ULTRAMagic Prelude

Chapter 13

"THIS... STUPID STUPID STUPID!" Blood-Wraith shouted as he threw his experiment against a wall, smashing it. Three days had passed since his previous trip to the Market District. "RARGH! WHY IS THIS SO HARD TO DO!?" He was encountering proper trial and error for the first time. It was not a fun experience.

Desislav just so happened to walk by when Blood-Wraith hurled another experiment. This one exploded and left a scorch mark on the wall. "Whoa! Take it easy, kiddo. Everything's going to be alright" he said, walking over to prevent another fit.

"No, because this stupid experiment won't cooperate..."

"Let me see your book, Blood..." Desislav tried to read Valentina's book, but it was written in the language of the angels. "Uh...um..."

Blood-Wraith sighed. He could read it, thanks to Valentina giving him the knowledge to comprehend angel language. "It says that I need a catalyst of the earth, to influence the form and control the function of the crystals. I assumed sulfur was good enough, but it makes them burn out every time."

"Okay then... What are we trying to make?"

"Crystals that produce light."

Desislav thought about what the catalyst could be. "Maybe try something like sugar?"

"Sugar? Pardon?"

"Well the catalyst needs to be of the earth, so what if it's calling for something organic?"

Blood-Wraith pondered this idea. "What's your logic?"

"Maybe sulfur is too harsh for what the transmutation is trying to do. Inorganic materials might be messing everything up... Here, let me grab some stuff from the kitchen!"

"Uh, okay then..." Blood-Wraith tried to reply as the eager satyr left the room.

A minute later, Desislav was back with bags of ingredients. "Alright, let's try some of these instead."

The procedure was fairly straightforward: melt a rock into lava with the fire-infused iron, drop the materials in, and transmute it. The sulfur would cause the resulting crystals to glow brightly and burn out... followed by the smell of rotten eggs. Other rocks such as flint or sandstone caused similar burnouts with varying smells. First up was sugar, which produced a crystal that admitted white light. Evidently this was the result that Blood-Wraith wanted. This satisfied him, causing him to take a breath of relief.

Desislav wanted to keep going as he saw potential with this project. Curiosity had gotten the best of him. The next ingredient to be tested was flour. This created a crystal that produced yellow light, albeit fainter than the white light crystals. Adding pepper caused the resulting crystal to give off a red light and heat up when held. The use of honey led to the crystal in question to be golden and admit a sweet smell in one's hand. Herbs all had the same type of results: a blue light that had a very fragrant smell. All very interesting results to be sure.

"OH! Let's try sugar and pepper" Desislav suggested.

"Okay..." Blood-Wraith got everything ready, adding the two ingredients. This crystal gave off pink light, but holding it caused a warm beam to shoot out from it. The two quickly realized this was a laser of sorts, capable of heating things up.

"Well ain't that nifty? This would beat out flint any day of the week" Desislav commented as he held the crystal in a way as to not activate the laser.

"Organic catalysts... did she..." Blood-Wraith exhaled. "Yup. Right here. I completely missed it."

"Hey, no big deal. Everyone makes mistakes. Plus how young are you again?"