Panacea
Nox's currently active projects were four, all relating to different subjects and intents and a fifth theoretical one he still needed to fulfill some requirements to get started on it.
They were the production of a true Panacea, which he was making progress on but had yet to reach his desired level, the creation of a Philosopher's Stone, which he had several ideas but had only done some very rudimentary test as this point and furthering his mastery of spacetime magic.
These three were the projects that were relatively normal, at least by Nox's very skewed standards. As for the other two, they were about abusing the laws of the World of Danmachi to do utterly impossible things.
The first one, and one Nox had already deeply researched and experimented with, was the manipulation of Excelia and if various effects and information bodies powered by it, also known as Falna or Status for the less educated.
Right now, Nox could distill Excelia into EX Pots that increase one's abilities and Excelia accumulation rate but what he truly wanted was a physical form of Excelia that could be directly absorbed and converted into ability values in one's Falna.
Lastly, he wished to further manipulate Falna and give himself the ability to redistribute the Excelia inside one's Falna to basically give them a perfect All S in their abilities without having to force people back to Level 1 and only reducing their progress until the Excelia was equally distributed.
The second, and still theoretical of the two "outrageous" projects was simple but lacking one vital element for work to be started.
Nox wished to reproduce a God's true power and ability, their Arcanum and possibly, even their divinity, he had already succeeded in manipulating a god's power through the use of their blood so it should not be totally impossible for him.
The only problem was that Nox required to actually see and Arcanum so that his Arcana skill could analyze it in order for him to start working on figuring out its inner workings, he knew the perfect opportunity but is was still years away . . . The extermination of the Artemis Familia by Antares.
That would provide the perfect opportunity to analyze divine power and an actual Arcanum in various ways so Nox was truly looking forward to it.
Other than those, there were mostly some harmless activities like alcohol brewing a culinary pursuits he did for fun as they were in the territory of his Craftmaster development ability as well.
Still, as of right now, Nox thought to best keep his head in the game and think about his more achievable projects.
His skills had improved enough for him to make another try at making a better Panacea but still not high enough for him to attempt to produce a Philosopher's Stone with better result than his failed last attempt so he should focus on the first.
In regards to spacetime magic, increasing his raw ability and Level to improve his magical power and affinity would do wonders so he elected to put it off for not but doing some Experiments with Excelia should prove to be simple enough since he already had a few ideas to try.
Nox lost count of how many times he thanked himself for picking Excelia Burn as a curse. He had never truly used it as it was a self destructive move but studying its inner working with his Arcana skill continued to provide never ending value into the esoteric topic that was Excelia.
In regards to his Panacea, Nox had been making great strides, the ingredients for his next version were pretty much the same,, even the ratios but he was going to change to concocting process, which was the main thing needing further adjustments.
Although the Mixing in Nox's Craftmaster development ability was the main component of the process, Mystery was also involved, mainly in the preparation of certain ingredients but also on the actual product itself.
Most of the ingredients that were directly used in the mixing were extremely rare and expensive. Nox's sales of his more "tame" products left him an outright billionaire, owing to his monstrous crafting speed due to his Arcana Craft spell but even before them, he was incredibly fast.
As such, purchasing what for other would be prohibitively expensive items and materials for his research was actually quite easy.
The true problem was when something was so rare that it didn't have a price because nobody wanted to sell it or when there were only description of such an item having existed but no longer any of the actual stuff.
Nox's hands were tied when it came to the latter but he uncaringly resorted to theft in the former, utterly not caring if the owner of the item he desired was good or evil as he considered morality as a point of view anyways.
As for the actual concoction, it was quite the complex process to get the final product with many preliminary steps involved.
First up, as a clean base, Cadmus Spring Water and making an modified Elixir, which normally is the most potent healing item in all of Orario, this is the first ingredient.
Next up, once again using Cadmus Spring Water as a base, with ground up Cadmus Hide and Unicorn Horn along with a plant called Moly.
With a special mixing process that involves a few extra ingredients, it makes a powerful anti curse and poison potion. It can not only cleanse one from such ailments but also, if preemptively ingested, grant powerful resistance against them. This made up the second ingredient.
For the next ingredient a Magic Concentrate to be created, a large amount of High Magic Potion was necessary, liquid magical energy gathered from the environment through spirit magic was then added and the mixture was refined to the extreme, resulting in very low amounts of final product.
The final ingredient was a Blood Potion but not a regular one. While Blood Potions could be manufactured from any type of blood to various degrees of concentration, this was the Ultimate Blood Potion that served not just vampiric beings but any being.
Refining the most powerful and ubiquitously magical type blood Nox could gather at the moment, his own, converting large amounts of Leviathan Blood into a powerful Life Force Extract and harmozinzing them both with a Mermaid Blood Concentrate, that was very gentle despite its powerful medicinal effects and just a little God's Blood.
Finally, using a specially crafted cauldron, not for the concocting of medicine but for the express intents of making the Panacea, placed on top of a platform with a complex magical diagram engraved on it to guide the use of the Mystery ability, Nox mixed all of the ingredients.
Then through the use of Mystery, Arcana Craft and some material transmutation, what remained behind was a very small amount shining multi coloured liquid with incredible power.
"This one is much better than before!" Nox celebrated, talking to himself out loud in joy.
The Panacea this time was the absolute best he could make and, despite its outrageously small amount, nine drops at most, just a single drop could exhibit extremely powerful effects.
Even if one's body has dies, so long as it is administered right after death before the soul departs the dead body, it revives the target. All ailments, such as poison, curses, diseases or weakening are recovered, even lost limbs are regenerated and Mind and stamina are restored to their peak.
For a period of time dependent of the degree of injury before consumption, the consumer will gain ultra fast health, stamina and Mind regeneration and an immunity any ailment of any type be it poison, curses or weakening of any kind.
After using his Arcana Skill to fully evaluate the potion, Nox could almost cry as it was truly the most perfect potion he had ever made and the first to truly be worthy, at least in his mind and heart, of the designation, Panacea.
Its healing effect was so powerful that it even healed defects and such left but old injuries and sequelae from diseases resulting in possible strengthening of the consumer and even an extended lifespan by healing one's cells and re energizing them so they don't start to break down as soon as they originally would.
Although it was damn expensive to make, its value far surpassed the sum of the value of its ingredients and it that was because its value was whatever Nox wanted. Panacea would be something anyone would do anything to obtain, it was liquid salvation.
Such a thing was better used to get deals and create relations with powerful and important people, not something one should sell for money, Heavens knew Nox didn't really need more Valis that he already had and it was a total waste of the product.
Nine drops at a time was Nox's limit but he still had ingredients left, as a stupidly rich fellow with a penchant and tremendous skill in thievery, his storage of ingredients, materials and treasure was truly heart stopping to look at so he decided to make some more . . .
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