The mental dossier on the Oxygen Mafia closed with a satisfying snap. Vokey felt a flicker of something dangerously close to pride. He hadn't just memorized the System's tedious list; he'd profiled a criminal underworld, understood its hierarchy, and exposed its patterns. The massive, intimidating grind had been reduced to a handful of oddballs.
"Alright, Vex," Vokey said, cracking his mental knuckles. "The Dons and their enforcers are dealt with. Who's left? The independents? The hired assassins?"
Vex:Acknowledged. Proceeding to the final four Tier 2 ions. Mastery will complete the preliminary requirement for the 'Basic Lab Equipment' skill tree.
Before Vokey could even brace himself, the information came in a dizzying, rapid-fire burst, as if Vex had suddenly grown impatient with his pace.
Vex:Cyanide (CN⁻). A simple carbon-nitrogen unit. A potent inhibitor of cellular respiration. Highly effective.
An image flashed in Vokey's mind: a single, elegant stiletto. "The efficient assassin," he noted. "Simple, clean, deadly. No gaudy Oxygen entourage. I respect its professionalism."
Vex:Permanganate (MnO₄⁻). A manganese atom bonded to four oxygen atoms. A powerful oxidizing agent with a distinctive, intense purple coloration.
The mental image was now a garish, violet-robed noblewoman, dripping with jewels. "The Drama Queen," Vokey sneered. "So desperate for attention she has to stain everything she touches. Tacky."
Vex:Acetate (CH₃COO⁻ or C₂H₃O₂⁻). The ion of acetic acid. Commonly found in vinegar.
A needlessly complex diagram of interconnected atoms appeared. "All that ridiculous structure for sour wine? Pretentious. It's the kind of over-engineered calling card a third-rate nobleman would use."
Vex:Thiocyanate (SCN⁻). A sulfur-carbon-nitrogen unit. Notable for forming a blood-red complex in the presence of Iron(III) ions.
"Aha," Vokey's interest was piqued. "The sleeper agent. Colorless, unassuming... until it finds its target. Devious. I like it."
The barrage stopped as suddenly as it began. Four ions, four profiles, all in under a minute. Vokey was left reeling from the information dump.
"That's it?" he stammered. "No sordid backstory about its discovery in the droppings of a particularly melancholic badger? No infuriatingly circular logic?"
Vex:The patterns have been established. Rote memorization is now the most efficient pathway to completion. If you are struggling, I recommend creating flashcards.
Vokey frowned. "Flash... cards? Is that a form of light-based magic? Do I conjure cards that blind my enemies with sudden, brilliant flashes of elemental trivia?"
Vex:Negative. They are simple mnemonic devices. Alternatively, you could utilize a spaced repetition system. I recommend the Anki application.
"Anki?" Vokey's confusion deepened. The word was alien, devoid of any magical or etymological root he could grasp. Was it the name of a forgotten god of memorization? A demon one summoned to haunt libraries? "What in the name of the five cycles is an 'Anki'?"
Vex:Information not available in your current tier. Please complete the quest.
A loud chime echoed in Vokey's head, cutting off his impending tirade.
SYSTEM ANNOUNCEMENT: QUEST COMPLETE! Polyatomic Mastery (Tier 1 & 2) Achieved. REWARD UNLOCKED: Skill Tree - Basic Lab Equipment.
First Skill Granted: Improvised Apparatus (Level 1).
Vokey waited, his heart pounding with anticipation. He imagined a perfect, gleaming glass beaker materializing in his hand, perhaps a set of brass tongs. Nothing happened.
"Well?" he demanded. "Where's my stuff?"
Vex:This system provides knowledge, not materials.The skill 'Improvised Apparatus' allows you to identify and designate common objects as crude laboratory equipment.
A wave of profound disappointment washed over him. Of course. The cosmic con artist wouldn't just give him a tool. It would give him the idea of a tool and make him do the rest of the work.
He glared at the tin cup from his last meal. As he focused, a glowing label appeared in his vision: [Beaker (Crude, Low Purity)]. He then looked at a sharp-edged rock on the floor. [Spatula (Extremely Crude)].
"Pathetic," he muttered. But it was also a start. He wasn't going to wait around for the bureaucracy to process his deportation. He was getting out.
His eyes fell upon the crumbling mortar of his cell wall. He couldn't brute-force the door, but the wall... the wall was a compound. A flawed mixture. An idea, sharp and brilliant, took root. He recalled one of the first, most basic lessons from the oatmeal-colored textbook.
"Dalton's Atomic Theory," he whispered. He remembered the first, idiotic tenet: Matter is made up of atoms which are indivisible and indestructible.
"The fool," Vokey sneered. "He saw the bricks but missed the shoddy masonry holding them together. The stone atoms themselves may be indestructible, but the bonds between them... that's the weakness."
He would exploit that weakness. He would chemically dismantle the mortar.
He designated his cup as a [Beaker] and another rock as a [Mortar and Pestle (Ludicrously Crude)]. He scraped dust from the crumbling wall—Calcium Carbonate (CaCO₃)—into the cup. Then he poured in the acidic water he'd been saving, the water rich with the bully, Hydronium (H₃O⁺).
The mixture fizzed violently. CaCO₃ + 2H₃O⁺ → Ca²⁺ + 3H₂O + CO₂. A cloud of carbon dioxide gas hissed from the cup. It was working. He was dissolving his prison.
For what felt like an hour, he patiently applied the fizzing slurry to a single patch of mortar, scraping away the softened material. It was slow, agonizing work. But finally, with a soft scraping sound, a single stone brick loosened.
Triumph surged through him. He had done it! He had used the fundamental laws of this ridiculous science to unmake his cage. He carefully worked the brick free, creating a small, dark opening in the wall.
He pressed his eye to the peephole, ready for his first glimpse of freedom.
He found himself staring directly into the calm, bored eye of a prison guard.
The guard, who had been silently watching the entire process from the other side of the wall, didn't even move. He just raised a single eyebrow.
"Done playing, outcast?" the guard asked, his voice muffled by two feet of solid stone. "Only another five hundred bricks to go. Try not to take all night."
Vokey pulled back from the hole, his face a mask of utter disbelief. The wall wasn't one brick thick. It was an impossibly massive barrier. His grand escape plan, his brilliant application of atomic theory, had resulted in him creating a spy-hole to his own surveillance.
He slumped against the wall, the crude beaker slipping from his fingers and clattering to the floor.
Just fucking great.