Spectator
Looking at the silver fluid in front of me, I took a deep breath to calm myself down.
After waking up, once again, I summoned the astral book only to once again, you guessed it…faint. Not a delightful experience and that's saying a lot considering that I woke up in an abyss of corruption not too long ago. Something most people won't experience. After finally having summoned the uniqueness, I immediately procured the sequence 9 beyonder characteristic and several supplementary ingredients from the book before it disappeared.
I obviously didn't have a laboratory set-up or even basic equipment to make the potion properly here. The risks have certainly increased, but I don't want to delay becoming a beyonder anymore. I needed to start my extraordinary path as soon as possible so I can try to be at a high enough sequence as soon as possible to face marvel's chaotic mess. While I am not proud of it, all I could manage to do was to steal, cough…obtain was some very basic kitchen equipment when their owners were not watching such as empty bottles, a pot, a ladle etc. Whatever I could or might need to use.
You get the picture. Yeah, it's very unscientific. But, I am obviously not in a location where I could just go buy them. Hell, I don't even have money or an identity in this world right now. I will of course return them after use. I then looked at the potion formula-
Spectator. Sequence 9 potion. 80 milliliters of pure water. 5 drops of autumn crocus essence. 13 grams of cow teeth paeonol powder. 7 petals of elf flowers. A matured Manhal Fish's eyeball. Add 35 milliliters of goat-horned black fish blood.
With the final two being the main ingredients. Now, I remember that the added ingredients could be slightly less but never more as it could have adverse effects. Luckily, I have the main ingredients in the form of a beyonder characteristic for sequence 9, I thought as I looked at the silvery-black eyeball. The rest are supplementary ingredients so even if I screw up I should not be in deep trouble. I hope, fingers crossed. I will just have to use the intuition I have built up as a chemist to approximate the necessary quantities.
With that said, I grabbed my trusty pot and poured what I assumed to be 80 ml of pure water. No, I felt it to be a little on the lesser side so I added a bit more. Pure water being just highly distilled water. Then, I added 5 unequal drops of autumn crocus essence to it using a knife that I managed to grab. The water started to bubble and turn off-white. The cow teeth paenol were not in powder form so I had to smash and grind them as finely as possible. Of course, the process was far from a work of art with the result looking uneven and not like the expected fine powder. I kept on smashing until the 'powder' looked relatively fine. Luckily no one saw me smashin' away. It would probably solidify my image of the 'insane man' in other refugee's eyes.
13 grams was a hard estimate to make. I had to keep balancing out the quantity until I got a portion of what I felt was close to 13 grams and then added it promptly to the mixture followed by the 7 petals of elf flowers. I then quickly dropped the characteristic into the ash grey liquid and kept stirring leaving the silver-ish viscous liquid in front of me. Honestly, knowing what all was in it made my stomach churn as it seemed to be the grossest thing I might have in both my lives. Adding on the fact that I could not make precise measurements, I don't know how successful the potion made.
And that brings us to the present. Now all that's left is to drink this gooey mess, use cogitation and hopefully, I'll be a spectator after that. I transferred potion to a glass and quickly shoved it down my throat before I regretted it. The cold liquid moved down my throat as I felt a sense of déjà vu again. I felt the colours around me fading slowly. Similar to the time I woke up in Chernobyl. I was once more in an abyss of darkness with the sound of water flowing by.
It took me a few moments to come to the realization that I was not in Chernobyl anymore. As I tried to coincide my chaotic spirit with my convulsing body, I was starting to loose focus. The side-effects of an imperfect potion seemed to pop up.
Having no time to calm down and then start the next step, I immediately started to use cogitation to get the situation under control. My 'self' in the hallucination started crawling through the dark underground like I had in Chernobyl earlier, towards the only object that I had found. The silver mirror Arrodes. I quickly focused on the phantom of the mirror as I kept creating its outline in my mind. Meanwhile my real body started stabilising as a result of successful cogitation. My consciousness finally sunk and fused with my body. Boom! The darkness started dissipating as light returned once more.
I still had no time to rest though as my spirit was still abnormal and my mind filled with chaotic thoughts. I had to quickly replace the object I imagined with something that didn't exist in the world. My imagination started running wild. I imagined the world to look like a child's drawing, full of scribbles. The world seemed to be a black curtain with the sun and sky being messily filled with colours using a crayon or paint. And random dots for the stars beyond in the deep dark space. The whole picture was comical and chaotic. My spirituality extended to each end of this imaginary space as new drawing kept popping up. Finally, I slowly opened my eyes.
I succeeded in becoming a spectator.