Flashback with haunting eyes and approach.

[Eridanus]

Day 76, Spring of 470 AV
Early Morning
Lym's Workshop beneath the Opal Temple

I wonder what we will work with today.

After the last class on glassware, the diligent vantha had taken the time to throw himself into memorizing and understanding the functions of the various apparatus. While from time to time certain memories would return to haunt him, he appreciated the vast knowledge available in this island. Choosing to distract himself completely by immersing into texts instead of wallowing in despair, he soon managed to familiarize himself better with the tools such that should his konti mentor say a name of an apparatus he would be able to quickly acknowledge and identify it while handling it appropriately.

In the meantime, he had also been asking around about that bit of trivia that Lym had mentioned in passing. For some reason he had been intrigued about it, and the more he thought about it, the more he wanted to know what was mentioned in the conversation. Asking around, he had been generally shunted off, ignored, or told that he should generally mind his own business.

When he happened to ask Giea, a konti whom he often saw taking lunch breaks together with Lym about it in private one day, she merely smiled at him gently and said that it was Lym's story to tell, not hers.

The mystery is burning me.

That was it that he resolved himself to pry more from her. The curiosity that was burning within him caused him to ironically forgot that she might not appreciate his prying just like he did not appreciate hers.

"Morning! You're here early today!" A chirpy voice came from behind as always, startling the vantha again.

Just how many entrances from the underground does this place have??

"Morning, Lady Lym. I was not sure what to read up on, so I just did a general revision of the more common ones you mentioned, the three basic Corrosionem and a couple of Kaustos."

Gesturing to Eridanus to help her organize and rearrange the various glassware on the main working table properly, she stated, "I like your diligence, Eridanus. Today we shall be working on two of the three Corrosionem. Some call them the twin ghosts, do you wonder why?"

As he prepared his journal to the furthest end of the table so as to allow for maximum space for working, the vantha made the connections to the various names of the Corrosionem that he memorized, before it struck him.

"Spirits of Niter and Spirits of Salt. There are also Spirits of various metals in Kaustos, but as that of Niter and Salt are the two strong Corrosionem, they are called "twins", and "ghost" is a play on their name "spirit"."

"As astute as always," Lym remarked, as they finished up placing the expected glassware on the table for use.

[Eridanus]

"Do you see the colorless liquid in this glass beaker? This is not water. Go on, smell it, but don't inhale too much. Oh, and try to keep your journal on another table instead, but nearby so you can record if necessary. We don't want accidental spillage to waste your last two sessions' worth of work."

Eridanus leaned forward to take a whiff, wrinkling his nose at the strong smell. It smelled like something was burning his nose, and it was strong enough to cause several tears to appear, forcing him to blink it away.

"What in the world-"

"That's why I told you to just take a short whiff; it's unhealthy to inhale so much of it. This substance is the Spirit of Salt. Interestingly, some our top surgeons in Mura claimed that the insides of a human's stomach smells somewhat like this. They believe that Spirits of Salt occur naturally in the human body, but we have not yet conclusively proved it to be so."

"Our body produces this stuff?"

"Unproven, Eridanus. It is only a conjecture. In any case, these are the properties of the Spirits of Salt, if you notice. Record down identifying factors you see, such as it's color, medium and smell. Take note that like all strong Corrosionem, it may be fatal to imbibe the liquid, and it is also dangerous to come into naked contact with it. Please wear the leather gloves hung at the bottom of every chair whenever you handle Spirits of Salt."

The vantha quickly noted down this information in his journal in the "Spirits of Salt" page, then slipped his hands into the thin leather gloves provided below his stool.

"We have not developed a system to properly measure the purity of the Spirits of Salt, though it is known that varying grade exists. The more powerful and effective it is, the higher the grade, the higher the purity. This one is a cheap one and accordingly is of low quality, since I'm using it for teaching purposes."

"Write this down as well: Spirits of Salt evaporate easily when heated to unite with the air. Details on this can be found in supplementary texts in the Medical Library."

Putting her own leather gloves on, Lym gestured for her student to return to the main working table from where he was working on his journal.

"We will learn how to create the basic grade of Spirits of Salt. This formula has been known since early pre-Valterrian times. More complicated and advanced formula, some including the use of magic, exist to create higher grade Spirits, if you're interested to know. Now go to the shelf over there and retrieve a small dish labelled "Salt"."

Eridanus retrieved a glass tube from the wooden tube stand, bringing it with him to the shelf. Humming as he searched the shelf, he finally found a porcelain dish covered by a wooden container. Lifting it, he found a mass of white sand.

Wait, aren't they... well, salt?

He did not quite make the connection as he thought they were somehow related to the 'Spirits of Salt'. Now that he saw the small white grains he realized that the 'salt' was indeed 'salt'. The salt used to create that salty texture in foods. Shaking his head as he smiled to himself, he put several helpings of salt with the tiny wooden spoon next to the dish into the glass tube, then replaced the lid and returned to the table.

In the meantime, Lym had been filling a glass beaker half-way with water, and had produced a round-shaped plate that had its corners turned upwards. One thing he noticed was that it was not made of glass like the rest of the apparatus.

[Eridanus]

"This is a crucible. It is not necessarily made of glass, though it can be if we require a pristine reaction. However, for the creation of Spirits of Salt using this basic operation requires a clay crucible. Other metallic crucibles exist, though their purposes are different for different synthesis."

Handing the beaker to Eridanus, the konti began, "Pour some of that water into the glass tube until it is three-quarters full. Shake and mix it around until all of it is dissolved."

While doing so, to pass the time the vantha remarked, "This is just salt water, right? That was cooking salt earlier."

"Philtering have many parallels to medicine, to food preparation, to metallurgy, and to many things out there. That is the true magic of our profession," Lym chuckled.

When he was done, the philterer inspected the contents of the tube carefully to ensure that there were no more grains of salt left, then guided him to pour it into the clay crucible.

As he did so, he noticed an unfamiliar looking apparatus nearby. It was seemingly made of bronze, based on its dull copper finish, and looked like a perforated pot with a central hole in its base.

"This is known as a Directed Heater. As you are aware, the naked flame distributes heat by radiating uniformly outwards. This device centralizes the heat and directs it upwards by virtue of its design. Yes, feel free to leave the crucible on the table and write this down, I'll wait. Ready? I'll carry on. By the design and material of this device, the Directed Heater confers three benefits over the normal candle flame. Firstly, the direction of the heat is narrowed instead of being all over the place. Secondly, this protects us from the heat as we can, as its name suggest, direct heat only to places where we wish to do so. Thirdly, the power of the heat is far superior than that of candle flame. I will not discuss the theory involved in the last point, though it is available in texts in the library if you're curious."

When Eridanus was done recording the introduction of this miraculous new device, he returned to the worktable.

"If you care to look inside, Eridanus, the brass apparatus is filled with flammable fat within to provide the fuel to create the heat, which is more efficient than wood."

Moving to the end of the lab to take one of the candles that lit up the underground facility, she set fire to the insides of the heater, giving the flames time to consolidate their strength within.

[Eridanus]

"This over here is a Tripod Stand and it's iron netting," Lym said, bringing another unfamiliar equipment to her student's attention. It is made of iron or a similar alloy, formed in the shape of a triangle with three iron rods welded together, or one single iron rod bent into a triangle. At the points of the triangle there were more iron rods protruding downwards, serving as a stable stand of sorts. Separate from the tripod stand there was a thin, inflexible sheet of iron with a surface area slightly larger than that of the triangle. It was placed neatly above the tripod stand.

"I think its use is rather obvious. Now that the flame has begun, we shall begin proper. You can record this later on," The philterer muttered.

With her directions, Eridanus then took the clay crucible and placed it atop the netting and tripod stand, making sure to balance it steadily. Next, he gingerly slid the brass pot that was the directed heater underneath the tripod stand.

Nothing happened.

"You'll have to give it a while, take the time to write your notes now."

As he did so, she began to give him several theoretical concepts, mostly relating to measurements that connected the weight of salt involved, the amount of water used to dissolve the salt, the general grade of the clay crucible, and the duration of heating.

"While the numbers may not make much sense at the moment, if you slowly reflect on them it should slowly come to you," She remarked casually as he struggled to understand the basic mathematical idea. In truth, philtering was closely linked to mathematics of all things, and measurements were of the utmost importance in all levels of reactions, but even more critical in advanced reactions.

Soon, the salt water in the clay crucible began to bubble, and a hint of the strong smell began to waft from the set-up. Lym waved her hand quickly to send the fumes away, causing the vantha to follow suit.

After several moments, as the student dutifully noted the characteristics and happenings as time passed in the journal, Lym finally gestured for him to push the brass heater out from beneath the tripod stand.

"We will leave it to cool, but you can be convinced that we have just created Spirits of Salt. Now I'm sure that you are curious as to the purpose of creating it. I shall educate you while we wait for our solution to cool."

[Eridanus]

"While the Spirits of Salt that we have just created are of low quality and purity, it is still damaging to mortal flesh. What we can do is known as the process of dilution, where we add a mass of water to distribute its purity over a larger volume."

"Dilution... noted."

"Heavily diluted Spirits of Salt can be used for house cleaning, interestingly, such as that of windows. It is handy in that it can evaporate easily as well on its own, and at diluted ratios it's safe as well. If you have done leatherworking before, you should have recognized by now that Spirits of Salt, slightly diluted but not as much as for household purposes, is involved in the tanning process of treating hides to make into leather. It is also involved in food preservation, where very dilute Spirits of Salt can be used to keep meat for a longer period. There are better ways of doing so though, such as the use of Wood Liquor."

"What about for philtering?"

"Oh, philtering does have many uses, as you already know. As to your question on philtering for philtering, it would be what we call an "intermediary reaction". That is when your product is not your end-goal."

"Sort of the chain-charging process in Alchemy?"

"I am not intimate with the details of Alchemy so I cannot respond to that."

"Sorry... please carry on."

"I believe that Spirits of Salt may have use in some advanced Poisoncrafting formula, but that is what I've heard in passing from Giea, so don't quote me on that. Anyway, Spirits of Salt can be combined with Spirits of Niter to create the powerful Royal Water, which we will be focusing on later. There are also various other reactions, but they will make little sense to you at this point. I will raise it up from point to point as we go on in the future, so make sure to leave some space on your page for that. Any questions?"

"No, ma'am."

"Leave this place as it is and lock up. Return in the afternoon after you breathe some fresh air to clear your lungs."

With that, she left the place to head upwards. With a growl in his stomach, Eridanus realized that it was probably around lunchtime and that Lym probably left to find Giea for their daily meal.

Without thinking, he rubbed his belly, wondering if the surgeons of Mura were really right in that stomachs were capable of creating this mystical philtering substance naturally. Shrugging, he headed off for lunch on his own, and perhaps to breathe some "Air of Saltin reference to the salty breeze present along beaches" near the beaches of Konti Isle.