Fate Alchemist - A Regression Academy LitRPG

The first floor of the dungeon was almost the same as what Wulf remembered. Hanging vines, glowing berries, and rooms filled with larger beasts, or hordes of smaller ones. The beasts were all Middle- to High-Silver, and they didn't put up much of a fight.

After all, Wraith was registering as a High-Silver, and Athllas' Rex Despotes was a Middle-Silver.

Wulf had beaten creatures like this over a year ago. He didn't stop to assess their remains—his goal was to get to the second level as quickly as he could.

The dungeon had regrown slightly, too. Aside from replenishing its monsters, new vines crawled up the walls, and the hanging vines and glowing berries that the demons had smoked out were coming back to life.

Along the way, he shared the plan with Athllas. The boy hesitated for a moment, then finally, he said, "I won't say a word. You do what you have to. But it'll make a bad impression for the future if I prioritize myself and bend the rules."

Wulf considered that for a moment. Athllas had to look just and fair, and if he deviated from the course, took rooms he wasn't supposed to, it'd definitely look bad.

On the other hand, Wulf himself couldn't just abandon his plan, nor could he give up his own opportunities.

The way the academy was going, those with initiative were going to pull ahead.

Besides, his plan shouldn't intersect with other routes.

[By my judgement,] Wraith said inside his and Kalee's mind, [your route will remain clear and will not interfere with the other students or deprive them of resources. If we move quickly, no one will know it was you.]

"And you're ready to modify the information you send back to the codex?" Wulf asked.

[I am ready. I will make it appear to them as if we have stayed on the correct route.]

No one else had an Oronith with an awakened spirit yet, and third years almost never did. Wulf, of course, had only told Dr. Arnau about it, and she hadn't spread the word.

"How much did you have to pay the fourth years to tell you where the monsters you wanted were?" Athllas asked.

"They didn't even know I was listening," Wulf said. "A handy sense-enhancing potion, and a couple hours spent outside the fourth years' common room after their dungeon expedition, and I picked up what I needed to know." The fourth years got to delve into the dungeon earliest in the semester, and of course, a few of them had an inkling of what the other monsters were. Wulf put together an idea in his mind.

"Turn left," Irmond said. He was the only one paying attention to the map, and being a ranger, his own vambrace linked up to the academy's codex as well.

Wulf followed the instruction, arriving at the opening in the floor that led down to the next level of the dungeon.

"And there it is," he said. "You're ready?"

"Ready as I'll ever be," Athllas replied. "Never been this deep before."

"You'll love it," Wulf said.

"Really?"

"Actually, I have no idea." He shrugged, and Wraith did the same. "It's not horribly different, but you need the mana. You first."

"If you say so," Athllas muttered, then jumped down. He plummeted through a channel of rock and landed in a crouch on the level below. Although his Oronith wasn't nearly as light as the Wraith, its joints held up fine. It was the Oronith of the Centralis 'despotes'—the princes and princesses—and had lasted through many generations. Constant maintenance ensured that its joints were still in top condition.

Once Athllas moved to the side, Wulf jumped down and landed with only a slight bend of his knees to cushion the landing. The stone floor buckled and shuddered, and a cloud of dust rose up around them.

"Seith, anything to worry about?" Wulf asked.

"Joints are looking fine, and aside from that gash across the chest the strandclaw gave you, we're good," she replied. "It's mostly repaired, anyway. I can't make paalchite out of nothing—you'll have to transmute some for us when we get back—but I can rejoin any damaged rune-lines."

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[Tell the little blue one I am thankful,] Wraith said.

"Will do," Wulf replied, and relayed the message.

"I have a name…" Seith mumbled.

[It is more amusing to call her the little blue one.]

"Then this is where we part ways," Athllas said, seemingly ignoring the conversation. "Good luck to all of you."

Wulf hadn't heard anything from the rest of Athllas' crew, but he knew the boy had some of the remaining members of the Lions who hadn't gotten involved with Varl and a powerful artificer. They hadn't said a single word since Wulf had arrived, and that was no coincidence. They'd probably be more comfortable parting ways, anyway.

"You as well," Wulf said. Athllas took a hallway on the left, and Wulf to the right, keeping his arms out and swords ready to face any threats. The maps went blank, refusing to display their location or route.

"Irmond?" Wulf asked. "Your map wouldn't happen to be working, would it?"

"No. It just went blank."

[Apologies, sir,] Wraith said. [It seems that, in my efforts to mask you from the codex, the entire map has gone down, and I cannot display the new route. But all is well. I am transmitting the same location as Athllas, and it will appear as if we never left his side.]

Wulf explained the situation to the others.

"It's a good thing I memorized the route," Irmond said. "Ranger's memory. As usual, I shall be your guide. Yes, yes, Speckles, alright. We shall be your guide. Come on! Follow me." He and his Thrustwing leapt off Wraith's shoulder and fluttered down the hallway ahead.

They were faster than Wraith, but Wulf broke into a sprint. Every so often, Irmond and Speckles flew in a circle, allowing Wulf to catch up.

When they arrived at their first room, Wulf slid to a halt. "There's our first target." The sheets inside the cockpit identified it as:

[Branchling – Low-Gold]

He'd been fighting Low-Gold demons for a while now. It wasn't a huge threat. It was, however, huge.

The Branchling was a tiger made of twisted twigs, vines, and leaves, and though it didn't stand nearly as tall as Wraith, it was longer. Brown and green stripes lined its body. The individual branches and twigs were so small that from a glance, Wulf would've just said it was a tiger in a completely different colour.

It pounced, and he ducked to the side, slashing its neck. He cleaved off a few branches, creating a spray of wooden debris and plant material. But more shifted into place from elsewhere on its body to repair the damage.

For a few minutes, he dodged and danced around the tiger, before finally, it ran out of plant material to replenish the segments it lost. With a final growl, it fell to its side, and the remaining chunks of its body fell into a heap.

"We can't take all of that," Seith said.

"No, and not all of it's useful," Wulf replied. "Irmond, look for something that would make a good bow, and see if you can find anything that would make a good bracer. Seith, see if there's anything down there that would make a good tool."

"There better be," Kalee said. "There's an entire forest of twigs and branches down there, and none of them are thicker than my arm."

"As for me…" Wulf said. "I'm going to see if I can use any of this in a potion."

"Is there a reason not to?" Irmond replied.

"No…not really. Aside from it being a pain to dissolve, and me not wanting to sift out wood chunks. But…ah, well, even if potions don't work out, I can always transmute it." He bent down with Wraith and picked up two handfuls. "Seith, you didn't happen to get the storage compartments functional again, did you?"

[She worked on them,] Wraith confirmed. [I will open them for you.]

Two panels slid open on the side of Wraith's body, where a hollow storage cavity waited. Wulf tucked the handfuls of sticks inside, careful not to overfill it.

Once Seith and Irmond had picked through the debris to their liking, they climbed back onto Wraith, and Wulf set off again.

He followed Irmond's instructions, taking the hallways until they arrived at a room filled with emerald crystals. And an emerald golem—a Low-Gold as well. It reminded him of the viridian golem they'd fought on their first expedition into the dungeon depths, but instead of black crystal, transparent, dark green shards formed its body.

The room was cramped, with sharp shards poking in from the walls and threatening to stab through his head with every movement he made, but the golem itself was no trouble. He wedged his swords into the back of its neck, and Kalee crushed it with a pulse of gravity. Its head popped off, and Wulf snatched its core out, then held it between Wraith's fingers.

The core was a perfect sphere of emerald crystal, untainted by runes. A natural core, not an artificially implanted one. At the very center of the transparent sphere was an even smaller shard of green glass. Between his fingers, it looked about the size of a marble, and was bigger than Wraith's own core.

"Wonderful," Wulf said. "This was my treasure, but…" He looked around the room.

Mining the material from dungeons's structures never went well. You could chop apart its walls for stone, but by the time you brought it back to the surface, most of it would have disintegrated, and you'd only have pebbles left. The same went for most of the crystals. They could gather up some of the golem's crystal body, and that would remain after they pulled it out of the dungeon. Still, they couldn't fill Wraith's compartments too full.

But there'd be something in there to make a proper bracer for himself.

They continued onward through the tunnels. They passed through a few more rooms with monsters they weren't targeting, but they gathered metals—enough to enhance Wraith's pauldrons and armour.

Finally, they arrived in a large, circular chamber, with a new monster in the center. Wulf smelled it from miles away.

[Insect Draugr – Low-Gold]

"There it is," he said to Kalee. "Our last target."