He activated the lift. "I'll just gouge out someones else's eye's out and use those."

"Let alone how, why did you even think that work in the first place."

"Some Weaver probably was going blind or knew someone was going blind at some point and created a spell to counteract that, right?"

"You combined many questions into one that can't be answered."

"Wasn't on purpose, but obviously answer all of them."

"Is there a way to counteract going blind, more than likely, yes. Would I know from the top of my head? No. After all, there is a large difference between being an alchemist and being a medicinal practitioner, even if they are two sides of the same coin," Syn rambled. She could have just answered yes, yet she found the need to answer questions that didn't even exist. Wait. Wasn't this exactly he did? "Now, I do know that regenerating body parts is possible, but it usually has to be done within minutes of losing that body part, and requires an expert divine magic practitioner. Beyond that, I'm sure the process becomes much more complicated."

Aleister let out a sigh. "No special recipes to create a magic potion or pill to regrow a limb or body part?"

"I'm sure they exist out there, but the creators of such recipes typically don't tend to share them."

"So this would be a situation where I would wander into—" he paused for a moment but failed to recall the full name of the location. "Kuthbay's hidden knowledge place, or whatever it's called."

"Kuthbay's Atramentous Athenaeum."

Aleister widened his eyes, tapped his head. "How could I have forgotten? It just rolls off the tongue so well. But yes, would—" A vigorous rumble shook the lift. Small rocks and debris cracked off the wall from above and created a small cloud of dust around him. At the same time, the lift scraped the walls around him as it slowed down to a crawl. He felt his ear shake. His earring vibrated and glistened. His body—falling.

Aleister panicked for a split second as his mind caught up to his body. He only fell onto his back. What initially felt like a descent turned out to be an ascent as the lift propelled him upwards. It was just that the sudden force threw him off. He stood back up and checked his bag. The jars were still intact.

"What's happening?"

No response.

Odd, but he didn't ask again. The lift had reached the top. Around him, the Anima Caligo was dense. So much so it partially clouded his vision and filled up the surrounding air. Suffocating. However, it moved with a purpose, and appeared to head towards a location in front of him. Aleister broke out in a sprint. He pushed the tapestry aside and entered the Throne Room.

Duck. Something seemed to swing above him. He turned his head. Next to him, a spooky, humanoid shaped skeleton enshrouded in a purple aura cleaved its sword down. He avoided the attack with a dash and pushed it down. Aleister smashed his foot into its skull, which proved to be much sturdier than he expected. This allowed the skeleton to grab his foot and topple him over as well.

On the ground, Aleister rolled over and tugged on the sword it held. It put up a fight, but since it still had yet to let go of his ankle, he obtained the weapon. He stood on his knees and held the hilt with both hands. With the weight of his body, he smashed the pommel down. Skull—crushed.

A purple blast of anima hit him square in the chest, giving him no time to rest. Aleister recoiled and almost fell onto his back. Fortunately, he stumbled his way to standing up. He spat out the saliva in his mouth. He raised his hand up, ad noticed that the same purple aura started to emanate from him as well.

The first thought that crossed his mind was that he, too, would turn into a skeleton. However, he threw this out when he noticed that another skeleton still attacked him. He felt that the skeleton shouldn't have attacked if he was about to join their side. This one wielded a scimitar. It slashed across and narrowly missed his neck. However, his bag fell to the ground. Annoyed, he swiped his sword back in retaliation. It landed and lodged itself into the skeleton's shoulder. Aleister tried to force his sword down, but it was firmly stuck in place. The skeleton took this chance to attack once again. This time, the blade cut past his robes and grazed into his skin.

Scattered drops of blood fell upon the floor. The necrotic purple aura surrounding him infiltrated itself into the wound and caused another surge of pain to flow through. Aleister spat out blood onto his attacker. It landed in the skeleton's left eye socket, where a small purple orb rested. Right where he wanted.

The skeleton...yelled? The lack of volume confused him. Thin and scraping, in a high-pitch that was accompanied by the clattering of bones. Quite unsettling.

Aleister wasn't going to wait until it to shut up and decided to silence it himself. He rotated his hips and pushed his palm up. The skeleton in the air. Jaw—clamped shut. He let his grip go and stamped the skull into dust the second it touched the ground. He backed up and pressed his palm against the wound. Teeth gritted in pain, he took in a deep breath. Finally, a small breather to examine the situation.