The Emperor spoke again. "Naturally, we will need to send soone to investigate this. Skynder is busy, so I'll find so other trustworthy person."
The Western Monks nodded.
Skynder was no longer needed, and he returned to the lab to do more research. One of the first rank Sword Masters of the Empire were sent out with the Western Monks to investigate. This would be a multiple year journey, just like when Skynder went to the Western Desert to find a new way to see.
A few years passed with almost nothing changing. In Skynder's life, only the research seed to change at all.
Nine years had passed since the Emperor had given him this task, and Skynder was finally closing in on a final recipe to create so sort of potion to extend the lifespan of soone.
This was by far the most difficult project he had ever worked on. The difficulty did not necessarily lie in the complicated nature of the work itself, though it was truly extrely difficult, but that there was no room for error. They only had one attempt at this.
Though Skynder had already created more than a thousand theoretical recipes, he had to spend a lot of ti simulating the results of using them.
Soon, he would have a final product and deliver it to the Emperor.
This last year, he put in even more work than before. His understanding of blood science was unimaginable. Nothing could even begin to compare. Charles was second, and was above third by a lot, but even he would not be able to fathom Skynder's understanding.
As nine years and nine months had passed, Skynder sat back in his chair and let out a sigh containing nearly ten years of exhaustion.
He had a final product. He wasn't sure if it would work or not, but he was confident that this was his masterpiece.
It contained the blood of over 30 animals in different proportions.
20% of it was made of Mountain Serpent blood, 20% was made up of Plains Bull blood, and the remaining 60% was made up of the blood of other animals. So were rare, so were common, so were even extinct.
He had a bucket of this blood stored and ready to use.
The recipe was as follows. Put the flower into the blood and begin to heat them up.
As soon as bubbles start to pop on the surface, stop the heat and pour the blood into a glass container.
The remaining heat within the concoction would send red steam flowing through so tubes above the glass container, which would condense into droplets and drip into a vial. When that vial was full, the concoction was ready to drink.
It seed simple, but this was the combination of around ten years of effort and innovation. Far more than 30,000 hours of his life had been spent on this one thing.
For three months, he went over everything once again. He knew it was unnecessary, but did so anyway.
On the ten year anniversary of him being given this mission, Skynder went to the throne room with Charles following behind. As soone who had dedicated ten years of his life and nearly as many hours as Skynder, he deserved to be present.
The Emperor eagerly awaited him atop the throne.
Skynder appeared, a piece of paper rolled up into a scroll.
"This is my creation." He said. It did not need any more introduction.
The Emperor received the scroll and read it. After a while, he closed his eyes and fell into a thought. A few minutes later, he spoke.
"Prepare everything needed to follow this recipe. We will use it in an hour."
As he finished speaking, Sword Grandmaster Shang couldn't help but speak up. "Emperor, don't be hasty."
He didn't reveal much, but the Emperor knew what he ant. "We will talk again later, but for now, just trust . I'm never wrong, am I?"
Sword Grandmaster Shang nodded and followed.
They arrived at a room where Skynder ordered a bunch of the researchers to get moving. This was the mont of truth.
Within an hour, everything was set up and absolutely confird.
Skynder took a deep breath before completely focusing. A cauldron sat in front of him with a fla heating it up.
He took the mixture of blood already mixed and poured it into the cauldron. Making sure every part of the cauldron was evenly heated up, he continued for a few minutes until he saw a bubble pop on the surface.
Without hesitation, he took the cauldron off of the heat and poured the heated mixture into a glass container before putting a lid on it and sealing it so tight that even air could not enter it.
Everyone, the Emperor, Sword Grandmaster Shang, Skynder, Charles, and a bunch of researchers, all watched silently as a blood red mist traveled through tubes, condensed, and slowly dripped into a vial.
The process took rely ten minutes in total before the vial was filled, but it felt like a lifeti.
Skynder sealed the vial and handed it to the Emperor.
The Emperor looked at it for a mont before looking at Skynder.
"Do not disappoint , brat."
His tone was sothing Skynder had never heard before. It was as if, in that single mont, he had not been spoken to by an Emperor, but by soone who had lived for thousands of years.
With the Emperor's statent, he unsealed the vial and downed it.
Everyone watched with bated breath as the Emperor stood still with his eyes closed.
Even the usually calm Sword Grandmaster Shang was clearly nervous.
Nothing happened for a few minutes. The Emperor simply stood there in silence.
Finally, he opened his eyes.
"Interesting." He said.
"It is impossible to tell exactly how much, but I can tell that my lifespan has indeed increased. Well done, Imperial Scholar Skynder." He said.
Skynder let out a sigh of relief. It hadn't all been for nothing.
Reviews
All reviews (0)