Chapter 19: Refinement

  The military gave Alex some basic, but still rather decent, medical training during his service. He knew how to treat physical trauma from falls, gashes, punctures and more. He felt confident with many possible life threatening situations in the field. Not as confident as Allie, for sure, but enough.

  He had no idea what the hell he was supposed to do in the case of sudden black sludge vomit coming from his friend.

  Alex spat out the bit of foul liquid that managed to land in his mouth. The taste was beyond repulsive and he had to consciously fight his own stomach to keep it from emptying itself on Garret's face in angry retribution.

  "Help us. He's dying."

  "He's not dying you fool. He's just having his body refined a little, that's all." Celeste dropped a towel at her feet and nudged it closer to Alex.

  Garret was still convulsing randomly in Alex's arms but he managed to pick up the rag and begin wiping away the brackish residue on Garret's face. He succeeded in smearing it more than actually cleaning it away, so Alex simply gave up on the attempted idea and jammed the rag under Garret's neck where most of the liquid seemed to be pooling on the floor.

  "Refined what?"

  "Refining his body," Celeste repeated, as if that explained anything at all. She threw another towel into a bucket and began the process of carrying it over to them.

  "What does that even mean? Look, in my world, puking out black ooze is definitely not a normal behavior." Alex once again focused on trying to hold Garret's head steady.

  "I would assume not, given your little fit just now," She dropped the bucket next to Alex, the water inside sloshed about and splashed on to the floor. "He will be fine."

  Even with Celeste's words of assurance, Alex wasn't convinced. He held his friend tightly, trying to subdue the shudders which the man kept being overcome by. He puked again, Alex angled his head to the side this time and Garret released yet even more sludge on to the floor. This continued for a couple long and anxiety filled minutes.

  "Look, its already over now." Celeste said. As she said the words Garret's spasms stopped and his eyes began to flutter open. The guy seemed just as confused about the situation as Alex, perhaps more so given he just woke up cradled in Alex's arms like a child.

  "Uh Alex, I don't think our relationship is quite at this level yet."

  "I hate you." Alex let go of Garret, letting the man hit his head on the now wet floorboards.

  "Hey!" Garret groaned.

  "You were convulsing and ejecting black ooze from your eyes and mouth okay, I thought you were dying. Some appreciation would be nice." Alex said.

  "Oh man, that's hardcore," Garret touched his cheeks and around his mouth, and found the dark liquid Alex was talking about stick to his fingers. "I feel like a truck hit me. But also... I feel like a million bucks. Its weird." He sniffed at the dark substance on his fingers, and immediately began to gag. Alex was certain the guy was going to puke, since Alex knew he also still wanted to throw up from the horrid smell that substance gave off.

  "Clean it up then child, come on." Celeste pointed at the bucket still waiting next to Garret on the floor.

  "Me?" Garret asked.

  "Your mess, you clean it." Alex said and stepped back a few paces.

  "Great, I'm the victim here okay." Garret reached over to the bucket, and pulled on the rim to drag the thing over. His fingers dug into the wood and quickly cracked open the board, leaking soapy water all over the place.

  "Watch it now. You just dumped experience points your strength didn't you? You're going to be a lot stronger than you're used to." Celeste threw a third rag over at him. Garret simply groaned and began scrubbing.

  It took effort to get the black ooze washed off the wooden floorboards. It seemed even with Garret's improved strength stat which he had pumped up to five apparently, the weird liquid was rather persistent. It was all soaked up eventually but very slowly and Garret ended up tossing out the ruined rag and grabbing new ones under Celeste's instruction.

  "So what the hell was that?" Alex finally asked.

  "Refinement," Celeste was back to her annoyed tone of voice. Which meant she was okay with answering questions again, even if she pretended not to be. Alex took advantage of this fact, even though the two of them were back in the front of the shop with Celeste busying herself with arranging items for sale. "Sometimes it’s called the Tribulations, but they are far less trials and more transformations.”

  "You said that 'refinement', but refinement of what?" Alex still didn’t understand what the woman was getting at.

  "Humans are all born with stats of one across the board, except in very rare instances. Increasing them by natural means can only get you so far. A five is the precipice of normal human accomplishment, to increase beyond that requires the body to be refined. Impurities to be expelled from the body. That's what happened. And it will happen each time a stat reaches a certain threshold." Celeste explained as she trimmed the leaves of a potted plant.

  "So if I increase my agility stat-"

  "You will undergo a refinement, yes." Celeste cut him off in anticipation of his question.

  "Well damn. Is it that violent each time?"

  "No, it is at first though, as you are born with and build up the most impurities throughout your life. You are younger, so it is easier than elder people. But it gets better each refinement as there are less and less impurities to expel."

  "Good to know," Alex looked at his status screen again and eyed his total experience. He had enough to push his agility to that refinement threshold. Based on Garret's explanation of how the process felt though, he wasn't chomping at the bit to get it all started. Even if it seemed Garret's strength really had increased wildly and that Alex's agility almost certainly would do the same. Having his insides painfully transformed and then puking up motor oil just wasn't on Alex's lists of priorities.

  "Once all your stats hit fifteen, the impurities will all be removed, cleansing your body and organs, and even increasing your lifespan. Doesn't mean that each stage will be easier after that point though, because then it’s not your body that gets refined, it’s your determination, your will, your soul," Celeste paused her explanation here.

  Alex saw her face harden even more than usual, the stern expression turned stony. Her eyes though, contained a myriad of emotions that Alex didn't understand. He saw anger in them, but also what looked like sadness. He smartly just waited for the woman to regain her bearing and didn't ask about it.

  "Anyway, its not fatal, not unless you undergo the process in a dangerous situation. Like in the middle of a fight. So don't do that. Otherwise you will be fine." She said.

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  "I think I had an aneurysm and a heart attack at the same time, then got my body squeezed by a mountain troll. How is that not fatal?" Garret complained from the open door to the backroom, the dirtied rag still in his hand from the clean-up process.

  "You're alive ain't yeh?" Celeste snapped back from across the shop.

  "I'm not entirely certain yet. This could all be hell, and I'll be cleaning this stuff up for eternity." He groaned.

  "You will be if you don't get back to it, so shut up and work."

  Garret grumbled and disappeared into the back room again. Alex just shook his head and looked back to Celeste with even more questions on his mind. "What are the other thresholds after five then?"

  "Think you're going to start sprinting now that I taught you how to crawl huh?" Celeste shook her head, muttering more insults about the youth of the world. "Five is the first, then ten, and then fifteen. Mortal Tribulation stop there. Then there are the Earth Tribulations, but you are a damn far away from that kid."

  Alex continued to probe the woman for many minutes after. Trying to find out all he could about the attribute system. It seemed that stats, just like the core stages, were not linear. While five was indeed the peak of what Alex would consider human back in his own world, things went much further beyond that. Just like mage cores, the power scale wasn’t linear, but exponential.

  It was even more complicated once one took into account the balancing of stats and one's mage core. Garret having a strength stat so far above the rest of his others wouldn't be a problem right now. If he kept going like that though, his tendons, bones and organs wouldn't be able to handle his muscles strength. He couldn't let his vitality and agility lag too far behind.

  By the time Garret finished cleaning up the sludge from his refinement, Alex was nearing a headache with all the stuff he would have to think about when applying his earned experience points.

  "Man, why does it have to be so complicated? Is there a tech tree or sphere grid system too?" Alex mused aloud.

  "A tree system? For stats? Never heard of anything like that before. Are you getting sick kid?" Celeste eyed him strangely.

  "Never mind, never mind. I think I get it now." Alex thought about all the information he would have to tell the squad back at the camp. He still needed to try the aether-gathering technique and have each of them learn it as well.

  Oh crap, they don't know their elements. They won't even be able to use it. Alex realized the issue immediately once he thought about having to teach everyone else all of this stuff.

  "Celeste, do you think you could teach me how create the circle for the elemental test? I know information is valuable, so I will pay you," Alex pulled the small tied up pouch of coins he had tucked into his backpack.

  He also brought out the bags of medicine, since their last negotiations had been cut short with the woman finding out they were Worldstriders and the following lessons. Alex hoped the medicine was worth a lot, because he doubted they could afford the diagram from the elemental circle with what coin they had now.

  "Mmmm," She hummed to herself as she looked at the bags and then to Alex again. "Don't see why you would want that, unless there are more of you kids that you haven't mentioned yet?"

  Well damn. The woman was just as spry as she claimed to be. Alex didn't want to out his squad and was hoping to keep them a secret in case word of Alex and Garret somehow got spread. That was a lost cause now.

  "Yes, there are more of us. One of which is where I got those pills. She didn't make them either, but she wrote down what they do. So lets talk prices then?" Alex said.

  The haggling began in earnest. Celeste asked what the various medications did, Alex asked about prices for the elemental circle and possibly getting a better aether-gathering technique, or even scrolls for spells. Garret offered to eat the pills in front of Celeste to quell any of her worries. Garret's input didn't help them as much as Alex assumed he thought it would.

  In the end, the medications ended up being far more valuable than Alex thought going into the negotiations. As it turns out, having basic alchemical items for fevers or infections wasn't really a thing in this world, so having the pills Alex brought was almost unique.

  Celeste could make healing potions and powders, items to increase stamina and fighting power for short periods. Poisons and antidotes in abundance, absolutely. But, the cost for a healing potion was far more than it was worth to just break a fever, or to prevent a small wound from getting an infection. The things in her shop seemed to be geared towards fatal wounds, and lethal diseases. Not something the citizens in town needed everyday, or even every month for that matter. So a small pill that helps with headaches was a huge commodity. Alex assumed those would fly off the shelves in the matter of hours.

  They certainly got a good price for them as Alex haggled, sold and bought supplies over the next hour.

  ***

  The last thing Alex asked about was the item he received from his quest. When he accepted the reward from the system message, an iron bracelet bangle appeared in his hand. It looked completely normal, no gems or adornments and no glowing magical aura, just a cheap bracelet. He looked it over and frowned.

  "Item rewards from the system are usually random," Celeste said, "They can be useless junk, or one of the best items you ever find. And they almost always look mundane, unlike magic items crafted by mages, which will have signs of enchantment or script work. What is the name the system gave the item?"

  Alex repeated the name from the system screen and Celeste raised a brow. "Well, this is a good one. Its a spatial holding item."

  That got Alex interested. The idea of having a bag of holding got the gamer inside him to dance excitedly.

  "I can put stuff inside?" Alex asked.

  "Yes," Celeste waved away the question like he had asked if the sky was blue. "Place a drop of blood on the item to bind it and put it on, then think about the bracelet like you want to access a system screen through it."

  Alex pin-pricked his thumb with one of the needles in his sewing kit and smeared on the bracelet before he quickly slipped it on and did as Celeste said. His senses were strangely shunted around in a way that made him dizzy. He was still standing in the shop with Celeste, but he also was peering his head into a dark box-like shape. The space itself wasn't very big. A cube with two foot sides all around. It reminded Alex of a kitchen cupboard.

  "Now hold something else and imagine placing it inside the space." Celeste instructed. He still saw and heard Celeste, which was a strange feeling for him. Alex untied the pouch of coins from his waste and 'placed' it inside. The pouch vanished from the outside world and entered the space in the bracelet, plopping on the 'bottom' of the cupboard.

  "Neat," Alex smiled.

  "How big is your space?" Celeste asked.

  "The size of one of your cupboards in the back?" Alex answered.

  "Hmmm, not bad. The biggest ones I've heard of are the size of entire rooms. Very rare, very sought after. Those are the pinnacle of what enchanters strive for when they craft these themselves. The smallest I've seen are only a few inches to each side like a small jewelry box. Yours is on the smaller side, but still decent. Guard it well." Celeste explained.

  Alex nodded and pulled out his coin pouch to tie it back on his belt. While putting all their money inside a secret spatial zone would keep it safe, having to magically pull out the pouch whenever they paid for something would undoubtedly draw more attention than Alex wanted.

  "What about my ring?" Garret called out. He held up a boring looking iron ring.

  Turned out Garret's reward was more underwhelming. Activating it gave him some sort of boost to his leg muscles, allowing him to double his normal jumping height and distance. It was situational at best, and Alex was glad he got his item instead. Garret seemed happy though.

  "I'm going to be like Mike," He said with a smile. Alex only shook his head. Celeste looked like she was beginning to regret a lot of decisions.

  In the end, Alex and Garret left Celeste's shop not only with the elemental circle diagram, but with three stamina potions, a dozen different arcane focus options, and a single antidote pill that Celeste assured would work on any poison of mortal grade. With all the new goodies, they still even left two gold and fourteen silver coins richer than when they entered.

  "Let's sleep for the night at the Inn, then we will leave in the morning. We got to get this gear and new technique to the squad as soon as possible." Alex said. The sun was already starting to set, or in this case begin to move behind the Ascendant. The sun and black hole did "move" across the sky though, which implied the planet they stood on still spun. That opened another headache of thought which Alex left alone.

  "Sounds good. You going to spend your experience in the room?" Garret asked.

  "No, not yet. I'll wait until we are out back at the river in the forest. If it's just as messy for me as it was for you... well I'll certainly want a bath afterward." Alex pinched his nose and looked at Garret meaningfully.

  "Look, I didn't know I was going to smell like a sewer!"

  "You always smell like a sewer, now you smell like a sewer that sat in the sun."

  Alex quickly dodged a jab aimed at his shoulder. Garret ended up on the ground in a tumble and frowned at him. Alex still had the agility advantage on the guy, he would leverage that to ensure he didn't get hit by that enhanced strength for now. He doubted Garret had gotten used to his new power and didn't want a dislocated shoulder.

  "Let's get some sleep and then we will make it back to the group. We have a lot to teach them, and some practice with our new weapons to do." Alex reached out a hand to help his friend up and then quickly retracted it.

  "Hey, what the hell?" Garret protested from the floor.

  "Don't crush my hand."

  "I won't, damn man, help me up."

  Alex was sure that everyone in town heard his following girly screech.