“So, where exactly is your hometown?”
Jack was clearly still dwelling on what had just been said.
Elias glanced at him. Just as he was about to make up a sufficiently distant place name, the seawater in the wooden basin suddenly rippled gently.
The moonlight outside the window spilled over the frame, landing right on the sea mirage.
The translucent blob of its body suddenly contracted.
Large patches of milky-white patterns emerged on its pearlescent surface, intertwining and quickly spreading across its entire body.
In the next second, a layer of old membrane, so thin it was almost invisible, peeled back from the edges of its body.
“It’s shedding!”
Elias completely forgot about explaining his hometown, immediately grabbing the silver tweezers on the table.
Once in contact with water, the sea mirage's old membrane became as soft as a clump of gelatin that could dissolve at any moment.
He held his breath, slowly lifting it bit by bit along the peeling edges, while supporting the middle to prevent this final material from crumbling in the basin.
Jack also leaned in.
“Easy there.”
“You don’t need to tell me.”
Though Elias sounded annoyed, his hands were steadier than if he were defusing a bomb.
Only when the entire membrane was successfully retrieved and laid flat on a silver plate did he slowly let out his breath.
Moonlight filtered through the membrane, leaving a shimmering, faint shadow on the surface of the silver plate.
Having lost its old membrane, the sea mirage curled up at the bottom of the basin, still rising and falling slowly with the water currents.
Elias changed the seawater mixed with mirror salt for it. Now that the material was in hand, there was no need to actually pickle it to the bone for dinner.
After so many days of effort, the final material was finally in his hands.
The silver-rimmed caps he had painstakingly collected over several days of beachcombing had finally proven they weren't just a bag of space-consuming seafood trash.
Though most of them still were.
Elias carried the silver plate to the dining table and pulled the open copy of Introduction to Mysticism closer to himself.
Volatile materials could not be left out for long.
The sea mirage membrane had been slowly losing its luster ever since it left the seawater.
Elias verified the recipe and the processing sequence line by line, confirming that all five materials on the table were present before he finally set to work.
He immediately took his newly purchased measuring cup and poured a pinch of glow-amber powder into the remaining three ounces of spirit-element wine.
The pure silver stirring rod rotated slowly against the wall of the cup.
Tiny specks of spiritual light were swept up by the liquid. At first, they looked like floating dust, but after a few stirs, they dissolved completely, leaving only a thin layer of silver radiance at the bottom of the cup.
Next came three drops of dream lotus dew.
As the first drop fell, a ripple spread from the center of the liquid.
As the second drop fell, the spiritual light in the cup gathered inward.
When the third drop touched the surface, three nail-sized shadows of the moon silently floated up, overlapping yet distinct from one another.
“It’s actually quite beautiful,” Elias commented.
At the very least, it was far more presentable than the pot of dishwater he had brewed the first time.
He used a small scale to weigh out half a dram of mist-pattern moth wing powder and sprinkled it evenly along the edges of the three moon shadows.
The grayish-white powder suspended on the surface of the liquid, quickly forming a thin, continuous circle.
Vague eyes opened along the thin circle, slowly blinking with the slight movement of the liquid.
Though they had no pupils, Elias felt as if they were staring right at him.
Now, this felt right.
If a potion remained completely harmless from start to finish, he would instead suspect he had bought counterfeit materials.
“Finally, the sea mirage membrane,” Jack reminded him in a low voice.
“I see it.”
Elias used the silver tweezers to lift the old membrane, draping it completely over the mouth of the cup.
The moment the membrane touched the rim, its edges softened on their own.
Floating over the cup's mouth, the nearly transparent material was absorbed bit by bit by the liquid below, slowly disappearing from the outside in.
The eyes on the liquid's surface stopped blinking at the same time, shutting completely in unison.
The three overlapping moon shadows then sank.
The originally somewhat cloudy liquid quickly turned crystal clear, leaving only a faint, cool glow flowing along the walls of the cup.
There was no foul odor.
Nor was there any suspicious precipitate.
It even carried a faint aroma of alcohol left behind by the spirit-element wine.
Elias picked up the measuring cup, inspected it carefully twice against the kerosene lamp, and nodded in satisfaction.
“This definitely tastes better than the first one I drank.”
“Your standard for judging a potion is its taste?”
“Otherwise what?” Elias said righteously.
“You only know the effects after drinking it, but you can tell if it tastes good right now.”
He gently swirled the cup.
Although there was clearly only one layer of liquid in the cup, two shadows swayed across the table, one after the other.
The first one tilted to the left with his movement.
A brief moment later, the other followed, as if half a beat behind.
The smile on Elias's face faded slightly.
He swirled it again.
The two shadows were still half a beat apart.
This bizarre sight inexplicably reminded him of the two souls that had merged within his body.
Elias.
Jiang Huan.
From the day he woke up, he had accustomed himself to being Jiang Huan, while also accepting everything that belonged to Elias.
Yet those unfamiliar scenes in the dream demon's illusion that did not belong to Jiang Huan, and the question in the logbook that remained unanswered to this day, still weighed heavily on his mind.
Who exactly was he?
Or perhaps, this question was never meant to have only one answer?
“Sir.”
Jack’s voice pulled him back to reality.
“So you still haven't told me why you want to drink this Scale One potion.”
The young man from Landon stared at the potion, the confusion in his eyes deepening.
“Your spirituality is currently full.”
“Isn't it too much of a waste to go through all the trouble of gathering another recipe just to restore your spirituality once?”
“It’s just an experiment.”
Elias did not elaborate further.
He retrieved a spirit-sealing bottle, poured every single drop of the freshly brewed potion inside, and tightly fastened the stopper.
On the glass wall of the bottle, two faint shadows still swayed gently, half a beat apart.
“Very well.”
He placed the bottle back in the center of the silver plate.
“Now, only one final question remains.”
“What question?”
“How exactly am I supposed to drink this thing?”
Jack was taken aback.
“You brewed it before even figuring out how to drink it?”
“Otherwise what?”
Elias pointed to the now-empty silver plate.
“The membrane already shed. Was I supposed to make the sea mirage put it back on?”
He had to brew the potion first. As for how to use it, he could at least take his time to figure it out.
“Can’t you just drink it directly?”
“An ordinary person certainly could.”
Elias picked up the bottle, spinning it halfway between his fingers.
“But then it would just turn into an outrageously expensive spirit restoration potion.”
A different recipe could indeed bypass the spirit's permanent resistance to the original formula.
But that only tricks the recipe, not the Scale.
Elias was already Scale Two.
Without any other guidance, once this Scale One potion entered his body, it would only be absorbed by his existing Rational Circuit to replenish his consumed spirituality.
It wouldn't open up another path for him out of thin air.
“Then hold another promotion ritual,” Jack suggested.
“The question is, whose?”
Elias spread his hands.
“Without a clear target, who do I pray to?”
“And after the ritual ends, who do I have an Audience with?”
Jack thought seriously for a moment.
“Then the Mother Goddess’s!”
“You really don't treat me like an outsider, do you?”
Elias glanced at him.
“Just like that, you’re ready to bring me into your family.”
“Is that not allowed?”
“I’m afraid not.”
According to common mystical knowledge, it was extremely difficult for a person to obtain the recognition of two deities at the same time.
He had already embarked on the Moon Lord pathway. Holding a promotion ritual to the Mother Goddess of Life with a Scale One potion was definitely not as simple as just changing the prayer.
Elias had no intention of using his own soul for trial and error for the time being.
“What if you don’t hold a ritual?” Jack asked again.
“Without an Audience, what would be the point?” Elias retorted crossly.
The topic circled back to the starting point.
Drink it directly, and the potion would only be absorbed by his existing circuit.
Hold a ritual, and he didn't know who to direct it toward.
Don't hold a ritual, and there would be no Audience, let alone establishing a new Rational Circuit.
Jack reached out, wanting to take another look at the bottle, but Elias moved it away first.
“Don’t touch it. If it breaks, I couldn’t afford to replace it even if I sold you off.”
“Nonsense!”
Jack silently withdrew his hand.
Jokes aside, the question still loomed.
Elias held the bottle, the image of the man in black armor surfacing in his mind once more.
Galahad Midnight's reminder to drink another Scale One potion could never have been solely to replenish a bit of his spirituality.
A reasonable guess was that what the man truly wanted him to obtain was likely a second Rational Circuit.
The question was, how to establish it?
And whose circuit should it be?
Elias looked down at the two shadows inside the bottle.
Just then, three knocks suddenly came from inside the cottage wall.
Knock, knock, knock.
Elias’s fingers immediately left the bottle and pressed against the elemental revolver at his waist.
Jack also turned to look at the source of the sound.
There had originally been only a wooden wall there.
But the shadow hanging on the wall split open down the middle, revealing a dim path with no visible end.
A figure only half a person's height stepped out of the path.
It still wore that faded black-and-blue messenger uniform. Beneath its hood, there was no face, only a slowly rotating silver signpost.
Elias recognized it.
It was the strange messenger that had opened up shipping privileges for him without even signing a contract.
During their last meeting, it had mentioned there was a letter for Elias, but the delivery time had not yet arrived.
Now, it had paid an unexpected visit.
“The delivery time has arrived.”
The messenger retrieved an unsealed letter from its old mailbag.
Elias did not take it immediately.
He first glanced at the messenger's empty hood, then directed his gaze to the front of the envelope.
In the next second, his outstretched hand froze in midair.
His breath hitched.
It was not Velen script.
Nor was it any ancient language that required Interpretive Insight to understand.
In the center of the envelope, four square, familiar Chinese characters were written.
To My Fellow Countryman.
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