Wolfish claw

Mortal tier recipe. No cultivation requirements

Sometimes you’ll find yourself without a weapon or blade, and then you’ll realise how much danger you’re in. Primitive and ancient humans all realised this as well, although it only proved an issue in the ancient era when strong metal blades held a certain cost. A mortal farmer may be capable of affording hundreds with a single harvest, but when accounting for upkeep, more seeds, extra hands, and everything else, that dwindles to barely buying one or two a harvest. Which also removed any chance for luxuries if bought.

In came this mysterious ointment, capable of toughening your nails significantly. In fact, if you made sure to sharpen your nails in advance then they served as excellent claws with the ointment added on. Who created it, no one knows, but it certainly cut down on weapon requirements in the general populace. Oddly enough, according to one empire’s censure the rate of wolf related deaths jumped 200% as soon as the product entered the market…

Ingredients and recipe Steel leaf, 6 leaves – non magical plant User’s blood, 10-15 ml – non magical (Depends on creator) fluid Copperpetal, 10 petals – non magical plant Rooted Weightberry, 1 berry – natural gathering stage fruit

Do make sure to not leave samples of your blood lying around when making this stuff. Lots of methods can be used to curse or hex you through your blood. Just to alleviate your worries, don’t worry about your hair doing the same. Hair holds little to no intrinsic magical qualities for quite a while, and by the time it does you’re more than capable of stopping anyone from easily taking it.

Steel leaf is another plant capable of reinforcing the body, but it comes with a severe restriction. Its magical property moves ridiculously slowly, as in millimetres per hour. So unless you’re willing to undergo a day of torture…

It does however work great in surface level reinforcements like this one. Make sure not to run your hand against the leaf’s edge as it holds a sharpness similar to a razor and will easily cut through. Unfortunately, it holds next to no durability and crumbles like, well, a leaf.

Copperpetal petals are easy to harvest, simply pluck the entire flower off the plant.

Weightberries are a magical product, but considering how easily they grow, and in such numbers, they’re often considered a weed with rather annoying properties. Luckily for us, they made up for it by having a few beneficial uses.

The starting step is unconventional for alchemy, but begin by setting all the steel leaf leaves and copperpetal petals aflame. Okay, writing this I realise why so many people wish we renamed them, but it’s far funnier not to…. So we probably won’t. Carefully collect all the ash produced from the burnt parts and drop them into 10 ml of your blood. If you notice that you have more ash than blood, just add the last 5 ml. It doesn’t matter if there’s still a bit of liquid at the bottom. Stir carefully, with an inert material, and leave in a cold room to react over the course 5 hours.

It’s recommended to rest for roughly four hours and then begin preparing the weightberry for the final steps.

With a little under an hour remaining, cut the weightberry in half and grind up one half into a pulp. Then strain the pulp and liquid through a thin cloth into a clean bowl, doing your best to stop any bits from entering the bowl. It won’t destroy the recipe, but it can result in a less desirable consistency and effect. You can use the drained weightberry as you please, whether you cook with it or dump it is personal preference.

From there, roast the other half of the berry over a flame until it gains a charred coating on all sides. With that completed, you can then set a pan over that flame and wait for it to heat up. Rather tediously you have to repeatedly squeeze the liquid from this charred half-berry, but ensure to not just squash it to mush. Removing 100% is impossible without cultivation, but continuing until pressing holds no effect will amount to the same thing.

Remove it from the pan and now pour in the juice from the weightberry’s other half. You may need to lower the flame whilst reducing this juice, and make sure to often stir such that it all heats evenly whilst not coming to bubble. You don’t need to reduce it extremely, but roughly reducing the liquid content by a third will be a sign of success. Leave the reduced juice to cool down and wait for the blood and ash to finish preparing.

As soon as you mixed the two you will have noticed it fully absorbing all the given blood and producing a clumpy, red powder. If it stains your hand then you haven’t left it for long enough, while there is no penalty for leaving it for too long.

With your blood ready, you can begin mixing everything. Add the reduced juice in directly, stirring hard. This will only be difficult for a mortal, while a cultivator should have the strength to require little effort. As you stir the mixture you will notice it grow thinner and thinner, starting from what feels like a ball of dough until thinning into a thick cream.

Now to finish, crush the charred berry to bits, which hopefully releases no liquid in the process, before adding it to your mixture. Your ointment should be an extremely dark red with small black grains strewn about. Give a quick final stir to coat all the weightberry grains and you’re done!

Usage

A far less direct name for this product, but it happens. The ointment can be spread all over your nails, which have to be sharpened in advance, to harden into a claw-like state. This will multiply their hardness by dozens of times, making them into effective short range weapons. Do realise that only coating the nail’s top won’t be extremely efficient, and you should also coat whatever bottom-side you have access to.

This item is not as permanent as one would hope though, unfortunately exhausting after an arguably useful 6 hours. Considering the portion described here can be used a few times, it isn’t exactly expensive. Weightberries are likely the only costly part, and even a few eggs ends up costing more in most places.

As a side note, this stuff can be used to reinforce more than just nails. Because it technically reinforces keratin, it also works wonders at strengthening hair. It isn’t uncommon for some to mix a spoon of this ointment into a pot of water and intensely wash their hair with it. The result is a few hours of stronger, thicker-looking hair, and is sold as a sort of makeup in some places.

It is not recommended as a scalp treatment though, as many balding men and innocent girls learn every year.