The first ray of moonlight was like a stabilizing pillar, piercing straight into the center of the hemispherical underground altar.
"Pour in the materials."
Eldlich stood at the edge of the altar, looking down at its mirror-smooth base.
The alchemists in robes of various colors wasted no time and immediately began to act. Tons of rare ores, magic crystals refined hundreds or thousands of times, and even the bones of certain rare creatures were dumped into the hemispherical depression as if they were worthless scraps.
The creation of the Philosopher's Stone, the first stage:
Nigredo.
Eldlich closed his eyes, his hands hovering in the air. Accompanied by his obscure chanting, the materials at the bottom of the altar began to react violently.
There was no dazzling light in that reaction.
Only endless, suffocating blackness. It was as if all light was being swallowed by the hemispherical pit. Thick black liquid churned at the bottom of the altar, giving off a pungent scorched-earth smell.
This process lasted a full seven days.
The enormous drain of magical power caused several of the hired alchemists to collapse on the spot and be carried away. Fortunately, the Nigredo stage proceeded unexpectedly smoothly. Eldlich was undoubtedly a gifted alchemist; under such pressure, he endured these grueling seven days.
When the black liquid at the bottom of the altar solidified into a palm-sized mass as deep as the night, the first stage was complete.
"Continue!" Eldlich's voice was hoarse, but he did not stop. "Prepare the materials for Albedo!"
This was practically risking one's life.
The Albedo stage began. Under the catalysis of new materials, the pitch-black solid began to seep outward with a pale white color.
Day after day passed. Another difficult seven days.
On the night when Albedo was about to be completed, a disturbing hum suddenly came from within the altar.
Bzzz!
The transforming stone suddenly trembled violently. Then, a burst of wild white energy waves exploded outward like something tangible, directly knocking over the two nearest alchemists.
"What's going on?!"
"Is the array about to collapse?!"
Panic broke out among the crowd.
But the fluctuation came and went quickly. After flickering a few times, it returned to calm. At the center of the altar, the stone had completely turned into flawless pure white.
After another seven days, Albedo was complete.
An elderly gray-robed alchemist struggled to his feet, staring at the altar in shock.
"Eldlich, something's wrong with this reaction." The old man wiped the cold sweat from his face. "This is nothing like the quiet transformation described in the ancient texts! That energy was far too violent… but-but it seems Albedo is still complete."
"As long as it's complete, that's enough."
Eldlich stood there.
His robe had long been soaked with sweat, dried, soaked again, and dried once more, leaving behind a layer of white salt residue.
Fourteen days of extreme refinement had not only drained his magical power but also seemed to have consumed a significant portion of his life force. His eyes were bloodshot, his eye sockets sunken.
So tired.
Truly exhausted. It felt as though even his bones ached from within.
If he simply nodded now and said to rest, everyone would collapse onto the ground and fall into a deep sleep immediately. And he could preserve his life, living steadily as a wealthy man.
But… If he gave up this time, when would the next chance come? How long would it take to gather such massive materials again?
More terrifyingly, he was still young now, at the peak of his energy, and only because of that could he endure these fourteen days in one breath.
What about when he was thirty? Forty? When age caught up to him?
At that time, would his decaying body still have the strength to complete the entire process of creating the Philosopher's Stone?
The answer was absolutely no. If he did not gamble everything now, then that dream of a prosperous and peaceful world would forever remain a joke buried beneath piles of gold!
"I can't stop."
Eldlich suddenly bit the tip of his tongue. The sharp pain and the taste of blood refocused his eyes, which had begun to lose clarity from exhaustion. His sweat-blurred gaze locked onto the pure white stone at the center of the altar.
"Continue with Citrinitas!"
The words were forced out through clenched teeth.
For the sake of his ideal, the torment of the body and even those strange energy fluctuations meant nothing.
The surrounding alchemists exchanged glances, but under the gaze of those bloodshot eyes, no one dared to object. Another batch of mountain-like materials was pushed to the edge of the altar.
Piles of materials were dumped into the deep hemispherical altar.
The first half of Citrinitas proceeded smoothly. Under the near-breaking continuous operation, the once pure white stone began to emit a warm and gentle golden glow.
Everything was proceeding according to the records in the ancient texts. Even during the sublimation phase, this stability continued. The golden radiance even brought ecstatic expressions to the exhausted alchemists' faces; this was the closest they had ever been to the truth.
And yet, at this most critical moment, during the fermentation phase, disaster struck without warning.
Bzzz!
Unlike the violent yet brief white fluctuations during Albedo, the sound this time was low and continuous, as if something was devouring frantically.
The oldest gray-robed alchemist was the first to notice something wrong. He stared in horror at his withered hands; his skin was rapidly wrinkling like tree bark, black age spots spreading quickly.
"My hands… my magic!" he cried out miserably, collapsing to the ground and coughing uncontrollably. "This isn't right! Life force… it's draining our life force!"
This was no illusion.
The stone at the center of the altar; the once warm golden glow began to twist.
Every alchemist in the hall was undergoing the same horrifying change; Their already exhausted bodies from the previous fourteen days now aged even faster.
Those who could still stand just moments ago found their hair turning gray, their backs hunching, and collapsing helplessly onto the perfectly rectangular marble tiles.
It was as if their life force was being used as fuel, forcibly extracted.
We cannot stop.
Eldlich stood at the very front of the altar. He too felt that weakness rising from his very marrow; His once full cheeks withered, and his neatly groomed hair lost all its luster.
He looked at the people collapsing around him in agony.
There was panic.
An unprecedented fear seized his heart in an instant.
Damn it! How could this happen?! The ancient texts never mentioned that the fermentation stage required the sacrifice of life!
…No.
I absolutely will not allow this to happen! As long as I accelerate into Rubedo, it will be fine!
"Rubedo! Skip straight to Rubedo!"
The roar was torn from his chest.
A genius decision… or perhaps the madness of an obsessive.
Instead of stopping his losses, at this moment of extreme danger, he bypassed the final step of fermentation and forcibly initiated the final Rubedo process.
He truly was an extraordinarily gifted alchemist. Even at this stage, even when not a single person around him could stand to help, and even when he himself could barely remain upright, he still ignited Rubedo through sheer burning obsession.
The stone within the altar, its golden light already twisted, instantly erupted with a nauseating dark red glow.
A vision of hell unfolded in that moment.
Red light surged everywhere.
The alchemists who had been lying on the ground, wailing and rapidly aging, suddenly fell silent.
Then, a bone-chilling sound of grinding skeletons echoed throughout the hall.
The old alchemist who had fallen first; his flesh had withered and fallen away, turning into ash–the skeleton that had once lain on the ground now rose eerily under the ominous red light.
And not just him.
All the alchemists on the ground stood up one after another.
By now, they had lost every trace of being "human," becoming skeletons shrouded in red light. Within their hollow eye sockets flickered faint glows; the remnants of motion after their consciousness had been stripped away.
The ominous red light surged upward through the roofless dome.
Outside the circular alchemical hall, on the once barren plain, the few remaining weeds turned to dust the instant they were touched by the red light.
All surrounding life force, even the mana in the air, was being forcefully stripped away.
Inside the hall, the stench of rotting flesh mixed with the smell of scorched earth.
Nonetheless, Eldlich continued.
He clenched his teeth. From the force, blood seeped from his gums, dripping down his withered chin.
His hands still maintained the operation of the array.
Even though he could feel it… He, too, had begun to undergo undeath.
The flesh of his body rapidly shrank like an apple drained of all moisture. His once well-fitted robe now hung loosely over his skeletal frame. The joints of his fingers were fully exposed, the thin layer of skin seeming ready to crack at any moment.
"Almost… there…"
Within his sunken eye sockets, his human pupils had already vanished, replaced by an increasingly intense golden-red glow filled with madness and obsession.
At the moment, his vision was about to fall fully into darkness, at the center of the altar–
The stone stopped its frenzied consumption. It was now a stone covered in strange cracks, radiating a blinding red-gold light.
At last, the flawed Philosopher's Stone had been created.
The collapse from magical exhaustion and the transformation of undeath left his nearly skeletal body unable to support itself any longer.
He staggered forward with great difficulty.
The marble tiles beneath his feet seemed endlessly long.
One step.
The standing skeletons did not stop him. They just watched with their hollow sockets in silence.
Two steps.
His flesh clung to his bones. He could no longer feel pain; only the obsession carved into his soul drove this body on the verge of collapse.
Eventually, he stumbled to the edge of the altar and fell forward.
At the very last moment, as his consciousness was about to be swallowed by that immense [Zombie] power…
His skeletal fingers touched the flawed Philosopher's Stone at the center of the altar.
...
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