Chapter 76: Paste

He spent the rest of the night and till evening of the next day grinding down the Skyward Herbs.

Rest came only when he felt hungry. He joined Celeste and the others in the campfire to eat some food before briskly returning to his dorm room to finish his task.

They asked him to socialize with them, but he declined. He didn’t know when the next test would be. Before Kaiser inevitably called them for their exam, he wanted to be ready as best as he could.

Opening another two meridians was his current goal. He’d seen how powerful his first two were.

It motivated him. Kept him focused despite the mundane task that had occupied him for hours and hours on end.

By evening, he had crushed every Skyward leaf into a sludge. The pestle in his hands was now tinted with a dirty yellow.

He cupped the slurry at the edge of the bowl and squeezed it with great force till a few drops of dark yellow liquid flowed to the bottom.

That was the extract he needed.

But it was still filled with impurities. Dirt, bacteria, and other substances darkened its complexion.

He needed to distill it to its finest essence. Down to the very characteristic that made the Skyward Herbs so good at recovering Ræzoň.

This was the easy part.

He covered his hand on top of the stone bowl and shook it. Intensely. The dark yellow liquid extract splashed all around the bowl and most importantly, under his palms.

Then, he concentrated and Reinforced his hands.

Skyward Herbs had great synergy with Ræzoň. Its essence, therefore, would be attracted to any kind of Ræzoň present in its vicinity.

It wasn’t long before a few particulate matter began to stick into palms, attracted to the Ræzoň he had unleashed.

He uncovered the bowl and looked at his hands. A yellow, pollen-like material gathered in a circle around his palms. Meanwhile, the liquid left in the bowl had turned transparent, with a few black grains of contaminants left inside it.

That’s fast...

He thought it would take a few more hours of cyclic decontamination processes. But it only took one try.

Ah. The [Primordial Fire]...

His new Aspect empowered his Reinforcement with the flame energy of the universe. And fire was known to cleanse impurities.

It hastened the process greatly and saved him a lot of time. An unexpected, but not unwelcome accident.

But he didn’t celebrate yet. He didn’t even breathe.

The pollen in his hands wouldn’t fly away even if he breathed on it as long as he kept his Reinforcement steady. But he still exercised caution.

Next, he gathered the next ingredient, the underwood moss. He then took the violet, broccoli-like shrub in his hands and began to sprinkle the pollen through it.

It absorbed the yellow pollen immediately, disappearing completely—part of the process.

He then cupped the moss in his hands and squeezed it with his Reinforced hands. Grayish liquid dripped down into the ground.

What was left of the moss was a compressed clump of pale violet. He tossed it aside. He didn’t need it.

Now, there was an even smaller coat of yellow powder in his hands, with just a tinge of a violet hue.

He continued this process for the rest of the ingredients, using them as a sift to extract and transform the essence of the Skyward Herb.

By morning of the second day, he’d finished his concoction.

A fine, bright yellow paste remained at the bottom of the stone mortar. It looked like one of those skin-care lotions that was prevalent in modern Earth back in the days.

Eren took a deep breath, exhaustion leaving his body, before being replaced by excitement.

It was perfect. Flawless, he would even dare say. None could have done better. Though, Athan would probably find a way to discover a minute flaw within his process.

But it didn’t matter. He had succeeded.

He applied the Physique Accelerant paste all over his body. It felt hot to the touch. As if he’d just poured lava throughout the entirety of his skin.

It wasn’t till every muscle in his body twisted that he realized that the hotness came from his [Masochist’s Dream] instinct warning him of the pain.

His body convulsed. Muscles twisting and knotting everywhere and simultaneously. It was hellish.

This was the side-effect of the paste. It accelerated the maturity of a Physique by making it experience muscle fatigue at a prolonged rate.

It was agonizing. Comparable to the time a Bookwyrm consumed part of his mind.

He wanted to take refuge in his Mind Palace. Take his presence away from the physical and into the spiritual.

But he persisted. He adhered to the rules of the [Masochist’s Dream]. Seek pain. Cherish it. Only through an excruciating experience would he learn how to resist it for the next time it happened.

The cramps lasted for a few hours before it subsided.

By the end of it, he felt absolutely exhausted. His muscles refused to move. Sleep was calling to him as if it was a lullaby by the moon itself.

He forced himself up. Ignored the natural limits of his self-preservation. Cultivation came first and foremost.

He took out the leather pouch in his pockets and chose his acupuncture needle.

Now, it’s time to open his third and fourth Primary Meridian.

He punctured the boundary between his shin and his foot.

With his vision focused on the needle’s point, he directed Ræzoň from his eyes onto the leg. And soon, a haze of smoky red aura coalesced around the entirety of his foot, Reinforcing it!

He concentrated it at the Primary Meridian, creating a vortex that increased its power tremendously.

At the same time, he forged a new pathway from his Dantian all the way to his legs using drops of Ræzoň as its material.

His previous experience made things a lot smoother. He purged all the impurities in his meridians, opening a highway for Ræzoň to flow to his legs.

Eren had now opened four of the twelve Primary Meridians!