AK - The Alchemy Kingdom

Two weeks later…

Karl looked at the sky estimating how much time of sunlight they still had, maybe one hour, hopefully, two. The bags under his eyes betrayed his attempt to hide his tiredness, working through practically all of his waked time would have this effect. This time, only Oliver accompanied him, Wein and Anya were tied in testing the special scouting unit’s equipment.

Because of their tight schedule, they barely had time to do anything else, but in his free time (when he should be sleeping), Karl tried to think of a way of exploring the Mage’s wind core before they left.

He had also shared this task with his most creative (delusional) disciple, Oliver. And after two long weeks, they finally come up with something that could give them a little more information about the situation. From quite some distance from the place where the Mage was being held, they could already hear him laughing.

“You’re too much… Just too much… Hey, we finally have some other visitors. It’s the magic expert, Karl isn’t it? Do you have more information about my new abilities? You won’t believe it, but this girl refuses to tell me her name, even after we talked all morning for two weeks…”

The changes in the Mage’s mood and personality almost looked forced, he was being oddly friendly with someone they would usually consider filthy and below them. Either way, Karl decided to ignore it and capitalize on his goodwill.

“Yes… We have an idea to understand your condition better. Take this… Now, can you press on the red mark and push your spiritual energy?”

Karl didn’t reveal much about the tool, but it was useless to try hiding the fact they could use magic energy differently. The Mage wasn’t dumb and he could probably notice that the marks in the ground kept the barrier active.

“Wow…”

When he pushed his energy into the tool, its tip started emitting a grey glow. Still confused, Johann passed the tool back to Karl through the barrier and waited for an explanation.

“This is an ancient artifact used to analyze types of energy… This is the result of a LQ wind crystal… Now, a MQ wind crystal… And a common person’s energy.”

The glow in the tool change colors as Karl put the different crystals and in the end, pushed his own spiritual energy. The LQ crystal gave a faint grey glow, the MQ a much darker grey and his energy emitted a white-yellowish glow.

“Mine is of a person that doesn’t have affinity. However, a wind Mage should have a glow similar to mine but with a greyish tone instead. Yours, on the other hand, has a stronger grey than the LQ crystal and weaker than a MQ wind crystal… So we can conclude that…”

“The incident changed my soul!”

“Exactly… But this also means that this isn’t a wind core… The beasts naturally form elemental cores, which gives them elemental traits and sometimes the ability to use elemental magic, but it doesn’t change their souls, at least not enough to make their energy so similar to elemental energy…”

“How can you be sure?”

“I tested it… But let’s not talk about how… We should focus on what this means… From a practical perspective, I finally understand how the crystals fused or formed as a part of your body. Your energy “signature”, for the lack of a better word, is so similar to the wind energy that your body doesn’t reject the crystal…”

“I still don’t understand how this happened, but I can at least comprehend how I’m capable of manipulating the wind so easily… My spiritual energy became practically wind energy itself.”

“Unfortunately, this is just a small piece of information and I don’t have time to look more into it… But this reminds me of something about Elemental Mages. Although you have five levels of advancement, the Evokers are considered your pinnacle of power…”

“That’s because nobody was ever capable of advancing to the fifth level, many believe that this level doesn’t even exist. They say that to advance further the Mage would have to fuse completely with the element, which would be impos…”

The Mage stopped speaking as soon as he realized what Karl was implying, he stared at the Alchemist like he had unveiled the biggest mystery in the world. Johann gulped a few times before turning to his own body. Was it possible? Could he be…? Karl still had a lot of things to do and looked like the sun was about to retire for the today, so he turned around while saying:

“You should think about it, after all, you probably understand more about elemental magic than me…”

“Please, wait! I… I know you’re leaving this place… Even from here, the movement is clear and I also noticed my watchers are becoming more anxious each day… I don’t know if you really plan to let me leave alive… I wouldn’t if I was in your place… But, you know a lot. You’re not a Mage, yet you know so much and the way they look at you, like you’re a representative of the Origin… I just feel you could help me become… Something all Mages dream to be…”

“Maybe, but we don’t have time and can’t promise you anything… Don’t forget you’re our enemy.”

“No! I mean, I came after you but I was just following orders from someone that I despise right now… I wasn’t lying when I said that I don’t care if you escape… Can’t you help me?”

Karl was still facing the camp with his back turned to Johann, but somehow the Mage could see that he was considering it.

“Maybe… I don’t know if I could. With more time, I probably could analyze and comprehend the situation better, but I can’t say for sure if this hypothesis is right or if I could help further… And either way, we don’t have time. I’m sorry..”

Johann saw Karl leaving and the excitement for the wonderful possibility started to turn into regret, just like how he felt from leaving his family.

“Wait… So let me go with you!”

***

One week before…

The Councilors all had stern expressions on their faces, but Karl’s was a little more complicated. Omero was the one to break the strange silence.

“So, do you think this could make him work with us? Without the risk of him betraying us later?”

Karl sighed deeply.

“I’m not sure if he would buy it… But either way, I don’t know if I could do this…”

Diana placed a hand on his shoulders and said:

“You would be doing it for all of us… And also for him, the other option would be… Silencing him…”

“But…”

Karl’s words died down when he saw his father's sorrowful expression. They couldn’t let him leave and risk telling the Kingdom their secrets.

“I’ll do it…”

***

Two figures met inside of a tent in a dark corner of the camp. One of them took out the lighting tool and activated it after covering it with a cloth to lower its intense brightness.

“The Alchemy Department’s creations can’t stop amusing me…”

“Hmm… Do you think that Karl’s solution to restrain the Mage will be enough?”

Omero didn’t have to think before answering.

“We can never be sure… Anyway, you should arrange to place one of ours always close to him. If he tries to make anything suspicious we have to eliminate him immediately…”