Seth felt as though he was being pierced by hundreds of pointed, red-hot needles right on the chest. The inside was even worse. Instead of needles, it was as if someone was grasping his heart and squeezing it with all his strength. Sending gripping shivers of pain to his brain and making rivers of tears run down his cheeks.

Seth was grateful that the rest of his body had been anaesthetized to a pretty high degree, barely leaving a tingling sensation behind as the energy travelled all along his channels. He could also feel his pores drawing in wisps of mana from the atmosphere, refining and merging them into a greenish-white whirlpool that swirled around his core.

The responsible for the more-than-uncomfortable experience.

Seth’s brows furrowed in concern. He could clearly track the pace at which the pressure on his core kept rising as more and more energy merged into the whirlpool. Growing in size and momentum.

It was insane, honestly.

He tried to control the output just as Lucas had suggested, but frankly, it did little to nothing to stop the ever-increasing pressure and squeezing pain in his chest. His body was still pretty much unresponsive for the moment. And aside from solving the faint signs of instability that the whirlpool had shown a few times, he was a simple spectator.

It didn't take for long before the whirlpool crushed onto his core like a tsunami, filling it to the brim as it began to push its impurities to the edges. Outwards. Its fiery red hue began glowing as mana surged throughout his body in tides, loading his veins, muscles, bones, and skin in vibrant energy.

Seth clenched his teeth tightly. His chest was a bonfire. But there was nothing he could do for the moment, only endure.

His muscles, tendons and bones shivered uncontrollably as his core began glowing brighter and brighter until it wasn’t vibrant red but bright orange. But the untamed energy rushing to his core didn't stop, his core grew brighter and brighter with each influx of energy that hit.

It felt like it was trying to push a pool into a cup, and the backlash for trying to bite more than what he can chew wasn't going to be cheap.

That was when Seth noticed there was something wrong going on with the elixi-

His core quaked and a radiant bolt of pain shot out of it the next second. He tasted blood in the back of his throat. The beating of heart rumbled in his ears, and the streams of cold sweat drenching the cushion below weren't a good sign either.

He had already discussed with Lucas what to do if he found himself in this situation, but, if Seth was honest with himself, he had never really expected it to be this bad. The Four Vessels Glaucous Elixir was known for its fierce nature, and he had made preparations to endure the assault… but not for this.

A crack resounded from his sternum.

Seth looked inward; a shallow fissure ran across the surface of his core.

I can’t continue like this.

Cold sweat rolled down the side of his face, his thoughts whirled in disarray, looking for solutions. Or so he tried. His vision swam, slipping in and out of consciousness as a blade of splitting pain pierced his chest.

No.

A second crack branched off the first, carving deeper into his core like a bolt of lightning.

Seth was at its limits. If he didn’t do anything, this was definitely going to kill him or cripple him—which was worse.

He took a deep, ragged breath. Quieting his messed mind.

Losing his mind wasn't going to help him in solving the problem—he needed to assert the situation and take the appropriate measures without killing himself in the process.

It didn't take long. There was only one path forward.

Seth closed his eyes and focused every ounce of his will on stopping the surge of mana, it was like trying to navigate the oceans in a kayak during a storm. The whirlpool barely reacted, releasing a faint ripple that wasn't greater than what a pebble could do on the surface of a lake.

But it was enough.

A flicker of black-red light flashed within his core in that narrow window, and like a spark on oil, it exploded in all directions. Tainting every wisp of mana in the process.

Despite the precarious situation, a grin had formed at some point on the corners of his bloody lips.

Seth’s core burned like a mini black-red bonfire as it clashed against the whirlpool. Two forces started fighting for supremacy: his aspect devouring and burning any mana that came into its way and the whirlpool trying to overwhelm it with raw power. The battlefield?

His body.

On one hand, the black-red fire was slowly chipping away at the whirlpool, achieving a delicate equilibrium between the whirlpool’s continued efforts of brimming his core and his aspect’s pace of swallowing and burning it. The shallow fissures disappeared as his core began to assimilate the rest of the elixir’s properties, pushing it to the peak of the orange stage.

Two things happened in what seemed like a span of a second.

First, Seth felt a tide of energy flow through his channels as the last threads of energy were assimilated. He felt stronger and tougher. The gains were much more significant than the advancement from the black to the red core stage. He could tell that much.

Then, he passed out.

*

Seth felt like shit.

He stared at the ceiling, a sense of déjà vu flashing through his eyes as every fibre of his body throbbed and cried in protest. His core was even worse. It wasn't damaged or cracked, but he would have to refrain from wielding any mana for the following days at least. Which was a shame as he was rather eager to test the benefits of the advancement.

Cocking his head in the direction of the opened window, it was already nighttime, which meant he had been unconscious for a few hours.

It seems I will just lay here for a bit more, he thought, the bed was far more comfortable than he had expected, and honestly, he wasn't in the mood of doing anything aside from sleeping.

His body didn't have any objections to that.

Seth closed his eyes as his thoughts were instinctively drawn to moments before losing consciousness. A frown quickly flashed on his face as he remembered the hellish experience.

Seth knew that there was a slim possibility of getting a stronger assault than the norm as one of the main key components of the elixir was the bone marrow of a Copper-striped mammoth, a source of rich but aggressive mana whose applications lay principally in the enhancement of bones and tendons. Quite a valuable ingredient if the mammoth had reached the Yellow Core Stage, which was, apparently, the limit of the species.

However, it wasn’t 100% suitable for humans. Meaning that, more often than then, it ended in a product that simply didn't work the way it should. As simple as that.

Now, could an alchemist fix it?

Frankly, Seth didn’t know. He wasn't an alchemist… But it didn't matter.

It wasn't as though he didn’t know or Lucas had not told him about the risks he'd put himself under. It was a gamble. One that he had lost—even if it didn't end with his core being broken and cracked beyond repair.

But… he had been close, really close.

Seth snapped out of his thoughts as the door swung open, the round-figured of his friend stopping right beside his bed. His face was barely visible in the dark dormitory, but his forest green eyes seemed to shine in the dark as they focused on him.

“It seems everything went good for you,” he glanced at the side, where the mana gathering script lay. “But you should have at least used it during the assimilation, it would have lessened the burden of the elixir a little.”

“...Y-You… d-didn't tell me.” Seth groaned, his body aching all over.

Lucas' eyes widened for a second, “Oh, I forget you don’t have these things in your place," he made a gesture that Seth couldn’t quite distinguish in the poor-lighted room, but he seemed to be rubbing the back of his neck, "I just assumed you know that just as a mana gathering scrip could gather and concentrate mana from the atmosphere on a smaller space, it could do the reverse thing…"

“Anyway, let me see if everything is good with your core,” he took the stethoscope-thing hanging for his neck and placed it just above Seth’s chest, “I’m not an expert, but it seems there is nothing wrong with your core aside from a light over-exhaustion. You should be good in two or three days,” Lucas said after a minute or two, taking a pill the size of his knuckle from his pocket. It was smooth, with swirls of green and white colouring the surface.

“Take it,” he said, handing him the pill, “It will help you mitigate the aftereffects of the Four Vessels Glaucous Elixir,”

Seth looked at him, that to the pill, then back at him. He groaned.

Only after a long minute did Lucas understand what he meant.

“Oh, Haha I forgot you can't move much.” He bent down and placed the pill inside Seth’s mouth.

The pill immediately dissolved into a warm flow of energy as soon as it reached his stomach, spreading to his limbs, organs, muscles and bones in a matter of minutes. It was a tad stronger than the ororus seeds he had used before. And faster.

At this rate, he would certainly go back to peak condition in a couple of hours.

Lucas nodded, satisfied. Getting out of the room shortly afterwards as Seth’s whole attention was on assimilating the pill's energy.