Direct Delivery From Naples (3)

There is no Yang that casts no Yin, and there is no Right that gives birth to no Evil.
To awaken to the nature of shadow is what matters most.
-Albert Camus (1913~1960)-

-Chapong!

A Morning Star bound by Poltergeist and floating in midair.

The cross-section of the long mace, cut by a ten-thousand year-old Cold Iron blade, looked as though someone had pried open a human skull.
If there was a difference, it was that where the brain should have been, a liquid that gave off a blue glow had pooled.

“This is……what in the…….”

Watson stared at the sight with a look of utter disbelief.

Mita Holy Water. A mysterious elixir containing extreme Yin aura.

Still suffering under the threat of meridian blockage disorder, Watson seemed to instinctively realize that the liquid before her was no different from an extreme poison to her, and she slowly backed away.

“Don’t be too afraid. I have no intention of feeding this to you.”

I had already agreed with Mrs. Hudson that treasures and elixirs related to Yin Qi, including the Cold Stone Creamery Bed, would be stored together on the third floor.
Even if Watson’s meridian blockage disorder had been partially treated, it was still impossible to know when the side effects of the Eight Yin Meridians would erupt.
To have Watson take even a single drop of this would be no different from murder.

But that was only the case with pure Mita Holy Water.

“The Blue Grotto, Grotta Azzurra, on the island of Capri south of the Naples coast, is where the sea’s and Capri’s Primordial Qi combine. Mita Holy Water, which can be harvested only in the Blue Grotto, takes in only the energy reflected from the surface without ever receiving direct sunlight, so it is influenced more deeply by the island’s and sea’s Primordial Qi and comes to hold extreme Yin energy.”
“I see……. All well and good, but the whole time I keep looking at that blue elixir, I get goosebumps all over.”
“Take this. It’ll be a little better.”

I took out a small leather pouch and handed its contents to Watson.

It was something made by finely grinding and heating scales I had obtained when I seized the blue-eyed white snake Alfred Nobel captured at the last royal ball’s battle royal garden tea party.

Unlike the explosion venom drawn from its fangs, this was an elixir containing only a proper level of Yang Qi.

Since I planned to proceed later with treating Watson’s meridian blockage disorder using explosion venom and Medicamentum Communionem, even if there were a White Worm antidote pill, it would be best to have her take the scale powder in advance so she could adapt to the Blue-Eyed White Snake’s aura, and this was a good opportunity to do it.

“Thank you every time. I’ve truly received a debt from you that’s hard to repay.”

Watson offered thanks with a fist-palm salute, poured the powder into her mouth, and drank distilled water.

-Hwaak!

The moment Watson took the Lotus Position and began a Small Rotation, I felt hot energy spreading around her.

My eye technique, having reached the realm of Seeing Color, confirmed that Yang Qi was spreading through her entire body along the Twelve Primary Meridians.

Though the flow was still sluggish, blocked by the eight Yin nails that remained, Essence circulation was far smoother than before.
And the fact that Yang Qi was plentiful in the air, thanks to the Vermilion Phoenix approaching London and then leaving, was also a great help in maintaining Watson’s health.

If we continued treatment through June and July like this, I was sure we could remove at least two more of the great Yin nails.

“I’m a bit better now.”

Watson, having overcome the energy of the Mita Holy Water with the elixir’s help, rose from her seat.
Her complexion was noticeably better than a moment ago.

“More importantly, are you all right? You said that if you don’t replenish Yang Qi, you might have your body taken by that other you, the pseudo persona. Wouldn’t it be a problem if you’re exposed to the aura of Mita Holy Water head-on……?”
“Don’t worry. The seal loosens when I’m exposed to dense demonic Qi. Yin Qi cannot have such a great effect. Lacking Yang Qi and being exposed to Yin Qi are fundamentally different matters. If I were to gulp down all the Mita Holy Water in here at once, the pseudo persona might rise and threaten control, but that won’t happen.”
“So you bear a problem entirely different from mine……. Even the Oriental Medicine Society has never heard or seen a case like yours, but only now I understand a little. To the point I’d like to publish it as a paper.”
“I beg you, refrain from that much. Are you not already being robbed of time, putting our story into a manuscript.”
“What of it, the manuscript was returned by the magazine’s editorial office.”
“It will be different if you meet the editorial office and speak with them directly.”
“You’re going to persuade them?”
“If it’s necessary, then of course I should.”

Watson looked at me with a bright smile.

“Are you sure it’s not because dislike the idea that if I publish that paper, clues about the secret manual you trained might leak out?”
“Huh. To think you would hit the nail on the head like this.”
“Since you admitted it honestly, I’ll let it go just this once. A physician cannot recklessly expose a patient’s secrets. Yes, of course.”

Watson, closing her eyes, arms folded, nodding again and again, looked like a cat that had subdued a worthy foe and was preening in triumph.

“In any case, even if neither of us can take it right now, I have no intention of letting this Mita Holy Water sit, nor of selling it off. Because I know a way to process it so we can make use of it.”
“Process Mita Holy Water? Is that truly possible?”

Watson’s eyelids opened so wide it looked as though her eyeballs would pop out.

“I know at least that Mita Holy Water contains the purest Yin Qi among elixirs. If you force processing, won’t the Primordial Qi inside scatter instead?”
“That’s right. Stories of people ruining an elixir’s value by meddling without knowing the proper method are overflowing in the martial world.”

Watson was right.

Research into using naturally derived elixirs, including Mita Holy Water, as materials to remake them into even stronger elixirs had continued since time immemorial.

Countless alchemists of elixir arts, including Sir Newton, whose names were etched into history, invested vast time and money to make 1+1 into 3 or 300 by pulling in experiments without discriminating between common materials and precious elixirs, and among them, successful cases were only about one in a hundred.

The great sacrifices of these predecessors engraved one lesson upon the world.
That lesson was exceedingly simple.

The only way to maximize an elixir’s function is to remove impurities and leave only the purest Primordial Qi and medium.
It is impossible to add 1 and 1 and make 3.

But if you refine an elixir that yielded only the aura of 1 due to impurities even when consumed, then you can fully transfer the 3 of Primordial Qi the elixir held into your own elixir field.
That was the truth the elixir-art alchemists had revealed.

The only exceptions were elixirs known to create a synergistic effect when united according to compatibilities ordained by heaven.

The problem was that the blending recipes for such known synergy were never released to the market by alchemists, and were kept strictly in their laboratories, so there were few who could obtain them.

So Watson’s doubt made perfect sense in light of such common sense.

It is impossible to refine Mita Holy Water, known as one of the purest elixirs.
And up to now, no existence of an elixir that creates synergy when mixed with Mita Holy Water has ever been reported to the academy.

In other words, it was only natural that Watson reacted like that the moment she heard me say, out of the blue, that we could process Mita Holy Water, the representative elixir of extreme Yin, into a form we could consume.

But there were two facts she was forgetting.

First, my master was Phileas Fogg, the Heavenly Demon Red Dragon, the strongest in London Murim, who traveled across Europe gathering all manner of secret treasures and secret manuals.

And second, that in this world I had endlessly researched the nature of various elixirs, not only tobacco.

“Well, even if I call it a processing method, it’s not as hard as you’d think, so you can sit there, offer prayers, and eat bread.”
“You astonish me every time. To insist you can easily do what even famed alchemists have said is impossible…….”

To be honest, it was enough to make me laugh.

Whether it be elixir-art alchemists or Kung-Fu Scientists, there are always things one does not know.
And Mita Holy Water was an elixir that had rarely been properly studied throughout history.

As everyone knows, in Europe, Mita Holy Water, which can be collected only on Capri, is treated as an elixir far rarer and more valuable than Stone Milk.
In truth, the amount of Primordial Qi Mita Holy Water held was so immense it couldn’t be compared at all to Stone Milk of the same volume, so its expensive market price was more than understandable.

Yet despite its fame resounding throughout the martial world, research into Mita Holy Water was scarcely done.
The reason was simple.

Because the ones distributing Mita Holy Water were none other than the underworld factions.

Though Italy was unified, separately from that, profit-rights businesses in each region, such as management of marble quarries and major elixir production sites including Amalfi Lemon, were still held by the underworld.

This was because, beyond the fact that Italian underworld factions that began as vigilante groups had long colluded with local powerholders, during the war of independence the underworld factions dispatched many masters, and a considerable number of them lost their lives to the enemy.

Thus, borrowing the underworld’s claim, the vested rights they now enjoyed were all “a price earned by rightly shedding blood.”

For this reason, among underworld factions, there was none that could enter the Blue Grotto except the Camorra, which took Naples as its home ground.

Having lost a considerable number of masters in the war, including the eldest disciple, the Camorra, unlike before, drastically reduced the amount of Mita Holy Water distributed outside the faction, and was using most of what was produced to foster Super Juniors.

That is, Mita Holy Water was not widely circulated at present, and was being researched only within a faction that had become short on young talent.

Simply because it was a precious elixir, they hesitated to experiment and used it only in verified ways, so there would be no new discoveries, and no room for anyone’s creativity to intervene.

But my master used Mita Holy Water, obtained through vast wealth, connections, and force, in experiments without sparing it.
And the method of processing Mita Holy Water was something I myself discovered, as one who participated in those experiments.

“Watson, do you know when the Camorristi harvest Mita Holy Water?”
“I’ve heard roughly. Since it’s an elixir holding extreme Yin Primordial Qi, at dawn, when the tide fills the cave with water, divers go in and harvest it directly.”
“Have you also heard why they go in when the cave is not filled with water?”
“Well……because if sunlight touches it, the Yin Primordial Qi inside Mita Holy Water scatters? Is that not why you cut this Morning Star after the sun set, worrying about that.”
“That’s right. Just as you said. But there is one thing they do not know.”