Felix, his Will finally relaxed, took a soft set of breaths. "Trade secret."
Aenea just swept toward the containers, her own powers questing toward them as if to test their potency and composition. She physically recoiled from the waste container, her face a mask of disgust, but the gleaming fluid was little better. It made her tremble to be so close to, as if she'd looked for it all her life. "This is...you've created a formless distillation. Attunement-neutral, able to...this could take any attunement we want." She met Felix's eyes, and for once he saw real admiration in her gaze. "With this...with this we could make a universal draught. It would work on...anyone. At any Tier. And with a far greater Mana capacity than the Guild's own mixtures by several orders of magnitude."
Felix nodded, feeling a bit tired after all that. "Good. We need to make as many as possible."
"Let's run it through once together, then I can handle the rest," she said. "I'll need you to continue doing...whatever it was you did. How often can you perform such a miracle?"
"As often as I have to," he said, fishing out another Fruit while more stoneware clattered atop the counter.
They got to work.
Cardinal Flame is level 77!
...
Cardinal Flame is level 79!
Alchemy is level 44!
...
Alchemy is level 49!
Four more hours swept passed in a flurry of activity. Felix sifted and siphoned the power from twenty seven Spirit Fruit, each one filling a gallon-sized container with useful material. The other gallon-sized containers held waste, which Felix had emptied into an enormous granite urn he'd shaped from his supplies. That cut out most of its stink, thankfully, while they decided what, if anything, could be done with the foul stuff.
The good stuff, however, was quickly used; turned out, they couldn't make universal draughts but they could infuse the distillation with a measure of attuned Mana and make it suitable for specific core types. Felix didn't understand a lot of it; Aenea was operating on another wavelength that he could only grasp snippets meaning from her words and movements. In the end, however, she had furnished Felix with eighty-one Essence Draughts. Each Spirit Fruit had been able to make three, all of them more than potent enough to Temper someone into Master Tier, according to the Alchemist.
Name: Essence Draught Of Atlantes
Type: Essence Draught
Lore: An alchemical distillation of a powerful Spirit Fruit from the Atlantes Anima! It is a near-universal draught, able to be used by someone of any Tier to advance themselves so long as it is attuned to their core's element(s).
Simple description, but powerful results, Felix thought as he left the Alchemical Lab. He held one of the draughts in his hand, no more than a tall vial and glittering with potent air Mana. Infusing the draughts had been relatively simple compared the rest of the process, as it had required someone to pour the requisite Mana type into the distillation, and Felix had just about every kind. Without his aid, however, making them would be far more complicated. We've a whole night ahead of us. I think I can handle making a lot more to stock up on. The Storage Facility would keep them fresh, as most of what they require is sufficient ambient Mana.
Given enough time, Felix would be able to Temper everyone now in his Stronghold. Even if he was gone awhile, when the time came for the Legion, Henaari, or even the Haarguard Reed had brought with him, they could all Tier up properly. He gripped the vial, and hopped down the stairs into the first floor of his Temple. I wonder where Vess is? She'd like to see this, I bet.
He made it only four steps before he noticed a presence waiting. For him, specifically, or so his Harmonic senses told him; there was a chiming connection between them, taut with anticipation. More than anything else however, Felix was surprised to find out it was Kimaris, the Witch, who had come to see him. She stood at the opened edge of the Temple, where the diverted waterfall only half-covered the gaping hole where a cliff-face once stood.
"Autarch," she said, inclining her giant-sized head to him. Silky white hair slipped over her shoulder and swung with the movement, which only drew attention to the swaying of her loose, drapery-style robes. They were a blue, darker than her skin, and detailed with complex fractal patterns along the hem. A wide belt of pale leather and moonstones cinched the whole thing together.
"Kimaris. How can I help you?"
The Witch did not smile, but affixed him with her grave stare and the force of her personality. "You are leaving."
"Jesus, what's the point of saying it's a secret if no one listens to me," Felix muttered to himself. "I am, for a time."
"You are leaving and you are not taking a single of my warriors with you," she said. Her thin, white eyebrows drew down. "Yet you offer a spot for those...vermin-worshippers."
The Henaari, he realized. Closer, he also noticed that the patterns on her robes were actually ice, shaped to look like embroidery. "Yes, the Henaari are coming with me. A few. I don't plan to be gone long."
"You must allow us representation, Autarch."
"What? It's...we're going to the desert. You're Frost Giants." he said.
"We have charms to prevent extremes of temperature from harming us," she said, waving aside his concern. "We are warriors. As your sworn vassals, allow us to prove our worth."
"You've been doing a great job so far with the Domain."
"Pfah. Child's work. You go to face these armored fools that praise the Trackless One, yes?"
Who is flapping their gums? "I'm not clashing with them if I don't have to," he said. "My hope is to slip and and out. Gone before anyone notices we were there."
Kimaris nodded, firmly. "You will fight them. You've the blood of a Titan, a true warrior. Battle calls to us, whether we ask for it or not. We shall join you."
"...Fine. But only a few, and they will follow the chain of command. You listen to me, then you listen to those I designate over you, got it?"
Kimaris inclined her enormous head, letting her thick white locks sway forward once more. "It will be as you say, Autarch."
Felix doubted it would be so easy.