Chapter 55 - 54: Dragon Marrow Pill

Chapter 55: Chapter 54: Dragon Marrow Pill

As the thirty elite freshmen stood up to leave, Julian and his clique practically stormed out of the double doors without looking back, while Veera slipped out through the rear exit like a dark shadow.

?Back at the window desk, Aegon stood up and tucked his badge into his coat pocket.

?"Oh ho, Aegon, you got 50 credits on the very first day. Are you heading back to the Sky-Garden for lunch, or are you going to spend your new fortune right away?"

?"You go ahead to the dining hall first. I want to stop by the Academy’s Treasure Pavilion before the afternoon class begins." Aegon said, walking down the cedar steps toward the main corridor.

?"The Treasure Pavilion? With 50 credits, you can only buy low-tier potions or basic alchemical materials there. Do you need healing drafts for the afternoon sparring session?"

?"Something like that," Aegon replied with a faint smile. "I’ll meet you at the arena at two."

?Watching Aegon walk down the spiral marble staircase of the tower, Aria shook her head with a soft laugh before heading toward the dining terrace.

?Once Aegon stepped out into the bustling central courtyard alone, his dark eyes gleamed.

?He didn’t need healing potions, and he certainly didn’t care about low-tier weapons. What he needed was much simpler.

?Since he had discovered that as long as he held a real object in his hand and understood its internal structure, ATUM could replicate and generate that item using only his Soul Power.

?If 50 Academic Credits was enough to buy a single sample of every basic alchemical pill, mana array blueprint, and rare ore in the Treasure Pavilion’s first-floor catalog, then by tomorrow morning, he would be able to mass-produce all of them in his bedroom for free.

The Treasure Pavilion stood at the eastern edge of the central campus, built in the shape of a towering seven-story octagonal pagoda guarded by two stone gargoyles and a pair of Fifth-Circle enforcement elders.

?When Aegon stepped through the heavy bronze doors of the first floor, the rich scent of dried spirit herbs, monster cores, and freshly quenched steel washed over him.

Dozens of upperclassmen were browsing the crystal display cases, their eyes lingering greedily on the glowing potions and runic artifacts inside.

?Aegon ignored the weapons rack and walked straight toward the alchemy counter in the rear corner.

?Behind the counter sat a wrinkled old clerk wearing the grey badge of the Alchemy Department, half-asleep over a thick ledger.

Without waking him, Aegon ran his gaze across the price plaques inside the glass cabinet.

?Even the most basic First-Tier Healing Draft cost twenty Academic Credits, while a standard Body-Tempering Pill with fifty percent impurity cost eighty credits.

With only fifty credits on his badge, he couldn’t even afford a single intact pill.

?However, Aegon wasn’t looking at the fresh stock.

His dark eyes stopped at the very bottom shelf, where a row of dustywooden boxes sat under a faded sign that read: [ Damaged & Petrified Specimens: For Alchemical Study Only ].

?Resting inside the third box was a dull, greyish-crimson pearl covered in tiny cracks, accompanied by a yellowed parchment scroll detailing its original formula.

?[ Petrified Dragon-Marrow Pill (Third-Tier Ancient Remnant) ]

[ Condition: All medicinal efficacy lost due to three hundred years of improper storage. Unfit for consumption. ]

[ Price: 50 Academic Credits ]

?Aegon’s eyes lit up with a sharp gleam.

?In the original novel, the Dragon-Marrow Pill was a lost Third-Tier royal recipe from the founding era of the Empire. A single pill could permanently temper a mage’s bones, tendons, and blood vessels, pushing their physical constitution toward the limit of a Grand Knight.

Because the main ingredient, Elder Wyrm Grass, had gone extinct two centuries ago, modern alchemists could no longer concoct it.

The only reason this petrified remnant was sitting in the first-floor bargain bin for 50 credits was that its energy had completely evaporated, leaving behind nothing more than a dead shell for apprentice alchemists to dissect.

?To anyone else, it was a useless pebble.

?To Aegon, who only needed an intact physical structure and the accompanying formula scroll to feed into ATUM, it was a priceless blueprint.

?"I’ll take Box Three," Aegon said, tapping his Golden Griffin Badge against the counter.

?The old clerk cracked open one rheumy eye, glancing at the ten-year-old boy in the S-Class uniform and then down at the dead pill.

"Boy, can you read the plaque? That thing is three centuries old. Eating it is no different from swallowing river gravel, and there are no refunds once you leave the counter."

?"I need it for reference, Sire," Aegon replied calmly.

?Shrugging with indifference, the clerk swiped fifty credits off Aegon’s badge and handed over the wooden box and the yellowed formula scroll.

?Without lingering for another second, Aegon left the Treasure Pavilion and took the fastest stone path back up Starlight Hill.

Since Aria was still having lunch at the Sky-Garden Dining Hall, the Prime Villa was completely empty.

?Stepping into the villa’s private Alchemical Refining Room, Aegon slid the heavy iron bolt into place, locked the door from the inside, and activated the room’s maximum isolation array.

?Sitting cross-legged atop the cold obsidian meditation mat in the center of the chamber, Aegon opened the wooden box. First, he unrolled the yellowed parchment scroll and read through the ancient pharmacological diagrams.

Thanks to the [ Ring of the Focused Mind ], every complex medicinal reaction and herbal ratio was etched into his memory within five minutes.

?Next, he picked up the cracked, petrified pill with his left hand and summoned ATUM and the Quill of Finality with his right.

?[ Soul Power: 22 / 22 (Nascent) ]

?Because his mana core had expanded to 95 points that morning, his maximum Soul Power had risen to 22.

?Tracing the internal lattice of the dead remnant in his palm, Aegon pressed the golden nib of the quill against a blank black page and began to write and sketch with absolute focus:

?Using the structural matrix of the Dragon-Marrow Pill as a foundation, reconstruct the lost medicinal essence at full vitality, and purge all alchemical impurities.

?Hum!

?The moment the final stroke was completed, the golden runes along the Quill of Finality glowed with a blinding crimson-gold radiance.

Unlike the gentle drain he had felt when duplicating Low-Grade Mana Crystals, this command devoured twenty points of his Soul Power in a single gulp!