Fate Alchemist - A Regression Academy LitRPG

Wulf raced to Seith's office. As a third-year artificer, the academy granted her a dedicated office space above the Artificers' Labs. She had to share it with three other Artificers, but there were enough desks for them to work at, as well as a wall lined with drawers, a tool rack, and a garbage chute.

When Wulf arrived, Seith was, thankfully, the only one present. Her officer mates were all somewhere else, but she was tinkering with one of her climbing picks. When she fuelled the runes, it folded up into a small cylinder, easy to hang from a belt.

"What do you need?" Seith asked, looking up from her work.

"I—wait, why do you think I need something?" He tilted his head and leaned against the office doorframe.

"You look like that when you need something," she said.

Wulf sighed. "Alright, alright. I've got these constructs. Well, almost constructs. Kalee said she didn't have the right kinds of mana to finish them off. Also I brought an offering, so that's gotta count for something."

"I'm always looking for something new to craft," Seith said. "Or at least…take credit for. In the eyes of the Field."

Wulf chuckled. "Very well. He reached into his haversack and plunked the three cylinders down on her desk. They had a coppery coating, and it wasn't obvious what they were, except for the socket on the top for intaking mana and the socket on the bottom for exporting it. There were no runes on the outside.

Seith examined them. "These are…amazing. By the Field…you guys aren't even going to need me."

"But we do," Wulf said. "Aside from the fact that Kalee won't be any good for working on the outside of Wraith, we still need your expertise in actually fuelling the construct."

"But I thought your Class allowed you to do that."

"It allows me to fuel the main function once the construct is complete," he said. "But these constructs require a constant…base loop of mana to even be considered complete. That's what Kalee said."

Seith nodded. "I see."

"What you actually have to do right here is a mystery to me, as well. Especially when it comes to a water-aspect Artificer."

Wulf hadn't talked about her aspect much before, but now, he figured he was free and open to do so.

Artificers used a water aspect more often than not. It was the best aspect for fuelling runes, and it had an excellent side effect of creating a permanent loop—it flowed through runes so well, like a river, and if the runes were carved right, you could create a construct whose base functions stayed permanently active. Most Artificers didn't make the entire construct stay active permanently, because then it wouldn't be terribly useful.

But for these constructs, functions like a mana containment field and the mana-exporting tube's shutoff valve needed a permanent supply of water-aspect mana.

Seith tinkered with the constructs for a few minutes. She pulled them out of their cases, then added a few touches of water-mana to them, before finally, all the three constructs began glowing blue—a thin line around the central galactum orb, and a line around the top and bottom nozzles.

"Should be done…" Seith muttered. "But the Field isn't registering them as complete."

Wulf looked down at his bracer to make sure, and she was right.

Then, a second later, he shook his head. "Oh. I'm an Field-foresaken idiot. We just need to put them back in their canisters and seal them."

They slid the constructs back into their outer coppery cases, hiding the glowing runes, and finally, a pulse of resonance shuddered off all three of them, making the air boom. Wulf's fingers tingled, and he could feel an arcane weight seeping off them.

"And there you go!" Seith exclaimed. "That…oh, wow."

Wulf held out his arm and assessed them with the Field. First, a message appeared, reading:

[By using alchemy to participate in the creation of a construct, you have increased your mana. Advancement progress: 58.3%]

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Then, the enchanted parchment shifted, and it read:

Star Hearts (Unique)

A trio of constructed crafted by a dedicated team. Together, they can store the equivalent of a Middle-Ruby's entire core strength.

When mana is withdrawn from these constructs, they grant the user a temporary increase in perception. When mana from these constructs is held in the user's core for more than a week, it grants the user a permanent but subtle increase in durability proportional to the amount of mana withdrawn, even if the mana is used later. This bonus stacks up to double the user's current strength and durability at the time of the first mana withdrawal. All three Hearts must be used at the same time to receive this bonus.

The storage limit increases with each use.

They will only function for the acknowledged team of those who created it.

Wulf stared at the three. It was a complex description, but he was already getting ideas on how to mess with it. He looked at Seith and said, "Don't store any mana in them."

"Why?" she asked. "Is something wrong? Did they break? They look really good to me."

"They look amazing," Wulf said. "Which is why we need to get the most out of them. Don't even think about using them until I make you a strength and durability potion—and the same goes for all four of us."

Seith tilted her head, scrunched her eyebrows, then nodded. "Oh. You're going to set our current strength and durability insanely high when we use them the first time?"

"Exactly." He grinned. "And then all you have to do is withdraw mana, hold it, and you'll enhance your baseline strength and durability so much more than normal. Than anyone else without an Alchemist on their team."

Seith nodded. "Alright, but you better go tell Kalee this. And Irmond. Actually, you know what, I'll go find Irmond. We'll have a meeting in the common room."

A half-hour later, they'd gathered in their dorm floor's common room, and Wulf showed the four of them the constructs. Irmond's mouth gaped, and Kalee raised her eyebrows. "I knew they were going to be good," she said. "But I wasn't expecting that good."

"Me neither," Wulf said. Then he explained the same thing to them as he had to Seith. "All four of us can use them."

"But you're the only one of us who can, like, create mana out of nothing," Irmond said.

"Sure," Wulf said. "But that means I'll just refill them for you guys. We should work on our storage cores, and we should all seek to expand our cores as much as we can before we get to silver and lock ourselves in."

"Why not just…intake the mana into our main cores?" Seith asked. "Advance to Ruby at least. Probably in a single withdrawal, right?"

Wulf shook his head. "You could do that. But that should only be a last resort. Really. If you just take in a bunch of raw mana to your main core, integrate it into the main core's material, and just hope that you'll be fine? Well, the Field won't know what to do when you advance. Your skill upgrades will be off, and the Knowledge Paths we get at gold will be completely wrong—nevermind that you won't have time to properly develop them."

He didn't really know what the Knowledge Paths actually were, but he'd hear about them plenty in his past life. It was something that Ascendants got at the Gold tier, and it helped them become exponentially stronger. But he knew that if you confused the Field and didn't advance according to your purpose, you'd be stifling yourself in the long run.

"Technically, you did that against Umoch," Irmond pointed out, raising a finger. "The younger Umoch. I mean, you absorbed mana from the Wraith in basically the same way."

"I was a Pilot—or close enough—absorbing mana from the device I planned to use for the rest of my life," Wulf said. "This is different…maybe not in mechanism, but in simple…well, feeling."

"I suppose," Seith said.

"If it's any consolation, I won't be using that method, either. We have to go quickly, yes, but we can't go recklessly. I'll make potions, and once I've gotten enough Strength-enhancing potions, we can begin using the construct."

"Can we…you know, use multiple potions?" Irmond asked. "At once?"

"Only so much that the ingested material won't shred our bodies with its raw arcane strength," Kalee said. "But I expect, knowing Wulf, he's going to push it."

"Then he better go first," Seith said. "And he gets to use the construct first."

Wulf snorted. "I'm more than happy to be the test subject. But then you guys have to keep up."

~ ~ ~

The next few weeks of classes and lectures passed smoothly. He went about his day as efficiently as he could, maintaining his routines, learning and practicing—and keeping himself in as best condition as possible.

In the evenings, he always worked on his potions. He was aiming for powerful potions, that being High-Gold, or around there, so he had to let them be random (he needed the extra tier bonus).

But he was going to need them for his first tournament fight. According to the rankings, in the High Bracket, he was going up against a Silver, and the odds were against him, nearly ten to one.

They should've learned, though. Betting against him was usually a bad plan, even the odds displayed a bad ranking. He'd had worse and still come through.

This was going to be an embarrassing night for someone, and he hoped it wasn't him. If he lost, Terrence was going to get his way immediately, and then he was done for.

Which was why he was going to use all his potions, and frankly, everything he knew. He had a plan, and he'd discussed this with Irmond.

Tonight was going to be the night where he set his baseline in the Star Hearts.