Chapter 201 Overwhelming With Science
Enjoy~❤
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"Great Master Nurelion, it is nice to finally meet you in person. I am very sorry about yesterday and this morning, the Imperials were on my throat all the ti..."
"Hoho! Thane Jon, no worries no worries. No bother at all, haha. It gave me enough time to go around Windhelm and visit some old friends in the College, haha."
And the High Elf, who was stingy as hell in the game, is smiling ear to ear. I was a bit taken aback but it seemed that my worries about his attitude were overestimated... or he is in a really good mood.
I looked at his apprentice that was smiling beside him and didn’t feel anything suspicious.
"Please take a seat."
As we all sat and a servant came to take the requests, Nurelion toke out something from his bag. It was the White Phial.
"I have spent long years searching for this phial and seeing it being handed to me by Quintus here almost caused me a heart attack, I had to admit that I’ve been looking for a needle in a haystack but, tell me, How exactly did you find it?"
Nurelion asked and narrowed his eyes at me.
I knew he was going to ask this question.
If I answered him saying I have found it in some sort of a book or something like that, he will know that I am lying.
’Team 0’ reported that he asked some questions about me in the College regarding the field of my studies and what I am famed with. I know alchemy and it is very simple but I am not at the level that I can brag about myself at all. Nurina is not that good at Alchemy herself but we know the general tricks. The deep secrets, however, is not our game.
Also, someone like Nurelion must have a direct connection with someone in the Alchemy Department in the College, these guys are relentless in their work and the advanced books about Alchemy are monitored closely by them even inside the Arcanaeum.
My answer has to be careful.
"Well, let’s start from the start. I was on one of my travels south of Winterhold long before anything gets established the way it is today. I was heading to the Night Gate Village when a snowstorm came out of nowhere and forced me and my attendant to be lost in the mountains as the road was pretty much covered up, the next thing we knew we were in front of an old barrow and some bandits aiming their arrows at us. It was a bloody fight in the storm, I almost lost my head to an arrow and my attended got her thigh pierced, after a long struggle, we cleared out the bandits to find ourselves in a large and ancient Nordic Ruin.
After going deeper into the ruin we found undead draugrs and strange traps, there were some rewards and we really struck it lucky but as an adventurer, I didn’t want to go out without finding out the secret of the ruin, and as I battled a powerful draugr, little did I know that what he protected was a storage room blocked by a really shrewd trick. To unlock the room, one needs a stable alchemical mixture that can only be made by a master alchemist. I had to record my thoughts and seal the place before I head back to Winterhold and ask about the best Alchemist in Skyrim and it was Master Nurelion. As I set my request for the said item, Master Nurelion provided me with the item and I really was pleased with the results once I opened the secured room. What I found in there was a very old... no, a very ancient laboratory.
I was enthralled with wonder and ordered no one to approach the place to not damage anything but nothing there was to be damaged, all the materials I found was some old magical cauldrons that have lost their enchantments and all the organic ingredients turned into dust when air started to move in the room, the only thing that felt of value in the room was a white broken bottle. Once I saw it, two words came to my mind, the ’White Phial’, the same name as Master Nurelion’s shop. I then remembered the stories of the thing Master Nurelion was looking for and named his store after just to make anyone with knowledge about this artifact notice the store, at that time, I knew what did I just discover."
I sure talked a lot but the look on Nurelion’s face was worth it.
He was getting moved every time I try to make it dramatic and was smiling happily.
Sigh! Elves are so simple!
"Thane Jon, this is wonderful, you have walked in the long lost tomb of a legendary alchemist like Curalmil, I am envious even though I understand the risk of making such an adventure, it would be a great source of inspiration for someone like myself to witness such a place, Alas, I am not that young anymore."
"Don’t say that Master Nurelion, last time I asked Quintus about you, I heard you were having some health troubles, but seeing you now, you are healthier than most of the Altmer I know."
The ones that I killed, I mean.
"Ahaha! It is thanks to a series of lucky events that happened as of late but we’ll get to that later. Now, let me be a little bother you with some questions..."
Here it comes.
"Not at all, Master Nurelion, please ask."
"Thank you." His face turned serious again, "What made you think you should come to Quintus with the phial? Why not directly to me?"
I knew he was upset about that.
"Sigh! This is a matter of... how do I say this? I am not that old so it is pretty much easy to read my mind, if I brought something valuable to my Master and she found it broken, I would be given that bone-chilling glare. Well, two young men like me and Quintus can cover up the matter and when I approached him, he told me that Master Nurelion would have a heart attack if he saw the White Phial in such a state, to get it the problem solved, we had to fix the Phial, Quitus knew the method, I had the ingredients, it all went well. Right, Quintus?"
"Oh! Right, Thane Jon."
Nurelion stared at me for a while then closed his eyes and nodded.
"Still, after you fixed the Phial, you left it for me even though you are the one who found it and it belongs to you by right..." He stopped talking and looked at me with a piercing gaze.
"You left it for me because you found out something valuable... more valuable to you than the Phial? Let me say this, I doubt that you have the ability to create the Phial as the reshaping process of the ’Unmelting Snow’ is very impossible, you and Quintus are actually very lucky to be able to fix the crack and the Phial appears to be patched, I couldn’t believe it would work until I tested it myself. So as the crafting technique wasn’t what you are after, then it must be the enchantment."
I was sitting behind my desk listening to Nurelion’s analysis. Once he finished, I rested my back to my chair and nodded with a smile.
He continued.
"I knew it... but this is even more impossible than the crafting technique. It is greatly flawed and when I tried to copy it, I destroyed containers I made them on even the best Elven and Dwemer metal couldn’t stand the enchantment."
I nodded and replied.
"Let me guess, the metal started melting before your eyes."
"Exactly, that enchantment is overbearing!"
Sigh, it is the same problem I faced with the Magicka Reactor.
"Well, this is a part of the reason why Curalmil used one of the coldest materials his hands could get on to stabilize the overheating flaw with a cold substance."
"Indeed, I agree with you. Still, to get your hands on an enchantment that can literally create ’Something from Nothing’ without having the right material to enchant it on is not really that useful, right? Excuse me for my curiousness and tell me what exactly did you gain out of your unrewarded labor?" Nerulion asked.
"Oh! A lot."
"A lot?"
"Indeed, also ’Creating Something from Nothing’ is... excuse my language, but it is very wrong, you completely don’t understand the Enchantment(s) on the Phial."
I said something a bit rude which made Quintus almost refute for his master but Nurelion spoke fast.
"Wait! You said that the White Phial doesn’t create Something from Nothing? And it is not just one enchantment?"
My reply was only a smile.
"It can’t be..." Nurelion’s golden skin turned pale.
No one would see a High Elf go pale every day.
I took out a red clean note from my desk and put it in front of Nurelion.
"Just that you know, this is not for free." I said that and Nurelion’s eye landed on the note.
He knew that opening it means making a deal with the devil but who cares, even Shalidor made a deal with Sheogorath for knowledge once.
He took the note and opened it then started reading. Twenty minutes later he lowered it down and looked with blank eyes to space.
"Thane Jon, my master, is her alright?"
"Just leave him to rest his mind for a while, Quintus. The insights of Arch-Physicist Albert Einstein with the explanations of The Laws of Conservation of Matter and Energy are really crazy to deal with. Applying them on Magic doesn’t make them any better."
After all, I am the poor soul who used the system within him to resurface those unpleasant memories from High School and the Documentaries I watched to apply that damned Science stuff on Magic.
It is a nightmare I tell you, a nightmare!