*Disclaimer: The following experiment was made with all safety precautions in mind. Do not try this at home without proper equipment!
It began with an ornate cup.
Shin had found it weeks ago among the leftover artifacts extracted from the Lightning Tower. Not an artifact, exactly—at least not one that made itself apparent.
It was silver, heavy, and beautifully sculpted. It had two curved handles, flared at the rim, narrowing at the waist, and balanced on a broad, flat base. The engravings were intricate: shellwork, floral patterns, and mirrored symmetry. The inside was gold-toned, reflecting light with a strange depth.
It looked ceremonial. Purposeful. But what that purpose was… he had no idea.
"Am I supposed to pour tea in this?" he muttered, holding it to the light. "Or is it more of a unique furniture kind of thing?"
He tapped the side. Solid. Nothing reacted.
He examined the handles more closely. Each had a small circular ridge near its base—buttons, maybe?
He pressed one. Nothing.
Pressed the other. A soft glow ran through the engravings.
A response.
Still, it told him nothing about what it did.
He ran through a few educated guesses. Energy storage? No charge reaction. Artifact interface? No resonance. Scent-triggered? No detectable change when exposed to incense or lightning-crackled air.
He poured some water into the cup—bottled mineral water, nothing special.
He still had no clue what this was supposed to be.
Then something clicked in the back of his mind.
The shape. The two handles. The wide, flared mouth.
"I've seen something like this before…"
He remembered a brief mention in a university humanities elective—a kind of ritual washing vessel used in Judaism.
It was called a natla. An ancient tool meant to remove contamination and purify one's hands before meals.
"So what is this? Divine hygiene?" he muttered.
He pressed one of the cup's handle buttons again.
This time, the liquid shimmered—not bubbling or reacting chemically, but becoming clearer, as if every particle of the water had aligned itself.
He dipped a finger into it. Cold. No real scent. But something tingled faintly through his skin.
He then poured a small amount of the energized water into his hand, letting it pool across his skin.
Then, carefully, he focused—drawing in the divine energy not by drinking but by guiding it through his body's natural refinement process.
The response was immediate. It was divine energy. Raw. Unrefined.
But his body still recognized it—accepted it—began refining it automatically, as if it had come from the world itself.
And the absorption rate was fast. He'd taken in the equivalent of an entire day's worth of training in just moments.
Then, nothing.
His body refused more. It had reached its daily saturation.
So that's the limit. Same as usual condensing. Just prepackaged.
He hesitated.
What if he drank the whole cup? Or soaked in it? Would his body store the excess and refine it slowly?
Or would it rupture him from the inside out?
He wasn't ready to test that theory. Not yet.
Besides, it felt different. Off.
"It's pretty good. But it's definitely inferior."
"There is no flow control or inner refinement. It just… dumping power into the body and hoping you don't choke on it."
When he trained naturally and refined energy the slow way, he felt the wind, the patterns, and the silence between forces. Every session sharpened not just his body but his intuition.
Injecting it like this gave him strength —
but not insight. Not resonance.
It didn't give him the one thing he valued most in his training: clarity.
He jotted that down: absorption limits, body rejection curve, behavioral instability.
The energy wasn't wrong—just different.
It was unrefined. Raw. Heavy.
The energy infused in the liquid was clearly divine, but it differed from what he usually absorbed.
"It's not condensed, not stabilized. It is just floating in the medium."
He tapped the page.
Unrefined Divine Energy.
Too long.
He scribbled out the words and wrote three letters beside them: UDE.
"Close enough."
He rechecked the cup. The glow had dimmed slightly.
More tests followed.
He tried Coke. The color faded, and the sweetness dulled. It still held a divine charge, but less than before.
Milk, apple, and orange juice all responded better and carried more energy.
Seems like it works best with nature-based liquids.
He began tracking the results, quantifying the glow by comparing flavors, and checking scent and weight.
Eventually, he turned to lab animals.
He bought a dozen ordinary, unmarked mice and treated them in pairs—one with purified milk and one as a control.
The results were dramatic.
Too much UDE caused muscle swelling, growth, and instability. One mouse doubled in size in less than an hour, but its posture buckled, and its bones strained under the weight. The divine power was too much, too wild.
But at lower concentrations—diluted, stabilized in organic fluid—the effects became promising.
Fur grew glossier. Behavior became quicker, more alert. Heart rates improved. One mouse learned a maze pattern three times faster than its control.
He repeated the process over a week.
He tried to refill the cup's energy manually, injecting divine power into its structure. It resisted.
He applied Wind pressure. Nothing.
Then Lightning.
A spark flared.
A section at the bottom of the cup glowed faintly—and revealed itself.
A hollow, socket-like recess.
Is it supposed to be a battery slot?
He remembered one of the other scraps he'd kept—an odd fragment that never activated, shaped like a five-pointed crystal with strange conductive grooves. It had once pulsed when he'd toyed with Lightning power, but he'd dismissed it as inert junk.
He found it. Focused and applied Lightning again.
This time, the crystal responded. Sparks laced through the grooves, burning a pattern into its edges. The energy condensed—divine power, filtered through electricity and stabilized into a rigid crystal form.
A battery.
He smiled faintly. "So that's how it works."
He blinked.
Wait. This isn't just reacting to my power. It's reacting to electricity.
For a second, the absurdity caught up to him.
A system designed by what were essentially divine beings… powered by electrical conduction?
He couldn't help it. A half-smile crept onto his face.
He imagined Wind in a suit, sleeves rolled up, microwaving noodles before hosting a celestial game show called Riddle Me This.
The image vanished, but the grin stayed for another breath.
He shook his head.
And the tests continued.
He noted everything: energy retention, liquid compatibility, approximate ratios. He still couldn't extract perfect values—he needed a real lab. But for now, he drew a few core conclusions:
The cup didn't make refined divine energy, but unrefined divine energy. This means that if diluted enough, the energy could be absorbed by non-wielders or at least wielders without natural condensing ability. Additionally, organic liquids have the highest effects, but just like normal divine energy, it can make the body both healthier and stronger.
Unfortunately, he realized, it was of no real use to him. His body could only absorb so much per day anyway, and at most, it would save him the time he needed to absorb it naturally from the environment. But for others— it could be no less than a miracle.
Shin stared at the notes scattered across his desk—dozens of graphs, test results, and rough estimates. His cracked phone sat next to them, unused.
He scribbled the chain into his notes:
Physical effort (chemical energy) → Converted to Lightning power → Condensed into a divine crystal (CDE) → Used to energize liquids → Which then become vessels for unrefined divine energy (UDE).
He tapped the pen.
"So even this…"
He sighed—because the entire process, from physical effort to Lightning to condensed divine energy, still obeyed a brutal, unyielding law:
Conservation of Energy.
"Of course it still applies," he muttered. "Even the gods can't cheat thermodynamics."
He sighed again.
"Figures."
Still, even with the core theory laid out, he was missing too much to take it further.
To do this properly… I'd need money. Staff. Labs.
He briefly considered selling infused drinks, agricultural boosters, or even a beauty product—milk charged with divine energy that restored skin, reversed age, and boosted growth. All of it had potential.
Yet none of it could happen now.
But at least now, he had the starting point: a relic generator that could be used for a repeatable system.
He reached into his dimensional ring and sealed the cup, charger, and several sample vials back into storage.
What he needed next wasn't capital or influence.
He needed a test subject.
Preferably someone not particularly bright. Not particularly important.
Someone who wouldn't ask too many questions.
Thommo's name floated to the top of his memory.
A villager from Australis who now lives in Portugal. Someone strong enough to survive a tower trial by instinct alone.
Shin didn't know him well. Hadn't spoken to him since the Lightning Tower.
But he remembered the way he charged ahead without hesitation.
Useful hands.
Maybe even a guinea pig.
"I don't need him to understand," Shin murmured, sliding the last page into his notebook. "I just need him to hold still and swallow."