NOVEL NEXT Chapter 22: Thunder Neutralization Jar
Thunder Neutralization Jar Refinement Procedures
A refinement ritual of moderate difficulty that can be performed by non-cultivators, making it valuable despite its low limit of 3rd stage refinement.
Refinement procedure as follows:
Create a clay jar sized to hold roughly double the size of the refinement material.
Place the refinement material at the bottom, then cover with rich dark soil. Pack the soil to a firm consistency.
Pour in burning coals, and feed in small branches enough to burn long and strong.
Seal the jar with additional clay as the branches begin to burn.
Heat the sealed vessel in an oven, raising the temperature as high as possible.
The jar will crack open naturally. At this time, douse the oven’s heat immediately.
Cool the ingredients swiftly with ice.
If done correctly, material will be refined with a 10-60% success rate. The success rate depends on how much of the natural air energies are removed, and how long the vessel can sustain high temperatures before cracking.
Booker made his way back to his apartment with a purpose in mind. If he wanted to help Wild Swan and complete the quest, he needed to do it in two nights.
That left no room for mistakes. Even if his luck was excellent, a few failed attempts could spell disaster.
That was because every step of the refining process had the same chance to destroy the ingredient being refined. At best, his odds could reach maybe a 60% chance of success. But that meant a total chance of 21% to shepherd a single ingredient through all three stages. Roughly a one-in-five.
He’d bought ten of each. Enough for two successful refinements. If those didn’t work and provide , he’d have to find a way to buy more.
But the frustrating thing was…
He still had to wait for the kiln to finish firing. It had been blazing away for four hours, but it would need four hours more.
And he had to count himself lucky it was ‘only’ eight hours. The alchemical compound he’d glazed onto the jars caused the clay to burn away moisture faster, curing to an almost stony texture. A normal firing would take nearly an entire day – the substance was fairly miraculous.
But it would still take four hours.
Booker found himself pacing restlessly back and forth in the yard, until he finally managed to force himself to a halt. Scrunching his eyes closed, he sighed, and forced himself to sit down in front of the kiln, where the window of heat billowing forth had melted the frozen beads of dew stuck to the frosted grass.
Sitting turned to lying down so slowly that Booker didn’t notice it creeping up on him.
His belly rumbled. After so many trials and tribulations, it was finally becoming impossible to ignore how hungry he was, after beginning to fast. Completing the quest to eat only spiritual foods for the week by simply fasting through it was theoretically possible – but doing so while keeping Booker’s relentless schedule and being chased through the city simply wasn’t. He’d exhausted himself, and the body couldn’t draw energy from nowhere. Rain’s body didn’t have any particular fat deposits to rely on either; a lifetime of hard exercise had left him lean and muscular.
Now he actually felt dizzy as he walked through the Sect, and all he wanted to do was rest. He was exhausted, he was spent, and he was done. The trial with Greenmoon felt years away by now – he’d taken all he could in a day.
Sleep hit Booker like a truck and carried him off to calm dreams.
— — —
When Booker woke up, he only felt a tiny fraction better. But in that tiny improvement, there was the hope that the situation could improve, and the things that felt impossible to handle or even contain would eventually numb to the point they could be tolerated.
He wasn’t fixed – but healing felt possible.
The kiln had burned down to orange-bellied coals buried in feathery ash. Booker looked up at the sky and saw a cold winter morning. He had slept clear through yesterday, some sixteen hours…
Damn.
I lost a lot of time.
Booker sighed, but even he had to admit he’d needed the sleep more than anything else he could have done with that time. But time wasn’t entirely on his side, and his stomach complained angrily as he pushed his way to his feet.
The firing was done. As he used a flat wooden paddle to scoop out the finished jars, they had completely changed colors, taking on a glossy green-black tone.
Setting them down on the grass he let them cool partway, before donning heavy gloves to handle them. The ingredients he’d bought from the medicine sellers were set at the bottom of each jar. He had made eight jars on his first run, and into each one he put a single koi heartcore, then packed mud down on top.
Koi Heartcore
Intact // Dull Quality
When a koi lives for a decade, it has a small chance of forming a pearl such as this, representing primitive attempts at cultivation.
Effects:
Qi Recovery 5% (Water)
Poison Purging (Earth)
Water Breathing (+)
Potency 5% (+)
A ten-year carp isn’t a true monster with a beast core, but it’s close…
The next step of the process was to fill the jar halfway to the top with burning coals and ash. He sealed the top over with wet clay, allowing those low, angry fires to burn away at the oxygen inside, hopefully generating something of a vacuum. If what really matters is creating a vacuum, I bet there’s better ways to do it using alchemy. But I’m out of time to get better equipment or more resources. I have to try with what I’ve got.
As he finished sealing the last of the eight vessels, he began scooping them up and putting them into the forge. With all the charcoal and half-burnt fuel he’d scooped out, the fire was beginning to gutter, making Froggie visible below. The golden toad was truly glowing, radiant with heat reflecting off his skin, so that it looked like molten metal. He croaked happily, eyes half-shut like he was enjoying a steamy bath.
“Yeah you look pretty happy little guy. And your leg has grown back!” The leg that had been cut off in the duel with Snips now looked exactly the same as other limb. It had grown back completely.
“Listen.” Booker kneeled down. “I’m not going to sell you. You’ve been trying to help since you got here; you’re a champion in my book, and I’m sorry you got thrown out. Now, what I need you to do is, can you raise the temperature very slowly, up to as hot as you can go?”
Froggie croaked again, and began to shuffle burning scrap over himself with his forelegs, until he was completely covered and hidden. Then he filled his lungs, his yellow throatsack billowing out, and began to vent fire from the craters on his back. The heat steadily rose.
Booker backed off, but a thought was forming…
The only part of the process I need Froggie and me working on is the final refinement. Actually making the jars, I could leave to another potter. As long as I show them the special glaze, it will only take eight hours or so to fully fire another round of jars…
Yeah.
“Froggy, you keep doing your thing. I’ll be right back!” He said, and darted out of the yard, running down to the potter and quickly explaining the situation.
When Booker arrived on his doorstep offering an outrageous price to borrow his kiln, the potter’s immediate response was a friendly skepticism:
“A pot takes half a day to fire. And you have to fire them twice.” The potter said, shaking his head. “I’ll gladly make you jars, as many as you need, but there’s no way I could get them done earlier than noon tomorrow.”
“No, listen. I have a glaze that can help them fire in under eight hours.” Booker said.
“No such thing.” The man replied. “Trust me son.”
Booker frowned. “I’m an alchemy apprentice of the Sect. Isn’t that worth something?”
The man gazed pointedly at Booker’s cripple brand.
“Ten silver liang.” Booker insisted, “And if it doesn’t work you still get paid.”
“Well that’s all you had to say.” The potter replied, although his eyes still contained doubt that Booker was doing anything but agreeably wasting his money.
“Great. A hand tall and a hand wide at the bottom, but keep the neck small.” Booker confirmed. “I’ll be back soon.”
And within an hour he was back, having mixed up a bowlful of the glaze from fresh ingredients bought at the market. In that time the potter had easily finished twenty jars, and his kiln was blazing warmly, bringing some shelter from the early morning frost. Booker had to admire the man’s skill. He worked at more double the pace Booker could hope to.
He was a lean man with tight-set wrinkles around his eyes, which were magnified by spectacles, and gray caterpillar-y eyebrows that hung down at the sides of his eyes. Him and his sons were sharing a pot of tea as Booker applied the glaze, warming their hands around intricately-patterned cups that sent plumes of steam up into the miserable drizzle of the harsh winter morning.
“These should be good.” Booker said.
“Does this glaze really work?” One of the sons asked, dipping a finger in the gray compound. “I mean, sorry to doubt you sir, but what I meant was how does it work? Unless it’s a Sect secret, I mean…” He stumbled over his words, clearly unfamiliar with speaking to anyone of importance. He was the smallest and youngest of his brothers.
“Don’t worry about causing offense.” Booker said politely. “If it works, you’ll see in an hour. How it works…”
He met the man’s eyes. There was ambition there. Three of the four people here had heard Booker, heard about a miraculous compound that could cut the time it took to fire pottery in thirds, and had assumed it was a fantastic lie. This scrawny apprentice had heard the same thing, and started calculating how much money he would make if it was true.
Booker liked that kind of ambition.
“We can talk about it later, if you like the results. I have to go…”
And he was darting back down the street, to his own backyard and his kiln. Just as he was arriving at the front of the apartment, he heard the crack and echoing splinter of pottery exploding inside the kiln, and vaulted over the fence to rush directly in. Rolling up his sleeves, he grabbed the wooden paddle and began pulling out the remains of the broken jars.
Black earth, the remains of the wet soil he’d packed into the jars, spilled off the paddle in all directions, landing smoking in the grass. All that remained of the first two jars Booker scooped out were shards of pottery and that black earth, with no trace of the ingredients that had rested within. He was beginning to be gripped by the fear he’d done something wrong, and the refining would return no improved ingredients at all.
But just as panic was setting in, he scooped out the third jar, and something gleamed among the broken pieces.
A koi heartcore.
Koi Heartcore
Intact // Dull Quality
When a koi lives for a decade, it has a small chance of forming a pearl such as this, representing primitive attempts at cultivation.
Effects:
Qi Recovery 5% (Water)
>> Body Strengthening 5% (Earth) <<
Water Breathing (+)
Potency 5% (+)
As he drew out the rest, the results of three more successful refinements were revealed. Four sparkling jewels, each one still hot from the kiln. He dumped them into a bucket of icy water from the well, and breathed a sigh of relief.
He had made it through the first step of the process.
His success rate was less than ideal, but four from eight was good enough to proceed. He grabbed a clump of clay from the bucket and slapped it onto the spinning wheel, dropping himself into a seat where he could kick the wheel along.
This was the core process of refinement. If he could do it two more times, he’d have a finished ingredient.
And then…
I have to hope at least one comes out with the right qualities.
Unless… Book, do you have any way to change the results?
The pages began to turn.