At this point, Hermione was fully prepared—everything ready, just waiting for the "eastern wind."
Dressed and equipped, she was only waiting for tonight, when she and Harry would open the Philosopher's Stone dungeon.
Truth be told, Hermione was a little excited about the upcoming adventure.
Ever since the troll incident, she felt as though a strange switch had been flipped inside her. She sometimes longed for the thrill of a proper monster-slaying quest.
Clearly, she wasn't the entirely well-behaved bookworm people thought her to be.
The little witch even toyed with the idea of stealing the Stone for her cousin. After all, it could brew the Elixir of Life. She had her own ambitions too.
Meanwhile, Arthur was still hard at work in his alchemy chamber.
He had a mountain of preparation to do.
In the Lands Between, creatures' bodies returned to the Erdtree the moment they died.
He wasn't sure whether this was by the Erdtree's force or the creatures' own will—but he didn't care.
Originally, his plan had been to kill a demigod and immediately snatch their body into his system's storage space, before the Erdtree could reclaim it.
But he wasn't confident he could outrun the Erdtree.
This wasn't like collecting dragons. To the Erdtree's will—the Elden Beast—the weight of a demigod was on a completely different scale.
So, to be safe, Arthur decided to create a one-step solution.
He called it the Enhanced Philosopher's Stone.
It needed to do three things:
Contain the life force and soul of a god or demigod.
Block outside probing of its contents.
(This was necessary to enable the third function.)
Absorb life and soul from the outside.
At least from whatever it touched.
The idea was simple: Arthur would implant the crystal into a god's or demigod's body. The crystal would absorb their life and soul, while blocking the Erdtree's awareness.
That way, the Erdtree wouldn't detect what had happened.
Arthur had no intention of killing one boss only for the final boss to appear instantly.
"Ugh, after all the trouble of splitting life and soul apart in the first place, now I've got to fuse them back together," Arthur muttered wearily.
Compared to Nicolas Flamel, his experiments looked clumsy.
His split Life Stones and Soul Stones weren't useless:
Life Stones could brew potent restorative potions.
Soul Stones were a feast for wraiths like Voldemort.
But because his methods borrowed from the Philosopher's Stone process, the results weren't perfect. The stones retained traces—imprints—of the beings they were made from.
For Life Stones, that wasn't fatal. Like a blood transfusion, as long as the "type" matched, it worked.
But souls were different—each was unique. A Soul Stone carrying someone else's imprint could corrupt the user.
Best case: stagnation.
Worse: idiocy or madness.
Worst: the foreign imprint overwhelming the host's soul, resulting in possession.
Flamel's approach had been different—he never split anything. He fused body and soul together, and focused on refining out the impurities. That was why his Elixir had no side effects.
Still, Arthur wasn't giving up on his split-stone method.
The Enhanced Stone gave him a new idea: build the container first, inscribe it with absorbing and filtering runes, and then implant it directly into a body.
The result would be pure Life or Soul Stones without dangerous imprints.
But first things first—he needed to complete the Enhanced Stone's shell.
Such a container would have to endure the power of gods and demigods.
The material had to be extraordinary.
Arthur's solution: the Erdtree itself.
Not the great Erdtree of the Lands Between, but the small golden tree that had sprouted in his Zen Garden. It was a direct descendant of the original—same origin, same essence.
That meant not only was it naturally suited for absorbing life and souls, it would also bypass the need for concealment.
Without hesitation, Arthur cut off one of its main roots. Painful, yes—but necessary.
He combined the root with alchemical reagents: magical ores, enchanted herbs, and the Philosopher's Stone process.
The result: an egg-sized golden crystal.
Though it looked like polished wood, it was harder than steel.
For practical use, he shaped it into a spindle, sharp at both ends, so it could be implanted into a body.
"Finally… it's done. I'll call you—Enhanced Philosopher's Stone."
The name came easily. In a certain magical awakening game, the crystals were the same shining gold.
By the time he finished, dinner at Hogwarts was long over. Arthur didn't bother with the Great Hall—he cooked in the Garden instead.
Once fed, he prepared to test the new crystal.
His chosen target: the mighty demigod, General Radahn, the Conqueror of the Stars.
It saddened him, but their paths were set against each other. To reach the Eternal City, the stars had to move once more—and Radahn held them still.
Moreover, Radahn himself wished for death. Corrupted by Malenia's Scarlet Rot, he retained only fragments of sanity. He had laid his immense body down on the Wailing Dunes outside Redmane Castle, waiting for worthy challengers to put him to rest.
He wanted to die as a warrior.
But Arthur couldn't grant that wish. He needed Radahn's life force and soul. There would be no honorable duel.
Why not another demigod?
Because Arthur hadn't reached their territories yet. (Well, except Godrick, whom he'd already dispatched.)
And because Radahn was Ranni's brother. His life and soul were the most fitting vessel for Ranni's revival.
"Sorry, brother-in-law. I'll take care of Ranni and mother-in-law for you. Rest easy."
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