Second Realm

by Michael Chatfield

  “What is the principal doing?”

  “Is that a new forging design?”

  “I want one!”

  The smiths who were between work all saw what he was holding and moved to the edge of the smithy like a pack of hyenas, leaning as close to the forging design as possible.

  Taran’s eyes opened, one eyelid twitching.

  The smiths all froze with the look on his face.

  He still continued to stroke the forging blueprint without a care in the world of what others thought of him. “Get back to work!” he barked.

  The smiths nearly tripped over one another as they rushed back to work, grabbing new materials and working the bellows on the different furnaces.

  Taran looked to Rugrat, a shameless smile on his face.

  Rugrat tossed him a ring.

  Taran grabbed it and looked inside and started to sit down.

  “Do it in your office, will you? Or else everyone will get distracted,” Rugrat said.

  Taran seemed to be caught in a dilemma before he quickly started to walk to his office in the smithy.

  Tan Xue was coming out of the smithy, covered in soot and sweat. She opened her mouth, only to have Taran rush past and into his office, slamming and locking the door.

  She looked from the door over to Rugrat, who stood in the front of the smithy.

  “Well, looks like Taran won’t be coming out for a while.” She smiled.

  Rugrat could only smile back. “So how are you settling in?” He looked around.

  “Julilah isn’t here. She’s off with little Qin, looking up magic in the library. She might have a passion for smithing, but she has a real skill at spell formations,” Tan Xue said with pride.

  “Oh, it looks like you took on a new student,” Rugrat said.

  “Seems like I’ve taken on a lot of them, with Taran being the smithing maniac he is,” Tan Xue grumbled. But her eyes shined at the same time.

  Rugrat let out a laugh and looked around the smithy for the first time. There were a few Novice-level smiths being taught by Journeyman-level smiths. Apprentice smiths were hammering out all kinds of designs, checking information, making their own designs or using the forging blueprints to get a greater understanding of how to make higher-level weapons.

  Seeing what he was looking at, Tan Xue turned to face the smithy as well.

  “Taran is a mid to high-level Journeyman, depending on the design. We’ve got four low-Journeyman level smiths, eight Apprentice, and three Novice smiths. Also, an iron vein was found in the mountain range, which has been hollowed out and a proper mine is being created there. It’s still early days, but we get about enough material to make ten iron ingots per day. We make around one or two Mortal-grade iron ingots each day. With the increased power from the dungeon core, we should be able to fire up the magical flames in the different furnaces—that’ll increase the quality of the items and their tier,” Tan Xue said.

  “What stage have you reached?” Rugrat asked.

  “Barely a half-step into Master. The difference between Journeyman and Master is wide and it’s wider to get from Master to Expert.” She simply shrugged. “I might not get to that stage in my life but I’ll certainly try.”

  Rugrat’s smile turned softer, seeing that fire in her eyes once again. It was something that she had been missing in Kaeju city.

  “Then we’ll give you all the support we can! Also, I’m working on a new set of armor and I’ve been trying to compress the armor down. I was just going to leave it at the stage I’d reached already, but now that you’re here…”

  “Fine, let’s see what you’ve got.” She held out her hands and Rugrat pulled out the half-finished breastplate.

  Tan Xue looked over the breast plate, tapping here and there, running her fingers across it and frowning. “You’ve compressed it in several areas but you’ve created weakness at the joints. If someone was to hit here, here or here, then they’d break right through! You need to compress the material before you start shaping it, you dolt! Or else it’s going to have areas of high and low compression, creating weaknesses! Have you still not learned how to make formations! It’s all good if you can make Journeyman armor, but it’s only truly Journeyman armor when it has one formation to enchant it! You focused all on defenses but this armor wouldn’t be able to hold a decent formation—only a Novice grade one or else it would shatter!” Tan Xue smacked the armor, making it ring as she looked at Rugrat, who stood there awkwardly.

  Her hand snaked out and grabbed his ear.

  “Ow! Owowowowow!” Rugrat reached for his ear as he was dragged into the smithy.

  “First you’ll melt down the metal and then compress it before making anew! To use Mortal iron like this is such a waste! Then you’ll go over to the formations array school and learn how to make more than just Mana gathering formations! What else have you been working on?” Tan Xue tossed the metal into a furnace that held her magical flame. It wrapped around the armor and started to heat it up.

  As she released his ear, he wanted to rub it but instead started taking out the different items he had been working on. Barrels and weapon components were carefully laid out on the table.

  Tan Xue picked them up, checking them over before she put them back. “What is this part of?” She looked over the different parts.

  Rugrat carefully pulled out Big Momma, unloading it with practiced motions and then extending the bipod and placing it on the counter.

  Tan Xue leaned forward and started looking over the weapon.

  “It’s similar to that weapon he was using on the roof of the village headquarters in the defense,” one of the smiths said.

  “What is this?” Tan Xue looked to Rugrat, who grabbed Big Momma and started to field strip it.

  “This is a high-powered rifle. It fires a fifty-caliber BMG round. It is a bullpup style with a floating barrel. It is a gas-operated semi-automatic weapon.” Rugrat started to go through the functions, and the way that the weapon operated: the firing pin striking the primer, causing the gunpowder to explode the gases, moving the action to the rear, ejecting the old round, picking up a new one and pushing it into the chamber, ready to fire again.

  Tan Xue listened to every word before she started to check over the field stripped weapon and then the different components he had created once again.

  “And these are the new test rounds Erik and I created.” Rugrat pulled out a dozen or so rounds that were organized in an ammunition tray.

  “This is going to take some work, but if it is possible to create the components to a high enough standard, then they will improve one another’s strength. Even with Apprentice parts, then it could have the same striking power as a Journeyman-level weapon,” Tan Xue said aloud and then looked up to Rugrat. “First I’ll teach you how to compress metal properly with the vibrating hammer method, then we’ll see what we can do about this. Now get to work!”

  As Rugrat went to work on the armor in the furnace, returning it to its ingot form, a crazy laugh came from within the smithy office before Taran slammed the door open and moved to a forge.

  “I won’t stop until I can make at least mid-Journeyman-level items by myself! Jonas! Hun!” Taran called out several names. The different smiths looked over to him.

  He threw different items, from books to forging blueprints. “You have one week with those items! Show me your ability!”

  The smiths all looked at the items in their hands. The smithy seemed to heat up, not just through the furnace flames.

  “Yes, Master Taran!” They yelled out and ran back to their own forges, quickly checking the items that they had been given and starting to get to work.

  Tan Xue looked to Rugrat, a glow in her eyes.

  “Yes, there are items in there that you might find useful.” Rugrat didn’t want to hide anything as he felt the pain lingering in his ear.

  “Taran!” Tan Xue called out as she walked toward him.

  Rugrat q
uickly put his head down and started to work on the armor.

  ***

  Erik went to the hospital first. He walked right up to a woman sitting behind the reception desk, her head bent down as she was reading through a book.

  Erik cleared his throat slightly.

  The startled woman looked up.

  “Mister Erik!” The woman half-yelled, half-screamed as she jumped out of her chair with a wide smile.

  Erik barely stopped himself from jumping into the air at her actions and voice as she rushed around the table.

  “Hello! I am Jen! I have read everything that you have put down. Using not only healing spells but Alchemy together—it only makes too much sense. I don’t know why more people don’t do it! I’ve pressed it on everyone to get a greater understanding of Alchemy. While we haven’t had many injuries, I got a few corpses from animals that were killed and went through the different organs with people but without real patients it’s hard to train.” Jen looked disappointed before she lit up with a smile. “But with you here, it should be easy!”

  Why do I feel that this girl has way too much blind faith in me? Erik cleared his throat as the other people in the hospital all approached with interest.

  “No patients in?” Erik asked.

  “Not really. We mostly get people who are hungover or have a few scrapes. Everyone is a high level, so there are only a few injuries,” Jen said.

  Erik was happy to hear it. He didn’t want people overworking and making mistakes.

  “We’ve been working on the tempering side of things as you mentioned in your notes, but we’ve only had one person from the barracks try it. They went through a lot of pain and now no one else wants to try out the different methods to temper one’s body,” another medic said.

  “Who is in charge?” Erik asked.

  “She is.” Everyone pointed to Jen.

  “I’m not!” Jen complained and frowned.

  The others shook their heads and rolled their eyes.

  Erik couldn’t help but smile.

  “Send a message. I want all of the Alchemy students and medics to gather together so I can talk to you all as one.” Erik had some big plans ahead. As the people in Alva Dungeon had shown their dedication, it was about time he passed on his information to open one’s Mana gates and temper their bodies. Because he and Rugrat had gone through it already, he had created extensive notes on his own experiences and come up with various ideas and theories on how to temper one’s body and open their Mana gates without the difficulties that he and Rugrat had gone through.

  ***

  Qin looked up from her book with tired eyes, rubbing them and blinking as she tried to get moisture back in them.

  “Did I fall asleep again?” she asked Julilah, who was beside her, writing out a formation circle under a series of magnifying glasses.

  “Shh,” Julilah replied in an annoyed manner. She continued to work on the miniature formation with just a paintbrush, the end of the paintbrush flicking and turning here and there.

  Qin looked over but didn’t say anything. She couldn’t make out the formation and gave up, knowing that if Julilah was happy with it, she would share.

  Qin looked at the book in front of her. It was a copy on different control formations that the gnomes worked on.

  They were not simple formations, but although the Mana gathering formations looked to control Mana, the control formations simply used it as a power source and then carried out commands. There was a power formation to draw in power, then the main control formation it was connected to; that was interlinked with smaller sub-control formations. The image in the book was only about ten-by-ten centimeters and she had been looking at it through the magnifying glasses to see the exact details. The notepad to her side had notes and then a line through it where she had fallen asleep and she had left an ink line across the desk.

  What woke me up? Qin thought. Julilah had taken the magnifying glasses and was working on her own project, so Qin looked at the people leaving the library.

  They were quiet but there was a great number of them.

  She stood and looked around for Egbert.

  She saw him moving through the library. The gnomes had left behind enchanted bookcases to protect their books but when they had departed, they had taken all of their books. Egbert had needed to take them offline to conserve power.

  They had been added to the library but didn’t have any books in them because they would last longer in Egbert’s storage ring.

  Now, however, the runes on their sides were glowing as Egbert was checking on different books, putting a book in one bookshelf, closing the door and then flying up to the second story and placing a few more books in a different bookshelf before heading to the third story and then back down to the first.

  “Uncle Egbert.” Qin dragged his name out.

  His movements halted as he turned around and descended toward her. “What do you need?”

  “Where is everyone going?” Qin asked.

  “Erik and Rugrat are back. They’re rushing over to the smithy and the hospital. Erik has called the alchemists and medics while Rugrat and the others in the smithy are using the items he has brought back to make more items.” Egbert’s voice rose in excitement.

  “They’re back!?” Qin looked around the room. Seeing the bookcases with power going to them now, it made sense. They must’ve brought back a dungeon core or something to help the dungeon recover!

  Egbert must have thought her expression meant she was displeased. He quickly pulled out three books. “These are more books on formations,” Egbert said, as if bribing Qin.

  She pressed her lips together, trying to pout but she couldn’t, seeing all of the books.

  “Thank you, Uncle Egbert!” She jumped up and hugged him.

  Egbert dropped a few feet as his upper body disconnected from his legs. “I thought I fixed that.” He looked at his leg bones and hips that were a dispersed over three square meters in front of him.

  “Sorry, Uncle! Thank you for the books!” Qin laughed as she grabbed the books and skipped off toward Julilah.

  Wait till she sees these! Maybe I should read them before I show her. She is trying to make a formation prototype, after all.

  A wicked smile appeared on her face as she quickly found a desk.

  She didn’t see the sighing Egbert as his upper body floated upward and his legs reorganized themselves and he took a step forward and fell over.

  “Oh, come on, right leg! You’re supposed to face forward, not backward!” Egbert complained as he started to rearrange his bones until they were all back in place.

  “Kids these days.” Egbert shook his head and then looked around before pulling out a book from the books Rugrat had given him and tucking it away.

  ***

  Delilah had followed Erik to the hospital. The people looked at her with confusion.

  “Who is she?”

  “She must be someone Erik and Rugrat brought with them.”

  “I wonder what her skills are? If she can do smithing like Tan Xue or is adept at spells like Qin and Julilah?”

  Delilah was feeling a little shy with all of the people openly staring at her.

  Erik sat on one of the beds in the hospital as some thirty or forty people poured into the area. They stood or sat around, pulling out pen and paper. There were healers and alchemists all there, waiting on his words.

  “Well, it looks like there are quite a number of alchemists and healers here.” Erik smiled.

  The people in the room looked proud of their chosen profession as he cleared his throat.

  “In the coming days, I will be doing an assessment of everyone’s skills. Both the alchemists and the medical personnel will be going through a written and practical examination.

  “The written will be to understand how much knowledge and information you have retained. The practical is to see how you have used that information. Based upon your result
s, I will be awarding information and technique books. There might also be a few rare spell books,” Erik said.

  The people in the room had glowing eyes. Even Delilah looked at him with a new hunger.

  I wonder whether I will be able to be part of the examination? But these people, they’ve been studying for much longer than me. Her hopes couldn’t be helped and fell from one minute to the next as she confronted the reality in front of her.

  “A number of books have been given to Egbert, and you will all be allowed access to them. Now, onto the lesson. In Alchemy, there are four classes of concoctions. Regeneration—Healing Stamina gain, Mana, and so on. Buffing—these can boost one’s stats, or they can have a special effect, like Night’s Eye potion. When consumed, a person can see through the night’s darkness with ease. Then there are berserker potions that can increase one’s overall Strength and Agility, but then it takes a heavy toll on their body afterward. Then we have Experience concoctions. These are made from incredibly rare or powerful items that are part of the Ten Realms. Monster cores will give you Experience if you consume them. It is the same with these concoctions—most of them only work once and their cost is astronomical. The last are body altering concoctions. These alter a person’s body, increasing their flow of Mana, their Strength and Agility through temperings or other means.” Erik looked around the room. “It might sound similar to some of the things that healers can do. Medics are trained to heal first and foremost, dealing with the ailments of the body, understanding it in a great depth. Concoctions can be tailored to individual people, but unless you’re an alchemist who also has a great deal of knowledge about the person you’re working on, you can do more harm than good. Alchemists and medics complement one another with all types of concoctions. Want to heal? You can down a healing potion, or you can take it into a syringe and then put it right into the person’s circulatory system to heal them faster. Medics can modify a person’s body as well, assisting people in tempering their bodies. Everyone knows about Mana gates, right?”