Sixth Realm

by Michael Chatfield

  “Another Expert level alchemist has appeared in the Third Realm?”

  “They are sending someone down from higher, they want them to get more experiences and Old Hei’s contributions and ability means that he’ll be welcomed with open arms into the sixth Realm academies,” Khasar said.

  “You will go with him?”

  “That is my job,” Khasar smiled. “I’ll have to increase my strength if I want to keep protecting him past that. We are taking on a number of new guards that are much stronger than my people. Honestly, we all are going to get an immense amount of resources and help from the Alchemist’s Association. Though we will need to pass a test by them to make sure that we can remain his guards,” Khasar seemed more excited than nervous.

  “You ready for it?”

  “I’m not sure, but I will give it my best shot. Old Hei has even said that he will support us and has been making all kinds of pills to help us increase our mana and body cultivation. If we can’t make it to the standard the Alchemist Association requires with the help of an Master Alchemist, well then, it is not meant to be,” Khasar shrugged.

  They made idle chat before they reached the headquarters. Khasar and his people led the way, the Special team scanning the area, they wore masks and their black cloaks that hid their identity.

  Delilah left them at the door to Old Hei’s personal quarters.

  She walked in seeing Old Hei working with Fen Feng his assistant, they were going over papers and talking in low tones.

  Fen Feng looked up and quickly dismissed himself. He smiled at Delilah and closed the door behind him.

  “You think that you can get away without saying goodbye?” Delilah pouted.

  “It is only the sixth Realm I am sure that I will see you there if you decide to go,” Old Hei smiled.

  Looks like he saw through my levels a long time ago. Delilah thought as Old Hei continued. “I will need to stop in the Fifth Realm for some time, take some resources and increase my cultivation and confirm my personnel around me before I head to the sixth. Once there I will become a professor, teaching in the area of micro-alchemy. Focusing on the small things that an alchemist should take into account when they are refining their concoctions.”

  Old Hei’s face nearly split in two with his smile and the fire in his eyes.

  “Well, congratulations,” Delilah said as she clasped her hands and bowed deeply.

  “Is there a need to do that anymore between us?” Old Hei said, standing up and coming around the table to lift her back up.

  “You are my grand teacher and you helped raise me to the level of Expert, you have cared for me and spared no cost. I owe you so much, this is the least I can do. I know that you won’t accept any gifts from me!” She half-complained.

  Old Hei closed his mouth, the corners still pulled up in a smile as the corners of his eyes were pinched together in joy.

  “Teaching you and Erik it has been one of my greatest pleasures. I hope that I can only teach more people and see how far they will reach.”

  He took out two pill bottles and passed them to Delilah.

  “Take these. The first pills are mana-condensing pills. They will allow you to increase your mana cultivation rapidly. The second is the soul revival pills. The pills’ power will seep into your bones, if you are attacked and gravely wounded, then they will allow you to reach a new peak in power to escape and hold your wounds together. You ±will still need to heal, but it will give you time to get away about four days. Though your wounds will be worse at the end of the time period. One for you, one for Erik.”

  Delilah looked at the master level pills with apprehension, she didn’t want to take advantage of Old Hei.

  There is no way that he would let me refuse these.

  “Thank you Old Hei,” Delilah said, moved by his generosity.

  “Here is the information of where you can find me in the sixth Realm as well,” Old Hei smiled seeing she didn’t refuse his gifts.

  She smiled and took the slip of paper and the pill bottles.

  “Good! Now, do you have some of that food?” Old Hei grinned.

  She laughed and pulled out a small plate of food, she had personally requested all of Old Hei’s favorites from Kanesh Academy’s Expert level cooks.

  Old Hei took a deep breath of the piping hot buns.

  “Truly the cooks have us alchemists beat!” He laughed and they moved to his favorite spot on the balcony and Delilah pulled out plates of food before serving tea and sitting down.

  “I wish that Erik were here, he’s been gone for what, seven months now?”

  “Nearly that long. I hope he’s back soon,” Delilah said. If something happened.

  “Erik and Rugrat are tough rocks, be hard for them to crack and fall,” Old Hei said, it seemed he had seen right through her anxieties in no time.

  “I do wonder what they’re up to,” Old Hei said as he sipped his tea and looked out over the division headquarters as if his eyes could pierce through the stars and reach the Sixth Realm.

  Chapter: Across Dungeon lands

  “Thank you, thank you for everything.”

  Storbon and his people stopped off to the side of the road that led into the outpost.

  “Up ahead is Knugrith. It is one of the smallest outposts. There is not much of value here other than the green-gold tree, a type of tree that can be harvested to create paper that is a great material to create mana scrolls with. We have brought you this far; where you go from you is your decision. You have looted items from the tower, it should be enough to start you off.”

  Their faces were filled with thanks, most of them looked like they were ready to collapse there and then.

  “Thank you, thank you for everything,” A man, Arthur said as he held onto his boy. The two of them bowed their heads.

  “I don’t know if the people that captured you will be looking for you now that the orcs disappeared. I would suggest that you start a whole new life. One away from where you were kidnapped. With your loot you can get up to the academies, take a totem down to the lower realms and establish yourselves,” Storbon said.

  “Can we come with you?” Aidan, Arthur’s boy asked.

  “We can’t help you any more than this.”

  Storbon could see Aidan’s desire to follow them.

  “Everyone has their own secrets.” Arthur said, consoling his boy before he looked at Storbon. “Thank you.”

  “Maybe our paths will cross in the future. You’ve got one hell of a dad there Aidan.” Storbon said.

  The others talked over one another, thanking them, crying and bowing their heads. Most of them offered the loot they had as a token of thanks.

  “Our job is done, your life is your own,” Storbon said.

  In the back someone had put a cloak over Melika.

  Storbon and the others pulled out their mounts, they got up top.

  “Live well and help others,” Erik said.

  The special team rode away.

  ***

  “That is the last of them inside Knugrith,” Rugrat said.

  They were on a berm watching the gates as the last of the people they had saved entered the outpost.

  Knugrith was a town made of wood other than their simple wall, a number of guards were patrolling with their bound beasts.

  “How far is the next place?” Yao Meng asked.

  “Three days ride,” Erik said to the collective sighs and groans of the others.

  “Use your illusion spell scrolls on your faces and remove any magical traces. Then we’ll be moving,” Rugrat said.

  They used the spell scrolls, altering their appearances and making sure that their were not magical tracking spells on them.

  “Come on, mount up!” Storbon said, his panther appeared and he jumped up on top, the others mounted up with Melika being hauled up by Tian Cui as Storbon and Rugrat led the way, Lucinda sent out her flying beasts to scout the road ahead.

  They had been working together so closely for so lo
ng they had come to anticipate one another’s orders, proactively acting.

  “Wandering Hero,” Yao Meng hummed across the private communication channel as he accessed his notifications.

  “What does it say?” Storbon asked.

  Yao Meng read it out:

  ==========

  Title: Wandering Hero

  ==========

  Putting your life on the line to help strangers you have become a paladin for the innocent and defenseless of the Ten Realms.

  ==========

  Gain Hero Quests

  Gain Detective Skill

  Receive a Two Star Hero Emblem - must be collected from the Tenth Imperium’s Quartermaster

  ==========

  “What the hell is the Tenth Imperium?” Yao Meng asked.

  No one else had any answers.

  Melika was looking at them all silently talking to one another before she focused on the riding.

  “Has to be linked to the Ten Realms somehow,” Erik said.

  They talked for a little before conversation died down and they kept riding toward Ivaris.

  Erik checked his quest rewards as well

  ==========

  Quest: From Orc jaws

  ==========

  Lena Lindenbaum has been converting humans into orc slaves against their will. Destroy her and her research.

  ==========

  Requirements:

  Destroy Lena Lindenbaum’s research.

  Kill Lena Lindenbaum

  Save the remaining humans

  Return the humans to safety

  ==========

  Rewards:

  Unknown

  Wandering Hero Title

  1.250,000 EXP

  ==========

  ***

  Lee Perrin thanked the street sweeper with a smile and turned away. His expression turned dark as he walked.

  Where are you Melika, don’t worry I am coming for you.

  He couldn’t help but feel his stomach tighten as he wondered where she was.

  A group of men were seen taking beast storage devices out of the city through the secret tunnels underneath. Though that doesn’t sound right, the street sweeper said that the path they took doesn’t take them out of the city, but down into the dungeon. Once people are in the dungeon then it is easier for them to disappear. The people that have disappeared are the kind of low-level people that none of the different powers would care about.

  He felt bitter as he walked back toward the run-down inn he was staying at. There was a commotion going on outside the inn. A woman wearing heavy plate armor and a man with a bow on his back and daggers on his hips were standing there. The waves of pressure they released made it feel like there were two raging beasts waiting for some prey to enter their sights.

  Lee Perrin felt his heart lighten as he saw these two.

  “He’s going up to the tiger and tigress, does he not fear for his life?” Someone said as they saw Lee Perrin in his simple pants and shirt, they had been reworked and altered, repaired time and time again. His grey hair fell down his shoulders and his beard reached his chest. Looking at him one might take him for a beggar or someone down on their luck.

  The three people’s eyes connected and the woman stomped over, she appeared like a flash in front of Lee.

  “Would they kill him in broad daylight?”

  “Just what did he do to offend such people?”

  The man with a bow started after her but arrived before Lee first, his movements were so natural that it felt like he had been standing there the entire time but Lee’s eyes had judged the distance wrong.

  The woman’s heavy footsteps made her seem like a charging rhino.

  Emotion filled all of their eyes.

  “Tutor!” They both yelled out and bowed from the hip.

  People around them were shocked at the display.

  “I thought they were going to destroy him in one move but they are his students?”

  “What kind of monster must he be to teach these two?”

  “Tutor, not teacher? Why do you think they say that?”

  “There are all kinds of address for masters, who knows why they pick their names?”

  Lee felt an awkward smile appear on his face, hearing bystanders call him master. He sighed as he looked at the duo.

  “Wei Shi, weren’t you supposed to be off with the Blood-Steel Sect developing a new area of your dungeons,” he said to the armored woman before his sharp gaze turned to the archer. “Rafael, aren’t you doing selections for the fighter’s Association? Your teacher says he has high hopes for you to use this to enter the elite ranks of the association,” he might not look imposing but his words made the two shiver as they but their lips.

  “Tutor, when we heard that someone dared to attack our junior sister we had to come over,” Wei Shi said into the ground.

  “Tutor, you do not accept anything else from us and have guided us to our teachers and onto the right path, you are the force that has pushed us forward. Without you how could we reach this stage? Our junior sister has disappeared and you have been slighted, how could we not come?”

  “Too well said,” a man said as he entered the courtyard, on his chest he wore the symbol of an expert wood crafter, behind him there were others they had fierce temperaments and powerful gear. There were men and women in their teenage years and those that had reached middle age. Others that looked like Lee’s own father in age.

  Seeing them all Lee’s heart swelled.

  “Little Tullus so you were able to become an Expert carpenter, by your temperament, it will not be long until you reach the point to challenge Master? Rob so you were able to tame your fiery temper and become a true mage. Your mana cultivation has greatly increased. You are still working on your exercises, right?”

  “Mo Chi-Hye don’t hide in the back you little troublemaker, I heard what happened at the school of the floating pen! Focus your mind on your studies instead of your pranks, little miss!”

  He rattled off names, looking at the people who walked over, they had grown so powerful in their time apart, they were like tigers that had been given their wings, soaring high into the sky.

  They stepped forward, cupping their fists and bowed.

  “Tutor!” They yelled to him.

  He looked over them all and then sighed.

  “Lift your heads,” he said in a soft voice. How could he be angry with them as they rose with grins and smiles on their faces? Glancing to the others around them, few of them had met one another but they were all proud students of Tutor Perrin.

  The softness in his eyes faded away and turned hard as he thought about Melika.

  “I had found a good seedling I brought her here in order to meet a teacher I thought might suit her. She went out to go and see the sights to take a look around and she never came back. I have looked for signs about her but, I have only found that she was kidnapped.”

  The thirty or so people’s eyes focused the air stilled threatening violence and destruction.

  “Come, this is no place for us to carry out this conversation,” Lee Perrin said.

  “There is a place from the Fighter’s Association nearby that we can use,” Rafael said.

  “You are in the Fighter’s Association as well?” One of his other students asked.

  “Don’t you start using one another to climb the ladder, it relies on your own strength. You can spar with him later Sam,” Lee said.

  The man with a saber scratched his head as Lee sighed and indicated for him to show the way.

  People cleared a path as the group made it to the Fighter’s Association upon showing his badge the flustered attendant quickly readied a room for them all.

  Lee looked over them all, from all walks of life, all different abilities, they were the children he’d never had.

  If anyone can find Melika, then it is this group.

  ***

  “Looks a bit beefier,” Rugrat said as they rode up toward the gates. The walls here
were made from a black stone and there were formations carved into it. Five Kilometers of land around the small city had been cleared away. Buildings reached dozens of floors up. Elevators could be seen charging up into the rock above and out of the dungeon while others entered the depths. Guards wearing Academy sigils manned the walls.

  A dangerous air surrounded them, their eyes alert unlike the guards at Knugrith.

  “Trade really picks up. Traders come from the smaller supply stations and outposts and use the elevators to sell their supplies in the academies above. This dungeon is massive,” Yuli said.

  “Three times the size of the city above,” Erik said.

  “A nice hat on a whole bunch of fucked up,” Yao Meng muttered.

  “If the academies were to fall then the population inside the dungeons would expand until they could flood out and create a beast tide. Like the beast tide that we dealt with at Alva Village,” Storbon said.

  “Feels like it was years ago,” Tian Cui said in a small voice.

  “Everything changes with time, come on I need a shower and a forge!” Rugrat said.

  “You think you’ll breakthrough?” Yao Meng asked, perking up as they continued to follow the line that was entering Ivaris.

  “I don’t know but I’ll give it my best shot!” Rugrat laughed.

  “I could just do with sleeping with four or six days, I know my scouts could eat through a stable worth of food,” Lucinda said.

  “Without them we would’ve had a much harder time,” Storbon said.

  “Maybe I should start learning to be a beast tamer?” Yao Meng asked.

  “You a beast tamer? Well, I guess with how you smell they would think you’re one of them,” Tian Cui said.

  “Hey, that’s offensive to my beasts,” Lucinda said.

  They laughed as Yao Meng opened his mouth and then closed it with a frown.

  “Just stay with the explosives and your rifle,” Erik consoled Yao Meng with a grin.

  “Five Earth Mana stones a person,” the guard said as they reached the front of the line. Rugrat passed over the funds and canceled the communication channel.

  “Do you have smithies here?”