Chapter 230: A Potent Ink
Underground Base, Bolton Lands
POV of Domeric Bolton
A month later.
Domeric sat in the library in his underground base and worked on the ice crystal.
In the end, he succeeded in removing the tainted essence left by the White Walker from the ice crystal.
It left the crystal weak and brittle, not to mention it lost a good deal of its magical properties as well, but in the end, it was still a step or two above the average magical wardstones he found in Valyria. And he had thousands of similar ice crystals, so that was something.
Domeric had many plans for these ice crystals, but his primary goal was to use them as resources and accelerate the ritual he was setting up to create the Ice Elemental Moon Core.
Although ice-based elemental magic was Grade 3, the ice element fell into the special element category compared to standard elements, and Elemental Moon Core rituals for the special elements took significantly longer than standard ones.
Domeric had already set up the Ice Elemental Moon Core ritual on a mountaintop beyond the Wall, which was nearly inaccessible by normal means. Still, he was dissatisfied with the ritual's speed. Therefore, he sought to speed up the ritual with the ice crystals he had obtained from the White Walkers.
Domeric's emphasis on the ice element was that, even if he couldn't dominate the White Walkers with it, he could at least neutralize their ice element with his own ice elemental power.
This would give him an opportunity to gain dominance over the White Walkers through other methods.
He also wondered if he could absorb the ice energy generated in the Lands Beyond the Wall with ice crystals and create a magical shield around the Wall.
Defeating the White Walkers with their own methods, or at least weakening and slowing them with their own power, was a victory in Domeric's book.
He believed that when the rituals for the Elemental Moon Cores were complete and Domeric had placed them around his magical core, the White Walkers would no longer be a match for him anymore. But still, after all, Domeric was only one man.
He couldn't defend the entire Wall, or even the whole lands of the North, on his own. Therefore, he had to come up with ideas that could protect larger areas.
However, he was unsure if such a thing would even be possible with ice crystals, so some experiments were necessary.
Which was how he came to his present situation with fine dust placed inside a glass bowl.
It appears that once the ice crystal becomes brittle, he could break it down into small, fine particles which could then be used as an ingredient for his magical potions—or magical ink.
He took out all the ingredients he had kept with himself till this point and realized that none of them even came close to magical potency when compared to the ice crystal dust. Even the blood of the Children of the Forest, freely given, and the sap from the Heart Tree fell short in comparison.
If he took the dead Dragon Eggs and ground them down into fine dust, then would they be just as magically potent as they were when they were whole? Because some things, like the Philosopher Stone, lose all their powers when broken.
But if it worked…
He had hundreds of dead dragon eggs. Not to mention that there were thousands more that were still buried in their Vaults in Valyria.
If it worked and he was able to create magical ink with it, then magical runes made from it would be so powerful that the magical armors made from that would even be able to hold against the Ice Swords of the White Walkers.
And if it worked, then he might even be able to create a magical armor for himself that would allow him to use his magic freely, even in a snowstorm created by the White Walkers.
He might not even need to rely on the dominance that the Elemental Moon Cores would establish.
Of course, there were a lot of ifs in his half-baked plan. He didn't even know if he could break a Dragon Egg. After all, he had never tried it before.
But the possibilities…
He had not felt this excited in a long, long time.
He quickly took the ice crystal dust, as well as all the other ingredients, and brought them to yet another room where he could experiment with his heart's content without the fear of blowing himself up.
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Bolton Lands, Underground Base
POV of Domeric Bolton
A week later.
Domeric came out of the research room with a silver color liquid inside a vial and smiled.
He had finally done it.
He had finally managed to produce magical ink that was more effective than any magical ink he had ever created. This way, he could increase the power of all the things he had previously produced using runes by one, or perhaps two or three levels.
This changed things.
For one, he could increase the productivity of everything he'd ever produced with runes using this ink. In some cases, it could even save time. If he used this magical ink in the rune circles that he created to grow weirwood trees or greenhouse crops, all trees and crops would grow faster.
For two, he could now craft armor for his men that could resist the White Walkers' Ice Swords for a while.
This would save him a tremendous amount of trouble in the future.
Until now, the White Walkers' Ice Sword had meant certain death to anyone not equipped with Valyrian steel armor like himself. But not anymore.
Unfortunately, this magical ink couldn't be used by other people.
Domeric was probably approaching the matter the wrong way. Until now, he'd thought that if he could produce sufficiently potent magical ink, it could also be used by ordinary people.
But according to his tests, runes drawn without using magic were unfortunately not activated. This was likely an intent-related issue.
To overcome this problem, he likely needed to tinker with the magical ink's formula, but unfortunately, he was almost entirely ignorant about magical ink formulas.
All the magical inks he'd produced so far were simply mixtures of magical ingredients, and no one but him could use them.
So, he would still need to plant the weirwood trees on his own, cast the necessary spells, and draw runes by himself. However, potent ink like this would still make his job more manageable.
He wondered why he had never thought about crafting such potent ink before.
Oh… he didn't have any magical ice crystals before.
He had still not destroyed any dragon egg. He had a feeling that creating magical ink from that, even if it was possible, would take 10 times as long as it took for him to make this one.
That could wait.
For now, he would be satisfied with his newest creation.
Just as Domeric was considering calling out to Dobby to tidy up, he was stopped by a magical sensation coming from the Deathly Hallows tattoo on his right hand.
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Next Chapters' Name:
Ch.231: Alchemy Fountain and Gardener's Pot
Ch.232: Training with Raksa
Ch.233: A Dilemma