AK - The Alchemy Kingdom

Year 3, Spring, Third Month, Third Week.

“How can we cross it?”

The Councilors stood at the exit of the tunnel looking towards the river that separated them from their future home. This river wasn’t as big as the main river, which divided the Eastern Forest into two sides, but it was big enough to scare them. The dark blue waters looked calm and refreshing, but could also hide dangers on the unseen depths.

The beautiful blue line that painted the green fields brought back memories to Marlen, once she had crossed the northern sea and it was a thrilling but also terrifying experience. She always had a natural curiosity towards the waters, her teacher used to work on a ship, hunting treasures through the inhabited islands. However, he always warned her, the water is both one of the richest and deadly places, something is always lurking at the bottom, waiting for prey. Traveling in wild waters without a water Mage would be considered suicidal. It pained her to push their dreams even further, but crossing the river wasn’t an option.

“We can’t… Beasts live in that river, it might look calm but as soon as we touch the water… It’s better to give up and try to go around it.”

Nobody dared to refute Marlen, this was far from what they planned but what else could they do? One month ago, when they started the tunnel’s project, few truly believed they would cross the mountains through tunnels, most just took it as a pause from their journey. However, when they realized it was actually possible, everybody doubled their efforts and happily helped, even the elders and small children wanted to participate.

Until now, everything they built was left behind, but this would be theirs. Even though they would leave it after a month, the tunnel would still belong to them and it would forever represent their abilities, something that not even the Kingdom could build. Unfortunately, in the end, their tunnel might not even be of use.

At this time, Diana arrived, riding in a wind horse, with information about the river’s extension, and from her sad expression, the Councilors could already guess the bad news. After discovering the river, she summoned an emergency Council meeting. Because of the severity of the problem, the Councilors decided to see it by themselves while Diana looked for a way around it. In less than a day, the mounted Councilwoman rode many kilometers along the river in both directions.

After handling the reins of the beast to another hunter, she approached the Councilors to give her report.

“I’m sorry… I rode for more than 20 kilometers in both directions and the river barely changes size. It’s probably like we imagined, the river is born in the mountains and meets with the main river at the south…”

The report finished burying their hopes of using the tunnel, they would need to do a broader search but chances were they would need to go around the mountains and dismiss the tunnel, after all, to the south they would meet the main river and to the north, they would be nearing the energy vein.

“What’s the narrowest part of the river close to here?”

The Councilors turned their attention to Karl, who was until now strangely silent. Some of them could already guess what he was thinking, but it would be impossible with their abilities, unless…

“Hmm… I didn’t pay attention to the width of the river, but there’s a narrow part a couple of kilometers south… I would have to check it again, but it looked shorter than 100 meters…”

Karl ignored the inquisitive stares and kept pondering.

“It could work… What if we build a bridge there? A detour of two kilometers is still acceptable…”

Most Councilors had complicated expressions, unsure if he was being naïve or if he would have an Alchemy solution for it. Although they all knew what a bridge was, building it wouldn’t be that easy. Anyway, this was Karl and they wouldn’t dare to say it was impossible, not anymore. When he noticed the stares, he could only laugh uncomfortably before adding:

“I might have any idea... But we need to take a technical approach to solve this problem… Alfeur, what do you know about building a bridge?”

“Eh… I’m sorry but father never taught me anything about it… Though I could guess some things… I know the simpler bridges are usually made of rope and wood, probably to give it some bending resistance to handle the weight without breaking… It would need a foundation too…”

Alfeur initially thought he wouldn’t have anything to say about it, but ideas and construction considerations kept pouring from his mind. The idea seemed much more plausible now.

“What if we use…”

***

Arnold was thrilled when he learned they would be delaying their departure for three days. His tests on the ore were finally baring some fruits. Initially, he only classified it as iron because of the identifying tool Karl built for him, which could identify specific metal signatures as long as a reference was provided. However, the metal clearly had different properties from common iron.

The appearance of magically modified ores wasn’t uncommon, he had even worked on some of them before, but this was his first time working on the best samples. Usually, the best-enhanced ores would be taken by nobles, so Keller could only get what remained.

The testes only started after Arnold managed to melt the ore, which took a very high temperature. But once forged, he could finally verify the hardness, resistance, weight, sharpening limits and other properties. The first observation confirmed his suspicions, the metal was lighter than common iron. Unsurprisingly, in all of the other tests, the metal had better performance than common iron, which was expected from an enhanced metal. So, the only negative points would be the high working temperature and difficulty to forge.

The enhanced metal would make great elite weapons, maybe they could even find enough to forge weapons for all the hunters. Arnold was very excited, so he looked for Karl to share the good news, the trip wouldn’t delay his work by much since the Alchemist was usually in a cave room near Arnold’s.

After finding the Councilman and telling him about his progress, Arnold ended becoming a little disappointed. Not that he was expecting the boy to give him a prize or jump from excitement, but Karl seemed oddly uninterested, which wasn’t his usual reaction when discussing blacksmithing with him. Arnold had a straightforward personality so didn’t hesitate to ask him about the lack of interest.

“It’s great that you found an enhanced metal to improve our weapons, this could save more lives and increase our strength. So, don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful for your work. It’s just that my expectations were more in new methods than new resources. My mother always says that resources are king, in her opinion, as long as we have enough resources everything is possible. However, I see it from another perspective, precisely because we have limited resources we need to find methods to be less dependent on resources. Look at the magic tunnel, it’s so big yet it uses fewer crystals than some hunting teams. I’m not excited by the metal discovery because it’s not a new method to improve your forging. Although it’s helpful, it can only give us so much…”

The boy’s answer completely changed Arnold’s view on the accomplishment. He didn’t need to consider too much before making a decision, he would double his efforts to come up with something that would surprise the boy, and then, he wouldn’t be able to deny a request for more forging tools.