if you didn't uncover the traitor early, half the scholarship dormitory got wiped out in the surprise breach.
The game had never explicitly named Master Corvus as the sewer feeder during the first month—mostly because the main character was too busy fighting Evelyn Vance in the courtyard to investigate the Infirmary’s trash bins.
“We should tell Master Barnaby,” Seraphina said, though her brow was already furrowed in doubt. “Or the Senior Wardens.”
“With what proof?” I asked gently. “A microscopic fleck of ash that only I could identify because of a skill nobody knows I have? By tonight, Corvus will have washed his spectacles, burned his contaminated robes, and locked down his private laboratory. If we accuse a Guild Master of treason without a smoking body, Prince Julian and the High Chancellor will have us thrown in the stockade for slander before dinner.”
Seraphina set the paring knife down slowly on the stone table. Her right hand drifted instinctively to the dark wooden hilt of the Ashen Bough at her belt.
“Then we go down into the Sector Four drainage tunnels tonight and find what he’s hiding,” she said simply.
“Absolutely not,” I said, reaching across the narrow workbench to flick her lightly on the center of her forehead.
Seraphina blinked, rubbing the spot between her eyebrows in startled bewilderment, as if nobody had ever dared flick the future Sword Saint of the Empire before.
“We are not charging blind into a sewer full of Rift-rot on a Saturday night like a pair of under-leveled tragedy protagonists,” I told her firmly. “Right now, Corvus thinks we’re just greedy merchants who got lucky with a pepper trap. He has no idea we smelled the Blood-Lotus on him. That gives us time to prepare, time to upgrade our gear, and time to turn this shop into a fortress that could survive a siege.”
I tapped the velvet box of glowing violet beetle ash between us.
“Starting with these,” I continued, picking up my brass spoon again. “If Corvus is playing with Rift-corrupted constructs or rogue mages, standard healing potions aren't going to cut it. We need something that shuts down a magic user’s ability to cast entirely—and happens to fulfill the final requirement for my class upgrade before next Friday.”
[Alchemist’s Appraisal (Lv. 5) — Active]
[Experimental Synthesis: "Null-Ether Eclipse Grenade" (Unrecorded Recipe)]
[Base Materials: Roasted Abyssal Rot-Beetle Ash + Distilled Elder Hydro-Spirit Dew + Pulverized Charcoal + Unripe Cinder-Berry Oil.]
[Theoretical Grade: Mythril-Tier (Wholly Unrecorded in Imperial History)]
[Synthesis Hazard: Extreme. If the Rot-Beetle Ash contacts raw ambient mana during encapsulation, it will devour the alchemist’s internal core reserves instantly.]
I explained the mechanics to Seraphina while lining the inside of the twelve hollowed-out gourds with a triple coat of melted beeswax and powdered ironwood bark.
“So let me get this straight,” I said, glancing up at her across the table as Pip carefully banked the stove flames down to zero mana emission, relying purely on natural thermal coal heat. “To keep this beetle ash from eating my Fire Mana while I mix the liquid catalyst, you have to wrap a sphere of pure, hollow kinetic aura around my hands and the mixing bowl—without touching the powder yourself, and without letting a single drop of ambient room mana leak through the shell for three minutes.”
Seraphina looked down at the heavy stone mortar sitting between us.
In the Academy’s combat curriculum, shaping kinetic aura into an external hollow sphere—a technique known as [Void-Bell Guard]—was a fourth-year Master Knight manoeuvre. Most eighteen-year-old cadets could barely keep a flat layer of aura glued to their sword blades for ten seconds without getting a migraine.
Seraphina didn't even blink. She simply walked around to my side of the stone workbench, stepped close behind my right shoulder, and held both of her open palms three inches above the rim of the stone mortar, framing my hands inside hers without touching my skin.
“Tell me when,” she said quietly, her warm breath brushing the loose dark curls pinned behind my ear.
“Now.”
Hum.
The air around my wrists didn't heat up; it simply vanished.
A paper-thin, dome-shaped barrier of shimmering silver-white kinetic force snapped into place over the stone mortar, enclosing my hands and the mixing tools inside an absolute vacuum of martial willpower. Inside the dome, the ambient mana of the conservatory dropped to zero. The glowing violet beetle ash—which had been lazily drifting toward my fingers to nibble on my fire affinity—instantly went dead still at the bottom of the bowl, starved of a target.
“Show-off,” I whispered, my heart giving a slightly irregular thump as Seraphina leaned half an inch closer to keep the top of the aura dome sealed around my forearms.
“Focus on your mud, Apothecary,” she murmured back, her voice vibrating softly against my shoulder blade.
Working inside her aura dome felt like moving my hands through cool, weightless silk.
Using a bone spoon—since metal or glass could hold trace elemental charges—I scooped two ounces of the violet Mana-Eating Ash into the center of the mortar. Next, I took the small vial of leftover Elder Hydro-Spirit Dew and dripped four precise beads of liquid ether into the ash, followed by half a dram of volatile Cinder-Berry Oil.
Because there was zero ambient mana inside Seraphina’s sphere to trigger a premature detonation, the three incompatible substances didn't explode. Instead, they folded into one another like mercury and pitch, forming a dense, marble-sized core of swirling midnight-purple putty that seemed to swallow the afternoon sunlight hitting the table.
Working with surgical speed, I rolled the purple putty into six tiny spheres, dropped each one into the center of a wax-lined gourd packed with finely ground birch charcoal, and plugged the fuses with braided hemp soaked in rapid-burn tallow.
The moment I sealed the sixth gourd with hot sealing wax, I exhaled sharply. “Done! Drop the dome!”
Seraphina released her breath and pulled her hands back.
As the silver aura sphere dissolved, the sudden inrush of normal air clapped softly over the workbench. Resting in the wooden rack before us were six palm-sized, matte-black gourds that felt weirdly heavy in the hand—like holding small river stones filled with liquid gravity.
Before I could even reach for a towel to wipe my forehead, the air in front of my eyes fractured into a cascade of brilliant, blinding platinum text that was infinitely sharper and grander than my usual blue system boxes.
[UNPRECEDENTED ALCHEMICAL ACHIEVEMENT!] [You have successfully synthesized a Mythril-Tier Tactical Concoction wholly unrecorded in the annals of the Asterian Empire!]
[Item Crafted: Null-Ether Eclipse Grenade (6 Units)] [Quality: Mythril-Tier (99% Purity — Flawless Vacuum Synthesis)] [Effects upon Detonation:
Creates a 20-foot sphere of absolute pitch-black smoke for 45 seconds.
Devours 100% of external spell-structures, magic wards, and active incantations within the blast radius (Grade-2 and below spells are instantly snuffed out).
Note: Pure physical Martial Aura and non-magical kinetic strikes are completely unaffected inside the cloud.]
[ALL PREREQUISITES MET (3/3): HIDDEN CLASS UNLOCKED!] [Base Title Discarded: Pragmatic Mercenary (Rank F)] [Unique Class Acquired: Sovereign of the Black Alembic (Rank S — Growth)*]**
[Class Perks Unlocked:
Rule of Equivalence: So long as a transaction is agreed upon verbally or in writing by both parties, your crafted remedies gain +25% potency when used by paying customers or contracted employees. Read this novel at novelping.com for the best experience.
Heretic’s Crucible: You may substitute any high-cost Royal Guild catalyst with a chemically equivalent "Trash-Tier" reagent without losing potion purity.
Apothecary’s Sanctuary (Passive Domain): Within the legal boundaries of your registered shop, hostile magic cast against you or your staff suffers a 30% cast-time delay.]
A silent, invisible wave of warm golden energy pulsed outward from my core, travelling down through the soles of my boots and into the very flagstones of Property 14-B.
Out in the conservatory, the transplanted pots of Ash-Crest Nettle and Bitter-Root Ginger visibly perked up, their leaves turning a richer, glossier emerald green in the sunlight. In the firebox, Pip let out a delighted, musical chirp as his clay glaze shimmered with reinforced heat-resistance, and even the wooden rafters above our heads gave a quiet, settling creak—as if the old building itself had just locked its doors and squared its shoulders against the outside world.
I blinked, staring at the third class perk hovering in my vision.
Apothecary’s Sanctuary. And Rule of Equivalence—meaning every potion or weapon oil Seraphina used while employed on my ledger automatically operated at 125% output.
“Evelyn?” Seraphina’s hand came to rest lightly on my elbow, her gray eyes narrowing in concern as I stood frozen at the table. “Did the beetle ash drain your mana?”
“The opposite, actually,” I breathed, turning to look at her with a grin so wide my cheeks hurt. “I think our little tax haven just got officially recognized by the laws of physics.”
I picked up two of the matte-black Null-Ether Eclipse Grenades from the rack and pressed them into her calloused palms, closing her fingers over the smooth gourds.
“Put those in your belt pouch,” I told her, keeping my hands wrapped lightly over hers for a second longer than necessary. “If anyone in a dark robe—whether it’s Master Corvus or the Pope himself—tries to cast a spell at you within twenty feet, smash one of these on the flagstones. It’ll eat their magic right out of the air and leave them standing in the dark with you and your sword.”
Seraphina looked down at the two Mythril-tier grenades in her hands—weapons that could literally turn an Arch-Mage into a helpless target in half a second—and then back up at my face.
“You made smoke bombs that eat magic,” she said slowly, as if testing the sentence to make sure she wasn't hallucinating from steak fumes. “Out of garden gourds and dead bugs.”
“Out of artisanal garden gourds and free-range sabotage bugs,” I corrected primly, finally letting go of her hands to tuck the remaining four grenades into the hidden defensive drawer beneath the front counter. “And we finished with three hours to spare before sunset. Which means we have just enough time to deal with the other reason I wanted to stay above ground this weekend.”
Seraphina tilted her head, hooking the two black gourds onto the tactical loops at the back of her sword belt. “We aren't brewing more liniment?”
“Nope,” I said, walking out into the front shop and picking up a crisp, cream-coloured envelope sealed with silver wax that the campus courier had slid under our front door while we were frying steaks.
Stamped on the front of the envelope was the crest of the Autumn Equinox Ball Committee.
“According to Academy Charter Four, every student who holds a commercial lease on campus grounds is required to maintain a sponsored booth at the Equinox Pavilion next Friday afternoon before the evening dance,” I said, holding the envelope up between two fingers. “Lady Genevieve was kind enough to assign us Booth #44—right next to the Royal Infirmary’s official healing pavilion, where Master Corvus and Prince Julian will be handing out ceremonial blessings to the tournament finalists.”
Seraphina’s eyes cooled by ten degrees. “She put you next to Julian and Corvus so they can humiliate you in front of the visiting capital nobles.”
“She thinks she put me there so they can humiliate me,” I corrected, tossing the cream envelope onto the counter next to Tax Evasion, who immediately batted it onto the floor. “In reality, she just gave us prime beachfront real estate right next to the biggest concentration of injured, dehydrated, rich people in the entire province.”
I leaned back against the counter and looked Seraphina up and down—taking in her faded, thrice-mended scholarship tunic and her worn training trousers.
“Which brings us to our final Saturday chore, Lady Valerius,” I said, reaching under the counter for my coin purse. “If you’re going to stand beside my booth next Friday and glare at Dukes’ sons until they buy fifty-gold elixirs, we are going down to the Upper Quarter tailor before five o’clock, and I am buying you a formal guard coat that doesn't have a sewn-up Rift-Stalker claw mark across the shoulder.”
For the first time all day—after facing down a Guild Master, discussing demonic sewer conspiracies, and containing a Mythril-tier alchemical bomb with her bare hands—Seraphina Valerius actually looked panicked.
She took a full step backward toward the workshop archway.
“My uniform is fine,” she said stiffly, her hand flying up to cover the neat patch she had stitched over her left shoulder on Wednesday night. “It’s regulation wool.”
“It’s three sizes too boxy, the cuffs are frayed, and I have six hundred gold crowns burning a hole in my cash box,” I said ruthlessly, already grabbing my jacket off the peg and holding the front door open. “You can either walk into the tailor’s shop under your own power, Head of Security, or I’ll tell Tax Evasion that you’re outlawing gravy on Saturdays. Your choice.”
Down by the umbrella stand, the twenty-pound marmalade cat looked up from the fallen envelope and let out a low, menacing yowl of solidarity.
Seraphina looked from the cat, to the open door, and finally let out a long, defeated breath that sounded remarkably like a girl realizing that fighting Grade-3 monsters in the rain was much easier than working for Evelyn Vance.
“No lace,” Seraphina muttered, walking past me onto the sunlit porch with her hands shoved deep into her pockets. “And it has to have slits for my sword belt.”
“Dark charcoal wool with silver trim, high collar, and full shoulder mobility,” I promised, locking the oak door behind us and falling happily into step beside her. “Wait until Prince Julian sees my security detail, Seraphina. He’s going to cry right into his ceremonial punch bowl.”