Sylas's eyes snapped open. Without time to think, he immediately spun to his side just in time for his stomach to turn over.
He heaved, a foul black liquid coming out of his mouth in continuous waves. Even when he thought that it was over, his throat ached and pulsed as his chest continued to heave. It was as though his stomach wouldn't be satisfied until it turned inside out.
His face turned sickly pale. When he thought it was over and had a sip of water, even that came heaving up.
Coughing violently, he pushed himself up. He couldn't drink water despite how parched he was, and he assumed he couldn't have food either. Was this the consequence of having too many Elixirs? But wasn't this too exaggerated? At this rate, he would die of thirst.
Sylas grit his teeth and took another swig of water. He ended up vomiting this as well. However, he continued. It took him three attempts before the water finally stayed down. He resisted the urge to chug a whole bottle. He didn't know much about medicine, but he knew that considering how thirsty he was now, he had at least gone several days without hydration. And considering how sick he was, he had certainly sweated a lot in his sleep.
If he suddenly flooded his body with water now, it would have the opposite effect. He might directly die as a result.
In the end, he could only resign himself to a few sips.
"You actually survived... But can you get me out of here, psycho Syl? You smell terrible."
Alex's voice made Sylas narrow his eyes. He looked up with a sharp gaze, but he relaxed when he saw that the Basilisk King was watching Alex like a hawk.
There was a small bit of fatigue in the Basilisk King's eyes as well. Clearly, it hadn't slept. Unfortunately, considering his current state, there was no way that Sylas could allow it to. Although Alex was severely injured, who knew what he was capable of?
Sylas had been aware enough to guess that the second-highest contribution was given to Alex. Well, he wasn't sure, but he assumed that the only one capable of hiding his name from the system was Alex. Even now, Sylas couldn't see his real stats.
If Alex communed with the system and took out rewards while Sylas was out cold, it was possible for him to have reversed the situation. Luckily, the Basilisk King seemed to have been paying attention the entire time, not giving him such a chance.
Sylas had to thank his lucky stars that the Basilisk King was an intelligent creature that could understand these things on its own. Otherwise, Sylas would have likely suffered this time.
He couldn't help but sigh inwardly. This world was truly too dangerous, and he was far too far from being the kind of strong he needed to be to ignore everything else.
Shaking his head and ignoring these thoughts, he looked down at himself. He realized that Alex was at least right about one thing. He stank.
It wasn't just the vomit, but his body seemed to have excreted a great deal of black liquid. It only took him a moment to realize that it was the same liquid that he had just vomited up.
His expression turned solemn, and he inwardly swore never to chug so many Elixirs at once again. He had thought that his greatest issue would be the injuries to his body, but he found that while his body ached, he had mostly recovered from that.
This sickness, however, it was still lingering, and it made him feel incredibly weak. His body must have been working in overdrive in order to drive those impurities out, and even after several days, it had still not completely succeeded. If not for this, drinking water wouldn't induce so much vomit.
Sylas had no idea how to remedy this, so he could only ask the Madness Key for its expertise.
As expected, what he was experiencing now was indeed a sickness caused by excessive Elixir use. But he learned something interesting as well.
Most Elixirs on the market had impurities at around the 60 to 70% mark. Normally, so long as you stayed within their limits, the body would naturally expel these over time. But when you overdid it like Sylas had, the cumulative impurities would become so great that your body would enter a full rejection mode where it saw everything as poison.
In the worst cases, these impurities could even clog up your arteries and lead to heart attacks and strokes, and of course, death.
Sylas couldn't help but shake his head again. Dangers truly lurked around every corner in this world. Luckily, he had managed to live this time.
"But if the market usually has such impure Elixirs, then that should probably mean that there are some Elixir makers out there who can get better ratios. Maybe there's a Legendary Profession like mine out there that lets you formulate an Elixir with zero impurities..."
Sylas still remembered that among the Legendary Paths he could have chosen, there was one that had allowed him to trade contracts with mythical beasts for various secondary Profession abilities. He wondered if that would have allowed him to do such a thing.
Even though he thought this, he didn't mind it very much. He was still confident in his choice. Even if he had chosen that path, where the hell was he going to find a phoenix to contract?
"I'll need to see if maybe I can replace the function of Elixirs with more impressive skills or maybe treasures... it would likely be harder to find treasures that fit that bill because the Scorned Wraps seem to reject everything..." Sylas sighed again. The path ahead was truly difficult, but at the very least, he had made some gains this time.
Ignoring Alex's plight, he looked into the man's eyes.
"Who are you really? What is your relationship with Lauren and Legacy?"