The most common type of potion which isn’t completed until consumption are certain types of antidotes, which are inert unless the one consuming them is poisoned, but if they are poisoned, they provide certain minor or major effects. My favorite example of this is green adder venom, which in combination with the antidote provides a short-term strength increase followed by a period of weakness.

  — Excerpt from Thoughts on Pots and Brewing

  Day 253, 8:40 PM

  As we delved deeper into the cavern system, I executed frostworm after frostworm, not even needing to rely on my rider skill. After the first one, I started using bits of air-attributed mana to dispatch the manabeasts, rightfully concluding that the bits of mana I leaked caused less turmoil than a thrashing frostworm would have.

  Naturally, it wasn’t as simple as just relying on luck. I added a hint of water mana into the bits of air mana that bled into the ambient, helping diffuse it faster. I also made a cocoon of water mana around the fire and lightning dancing on my staff to kill the monsters an instant faster.

  Thanks to that, frostworms died before they felt pain or reacted in any way. Their bodies went as limp as their frozen carapaces allowed, and life left them.

  We navigated the cavern with me leading the way until we reached the ice jade marrow deposit. The frozen wall was marred with gashes and chipped chunks, excavated by pickaxes and similar tools. The entire chamber stood secluded enough that speech and the sound of mining shouldn’t carry too far. Hopefully.

  “Here we are.” I motioned at the vein as if Everlast hadn’t immediately recognized it. The woman beamed an overjoyed smile.

  “It’s very potent, probably from a sixth realm frostworm.”

  “How can you tell?” Newstar asked, watching at the ivory wall in undisguised confusion.

  “This nook is thirty degrees colder.” Everlast said, her eyes fixed at the white jade. “You can’t notice it because of your dress.”

  She made the remark offhandedly, but I had to suppress a laugh. She was burying him with dress comments without her even trying or knowing what she was doing. Newstar looked down at his sparkly dress, and I decided to say something before we got derailed with ballroom subjects yet again.

  “Do not even consider taking it off. You would grow hypothermic in a matter of moments, then you would reflexively flare your defensive skill and attract a bunch of frostworms here.” I looked at Everlast, then motioned towards the wall. “We will keep watch while you harvest the ice jade marrow.”

  Everlast moved with nervous care and precision that she didn’t display when cutting regular ice jade. The resource was orders of magnitude more valuable and warranted full focus. She removed the ice covering the jade marrow, and with the insulating layer of naturally enchanted ice gone, the mana leaked out of the jade, washing over us.

  The surge of mana wasn’t negligible, but we were in a cavern flooded with it, and the sudden spike shouldn’t matter much.

  “Newstar,” Everlast said while I strained my senses, taking in everything in our surroundings. “I will need your help to handle the ice jade marrow once I cut it free from the wall. Make sure you don’t drop it. Even a hint of taint could lower its purity.”

  “How do I handle it?”

  “Just grab the bars as I cut them so that I can store them into my spatial pouch.”

  Everlast proceeded to cut out a triangular prism six inches long from the white ivory-like jade, talking as she worked.

  “If Dandelion used flames to cut these, he would alert the frostworms, but not only that, the collision between fire and ice would reduce the grade of this ice jade marrow. The ice jade he cut above was low grade, and the taint was not as important, but a material like this is valuable precisely because of its purity.”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  “Wouldn’t it be simpler to let me use the spatial pouch directly?” Newstar asked while catching the bars and storing them.

  Everlast shook her head as she lowered her sword and raised the bag. “It’s attuned to my mana signature. It would take several hours for you to expel my mana and replace it with your own, and then, once I wanted it back, I would have to waste another couple of hours before I could use it. Changing ownership for a short-term task isn’t worth the hassle at our realm. Someone at the fifth or sixth can flush our mana in a blink and regain ownership. Otherwise, Master wouldn’t have given it to me.”

  They were at it for a short while before I caught the change. It was diminutive, but we were in a bad place, a dead end deep in the caves.

  “The flow of air has changed,” I said. “The fifth realm frostworm is patrolling, or it has already spotted us.”

  Probably the latter, the spike of mana activity alerting it or at least catching its attention.

  I closed my eyes and sensed the air with a simple mana construct. “Worse, it has cut off our escape path, and it is only a matter of time before it finds the corpses.”

  A deep bellow shook the cavern, icicles in the ceiling vibrating, colliding, and falling to the ground. Redo was down, the exit blocked, and I had to think fast.

  “Everlast, you will remove a layer of ice from there.” I pointed at the wall opposite to the ice jade marrow. “When I say so, you will have to put it back the way it was. Newstar, you need to make a hole in the rock.”

  Everlast immediately started sculpting the ice, but Newstar stared at me with terrified eyes.

  “I don’t know how to do that!” he stammered.

  “You are an earth-attributed awakened who does not know how to manipulate rock?” I looked at him flatly, realizing I probably should’ve worked on his magical techniques, not just weapon skills.

  He nodded in panic. “Yes. No. I mean, I don’t know how to do it.”

  I drew a deep breath and calmed down. Fine, I’ll do it myself. I can probably purify air and sculpt rock at the same time if I really try hard enough. I’ll need to spend some loops on multitasking, but the threat of death is a great motivator for learning.

  “I can do it,” I said, “but I am stretched across the elements, while more versatile, my approach lacks raw power. I hope we make it in time.”

  Everlast parted the ice, and I placed my hands on the revealed rock. “Everlast, go to the opposite wall, and make an obvious hole in the ice, but leave the ice jade marrow intact.”

  While Everlast ran to do as I said, I drew a block of rock from the wall and carried it over to her. I crumbled it into pieces and scattered the gravel on the ground before repeating the process four more times until Everlast finally pierced the ice all the way.

  “Excellent!” I placed my hand on the smooth wall and made it rougher and uneven as the floor shook more violently and the enraged bellows grew louder. The elder frostworm was growing more furious with each corpse it encountered.

  “What are you doing?” Newstar asked, oblivious of basic survival tactics. Surprisingly, Everlast shared his confusion.

  “We need to displace enough rock from the wall to make a hollow in which the three of us can fit. I am scattering those rocks on the ground while at the same time making a fake trail for the frostworm to follow when it reaches this room.”

  I carried over another boulder and scattered it on the ground.

  “I have great experience at being hunted,” I said. “Leaving a false trail with all the elements of a real one is the first step to losing your pursuers. When the hole is big enough for us, Everlast will close the ice behind us and make it perfectly match the rest of the cavern.”

  I rushed over with another slab of rock and scattered it, forgoing dignity for the sake of expediency.

  “Our lives are in your capable hands, Everlast. I know you can do this.” I kept running back and forth with ice raining from the ceiling and gravel dancing on the ground.

  “This will have to do. Come here; we have little time.”

  We huddled together in the small nook I had created, both of them shuddering with fear. The fact that my body didn’t do the same as theirs should’ve been suspicious, but they had other things to worry about.

  “Everlast, close the ice, please.” The whole cave shook like an earthquake with a high number attached to it, but I kept my voice from shaking. The last thing I wanted was to pressure our getaway driver. “Take all the time you need. Just make it perfect.”

  Everlast nodded and focused. The ice she had removed flowed back, rearranging itself until it sealed the passage. The paper-thin sheet wobbled and cracked at first, but Everlast repaired it as it grew thicker and thicker, until it was finally a four feet thick wall of murky ice. Meanwhile, I was sculpting rock all around us, shifting and moving it as it crept up the ice. The frostworm roared like a typhoon, chunks of ice flying down the tunnel from the sonic boom.

  Rock slowly made a pool, ready to close her work as soon as she was done. And as the ice thickened enough, I started moving.

  “Great job,” I whispered. “Leave the rest to me.”

  The rock flowed, perfectly clinging to the ice, until it closed, hiding us from the frostworm’s sight completely.