Luke had a gloating look on his face as he sat down at his stage, confident and pleased with his own schemes.
He saw Erik receive the message, then take off the sound transmission device and toss it into a storage device.
Luke’s calm confidence flared up into anger seeing Erik’s actions. He took a number of breaths to try to calm himself, his eyes burning into Erik’s side.
Erik still had that frown on his face, seemingly disconnected from the rest of the world.
Chapter: New Heights and Depths
Erik and the other alchemists started to pull out their ingredients as well as their tools. Erik smacked his head. He had forgotten about the reward for becoming a Journeyman alchemist!
He looked through his storage rings, before he found it.
A large and heavy cauldron appeared in front of him. It made a deep, bassy noise as it hit the ground, sounding like a war drum calling people to battle instead of an Alchemy cauldron.
“So this is the Iron Castle cauldron.” He found the name worked only too well. The cauldron seemed to be made from a dull iron alloy with scales over its surface that made it look like a brick wall. It looked blocky and had eight sides but there were four openings underneath the cauldron.
Erik studied it more, seeing that there was two parts to the cauldron, the outer “wall” and the inner “sanctuary.” The outside wall contained the flames that were inside, and because of the two walls, the cauldron would heat evenly without Erik needing to pay attention to it.
Also being contained within a wall, the disturbance of wind or dust entering his flames was removed and it would make it harder for the power of the ingredients to leak out of the cauldron. Though with the heavy material the cauldron was made from, it would require powerful flames to heat it up.
Erik checked over the cauldron’s stats.
==========
Iron Castle Cauldron
==========
Weight: 41.3 kg
Durability: 100/100
Innate Effect: Concoctions up to the mid-Journeyman rank will be up to 5% stronger.
Enchantment: Strength Within—Ingredients held within this cauldron will not decrease in efficacy. Concoctions within might undergo a qualitative change if allowed to rest.
Requirements:
Mana, magical or formation flames
Journeyman-grade Alchemist
==========
Compared to the Flame of Rezi Cauldron, it was much more powerful.
==========
Flame of the Rezi Cauldron
==========
Weight: 12.7 kg
Durability: 100/100
Innate Effect: Decrease Mana Flame cost by 12%.
Enchantment: Medicinal Bell—Reflect the medicinal ingredients back into the center of the cauldron. Increase quantity of concoction made by 8%.
Requirements:
Mana, magical or formation flames
Apprentice-grade Alchemist
==========
Still, Erik could only sigh as he replaced the Iron Castle cauldron with the Flame of the Rezi cauldron. The Iron Castle cauldron might be powerful, but it was his first time seeing it, let alone using it.
He had not tested it out, or tried to make anything with it. With the Rezi cauldron, he had been using it for months now; he knew it intimately and although it was an Apprentice-grade cauldron, he had greater confidence working with it.
***
Mistress Mercy sat on her chair in the hall, having one of her attendants work on her nails as she sat there lazily.
Off to the side was one of her scarred followers, one who had either had their mind broken through her actions or enjoyed the beatings that they took from her, falling under her spell and devoting their lives to her.
Domonos didn’t spare the little creature a second glance as he kneeled on the floor, waiting for her to talk.
He had been here for hours before. If it wasn’t for hearing from Rugrat that his sister was alive and had recovered from her affliction, he would have been torn from the Alchemist Association trial, unable to even see whether there were any alchemists he might get to help his sister.
“It is interesting what one will do behind their mistress’s back.” Mistress Mercy’s words were spoken lightly but the room seemed to chill a dozen degrees.
“You see, on the one hand, there are the righteous and the loyal, those who look to help me in my quest to elevate us all, and there are those, the worms among people who lurk in the shadows and look to try to pull me down.” Her eyes flashed as she looked over to Domonos. Her anger seemed to fade away as she looked at her nails being worked on.
“Domonos, go and get me my whip,” she said.
Domonos coughed as the bond she had placed in him caused pain to lance through his body. “Yes, Mistress.” He turned and went to the wall where her whip lay and brought it over to her, kneeling down and holding it up.
“Dear, will you play the recording?” she asked as the scarred boy had a look of joy on his face. He bowed repeatedly and pulled out a recording crystal.
He played it, an image projecting into the sky of Domonos talking to Julia from the Iron Spear sect.
Mistress Mercy took back her hand from the woman working on them and blew on them before extending her hand to grab the whip. “Do you have anything to say?”
“Mistress, I—” Domonos didn’t even hear the whip, feeling the wind on his face as he was sent flying backward.
She used her whip, cutting through his robes and opening his skin, leaving bloody lines across his body. Domonos tried to lessen the effect but the bond within him made his actions slow. Her attacks, cutting through flesh and bone, caused him to cry out in pain.
She pulled her whip back, breathing heavily as he lay there on the ground, whip marks all around him. His blood poured out on the ground. One of his eyes had been hit and he could barely see through the other. The loss of blood and pain made it hard to remain conscious.
“Not only did you talk to my opponent, you told her my secrets! You little beast!” Her whip shot out again, this time wrapping around his neck. “I would have defeated that pole-wielding whore! I would have been able to advance into the regional championships!”
Telling her your secrets? Your secret that you are only fit to bully those who you have poisoned with your bond and used the oath of the Ten Realms to cause them to submit? Your skills are worthy of bullying others—fighting in a true fight, you are no match for those the same level as you!
Domonos’s anger boiled to the top as his bond and lack of oxygen made it hard for him to think.
She turned her body and used the momentum to pull Domonos, smashing him against the ground and breaking the bones in his body.
“You can’t kill someone of the sect,” Domonos forced out, his mouth cut apart and his jaw broken.
“Killing? Who said anything about killing?” She flicked her whip, slamming him into a wall. “I wouldn’t kill you, but maim you, leave you in the darkest corners of this city where people would be interested to be entertained by a broken boy from a sect? Oh, I might even make some coin off you.” Mistress Mercy laughed.
Domonos shivered.
“As for the sect? You were my personal plaything since I laid eyes on you. I talked to my uncle. Seems that he agrees that liars shouldn’t be allowed into the sect,” she said in a surprised voice, as if she couldn’t believe it as well.
She pulled out a scroll and ripped it apart.
==========
The oath between Domonos Silaz and the Willful Institute is thus annulled and destroyed.
==========
Domonos felt the oath being broken as he let out a wet cough.
“I do hope you live long enough for a few of the patrons to enjoy you fully.” Mistress Mercy turned back to her seat and sat back down, waving her bloodied whip to the scarred boy as the girl once again continued to work on her nails.
Others who had been in the hall gathered up D
omonos, who screamed out in pain as his broken bones and flesh were moved around.
They stripped him of his belongings, before dragging him out to a cart. A man looked him over before paying a fee and pulling a tarp over him.
Domonos bit down on a tooth in the back of his mouth, using the last lifesaving measure that he had. He felt the capsule break in his mouth as the healing pill started to work. He reached into a wound on his side, letting out a whimpering noise. He pulled out a bloody message scroll.
He whispered into the scroll, adding a symbol to it.
There was only one person he knew who wasn’t a part of the sect who he might be able to trust and could possibly help him.
Chapter: Second Trial Begins!
Erik looked around the stage and at the other alchemists, seeing what they had brought out to make.
As he did so, he looked at the arrayed ingredients, recognizing some, not recognizing others. Just looking at them wasn’t able to tell him what the effect of the ingredient might be; he had to hold it in his hands and smell it for at least one of the ingredient’s effects to be revealed.
Still, the flickering of information in the back of his mind only served to make a smile appear on his face. Entering the Journeyman level, he felt as though he had entered a new plane of existence, one with a much higher ceiling.
Seems that I have been underestimating Alchemy.
The woman running the test stood up at the front. With her, there were a number of people wearing the emblems of the Alchemist Association. She wore an emblem the same color as Journeyman Di’s but then hers only had one stripe running across it instead of two.
“Anyone found cheating will be removed from the stages and banned from ever joining the Alchemist Association in this lifetime. You have three hours to complete your concoctions and submit them to the testers. They will be graded on their efficacy and grade. The top twenty concoctions from this arena will then be added to the pool of concoctions from the other arenas, ranked again with the people who made the top twenty concoctions, continuing on to challenge the alchemist’s path at the Resam Regional Headquarters.” The woman looked at the test takers.
Everyone fell silent as the same commands were passed out at the other arenas.
A gong sounded out across Khusai. “Your second trial begins!”
People started to move, using their tools to prepare their ingredients and stoking their fires to raise the temperatures of their cauldrons.
Dozens of pill making styles were displayed: some flashy that drew the eye, others muted and hidden within the cauldrons.
Erik took his time checking over his equipment and making sure that everything was functioning properly. Then he started to pull out the basic ingredients and set them out.
He closed his eyes, taking time to focus his mind and review his Alchemy Book and the information contained within.
He was no longer working in proximity to the dungeon core so the Mana wasn’t as pure; he had also made changes to how he could create the potion. After taking a step back, the changes only seemed too easy.
He could call up not only the Iron Skin potion but also the other concoctions that he had worked on in the past.
He started to work with his handmade but improved tools to prepare the ingredients.
***
Journeyman Di looked through the different views of the viewing stones to look over at arena seven.
He looked through the candidates before he found Erik. A smile appeared on his face as he watched the man working with his strange-looking instruments.
“Ah, so that is the one you’re looking over?” Journeyman Rakesh asked.
“Yes, and it seems that your seedling is not bad either,” Di replied, looking over at the stone that Rakesh was looking through.
“He has a number of interesting tools that I have not seen before.” Rakesh leaned forward, not denying Di’s words.
“He is a bit different,” Di said.
“What was his result with the first trial?” Journeyman Wu asked.
“He was placed second, but in his trial, he made hundreds of powders,” Di said.
“Hundreds? Were they all failures?”
“No, he was working to increase their efficacy each time.”
“On stage during the trial?” Wu stroked his beard.
“Yes.”
“Well, either he is foolish, has worked with the concoction countless times, or he really is some kind of genius. If he is able to make another kind of concoction here that can place him high within his arena and the tournament, then it will be the third option. If not, then he is either a fool, or a blind fool,” Wu said. “What is his background?”
“I was not able to bring one up on him. He had simply entered the city through the totem. I don’t know where he came from.”
“Might he be from another region, trying his luck?” Rakesh asked.
“It is possible, but I don’t think so,” Di said.
“Well, it does make things more interesting. Journeyman Rakesh, who is the young lady you are watching?”
“She is called Claudia Stromm.” Rakesh smiled.
The others looked at him with confusion.
“Her family is relatively unknown, but her constitution is even harder to find and more well known.” He paused, enjoying the tense look on their faces before he let out a laugh. “She has the Earth Spirit constitution!”
“Earth Spirit constitution!” Journeyman Wu repeated, getting excited as he looked closer at the simple-looking girl. Nothing about her would suggest she might have one of the most powerful and sought-after constitutions.
“The Earth Spirit constitution—that is where the person’s Mana has a greater Affinity with the Earth attribute, their actions in harmony with the world, gaining a greater concentration and power when they cast spells with Earth attributes. When used in concert with Alchemy, one can create the Evolving Earth flame.” Di looked at the woman’s hands. He could see the thin green flame moving from her hands around the cauldron. People had all kinds of colored flames, so it was only if someone was paying attention or nearby that they might be able to find out the kind of flame that they were using.
“When using the Evolving Earth flame, ingredients kowtow and concoctions bow,” Rakesh finished off for Di. “Truly, I did not think that I would see such a thing in my life. The ingredients are eager to be burned and refined by her flames, her concoctions are incredibly stable, and as she works with her flames, the final product will be stronger than others.”
“Truly a rare find,” Qu said in praise.
With her having Earth Affinity flames, any Wood-based ingredients would grow in strength and power.
With the majority of the ingredients one used having a Wood Affinity, it was a blessing to alchemists. It would only be if she was trying to work with a concoction that had ingredients of another Affinity that she might have troubles.
Di saw movement on his stone as he looked at Erik.
He had been working the different preparations, and settled down as they finished. Now he turned into action as flames appeared around his cauldron, quickly bringing it up to temperature.
Then he started to add in ingredients. His hand paused at one ingredient and moved to another. It wasn’t something easily recognizable, but Di saw it through his years of working with widely divergent concoctions.
“What is he doing?” Di muttered to himself.
Erik had the air of someone who wasn’t worrying about his environment around him. It was as if he were removed from it all, above it all.
It wasn’t arrogance, but he was focusing on something more—something different.
Is he? No, that can’t be possible. Or at least no one would be that bold to actually adjust one’s formula while in the middle of a competition!
Erik’s movements were hesitant at first but they became more confident as he started to add in different ingredients.
The look of interest, the frown as he struggled, the
look of elation in his eyes when it worked: Di could only conclude that he was altering the concoction and the formula he was working on as he went!
Learning a formula was hard just by itself as one had to interpret the words of another alchemist and carry out their unfamiliar process. It took hundreds of trials to get to know the formula well enough that one might choose to alter the formula to suit their abilities and their resources. One concoction could have tens of formulas and methods to create it, due to the ingredients that one had in their environment, their skills, their own way of Alchemy.
People were starting to fall out as they failed in their process. They were halfway through the trial time. Even if they had a second set of ingredients, few of them were willing to try again. Instead, they packed up their gear and left the arena with dark expressions.
Di watched Erik as he worked. At the two and a half hour mark, Erik withdrew his flames and poured a gray and blue potion out into a potion bottle. Little flecks of what looked like blood could be seen inside the potion.
Di wanted to study the potion, to know whether Erik had been doing it for show or whether he had truly altered a formula in a competition.
His blood was boiling just seeing the attempt!
Chapter: Forces in Movement
Luke finished off his potion with a lot of difficulty. Wiping the sweat from his head, he collected it into a waiting potion bottle.
He had been training for this for three years and still it wasn’t easy for him to complete the low-Journeyman-grade potion.
He looked over to Erik, who sat on his stage, looking as if nothing could touch him.
Luke smirked to himself. A fool trying to look like a sage. Luke snorted and looked away as the trial came to an end. Some were showing off their concoctions as they presented it to the Alchemist Association staff; others tried to look above it all.
Once again their concoctions were collected and then tested.
The Third Realm Page 29