Chromie's Prying

Inside the stone house, the sulfurous acid solution glimmered pale yellow in a glass flask. Deren carefully bubbled air through the liquid with a long, slender glass tube. The bubbles gurgled and rolled, each burst releasing a pungent odor.

Onyxia stood to one side, lightly tapping the tabletop with her fingertips, looking rather bored.

"How long will this take?" she asked impatiently.

"Be patient." Deren stared unblinkingly at the liquid. "Oxidation takes time."

The Black Dragon Princess curled her lip and lit a tiny flame on her fingertip, idly making it dance between her fingers.

"Or... should I just heat it?" she suggested, a mischievous gleam flashing through her eyes.

"Absolutely not!" Deren nearly knocked over the flask in fright. "Strong acids vaporize when heated. The whole room would fill with corrosive gas!"

Onyxia raised a brow, seemingly not entirely opposed to that outcome, but she ultimately snorted and extinguished the flame.

Several hours later, the sulfurous acid had finally oxidized into dilute sulfuric acid. Deren carefully transferred the liquid into a ceramic evaporating dish and began heating it slowly to evaporate the water.

As the water diminished, the liquid gradually thickened, and an unsettlingly sour tang filled the air. Onyxia's dragon eyes narrowed slightly as she instinctively took half a step back.

"This smell..." She frowned. "Even my scales are tingling."

Deren did not look up, concentrating on adjusting the flame. "That means it's working." Fortunately, Onyxia's magic kept the room ventilated, or he would have been poisoned unconscious long ago.

When the last trace of water vapor had vanished, only a thick, nearly colorless liquid remained in the evaporating dish—concentrated sulfuric acid.

Onyxia stared at it, a rare hint of wariness appearing on her face.

"This thing... can hurt me?" she asked quietly, her voice carrying both doubt and caution.

Deren nodded gently. "If it touches you directly, even dragon scales will be corroded."

The Black Dragon Princess fell silent for a moment, then suddenly reached out—

"Wait! Don't touch—!" Deren cried.

But Onyxia's fingertip had already paused above the liquid. A wisp of Shadow Power enveloped her skin, forming an incredibly thin protective film. She lightly dipped her finger into the sulfuric acid, then immediately pulled it back.

"Hiss—"

Despite the magical protection, a faint wisp of white smoke still rose from her fingertip. The illusion of scales warped slightly, revealing the true black dragon scales beneath.

"Interesting." She stared at her slightly reddened fingertip. Rather than becoming angry, she revealed a dangerous smile. "Mortals can actually create something that can harm a dragon..."

Deren breathed a sigh of relief, only to tense up again—because Onyxia had turned her gaze toward him, an unsettling fascination glittering in her dragon eyes.

"Now..." she said slowly, "tell me what you intend to do with this stuff."

Deren took a deep breath and pointed toward the saltpeter in the corner.

"Next, we react sulfuric acid with saltpeter to produce nitric acid." He paused. "Then... we can synthesize fertilizer."

"Fertilizer?"

"A type of explosive." A mad spark gleamed in Deren's eyes. "More powerful than black powder, but more stable and harder to guard against—because it isn't magic. Your father won't be able to sense it."

Onyxia's pupils widened slightly.

"You really are a dangerous little lunatic," she said softly, though there was approval in her voice.

Deren grinned. "So, shall we continue?"

Flames ignited on the Black Dragon Princess's fingertips once more, but this time, her smile burned hotter than dragonfire.

"Of course."

Two days later, Deren poured purified potassium nitrate powder into concentrated sulfuric acid. Pale yellow fumes immediately churned within the flask, and the pungent smell stabbed into their nostrils like countless needles. Even the air seemed to grow scorching hot.

Onyxia stood three steps away, her dragon eyes tightly narrowed as her nostrils twitched slightly beneath her illusion.

"This smell..." Her voice was low, betraying a rare trace of discomfort. "It's more disgusting than rotting Troll guts."

Deren covered his mouth and nose with a damp cloth. His eyes were red from the fumes, yet he remained focused on the reaction. The nitric acid vapor gradually condensed in the Condenser, dripping drop by drop into the Receiving Flask, clear and dangerous.

"It's done," he said hoarsely, his throat rough from coughing.

Onyxia stared at the bottle of colorless liquid. Her draconic instincts made the muscles beneath her scales tense slightly—there was no magical fluctuation from this thing, yet it made her feel instinctively threatened.

Deren felt rather pleased with himself. He had taken another big step toward becoming an explosion maniac. But next, he had to deal with Ammonia Gas. Just thinking about the smell made Deren feel awful all over. Onyxia watched him in silence, assuming he had encountered some problem, unaware of the ordeal awaiting her.

If preparing nitric acid had merely been unpleasant, then making ammonia water was nothing short of a disaster.

Deren sealed hair, feces, and lime inside the Distiller and heated them at high temperature. Before long, an indescribably foul stench erupted from the tube, like socks sealed away for a thousand years mixed with rotting fish guts.

"Blech—"

Onyxia instantly retreated to the wall, her illusion nearly collapsing. Faint black dragon-scale patterns emerged amid her silver hair. Her slit pupils contracted violently, and a deep dragon growl rolled from her throat. "You... you insect... you dare create something so... blasphemous..."

Deren himself was nearly knocked unconscious by the fumes, tears streaming down his face, but he stubbornly continued adjusting the condensation apparatus, dissolving the Ammonia Gas into pungent ammonia water.

"This is called... strategic sacrifice..." he said between dry heaves.

Just then—

"Pfft!"

A stifled laugh came from midair. Then Chromie tumbled out of a Time Rift. She clutched her nose and laughed so hard she doubled over, unable to even hold onto her Hourglass Staff.

"HAHAHA—The dignified Black Dragon Princess is actually boiling shit!!!" She laughed so hard she slapped her thigh, tears—whether from the stench or laughter—streaming all over her face. "I'm putting this in the Great Dragon Embarrassment Compendium!!"

Onyxia's dragon eyes instantly flared with killing intent, but the moment she took a step forward, another wave of stench forced her back. She could only grit her teeth and growl, "Bronze Dragon... you're courting death..."

Chromie made a face and sidled up to the bottle of ammonia water with a mischievous grin, pinching her nose. "Whoa~ This purity~ Are you trying to stink Deathwing to death?" She suddenly turned serious. "But honestly, these chemistry things are disturbing the Timeline more than I imagined... They're all things Azeroth has never seen before. Haha, made from shit!"

Deren weakly raised a hand. "So... you're not going to stop us?"

Chromie blinked. "Why would I? I want to see what other novel things you can come up with~ I recorded it all."

"You dare!!" Onyxia's roar and Deren's scream rang out at the same time.

But the Bronze Dragon had already slipped away, leaving only a string of gloating laughter in the air.

Inside the stone house, pungent chlorine gas mingled with the acidic mist of nitric acid. Deren endured the burning in his throat as he carefully controlled the mixing ratio of the two liquids. Onyxia stood beside him, her dragon eyes fixed on the white crystals gradually precipitating at the bottom of the beaker, her brow slightly furrowed.

"This is the... fertilizer you mentioned?" Her tone was openly skeptical.

"Yes, ammonium nitrate." Deren gently stirred with a glass rod. More and more crystals settled at the bottom like fine snow. "In theory, it can make crops grow faster and stronger."

Onyxia fell silent for a moment, then suddenly reached out, pinched up a crystal, and rubbed it between her fingertips.

"It looks utterly ordinary," she assessed.

Deren smiled but did not explain much.

"Wait." Onyxia suddenly narrowed her eyes. "You went through all this trouble just to farm?"

Deren's smile deepened. "Of course not."

He set down the glass rod, placed some powder on the table, sprinkled on a little gunpowder, and struck it with a hammer. A muffled explosion sounded.

"Ammonium nitrate is indeed fertilizer..." Deren lowered his voice. "But if it's mixed with fuel—like sawdust or grease—and paired with a suitable detonator..."

Onyxia's pupils widened slightly.

"—it becomes an explosive even more terrifying than black powder." Deren lightly patted the clay pots. "And it looks harmless, is easy to transport, and can even be disguised directly as agricultural supplies."

The Black Dragon Princess stared at the clay pots, and a dangerous curve slowly rose at the corner of her lips.

"You little lunatic..." she said softly, with a hint of admiration in her voice. "I like this plan."

Just as the two were discussing in low voices, bronze-colored ripples suddenly spread through the air. Chromie's little head poked out from a Time Rift, the tip of her nose still red from clearly having suffered enough from the earlier stench.

"What are you two up to now—" Her gaze fell on the white crystals, and she suddenly choked on her words.

"Fertilizer," Deren and Onyxia said in unison, their expressions incomparably sincere.

Chromie narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "Really?"

"Absolutely true." Deren raised both hands, looking utterly innocent. "We just want to improve Azeroth's agricultural standards."

Onyxia nodded along, even offering a friendly—if somewhat stiff—smile.

Chromie looked at Deren, then at Onyxia, and finally stared at the pile of clay pots. Suddenly, she shuddered.

"I don't know why..." she muttered softly, "but I think you two are more dangerous than the Old Gods..."

With that, she whooshed back into the Time Rift and vanished without a trace.

Onyxia stared at the spot where Chromie had disappeared, dark flames churning in her dragon eyes as scales flickered faintly beneath her fingertips. She suddenly slammed a fist onto the table, making the ammonium nitrate powder in the clay pots tremble and rustle.

"That damned Bronze Dragon whelp!" Her voice was low as thunder, carrying the peculiar vibration of dragonkind. "If she dares pop up out of nowhere again, I'll stuff her into a Time Rift and let her experience what it feels like to be torn apart by a Time-Space Disturbance!"

Deren shrank his neck and wisely said nothing.

Onyxia's rage had yet to fade. She paced irritably around the room, her boots striking the floor with dull thuds.

"What gives her the right—what gives her the right to stare at us like we're some joke?!" She spun around abruptly, Dragon Awe spreading out of control as several fine cracks snapped across the glassware on the table. "Are we insects? Clowns for her amusement?!"

Deren carefully raised a hand. "Uh... calm down? She just..."

"She just what?!" Onyxia's illusion nearly failed to hold, black scales flashing amid her silver hair. "She mocked me! A black dragon! Deathwing's bloodline!!"

Deren swallowed and decided to try a different strategy.

"Actually..." he said slowly, "have you ever considered that she keeps coming to interfere because she's afraid of us?"

Onyxia's rage came to an abrupt halt, her slit pupils contracting slightly. "...What?"

Deren shrugged. "The Bronze Dragons guard the Timeline, while we're creating things that don't exist on it. The more nervous she is, the more it proves our plan is working."

Onyxia was silent for a moment, then suddenly gave a cold laugh. "That makes sense."

Her anger gradually subsided, replaced by a dangerous delight.

"Good," she said softly. "Then let her keep worrying."

Deren breathed a sigh of relief and was about to resume his work when he heard Onyxia add—

"Once we succeed, I'll personally shove Chromie's hourglass down her throat."

Deren: "..."

He decided it would be best to mention Bronze Dragons less in the future.