Fate Alchemist - A Regression Academy LitRPG

Combat class was nothing special. It took place after lunch, and the expectation was that they'd learn to fight in pairs, now. Same as his dream-links, they had to enroll with their crew, or people who they expected to be on a team with—which meant that he teamed up with Kalee. It was somewhat unusual to be fighting side-by-side with her, considering how many combat classes they'd spent sparring against each other.

Their instructor was named Dr. Long. He wore a robe that covered half his body, leaving the other side bare, and carried a staff—he was a Mage. His rank badge put him at High-Gold, which was still more than enough to put all the students in their places while he demonstrated.

"This class," he said, "will be more strenuous than you are likely used to. You will learn to coordinate with those you fight alongside. You will notice that only Mages and Pilots are present, which is intentional—other combat classes have been reserved for your Ranger and Artificer friends."

They also donned weighted armbands and legbands to simulate the strain of pushing against your dream-link. The armbands were much heavier than Wulf was used to with Wraith, but it wasn't really the right feeling, anyway.

An Oronith resisted your movement, and you pushed against the smaller golem inside, but you didn't feel weighed down, like you'd just strapped ten bars of steel to each of your arms. But apparently, Dr. Long had been doing this with third years for his entire career, and he wasn't about to stop now—not even when Wulf mentioned the practical concerns.

"It builds strength and character," he insisted.

Wulf didn't protest anymore, simply because he figured Dr. Long was right on the strength part. They needed to get used to fighting with weights on.

After combat class, Wulf and Kalee retreated to the common room on their floor of the dormitories. They'd moved between years, and now, Wulf, Irmond, Seith, and Kalee were on the same floor. It was closer to the top of the wing, and more light filtered into the common room—plus, there were more chairs and couches, and the vents to get rid of the brazier's smoke worked better.

Irmond and Seith, however, were still attending an afternoon class. Some sort of lab for Seith, and archery practice for Irmond.

The common room was mostly empty. There were a few stragglers studying something in the corner, but Wulf didn't pay attention to them. None of them were Rangers, and they didn't have good enough senses to hear him and Kalee talking.

Still, he kept his voice low when he said, "So what do we need to make powerful storage constructs?"

"We're going to need a mana-proof metal," she said. "Regular metals are alright for storing mana, but they're not perfect, and they usually have some kind of leeching problem." She reached into her bag and retrieved a small notebook, then flipped a few pages in, before stopping at a sketch. "I came up with a preliminary design."

Instead of a spherical construct, she'd designed a cylinder with a spherical core at its center. It had a hollow core, and the rest of the space was taken up by other components. Coils, tubes, tetrahedral insulation. He didn't pretend to know what it did.

"You can make all this?" he asked.

"Sort of," Kalee said. "I'll need Seith to do some of the smaller etching, I think. But we still have a date in the artificers' labs tonight?"

"If you're still up for it."

There was, of course, the problem of stealing from the academy—and the problems it would cause if they got caught—but he pushed that to the back of his mind. With the demon attacks ramping up, they were on a schedule, and they could take a few risks.

"So, mana-leeching," Wulf said. "That core part, that's what needs to hold the mana, right? That's the part that we want to use to hold mana? And if we fill it with too much mana, it'll leech into the metal, get unstable, and collapse the entire construct?"

"Exactly. Do you still have the old constructs?"

Wulf reached into his haversack and pulled them out. The three mana storage spheres she'd made for him in their first year. Or, that he traded her for. "Still been using them, and they still work like a charm."

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"Excellent," Kalee said. "I was thinking we'd upgrade them. Or build upon them. We're going to have to destroy lots of the components, though, and rip them apart from the ground up."

You couldn't usually just upgrade a construct. Once the Field marked it as complete, unless it was Unique-quality and had some way of upgrading itself, it was as good as finished. But…

"Now, maybe we don't have to go that far," Wulf said. "If I transmuted the metal of the original constructs—preferrably something that won't leech mana—I'll be able to destroy the construct in the eyes of the Field. It won't be the same anymore, it will just be a component."

"Which I can use to make the better storage constructs," Kalee said.

"Exactly."

"So it's a plan?"

Wulf nodded. "It's a plan. I'll meet you outside the Artificer's Labs at sundown."

She leaned back on the couch and rubbed her forehead. "This hybrid Class…it's powerful, don't get me wrong. But it also feels like I'm split in two. I can fight well if I have constructs to consume, but I can't consume as many constructs if I just don't have constructs. Wait…that doesn't make sense. But the point is, I don't have very many artificing Skills, so I can't create as high quality constructs. My spell Skills in turn are falling off with effectiveness."

"I sorta get it," Wulf said. He grimaced. "How exactly does it work? There has to be a way we can break your Class, right? I mean, break it in a good way."

"Has to be?"

"Well…" He chuckled. "The Field is good. But there's no point in it being balanced, either. It wants us to save it. Our interests align."

"Then why not just send us back in time, funnel all its mana directly into us, give us world-cleansing, or even just city-levelling Skills, and make us Orichalcums?"

Wulf shrugged. "The Field isn't all-powerful. It's a system of managing the old ways of magic. But old magic still required us to learn, improve, and grow—no one was just born talented. If you were to just cram a bunch of power inside us…well, aside from the fact that we might melt, or maybe would explode from the sudden intake of mana, I figure we'd just not be as powerful. We'd be strong, sure. We'd do fine. But would we be strong enough to save the world?"

"So it took a risk on us," Kalee said. "That by starting us off low, with Classes that could be broken and…well, frankly, extremely powerful if you put in the right effort, we'd use them, grow, and stop the demons from destroying the world it thrives upon?"

"Yeah," Wulf said. "So, let's think. What are your artificing Skills?"

"Well, I have one, like yours," she said. "It's passive. My concentration and focus improve for every person around me under the effect of a spell Skill, as well as my carving speed. It'll let me make smaller runes and better carvings, sure, or attach mana-wires better and add just the right amount of solvent in the right places. But if I use one of my skills as an Iron, I'm going to do serious damage to the building, and frankly, those I'm using the skill on. No offense to you."

"None taken. I'm not exactly looking to get crushed in a gravity well, and I'm pretty sure your Skills would still damage me." He paused. "But there are ways to weaken it, no? The person just has to be under the effect of your gravity Skills, not under the effect of the strongest Skill you can muster."

She considered for a moment, then nodded.

"How do you make a spell Skill weaker?" he asked. "Because you can do that, right? You can use different incantations and such?"

"I could use an improper incantation," she said. "One not meant for a projection spell, but rather…well, like an attack spell."

"I don't know the difference between spell classes," Wulf said. "I'm no Mage."

"Suffice it to say, that'd probably work."

"Would it be weak enough?" he asked. "And…could we still make it weaker?"

"The scale of the skill depends on the size of the runes on the construct I use. Bigger runes makes a bigger spell Skill."

He'd seen her make large runic circles to enhance gravity, but then, that had also been with the help of an Oronith to enhance her powers. But this gave him an idea.

Wulf's eyes lit up, and he grinned. "Alright, so, hear me out. What's the least amount of runes you can put on a construct and make it function?"

"A mana-light," she said. "Basic mana-lights only need a single rune. You carve a specific rune in a sheet of metal, fuel it, and it glows bright. Sure, you can modify it, but the point remains the same."

"Alright," Wulf said. "So you make a mana-light. Take a single sheet of crappy metal, something rusty and thin, like lab-waste. Put the largest rune you can on it, then consume it. You get a massive but incredibly weak runic circle, but you also end up with everyone in that circle's radius feeding into your passive."

"You might be onto something," she said. "Let's try it. We're gonna replace Seith tonight?" She chuckled.

"Hopefully not," Wulf said. "We still need her to make Oronith repairs, and I don't think you'll ever focus on that aspect of Artificing."

"No, no," Kalee said. "But now, won't people see the runic circle?"

"Depends how weak it is," Wulf said. "But that's in your hands now."

"Tonight, then," she said. "Outside the Artificers' Labs. Let's test this out."

Wulf nodded and gave her a smile. "We're going to figure out how to make your class work, and that's a promise."