Chapter 236: Magic Keys and Awkward Engagements
Around the same time as Telana Corrada was dealing with the fact her life was turning into a horror movie, the instigator of her soon-to-be tragic turn of events was busy dealing with everyone’s worst nightmare: logistics.
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=Alright milord, what you’re going to do now is take the Twilight Iron and melt it into the mixture, one drop at a time.=
“Got it. Nepherage?”
“On it.”
The volcanic valkyrie kaijin proceeded to take the chunk of iron that had a natural sunset color to it and hold it between her two hands. Once it was firmly grasped, she channeled fire aether into her hands and began to superheat the metal. The Twilight Iron began to dribble ever slowly into a big ass cauldron that was filled with a strange bubbling blue liquid.
While Nepherage and Zhen Liu were busy doing crafting things, Hurricroak and Frosttusk we’re occupying themselves by keeping track of Razor Maiden and the Spring Brawler, and poking at the Diabolic Dragon corpse that the Zhen Clan recently acquired and gifted to Zhen Liu.
Zhen Liu had initially wanted just the whiskers, but the patriarch insisted that he took it so that he could gift it to his “master”. That or use it for puppet making…”puppet making”.
“Hey, milord?”
“What’s up Nepherage?”
“You got a new core from that crazy Corrada lady a while back, right? How come you haven’t used it to make a new comrade for us?,” Nepherage asked as she kept melting down the iron, “especially since you got a whole dragon corpse back there to work with.”
“I wouldn’t mind a fellow organic kaijin around here!,” Hurricroak added. As of this moment, she had managed to sneak in a large mushroom log under one of the wings of the dragon’s corpse and made a little tent for herself. Apparently she wanted some shade.
‘Are you making sure Spring Brawler and Razor Maiden aren’t causing too much havoc?’
[Mostly. Frosttusk is playing skeet punch with them.]
‘Huh?’
“Fire!”
Answering his question, Zhen Liu watched as Frosttusk launched a pair of pigeon sized ball of ices into the air, only for them to get shattered by Razor Maiden’s claws and Spring Brawler’s fist.
At the sight of the shenaniganry, Zhen Liu couldn’t help but smile and roll his eyes. However, he still had a question to answer.
“Two reasons, my dear Nepherage. First, the core I extracted from Telana Corrada is strange to me. I don’t want to risk the kaijin I make with it being…unstable,” Zhen Liu said as he thought of his new desire core.
Part of the reason why Zhen Liu antagonized Telana in such a way, was because his left handed started acting up and create a new core, one that was unusually light.
However, due to his performance it pretending to be a “malevolent” devil person, he didn’t have a chance to review his recent addition to his collection of cores.
Surprisingly, he still even had the one he extracted from Harold Wolfe, despite the man being dead.
Apparently, desire core taken from people stronger than Aether Grandmasters would stick around for a bit before disappearing. That is unless Zhen Liu could get to the Library fast enough.
“And secondly,” Zhen Liu explained as he refocused his thoughts to the conversation at hand, “Logos and Pathos stated that there was more than one way to make use of the dragon corpse over there, so I’m holding back to see what it is they can do with it.
“Ah…okay, milord.”
By the time Zhen Liu finished answering Nepherage’s questions, the Twilight Iron had fully melted into the mixture. The bubbling liquid was now rainbow colored.
=Excellent work, my lord. Now take the Diabolic Dragon Whiskers and simply swirl it around the cauldron while channeling [Chaos] into it.=
‘That simple?
=That simple.=
‘Neat.’
Dragon whiskers in hand, Zhen Liu proceeded to do as instructed and essentially stir the pot with the whisker. As it swirled around in the rainbow colored goop, Zhen Liu could feel the whisker getting heavier and heavier in his hand as the liquid lowered in level, bit by bit.
Eventually, the liquid was all but gone as it was absorbed by the dragon whisker, leaving in his hand a surprisingly dense yet small key.
Magic key in hand, Zhen Liu felt significantly more comfortable being able to travel beyond Stone Claw and the frontier. That said, he still needed to address a few more things before being able to do so.
“Alright then…time to go visit the Corrada Family…for some reason!”
New item in hand, Zhen Liu recalled the kaijin and made his way back to his room, where a new suit awaited him.
‘Mental note: have Zhen Hai explain why they needed me present for this.’
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“So…why did you ask grandfather to bring me along?,” Zhen Liu asked his cousin, Zhen Hai, as they and a group of delegates from the Zhen Clan entered the Corrada Estate’s front gates.
Right now, he and his cousin were dressed to the nines, well by Stampeding Bison standards. Zhen Liu had only half of an idea what was going on, but it must have been important, seeing as they were all dressed up.
That being said, seeing Zhen Hai of all people being in a suit was still weird to Zhen Liu. His memories of the man were mostly connected to him in either exercise gear, fighting gear or shirtless.
“Well, grandfather did originally want to send father with at least two of the other uncles, but everyone was busy with handling our recent windfall, apparently there was an issue with the wandering ruins entrance. Hence why I suggested you, because you’re kind of a one man army of Aether Masters,” Zhen Hai explained.
‘Plus, you have a tendency of attracting all sorts of strange events recently, and I want to see if that holds up,’ Zhen Hai thought to himself/didn’t mention to Zhen Liu.
Whatever the reason may have been, Zhen Liu was now back at the scene of his recent crime. Hopefully nothing goes too wrong while they’re here.
