Throne Of Steam 21 Battle Of Souls

This is not something humans should mess with… Garett felt his world vision crumbling! If one could interfere with something as fleeting and transient as time, and only using an artifact created in a small room at the back of a church, he wouldn't be able to trust time itself in the future!

"Yes! This mutant had the ability to lock energy into one place, so I believe it to be possible. We only need to match both artifacts and we should be able to do it!" The elderly man's eyes radiated excitement. "This will be a breakthrough in the usage of artifacts in the future, you should feel honored, kid."

He stood there with crossed arms and a smile on his face, every inch of his emitting boundless confidence. It was as if the idea of failure never once crossed his thoughts!

"Is this not considered… Blasphemy?" Garett inquired with apprehension. "Time is the domain of the G.o.ds… and not even one of them dares to clutch this power to themselves!"

"The G.o.ds have their own preoccupations, kid. It belongs to us, humans, the task of breaking new horizons." The elderly Keeper lectured, a tinge of solemnity permeating his face. "Besides, I wasn't the creator of the artifact that directly pries into the mysteries of time. I'm only creating a… Additional gadget to perfect the usage of the lens."

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"Remember, kid. Most of the groundbreaking innovations were once dismissed as madness or blasphemy." The elder started to walk towards the two objects, intent on starting with the procedures.

Wasn't this only some mad scientist bulls.h.i.+t!? You're clearly just creating excuses… Garett felt a headache coming, was this the eccentric personality Alice had warned him about?

"Hah!" The Keeper snorted with a frown. "Uncountable young artisans would be begging to a.s.sist me in this experiment, and look at you, frightened like a little chicken."

You are the chicken! And a crazy chicken to boot!... Garrett screamed inwardly, the old keeper surely did have a weird personality! Alice wasn't just being alarmist of unfair.

Nonetheless, Garett was quite interested in the creation process of artifacts; not to mention a groundbreaking one at that!

Steeling himself, he followed the old Keeper steps and approached the two tables in the middle of the crampy room.

"That's better. You can remove the blanket of that thing, and pa.s.s me those tools." The Keeper felt pleased and nodded before starting to order the young recruit in all sorts of tasks. "Oh… You should wear protective clothing first, there's a spare set on that shelf over there."

Garett stopped on his tracks instantly and left to look for the clothing. He couldn't help but curse at the Keeper inwardly, as he didn't know the implications of meddling with this kind of stuff without protection! What if he suddenly mutated into something horrendous!? n.o.body would cry for him!

Of course, I should be only overthinking. But that doesn't mean the possibility doesn't exist! Safety comes first… Garett silently mumbled to himself.

The protective clothing was a set of thick brown leather gloves and ap.r.o.n with a beaten and old exterior. There was also a thin silk mask near the pair, so Garett thought it wouldn't hurt using it too.

"Good." He said, nodding in satisfaction. He felt a lot safer now! He didn't know if those items had some mystical property like artifacts, but he nonetheless trusted the old Keeper and believed he would not harm him, at least not intentionally.

Returning to the middle of the room, he was greeted with an elderly man dressed in a similar way to himself; but the leather ap.r.o.n dragged on the ground every time the short man took a step.

"Yes, I see you are ready." The old Keeper, however, wasn't wearing a mask. And continued to show his yellowish teeth in an unconcealed smile. "You should always wear the church's protective clothing when handling things like a mutant corpse."

It was you that almost forgot to tell me beforehand, don't look at me like you succeeded in correcting a wayward junior… Garett lampooned once more, he felt that this kind of behavior had already segmented into his personality! Such was the frequency it had happened in the last few days.

"Now you can remove the blankets, please."

"Ah, yes, sir." Gareth felt fl.u.s.tered as he was forcefully dragged out from his reverie, and promptly started to do as he was ordered.

A gory ma.s.s of flesh and blood was gradually revealed as he removed the white blankets, and the already strong smell of formalin was rapidly accentuated.

"Toughen up, boy." The Keeper spat after noticing his discomfort. "There's a whole tank of formalin with dozens of mutant's corpses drowned within the church's special warehouse. You'll need to go there eventually if you are intent on becoming an artisan."

A tank? Like a giant container with dozens of bodies immersed in formalin? I thought this was a church… Garett felt chills crawling up his body, and leaving every hair on end.

Before Garett could answer, the senior artisan started to inspect the corpse with excessive attention. His hands deftly pressing on the body, appearing not to have its movements impaired at all by the c.u.mbersome gloves.

"The first step is always to guarantee that the body part still contains energy, even after its death." He then started to patiently explain the creation process, only stopping to request all kinds of weird tools. "This is the reason we use formalin to conserve the corpses, as a preserved body is quintessential to the conservancy of energy."

"It is a little more complicated when using a human's body as humans only emit spiritual energy when using an ability." The keeper appeared to remember something at that moment. "Ah! Do not confound spiritual energy emitted by an ability with life energy that is emitted at all times, that's what we are trying to lock in time with this artifact."

So the energy captured by the mystery lens is life energy, not spiritual energy. That's why it couldn't detect me using my powers that day… Garett decided to commit this information to memory; just because he couldn't see an ability with the lens, it didn't mean it wasn't there! He needed to keep that in mind during his upcoming investigation.

"There's a couple of ways to ascertain if a body part still retains its energy, but most commonly you'll get very sensitive to spiritual energy after holding a ritual. The second way is to use an artifact to verify it, and this can be done even by normal people." He then extended to Garett a magnifying gla.s.s that stood on the side of the table, it's surface colored a dull purple. "Use it, and then you'll be able to 'see' the spirituality."

Garett unhurriedly grabbed the object and put it in front of his eyes, looking intently in the direction of the ma.s.s of flesh and blood.

There was a bright, enormous gathering of formless energy emanating from the corpse, its colors so mesmerizing that evoked a dazed pause from him, hypnotizing him into a harmless stupor.

"Yes, it's beautiful, I know." A rough voice forcefully dragged him out of his trance, and he could feel a coat of cold sweat covering his forehead! "But don't look at it too much, while it never harmed anyone, it's still… addictive."

Addictive? Yes, I felt an urge to keep looking at it… Garett nodded in understanding, the ability to see spiritual energy was a dangerous one! No mortal should possess such an ability, it's existence would eventually be swallowed by the visions and the person would turn into a mindless fool!

The elderly Keeper rapidly s.n.a.t.c.hed the magnifying gla.s.s from Garett's hands, not giving him the chance to glance at it once more.

"Now that we ascertained that the spiritual energy remains intact, we need to channelize the specific section we want and separate it from the gathering of spiritual energy." He grabbed a tiny scalpel in one of his hands and a small pincer on the other. "To do that, it's simpler if we take a small piece of the corpse's tissue and cleanse it."

He cut a small piece of flesh with the scalpel and kept it carefully in a small, transparent container.

"To cleanse we'll use the blessing of the G.o.ddess, any ritual contracted marked can use his own spirituality to clash with the tiny amount remaining at the piece of flesh and cleanse it completely."

The elderly hunter focused slightly and suddenly sighed, a cloud of mists left his mouth and surrounded the piece of flesh.

If one were to use the magnifying gla.s.s to look at the situation now, one would see a fierce battle between two different energies! Corroding one another until the tiny amount of power remaining at the small piece of meat being completely erased from existence!

"It looks easy, but it takes a huge amount of mastery to erase it thoroughly. If there's even a tiny amount of spirituality remaining, everything would be for naught." The Keeper gravely spat, his face demonstrating the exhaustion resulting from the exertion of his powers. "Now that we have cleansed it, we need to attract the specific energy from the original a.s.sembly of energies. That's to say, the cleansed piece of meat is still a part of the original body, and we can use it to attract the specific power we want."

That seems a very simple process, split and attract. But it all needs an immense mastery in the usage of one's own powers… Garett noted that it would be impossible for him to complete the forging process of an artifact on his own, as he didn't have a quarter of the expertise the old man possessed!

"Are you okay, senior?" He politely asked, worried about the elderly's pale face.

"I'm fine, done it more times than you have eaten in your whole life." The old Keeper grumbled at Garett's clumsy show of concern, he believed to be able to endure, even in his advanced age.

"Now comes the hardest part! You need to have immense knowledge in the composition of spiritual energies to locate the exact part you want." He gravely nodded, his eyes thinning into slits. "The method is practically the same as to the cleansing, but instead of erasing it, we need to slowly guide it to do our bidding. It's a battle of souls!"