Limits

I already had medicine available to make an Extract of, and that is what I used. While the medicine was being slowly extracted, I introduced my Aura little by little. The effects were rather disappointing. What normally should be an Extract, became much weaker. I tried a few more times, with varying amounts of Aura, but the effects were megre at best. The Extracts would either become useless or gain so little, it would be pointless to do that anyway.

'Hmm, maybe I should do this after the process is completed' I thought. I made a few more Extracts, and tested my theory. This time, the effects were much better. Everything still depended on the amount of Aura introduced, but I managed to find something. One of the Extracts separated inside the bottle. Top half of the bottle was pale milky green in colour, while the bottom half was greener and full of colour. I carefully separated the liquids, and took a proper look. The milky pale liquid was almost devoid of any medical properties, like some sort of dirty water. The green liquid was something else entirely.

'This liquid is worth at least three Extracts of the same medicine…' I thought. The strength of that usually basic medicine, became that of a rare grade medicine. 'The process became a bit more complicated, but the effects are worth it. I wonder about poison though' I thought. I still had those poisonous flowers from Boltier, but processing them wasn't easy. Usually no one would be able to survive after making that poison, but I had my Auras for protection.

After I cooked up the poison, and made sure I wasn't affected by it as well, I placed it into the distillery. This poison was already concentrated, but I was after an even stronger, more vicious poison. As usual, the poisonous cloud appeared, and then condensed into the second bottle. The residue inside the first bottle, was still usable as a poison, but lost a lot of its poisonous properties.

When the cloud condensed, I introduced my Aura. What I witnessed next… I could only describe as creepy. The poison inside the bottle began moving. Although I experienced that already, that movement was different. 'Is that thing alive?' I asked myself. The poison also separated itself into two separate liquids, but it was completely different to the medicine. The dark purple liquid formed tiny spheres of concentrated poison, that moved as if alive. The rest of the liquid became hazy purple, in which those poisonous spheres floated and moved around. There was more. One of the spheres seemed to devour others, and became bigger and bigger. The tiny spheres actually escaped from it, as far away as the bottle allowed.

Soon, the devouring sphere absorbed half of those tiny spheres, then suddenly stopped. The other spheres stayed away, floating near the walls of the bottle, as if afraid of being caught. The larger sphere stayed in the middle, its edges constantly moving like waves in the sea. I didn't know what to think of it, and what exactly was that poison. I placed my mask on, to have a better look.

'I can't see anything really… No there is something' I thought. The larger sphere had some kind of smaller orb or perhaps a core inside. It wasn't purple, but dark grey. Very faint, I was barely able to spot it. 'What exactly is that thing?' I asked myself. I removed the bottle from the distillery, and kept it to the side. After cleaning up the rest, I made the strongest medical Extract I could. I wanted to check if such a thing existed in medicine as well.

Although I couldn't make the Greater Medical Extract, I could make something strong still. 'I should probably give names to those medicines' I thought. I decided to do that later, after I was done with everything. I used some Night Safises, Oviral Plants and Arran Grass, to make an Medium Medical Extract. Perhaps not the best name, but it acted as a temporary name. With that taken care of, I introduced my Aura into the bottle.

I did it slowly, a bit at a time, until I received my results. 'Hmm, this is different to what that poison displayed, but I guess it depends on the properties too' I thought. Medicine was used for healing, and had mild nature in a way. Poison was complete opposite, it was aggressive in nature. The medicine separated into two liquids as well. This time though it wasn't green, it was bright yellow. The other half was hazy yellow at the same time. The difference between poison and medicine, was that it didn't separate into tiny spheres. It stayed as one sphere and moved very little, almost nothing at all to be exact.

Only after I checked it with my mask, did I discover the movement. There was a tiny, barely noticeable core inside too, but it was dark green in colour. 'Interesting. I don't know what that core is though. Whether it's a living thing, or simply a core. Do those spheres move because of their sort of nature and properties, or because they are alive in some way?' I asked myself.

I had no answer really. I simply didn't know, and had no means of checking. After some more thinking, I came up with another possibility. The core might represent the purest form of medicine or poison, that could exist. The way both acted would be dictated by the nature of those herbs. Mild nature for healing herbs, aggressive nature for poisonous herbs. I also had no way of collecting that core. No tools existed, or perhaps could even exist to achieve that.

'I wonder about the strength though' I thought. After removing the hazy yellow liquid from the bottle, I was left with the bright yellow liquid only. The smell didn't seem to change much compared to other Extracts, but the effectiveness… It was something else entirely. The strength was not the same as Greater Medical Extract, though it wasn't far off. 'This is very usable in such case. I will have to experiment more with that, and make more medicine as well as poison when I get the chance. For now, it's time to resume my journey' I thought, and cleaned everything up.

I didn't encounter any enemies on my way to the Ruins of Ravan, which was a bit weird. No Mordars ever appeared, no Vanauts, Furians or anything. 'Did they pull their forces back, after the defeats?' I asked myself. Mordars sustained heavy damages for sure, Vanauts shouldn't be much better, but it bugged me. 'I refuse to believe that Eterians simply backed off, they must be planning something big… Maybe I will find something out from Vanauts' I thought.

I was a few days away from the ruins. I would need to catch one Vanaut… and wear his skin. 'With that, I should be able to roam their territory freely' I thought. Days slowly passed, as I made my way towards the ruins. About a day or so away, I finally spotted some Vanauts. This was a perfect opportunity to grab one guy, and impersonate him. The group had twelve Vanauts from what I could see, and most of them had heads of a rat. Something I wasn't looking for.

There was one weak looking Vanaut with a different head, but I opted to search someplace else. I didn't want to compromise too much. The lower standing the Vanaut had, the harder it would be for me to gain access anywhere. I moved past them in search of another group. Fortunately, I didn't have to search for too long. Another bigger group appeared in the distance.

'Alright, this group has some better contenders' I thought. There were twenty-one Vanauts in that group, and five of them had heads that of a hamster. I had to wait for them to sleep, I wanted to be as silent as I could be. I assumed they would take turns sleeping, but at that stage all of them were awake. 'When my target goes to sleep, I will sneak in, grab him and leave. I can then head to the ruins' I thought. But first, I had to learn their behaviours. If I acted like a Human, my cover would be blown rather easily.

Vanauts had strange habits to be sure. They acted like rodents, but ones that could speak and walk on two legs. Fortunately, those Vanauts with hamster like heads, had very small tails, not like those rat headed ones. Another reason I targeted them. I couldn't possibly grow a tail, even if I could, I would go that far. Vanauts always chewed something, it seemed like this was their idea for passing time. Whether it was a piece of wood, bone or whatever, they chew on it. Another very crucial difference was that Vanauts had no bags, they didn't carry anything with them, except their weapons. Some of the rat headed ones had belts to which bottles were attached, but nothing else.

The hardest thing to copy, would be their speech. They didn't talk like Humans, Eterians or whatever. Their speech was impaired, as if Human spoke without his or her teeth. I had to practice that, as otherwise they would quickly find out. "Tsshiss? Sshoo arhe you?... It's not that easy to be honest…" I said to myself. There was no way around it, I had to practice speaking in broken language, otherwise I would be found out.