Pandora Unchained - a Cultivation Progression Fantasy

With the apothecary examination looming up ahead and the Shrine Descent coming in fast, Sorin decided it was finally time to confront a pressing issue he'd been delaying: the Divine Bone Rot. His tests had confirmed that while the rot wasn't definitely poison, it did respond to poison; it was just that his personal poisons weren't powerful enough to neutralize the rot before it adapted.

Several close scrapes with danger and exposure to corruption had greatly hastened the speed at which the bone rot operated. Flecks of silver could already be seen beneath the bronze runes in his bones.

In a way, the rot was benefiting him. At the same time, he could sense that as his bones were unsealed, the rate at which the bone rot attacked him accelerated. Given the difficult trials he would soon face, he needed to gain some degree of control over the bone rot and deepen his understanding of it.

Sorin's preparations included his current foundation in concocting two-star poisons. He could also successfully concoct the clan's secret Emerald Bone Unsealing and Emerald Bone Sealing Tinctures. These two-star tinctures were D-Tier tinctures, the highest-level poisons Sorin could currently craft. It would take some time before he could craft a C-Tier ten-poison to perform his second forging.

The Divine Bone Rot's acceleration over the past few months has confirmed a few important factors. First, corruption does not directly activate the bone rot—it's mana conductivity and mana flow that do. A Violent outburst stimulates my body, and the bone rot activates in response.

It's impossible to confirm this, but it appears that the Divine Bone Rot is somewhat afraid of corruption. This is consistent with my observations that corruption is the antithesis of divine energy, as evidenced by the destruction of the shackles on my Governing Vessel and the gradual erosion of the Ten Thousand Poison tablet's restrictions on my spirit.

Another factor to consider is the Divine Bone Rot's adaptability. Ingestion of small quantities of poisons seems to temporarily restrain the rot, but the effectiveness depends on the poisons involved. Unfortunately, it adapts too quickly for me to measure the effectiveness of different poisons. Its adaptation characteristic is troublesome and has forced me to restrict the quantity of poisons I ingest.

My current preparations are as follows: I simultaneously ingest moderate amounts of D-Tier ten poisons corresponding to the remaining four poisonous aspects I lack. This will shore up any deficiencies my body has in producing these poisons. Moreover, anything short of a C-Tier ten poison should be insufficient to propel me past the second forging.

The shock treatment will attack the Bone Rot using multiple poisons it has yet to adapt to. I will then adjust the poison composition in my blood to optimize a blend that temporarily suppresses the Bone Rot.

To date, the Bone Rot has only displayed one characteristic that can be controlled: mana conductivity. The rate at which it attacks my bones is accelerating due to their gradual unsealing.

Suppose no noticeable decrease in bone erosion is observed. In that case, I'll use an Emerald Bone Sealing Tincture to patch up the bronze runic structure on my bones. The overall effectiveness of this solution is unknown, but the resulting reduction in mana conductivity should prove effective. Unfortunately, this will greatly decrease my combat effectiveness in the short term. Using this stop-gap solution isn't optimal.

Should the Divine Bone Rot remain an immediate threat despite the Emerald Bone Sealing Tincture, the secondary backup protocol will be enacted. Five vials of concentrated two-star Essence of Violence are on standby and ready to be consumed. Lorimer will do his best to restrain me in the unlikely event that the Violence causes me to rampage.

He reviewed the plan a few more times before looking to Lorimer. "Are you ready, partner?"

"Ree!" confirmed Lorimer. "Ree Ree Ree, Ree, REEE!"

Encouraged by the rat's enthusiasm, Sorin confirmed the positions of the four vials of poison, the five vials of Essence of Violence, and three bottles of Emerald Bone Sealing Tincture on the floor beside his cultivation mat. He then used Hand of the Medicine God to siphon a thin stream of each of the four poisons directly into his body.

Sorin felt a pang of weakness as the powerful poisons invaded his flesh. The manatoxin froze his mana while the necrotoxin wore away at the vital energy in his tissues. The hemotoxin spread the poison through his blood, while the neurotoxin infected his nervous system.

The four poisons were much more potent than he was used to; it took a full fifteen seconds before Toxic Metabolism kicked in and began converting these poisons into useable life force.

Thanks to this life force, Sorin was able to better endure the undigested poison pouring into his body and assimilate it into his blood and his bones. His body gradually 'learned' to create these poisons and even began to adjust the composition of his blood and flesh in real-time.

As his body changed, Sorin monitored the bone rot. So far, the poisonous cocktail had effectively suppressed the poison and reduced its activity by roughly thirty percent.

The poison continued to reduce in activity until it reached fifty percent of its initial potency, lending credence to Sorin's theory that the stronger the poison in his blood, the better controlled the bone rot could be. It took roughly six hours to fully digest the poison in the four vials. By then, Sorin could comfortably generate a full arsenal of D-Tier poisons as he wished.

According to the most popular experimental designs, I'll need at least 32 data points to gain a statistically significant idea of the best mixture. This will account for both single-poison effects and two-factor interactions.

Slowly but methodically, Sorin began lowering certain poison concentrations while increasing others. The idea was to 'map out' the effects in five dimensions. There was a lot of mathematics involved in the approach, but fortunately, Sorin had a secret weapon: Ophiuchan Simulation.

While Sorin manipulated his blood, he also connected to the Ophiuchus Constellation and used it to perform a statistical analysis on the immediate effects of the poisons on bone rot. He then simulated the amount of time it would take for the bone rot to fully dissolve his bones, given previous trends.

The initial results proved quite promising. There was a marked decrease in poison activity when suppressing it with combined manatoxins, hemotoxins, and acitoxins. His optimism increased the more experiments he performed—at least until he arrived at the experiments where necrotoxins were most pronounced, and manatoxins were least pronounced.

After three such consecutive trials—occurring together purely by random chance—Sorin noticed a sharp increase in the bone rot's activity that forced him to abandon the current batch of experiments and immediately shift to damage control.

What went wrong? Sorin calmly analyzed. He only had a partial data set, but it was enough for him to collapse the current results and perform rough calculations. His bones were rapidly chipping away at a rate two, if not three times greater than normal. Even reverting to the initial balanced cocktail of the five poisons in his blood was unable to force the divine bone rot into submission.

Thanks to Ophiuchan Simulation, he quickly determined the answer: it was the necrotoxins. The death mana in the necrotoxins, or possibly certain components of them, seemed to nourish the bone rot, greatly amplifying its effects.

Therefore, he reduced the necrotoxins in his blood to the bare minimum and then began a rapid testing sequence with the remaining four poisons. Manatoxins, acitoxins, and hemotoxins were most important in suppressing the bone rot. Neurotoxins weren't very effective, so Sorin rapidly eliminated them and reduced the poisons to three.

Soon, his blood contained a mixture of 60% manatoxins, 30% acitoxins, and 10% hemotoxins. The bone rot was still thirty percent more active than before he'd begun the experiment, making it so he wouldn't even make it to the Shrine Descent, but at least he wasn't in any immediate danger.

It looks like I have no choice. I'll need to enact a fallback plan. He drooled as the five bottles of Essence of Violence came into view but refrained from drinking it lest he face the double onslaught of Divine Bone Rot and violence.

Sorin concluded that a thirty percent increase in activity is unacceptable. I also can't risk further corruption if other methods are available. Therefore, the best solution is to partially seal my bones.

Without hesitation, he used Hand of the Medicine God to siphon out the Emerald Bone Sealing Tincture from the three vials and applied it to the locations where his bones were most eroded. Ironically, the tinctures were a poison that could greatly inhibit a Bone-Forging cultivator's strength and potential.

His bones greedily drank in the poison. The silver patches in their bronze stricture quickly 'healed over' until only a few silver spots remained. These patches were now covered in a thin emerald coating that hid away the silver runes, thereby inhibiting the mana flow in his bones.

The rate of erosion stabilized almost immediately after the application. This was confirmed with one last Ophiuchan Simulation. According to his current estimates, it would now take ten months for the Divine Bone Rot to catastrophically degrade his bones. He now had even more time remaining than when he'd originally accepted Asclepius's challenge.

Unfortunately, the time had come at a heavy price. A few simple exercises confirmed that his overall combat prowess had decreased by 20%. This would gradually improve as the rot wore away at the sealing layer.

Having resolved his short-term problems, Sorin decided to delay further investigation into the bone rot, at least until he broke through to the second forging. By then, he would gain the ability to liberally craft C-Tier poisons. With luck, additional forgings would weaken the Divine Bone Rot until it fell fully under the control of his personal poisons.

Mentally and physically exhausted, Sorin rose from his cultivation mat. The mat was heavily corroded and would require replacement. It was the same for the patch of stone directly beneath it.

"Ree? Ree Ree Ree!" squeaked Lorimer.

"What?" exclaimed Sorin. "Have I seriously been here for a whole week?"

"Ree!" confirmed Lorimer.

"Then we'd better get back home before Percival files a missing report to the Presiding Elders."