The Dark King

by Steffen Schmidt

  The voice of the Nightingale was somewhat shy as she spoke. "He is exaggerating it a lot. There are so many wise men so I'm not the youngest."

  "Anyway, I think you are very powerful." Snake spoke in sincere tone.

  Dudian looked at him, thinking that this person's character with the 'snake' didn't have the slightest relationship. This nickname didn't suit him at all.

  "Well, you have to get the alchemist's badge too. So busy yourself." Nightingale waved at him.

  Snake laughed as he went to the next room and shut the door.

  Nightingale said: "Our capacity is limited in here. There is a grocery room out there which is not used. Clean it and you may use it. If there is anything that you don't understand then you can always ask me."

  Chapter 92: Alchemy symbols

  Dudian looked at some of the bottles and jars on the table next to her. All of them were tagger but instead of words they had strange symbols painted on them. Some of them had sun, some had the sun and stars overlapping while the others had hooks and so on painted on the stickers.

  "What's this?" asked Dudian.

  Nightingale saw the bottle which he was referring to and replied in confusion: "Don't you know the signs?"

  Dudian thought and shooh his head: "No idea."

  "Haven't you memorized the basic alchemy symbols? How come?" Nightingale was stunned.

  It was the first time that Dudian heard the phrase 'Alchemy symbols'. He was slightly surprised but fortuntely there was a mask on his face which didn't let the others see the expression on his face. He knew that symbols are used to mark anything... Like the mathematical symbols...

  There was no record of this in Rosyard's alchemy notes. He guessed that it was mainly for juniors to know so there was no meaning in Rosyard using the symbols. So he said: "Yes. Ah, but unfortunately all my materials were lost when the damned Knights of Light raided my teacher's den had killed him. Holy Church's minions have seized everything so I've nothing to study on. Do you have alchemy symbols book in here? May I borrow it to study?"

  Nightingale was suspicious at first because of Dudian's lack of knowledge regarding the basics of alchemy. However when she hear him condemn Holy Church she gave up on her suspicions. She pointed to a shelf next to Dudian. There was a thick book with black cover. "There, you can study it but remember not to break the book."

  Dudian nodded, "Thank you very much."

  He picked up the encyclopedia of symbols and was about to open it to study when he heard Nightingale say: "You should go and study in the room I've told you to before. This place is small and I'm going to be doing my own experiments."

  Dudian came over to the small warehouse she was referring to. It was slightly messy so the chamber had to be cleaned.

  He didn't care much about the dirtiness of the place as he cleaned a small place for himself to sit and read the alchemy symbols book.

  There lines drawn on the pages of the book. On each line there was a symbol drawn and next to it a detailed explaination was give. Dudian saw the previous sun symbol. In the alchemist codex it represented gold!

  "No wonder, the bottle was so small and weighted less. It had golden power." Dudian murmured and continued to read.

  Time went past unknowningly.

  Dudian was completely immersed in reading and memorizing the symbols and meaning behind them. At the beginning of the book it was explained that most og the symbols originated from astrology. With the decline of astrology, astrological symbols gradually evolved into an indepented system of alchemy symbols.

  Usually a lot of alchemical symbols were piled together and was recorded in the content of the experiments done by the alchemists. It was written so that without having the knowledge of the symbols it was not possible to grasp the meaning behind the writings. As a result, the alchemy symbol encyclopedia was the basic requirement for every alchemist.

  When he was almost finishing the book he heard nightingale's voice coming over form the door of the warehouse: "Where is the 'dog'? It's late and the sky is getting dark. We are ready to go back to our homes. Are you going to stay here all night?"

  Dudian was surprised for a moment as he didn't expect the time to fly so quickly. He immediately closed the book, opened the door and saw Nightingale and Snake were standing by the widewalk. : "I'll go back to... Let's go together."

  "Alright." The Nightingale nodded.

  Snake glanced at the book in Dudian's hand and laughed: "Nightingale told me but I didn't believe it. I couldn't believe that you still haven't memorized the symbols. Gee! You are an apprentice alchemist, ah! Hahaha...."

  Dudian heard his joke and smiled: " It's a bit slow but I'm memorizing them."

  "I see you are lazy." Snake nodded: "I understand you. I had headache while memorizing the symbols too. So I make all kinds of excuses to avoid reading the damned book. At the end, my teacher personally forced me to learn. That why I memorized somehow. But nightingale was smart. She only spent a week or so and was able to learn all of it. It took me six months! Ah!"

  Nightingale smiled: "Don't exaggerate it! It took me around two week to completely memorize it."

  "That is also out of ordinary." Snake said in authentic tone as if he was in awe of her capabilities.

  Dudian put the book back in place, said: "Are you guys going to come over tomorrow?"

  "Of course." Snake replied instantly.

  Nightingale shook her head: "Most probably I won't be able to but I'll see the situation."

  Dudian said, "I'll come tomorrow."

  "Night," said the Nightingale, looked at Dudian and the snake, "Who will go first?"

  "I will be the first to leave." Snake was a bit blunt as he waved to Dudian came through the corridor to the secret wall and climbed out.

  "Wait a few minutes for us to go out again," said the Nightingale.

  Dudian nodded in understanding. He knew that she was worried about attracting the attention of people if many people went out at once. Moreover each person needed a bit of time to take of their mask and robes.

  A moment later, Dudian was the second to leave. He went out to the alley. He noticed no one on the street so he put away his mask. But his face still was covered with the robe. He couldn't wear the mask on the street, however he could mask half of his face with the robes hood as other will think that there is some kind of disease on his face. So no one would be willing to get closer to him.

  Dudian wanted to take the shortcut to his home but suddenly sensed a familiar smell. He turned towards the other side of the street.

  Not long after Dudian left a small boy's figure appeared in the allew. He frowned while looking at the direction Dudian went away. He sneered as he whispered: "Even covering his face as he leaves the den...Too careful!" He didn't think much but turned away to leave to his home.

  Shortly after his departure, Dudian looked from the corner of the street. He didn't expect the snake to be so crafty. He came out in advance but didn't leave. Snake was hiding over the corner of the street so that he could see Dudian's true appearance.

  "The snake can not be taken lightly in the future." Dudian secretly thought. If they knew about his looks then they would be able to handle him in the future through various means.

  Dudian looked back at the alley. He knew that nightingale was about to come out but he gave up on the opportunity to peek at her true face. After all, she didn't have any kind of bad intention towards him so he would leave her alone.

  After a few street he determined that there was no familiar smell around so he came to a corner of the street. While there was no one around he quickly took off the black robe, rolled it and left on a detour to his home.

  Chapter 93: New research

  On the morning of the second day Dudian had come to the secret alchemy lab. At the time of his entrance, snake and mouse were already in here. The boy, mouse, was listening to snake as he entered the lab. When he saw Dudian he asked nervously: "Dog...Did you, you follow, so...you...have seen me?"

&
nbsp; Dudian didn't want to deceive him so he nodded and said: "I've seen but I will keep it a secret."

  Mouse was depressed as he said: "I'm exposed."

  Snake snapped: "Who told you to tattoo engraved on the wrist? Sooner or later you will be caught by the Holy Church... I hope you won't betray us. "

  "I will not betray you." Mouse frowned: "My family told me that I'm going to get engaged. I now want to quit the alchemy as my level of understanding is low and it would be very difficult to achieve anything. Alchemist's badge is a dream that won't come true. "

  Snake shrugged: "If you want to quit, remember to strip the tattoo."

  "I was afraid of pain that's why I have been hesitant." Mouse said relucatantly.

  Dudian was speechless. He looked at the nightingale's alchemy room, and asked, "She will not come today?

  "Not yet...." Snake casually answered.

  "Can I borrow her alchemy symbols book?" asked Dudian.

  "That one should be already but for the best don't touch her other alchemy materials."

  Dudian nodded and went past the table where nightingale was doing her experiments over to the shelf where to books were stacked. Although he had a super-chipd, which stored advanced chemical knowledge but the old does not mean backward. In this system they still had many advantages worth learning.

  Dudian as yesterday was silent all day in his room and was studying the alchemy symbols.

  Another day passed.

  Dudian studied about two-thirds of the book until the dusk. Snake was the first to leave but mouse stayed to be the last to go. As they didn't trust the newcomer with responisibilities for closing the door.

  Dudian came outside to see the snake hiding and trying to peep at him. He still used the method from yesterday to avoid him.

  The third day when Dudian went to the alchemy lab, nightingale was present. Finally he was able to understand the experimental records written by nightingale and the others.

  From the symbols he could roughly guess what they were trying to accomplish. When he returned the book he quickly swept the Nightingale's alchemic platform. There were a sun sign, two water droplets and a spoon symbol. He was surprised in his heart as he didn't expect nightingale's ambitions to be so high. Her research was focused on gold, did she want to directly create the 'philosopher's stone'?

  The fourth day.

  Dudian as usual came to the secret lab. Snak was absent but the nightingale and mouse were busy. Occasionally mouse would come out to ask nightingale about the problems he face. It showed that her alchemy level seemed to be the highest one.

  "Aren't you going to read today?" Nightingale asked in strange tone as she saw Dudian did not borrow books from her.

  Dudian shook his head: "I won't."

  "No?" Nightingale stared blankly: "What does that mean? Did you back down? "

  "Well," said Dudian, nodding slightly, "I want to start experimenting."

  Nightingale smiled: "It seems you have studied well as it would be very hard to work on experiments if you have no idea about alchemy symbols. However, if you want to do experiments you gotta buy your own materials. I have surplus so I'm going to lend you today but by tomorrow you have to return to me."

  "Thank you!" Dudian answered. He glanced on the raw materials on the shelves. He saw that there were raw materials that could be turned to black powder. These types of raw materials were commonly used by the other alchemists. Actually, black powder was one of the oldest and earliest inventions by the alchemist.

  "This, yellow phosphorus." Dudian pointed to one of the bottles. Naturally he wasn't going to manufacture black powder in here. In this era, black powder was definitely an 'explosive' find and would be misused if he showed them the formula.

  Nightingale looked, nodded: "OK, I have more of these."

  Dudian pointed to rubber, red scales and some other raw materials. The he cleaned his room and suddenly found a problem... There was no alchemy station... He lacked all the tools.

  He was dumbfounded. He had the complete formula for gunpowder so he could manufacture it at any time. However, he intented to study the ignition of the powder. The last time, when he detonated the bomb he had faced many inconveniences. Especially timing and sparking of the bomb had put him under pressure.

  Dudian found nightingale and asked curiously: "Where could I get the alchemy station from?"

  Nightingale was in deployment of raw materials. As she saw Dudian she was stunned for a moment: "I have forgotten to tell you this. You look for the mouse and see if he has time at night. You guys should go to the underground market to buy one for yourself. But the price is a bit expensive, so you should prepare enough money. At least two silver coins or more..."

  "Underground bazaar?" Dudian was startled. sSuddenly thought of Rosyard's notes and it seemed he had mentioned this place.

  Dudian found the mouse and told the problem to him.

  Mouse did not think much as he promised to take him in the evening.

  Dudian said to them that he needs to get money so he left the secret chamber. Moreover, he thought that it had been three days and he should go and check Barton and the rest. He immediately hired a carriage and went to the slums.

  Dudian came to the dilapidated square which they had an agreement to meet in advance. Barton had left the secret signs and he followed them. He went along the signals and soon came towards a remote small shack where refugees had gathered.

  Dudian had reached the shack when he heard Barton's voice from the shack next to the one signals pointed.

  Dudian entered the shack to see Barton and others inside.

  "We made the signs to show that shack while we rented one across for security reasons. " Barton looked at Dudian's expression and explained the details.

  Dudian smiled: "Although you know that there is a very low probability for exposure, but I'm happy that you are so cautious and taking it seriously."

  Chapter 94: Alloy experiments

  Barton saw that Dudian hadn't mentioned the money so he was relieved as he said: "These last three days we searched everywhere but didn't find the right place yet. Today its Kroen who is searching but hasn't come back yet."

  Dudian nodded. It was good to see that they haven't tried to run away with the money. Actually, deep down he wanted to test them by giving them the gold coins. After all, if he supplied them with lots of money the poor won't hesitate to rob or kill. However, Barton and others didn't leave away but have decided on to follow Dudian for the rest of their lives.

  Dudian was very satisfied with the result.

  "Its been long that Kroen have been away. He wouldn't have encountered any trouble, right?" Barry was worried as he checked the time.

  Barton looked at his slightly changed face and replied: "No, nothing would happen. He is very smart."

  Joseph nodded: "Maybe he had already found a place. "

  Dudian looked at the surrounding environment and said: "You can find a better place to stay. Don't worry about the money, as I will earn more in the future."

  "It's great," Barton laughed. "At least it's a lot better than the mine where I was living. At least occasionally I can see the sun. Moreover, the attitudes of the poor who live in here are not so bad. "

  Dudian didn't say anything as he saw their stance. Although Barton and the others were orphans but the orphanage have taught them some basic knowledge. Especially how to protect themselves in the society.

  Even though they had physical disabilities but their minds were extremely sensitive. Not a bit inferior to those who are physically fit, ever more smarter and cautious than the normal ordinary people.

  Dudian and the rest chatted in the small shack. It didn't take long before Kroen came from the outside carrying three wrapped things in oil paper. He spoke as he entered: "I brought back some rice. Are you guys hungry..." He was surprised as he saw Dudian inside.

  Barton said, "Did you find an abandoned factory or any other suitable place?"

  Kroen put down the things
and shook his head: "I couldn't find the right place. There were several factories for rent but not in remote areas. And the prices were a little high."

  Barton and the rest were a little disappointed as they guiltly looked at Dudian.

  Dudian waved: "Don't be so anxious. You guys eat first. You will find the place at some point. The most important thing is for it to be in a secluded area so that we can conceal some stuff from the surrounding environment." He didn't intend the place to be found soon from the beginning. Nevertheless, the slums were very vast and was very difficult to find the right place. Moreover, Barton and the rest were new to this world so it was mainly as an exercise for them.

  Although, they heard Dudian's words but they still apologized for their incompetence.

  Dudian accompanied them for chat but as he saw it was getting late he left them. He tooka carriage and returned to the neighborhood where the secret alchemy lab was.

  Nightingale saw Dudian enter the lab but didn't say anything and continued with her experiment.

  Dudian glanced at gold powder on the table and casually asked her: "Do you intend to directly produce 'Philosopher's stone'?"

  Nightingale saw that Dudian was able to note down the aim of her research so she didn't deliberately conceal anything. She shook her head: "How could I? 'Philosopher's stone' is our ultimate goal. Even the fie-star alchemists couldn't make it, how can i? I'm just researching the compatibility of gold. I want to see if we can use gold and mix it with other metals to produce much more precious metals."

  "Alloy?" Dudian surprised a moment.

  The nightingale was a little surprised, "Alloy? It's a good name. I will call my experiment alloy research, uh, do you mind? "

  Dudian coughed: "There is nothing to mind. Are you going with this experiment so that you can get an official alchemist badge?"

  "Well, if I get the results that I hoped for, then I should be able to get," the Nightingale nodded her head forcefully.

  Dudian knew that the most famous alloy material of the old era was natural aluminum alloy. But there was no gold in aluminum alloy. Gold was too scarce. In addition, there will be other metal elements synthesised in gold jewelry because of its scarceness. Moreover, the aluminum alloy was used in many heavy industry products.