THE UNBOUND MORTAL

Chapter 11

"If you mix that swamp-pig fat directly with the silver-leaf thyme, the acid in the plant will curdle the animal grease," Logan said calmly. "It will feel cold on the skin for ten minutes. Then the trapped moisture will rot the dead flesh underneath. Within twenty-four hours, the patient will have black gangrene in the marrow."

Sophia froze. Her jaw dropped slightly. "How... how do you know that?" she asked, her voice dropping into stunned disbelief. "My system recipe says [Combine Cleansing Herb with Animal Lipid for Level 1 Burn Dressing]. It doesn't say anything about curdling acid!"

"The system gives you a title and an icon," Logan replied, his eyes steady on hers. "It doesn't understand the chemistry of spoiled fat. If you want that salve to heal without rotting the bone, grind two spoonfuls of dry river chalk into the grease first. The alkaline chalk neutralizes the plant acid. It keeps the fat clean while the thyme draws out the heat."

Sophia stood in the dim light, her breath catching in her throat.

For three months, she had lived in this freezing ditch, hiding from the Inquisitors after being thrown out of the City Academy. 

Her E-Rank system had been branded "Defective" because her potions kept failing the guild inspections. The guild masters told her she was cursed, that her mind was too small to receive the divine equations of the High Gods.

She had made four jars of that exact burn salve last week. Two days later, the surface of each jar had turned into a foul, bubbling black slime.

She had spent forty nights crying over her mortar, wondering why the divine system was lying to her. Slowly, her shoulders slumped. Her fingers relaxed on the ash-wood stock. She lowered the crossbow. 

"Who are you?" she asked softly.

"Logan Carter."

"The blank from the Ascension Hall," Sophia whispered, her eyes widening as the morning rumors finally connected in her mind. "The one who broke Young Master Brandon’s ribs with an empty hand."

"I broke his breath, not his ribs," Logan corrected, his knees finally buckling under the dull, throbbing weight of the burn. He sat down heavily against the cave wall, leaning his head back against the damp stone. "I need the chalk and the thyme, Sophia. If I lose this arm, I can't climb the crags to the ruins."

Sophia hesitated for only half a second. She threw the crossbow onto a wooden cot, grabbed a clean clay jar, and hurried to the distillation table. 

She pulled a lump of white river chalk from a basket, ground it into fine powder with three violent twists of her pestle, and whipped it into the gray-green paste until the mixture turned smooth, pale, and cool.

She walked over to Logan, knelt in the dirt beside him, and pulled a sharp iron scalpel from her apron pocket.

"This is going to hurt," she warned, looking into his gray eyes. "I have to scrape away the scorched canvas and the dead gray skin before the paste can reach the live blood. Without a system's [Numb Pain] buff, grown men usually swallow their tongues."

"Do it," Logan said.

He closed his eyes. He did not ask for a piece of leather to bite. He did not tense his neck. He simply slowed his breathing down, inhaling for four heartbeats, holding for four, and exhaling for six—a breathing discipline he had learned from an old mortuary anatomist in the Slums.

Sophia touched the scalpel to his arm. She began to scrape away the charred cloth and dead flesh.

The pain was a white-hot spike driving straight into Logan’s shoulder, but his arm did not flinch by a single millimeter. His fingers remained relaxed in his lap. Only the heavy vein at his right temple bulged with the effort of holding his silence.

Sophia’s hands moved quickly, her initial fear rapidly giving way to intense professional focus. As she worked, she couldn't help but look at his arm.

There was no magical glow under his skin. No shimmering blue mana lines. But the muscle fibers exposed beneath the burned layer were dense, striated, and packed together like braided steel wire. His tendons were thicker than those of any Level Ten warrior she had ever examined at the Academy.

"You really don't have a system," she murmured, spreading the cool white paste across the raw red flesh.

The relief was immediate. The deep, tearing fire in Logan’s forearm cooled into a manageable, dull ache.

"No," Logan said, opening his eyes.

"Then how did you survive the Stalkers outside?" Sophia asked, wrapping his arm in clean linen strips. "I watched from the cliff vents. Three Level Four Abyssal Stalkers. My system identified them as [Apex Pack Hunters]. It warned me that their hide has an eighty-percent damage reduction against physical slashing."

Logan leaned forward, reaching into his pocket with his good hand. He pulled out the harvested sinew and the small tin can filled with rich yellow marrow, setting them on the table.

"Your system tells you eighty percent because it assumes you are swinging an iron sword with an auto-assisted arc," Logan said. "The system's attack paths always strike the widest surface area—the shoulders and the back. That's where the monster's armor is thickest."

Sophia tied off the linen knot and listened, her eyes wide.

"The Stalker has fourteen points of articulation," Logan explained, pointing to his own knee and neck. "Behind the front leg joint, there is a two-inch gap in the chitin where the tendon connects the rib cage to the shoulder blade. If you slide a blade in flat, parallel to the ribs, there is zero resistance. The tendon snaps under its own tension. The beast's own weight does the work for you."