Fate Alchemist - A Regression Academy LitRPG

Wulf emerged front he storage pendant with his potion in-hand. Kalee blinked in shock, probably taken aback by the speed that he'd emerged.

But there wasn't any time to waste. He closed his storage pendant, stuffed it back in his haversack, then brought his potion up to his lips. Wincing, he drank it, expecting it to taste terrible—like pure vinegar.

It didn't. It was sweet, almost like fruit juice, with a faint undertone that he couldn't place. It was like chimney smoke mixed with Artificing solvents, and that wasn't super pleasant, either. But it was better than slurping down a bottle of vinegar.

He drank it all. A mild strength flooded into his veins, but where it really shined was in speed. In a few steps, he circled around the cockpit, crossing three times the distance in a single step. It was fast. He just had to get back to his golem and the control apparatus.

"Hold on!" Kalee shouted.

"Can you help me get back to the golem?" he asked.

"I've got an idea of my own!" she called. "Gravity."

"Can you reverse it?"

"Only in small spots, and with immense cost. I haven't figured out how to transmit reversals through an Oronith yet, but I'll be working on it."

Wulf nodded hesitantly.

Kalee reached for a construct. "After this, I've only got two more. That means I'll only be able to use two more attacks."

"Just go!" Wulf called. "Seith and Irmond are still out there!"

Kalee consumed the construct. It disintegrated into a puff of orange sparks. A runic circle appeared above the control harness, and Wulf immediately fell up toward it. His stomach rose, and a disorienting feeling unlike any he'd ever felt before filled him. It made him want to throw up more than any nausea potion could.

Then he hit his golem, and Kalee cut off the spell Skill. He rammed his arm into one of the sockets and closed the chest panels around himself. There was still enough potion remaining in his small golem to activate with [Arm of the Alchemist].

Throwing aside caution, he rammed the dream socket back into his neck, and his will flooded back through the Wraith. The dream-link shone bright, and its mana surged, lighting the floor of the ocean with a faint magenta light. It didn't strain as much, it didn't pull as much on his core, and it didn't demand as much concentration.

Either he was getting better at it, or advancing his tier had helped. As usual, it was probably both.

The dream-link locked with his golem. Its arms resisted him, and once more, a pressure emerged on his back, signifying the fiend's foot pressing into his back, trying to hold him down and drown him.

Now he had the strength to fight it. Shouting, he pushed his arms down. Mana sparks rained from the ceiling, lighting the cockpit magenta, and stone strained. There was a crack from somewhere, and it echoed through the Oronith's body. The sheets of enchanted parchment hanging throughout the cockpit flared up with warnings and technical readouts. He'd never understood what half of it meant anyway.

There was only one important message:

[Silent Wraith (Low-Silver Tier Oronith) has activated. Systems diagnostic complete. Overall body integrity: 55%]

His enemy was the equivalent of a Low-Gold. He'd begun closing the gap. Wraith had gotten stronger with his help.

Still, he could feel how his Oronith was reacting. It wasn't as physically strong as he was used to, and he'd never win an arm-wrestle with a fiend. But it wasn't expecting a sudden burst of strength pushing up against its leg.

It gave him just enough leeway.

Leveraging his speed, he pushed to the side, then sprang up to the surface, breaking the surface of the ocean. Waves sloshed everywhere, water poured out the cracks in Wraith's outer shell, and the mana-lights flared bright white, lighting the waves once more. He couldn't focus on any of the other fiends and Oroniths fighting, only on his one target.

"Are you guys alright?" Wulf asked through the communication construct. "Seith, Irmond? You guys there?"

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

"I'm alive!" Irmond called back, sputtering and coughing.

"I'm here!" Seith added. "But you've taken some good hits. And…there's something odd happening. I…I haven't studied this yet, but the joints are loosening up. It's like the Field is helping us move faster!"

Normally, speed wouldn't affect an Oronith much. Strength was more important for Pilots, or so they always said, and so Wulf had always thought. But there was something different about Wraith. Almost like his potions, it had a desire of its own—that must've been the mountain spirit at its core.

Mountain giants—and the spirits they developed—weren't all the same. Not all Oroniths could be massive hulking brawlers, though most were. But that meant they would benefit from different attributes. Wraith's mountain spirit wanted to go faster, and Wulf transmitted the idea across the dream-link. The Field was what gave him the extra speed anyway, so he could convince the Field to give Wraith the same benefit.

He stepped to the side. This time, the Wraith didn't push back against his limbs as much. The bonded golem didn't resist him as much. It was still a slow, lumbering beast, in comparison to a human's actions, but it was faster than before, and that was all that mattered.

The fiend swung its club again, but this time, Wulf ducked under it. He surged forward. His mana was depleting faster than ever, and he wouldn't have all the time in the world, but he could still manage this. He struck the fiend under the chin with a fist, then slammed the bladeless hilt of one of the former obsidian daggers into the beast's forehead. It staggered back, and the club slipped out of its hand.

Before Wulf could continue the attack, the fiend's wing whipped around and struck him in the shoulder. He staggered to the side, and in the darkness, lost sight of the fiend. A wave surged over the cockpit visor.

"Wulf, watch out!" Irmond shouted through the communication construct.

It was too late. Something impacted him from the side. The fiend caught his arm and bent it back, then, like a hammer-thrower, spun around. Wraith lifted out of the water. Stone groaned, and the world whirled below.

"Kalee, can you hit him?" Wulf called.

"I can't get a good target!"

The fiend released its grip on Wraith's arm, and they tumbled through the air, flying over the water and smashing through a row of the harbour's gantry cranes. He rolled sideways across the port, crushing wagons and flattening a warehouse, before the world finally stopped spinning. Staggering to his feet, he arose just in time to see the fiend charging toward him.

A tidal wave washed ashore ahead of it. It had picked up its club again, and was preparing a swing.

Wulf ducked aside as the club smashed down, cracking through the wharf and sending shards of stone flying for miles. The backswing, however, raked across his chest, dislodging a panel. It crashed through a massive berthed cargo hauler, cleaving the ship in half.

Wulf bent down. With Wraith's fingers functional again, he dropped the hilts of the short swords, then picked up half of the sinking cargo ship. In Wraith's hands, it was barely the size of a kitchen knife, but when he slammed it into the fiend's head, it smashed apart into a burst of wood and sawdust. Beams poked out the side of the demon's head, and it howled—a mast stuck out of its eye.

The fiend pounced, launching Wulf back, but Kalee triggered a spell beneath them, keeping them on their feet as they slid back along the road. Wraith's deepstone feet dug up a trench down the road's center, and his knee created a burst of sparks as it slid. The tall guild towers of downtown rose up around him, and the fiend kept pushing, trying to knock him flat on his back.

He triggered [Slither]. If there was any time to test the skill, it was now. Immediately, his limbs brimmed with strength. He didn't need the poison resistance.

With a shout, he gripped the fiend's wrists and lifted, then batted its club aside, sending it tumbling down a side street. It smashed through a guild tower.

"Body integrity dropping to forty percent!" Seith warned. "I'm making all the repairs I can, but if you don't deal with this guy soon, we're going to be dust, and the mountain spirit inside Wraith is going to die!"

At those words, a faint pulse of fear and sorrow leaked in through the back of Wulf's neck. He couldn't explain why, but he knew it came from outside him.

"I'm working on it," he called. By his own reckoning, he only had a quarter of his mana left. "Kalee, you think we can end this?"

"If this goes on much longer, there's not going to be much of a city left to protect," she replied.

"I'll take that as a yes."

"I'll hold it as best I can. Hit it hard."

"Got it." Wulf didn't know how hard he could truly hit something using Wraith, considering it seemed designed for stabbing things, not punching, but Wulf couldn't deny his own past, either. He had an idea.

First, he pushed the fiend to the side. It staggered, and blasted through the corner of a thirty-story guild tower complex. Kalee increased gravity beneath it, stalling it for a second—long enough for Wulf to sprint around behind it and grab its chin and the back of its neck.

Shouting with exertion, he shifted his grip up to the back of the fiend's head. "Kalee, drop the spell!"

"Will do!"

Wulf twisted the fiend's neck, moving as fast as he could, relying on the quick burst of movement rather than raw strength. A crack echoed through his hands, but it wasn't the Wraith breaking this time. The fiend's neck snapped, and the beast slumped forward. Its forehead cracked down to the road, smashing through the meridian and toppling a palm tree.

"Is it dead?" Irmond asked.

"That's your call," Wulf replied. "See any signs of life, Ranger?"

"The smoke is stopping, the fires are dimming…it's gone!"

"I…can't believe we're still alive…" Seith muttered.

"It's not over yet," Wulf said, turning back toward the shore and the battle off the coast. "They're still fighting out there."