Fate Alchemist - A Regression Academy LitRPG

Wulf raised a hand, reaching for his scissors, but Umoch shook his head. The boy said, "None of that. Please."

"You sound different." Wulf didn't quite lower his hand, but it did flinch away from his weapon. "You built all of this? Why?"

"Because you would need it." Umoch gave a faint smile, then beckoned Wulf over to a table down in the main hall, away from the lectern and altar. "And it was easy enough. People out here were looking for something to believe in."

Cautiously, Wulf took a seat. He didn't sense anything from Umoch. Was the boy a non-Ascendant? Reduced to an empty husk? And he didn't sense anything from any of the other members of the Order, either.

"If you built this for me, why did you ask what I was doing here?" Wulf asked.

"I didn't expect you to come looking for me."

"What, you go and spread rumours about me, saying the craziest things, and expect that I don't eventually come looking for you?"

"...Yes."

Wulf narrowed his eyes. "You haven't changed at all, Umoch. You're still crazy."

"Valens. Call me Valens. I'm no longer a member of my family, anyway."

"Did you hear anything I said, Valens?"

"A little." He folded his hands together. "You never told me what you were doing here."

"And you did?"

"Fine, then. I shall take the high ground." Umoch—or Valens—shook his head. "Your potion showed me the truth. When you erased my connection to the Field, everything became so much clearer. Your true nature, my true purpose, how to rebuild my magic. And how to set others on the right path."

"What would that be?"

"[Sage]."

The way he said it assured Wulf that it was a Class of some kind. There was a deep reverence in his voice, and a level of intensity that someone only took when they were talking about their advancement.

Wulf scratched the back of his head, then angled his new bracer and enchanted parchment toward Valens. "Do you mind if I try to assess you with the Field? Just to see what it says?"

"Be my guest."

Wulf tried to scan Valens, the way he would detect the specific tier of any other monster. Nothing happened. The Field didn't react at all.

"What…"

"You did most of the work for me," Valens said. "By severing my connection to the Field, you allowed me to take this route."

"Do you still have magic?" Wulf asked.

"Yes, but I am more like a wizard of old. My power cannot be ranked with the Field, and I cannot compare to any modern Ascendant. Besides, my abilities are not useful in combat. I have been blessed with sight."

"You've got good eyes?"

"Truly, you are daft. The Field picked a horrible champion."

"Yeah, I've thought that at some points too." Wulf rolled his eyes. Valens really hadn't changed all that much. "So, lemme guess. You're some sort of seer, looking into the future and making guesses?" Wulf glanced around at the other members of the order, at their pitch-black, empty eyes—which Valens did not share. "Some kind of void magic, maybe? I'm not as stupid as I look sometimes."

"Fate," Valens said.

Wulf sighed. "Care to explain?"

"I can look into the river of Fate. My magic does not let me fight, and neither does it help the other members of my Order. But it allows us to look into Fate. Do you know what the Cords are?"

"I've heard them mentioned in passing."

"They are the most basic strands that make up our universe. Deeper than the Field, deeper than your notions of order and chaos and Primal Material—Primal Material is the foundation of all matter, yes, but the Field determines its behaviour. The Field is a tapestry of woven Cords. But all across the universe, even on worlds where there is no Field, the Cords act as the determiner of reality—the most basic, deepest law of the universe."

Wulf nodded. "So they determine the past and future?"

"They run through everything, constantly moving, constantly shifting. They get woven together, forming your past. You unknowingly melted my Cords with your potion, severing me from my past. You poured so much rage and intensity, so much willingness to get your revenge and create justice, into your potion, that it was able to alter my Cords. Now, I can only see the future."

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Valens reached across the table, then motioned to Wulf's haversack. "You managed the same with a few of your vials, didn't you? Fate determines where we are born, who our parents are, in what walk of life, and what we look like. It determines whether a substance is resistant to magic or not, like steelglass—which you altered. But it cannot determine exactly what we do in life."

"Then how can you look into the future? Or…did you just make that up?"

"By looking at the Cords, I can see many possibilities. Hundreds of Cords are flowing into you, and only some of them will ever get woven into the big strand of your past. But I can also look into the future of those Cords, pick the most likely, and read it to see where it will go."

"What's my future, then?"

"That's the funny thing," Valens said, cracking a small smile. "Your little party's future is the only one whose Cords I cannot even begin to touch."

"You could give me something helpful, couldn't you?" Wulf tilted his head. "This is to help me, right? To help me save the world?"

"Then you must answer me: what are you doing here?"

Wulf chuckled softly. "I did get a little sidetracked, didn't I? I came here to ask you about Panne's original writings, and if you knew where they were."

"We're looking for them."

Wulf raised his eyebrows. "Really?"

"Truly."

But a moment later, his heart sank. "People have been looking for his writings for thousands of years. What makes you think you could do better?"

"Because my sages can see as I do. His writings will attach to you with the Cords, and when we sense that connection, we will find it. I've already sent out my best volunteers, and they are searching the world for the writings you need to become truly great."

Wulf nodded slowly. "Thank you, then." He grimaced. "Are you looking for something in return?"

"You have my word, and I swear it on the Field: I will not withhold Panne's writings from you when we do find them."

Wulf glanced down at his bracer. Nothing happened. It didn't shift. No words scrawled across it, no message about detecting a Field pact or anything. He glanced at Valens suspiciously.

"You can't make a Field pact anymore, can you?" Wulf asked.

"No, I cannot. But I hoped it would set you at ease." He crossed his arms. "We are the only people who can help you, at the moment, and we are your only chance of finding Panne's writings. And considering the weight they hold in the Cords, I'd say they are incredibly important for whatever you plan to do."

"How have you stayed hidden this long? How have you made other sages?"

"The Cords, and the Cords," Valens said. "We will not be found by anyone who we don't want to find us. The city guards have been looking, but we know when they will come, and when they arrive, no one is ever here. To make another sage is simple—I must sever their Cords. It was a difficult process at first, but in time, my ability improved. They were never going to amount to much without me, being Coppers and Bronzes, but I can give them worth."

"Why help me?"

"Because I live on this world. Because I do not want to die."

"Oddly…normal for someone who calls himself a sage and claims to have touched a big massive expansive void of all-seeingness."

Valens snorted. "I've seen what we are. When all my worldly trifles have been erased, it puts things into perspective. There is only entropy and destruction, and then life—the short-lived and foolhardy struggle against it. We're a tiny speck in an ocean of nothing, and it's so incredibly precious. To let my life and my planet's life be destroyed would be such a shameful destruction of something so rare."

"But…"

"But what? The Orichalcums? There are people here who we would be better off not saving, yes. Most of it, however, is worth it. As a whole, we are not worse than the demons. There is a world out there worth saving."

Wulf nodded. He couldn't disagree with any of that. "Well, your sight has certainly improved."

"I have changed."

"If you find Panne's writings, then…will you contact me?"

"Return to me at the end of summer, when you are a Gold. I will have your sacred texts by then."

Wulf dipped his head. "Thank you, Valens."

"Thank you for showing me the way, even if you did it unintentionally. You could have killed me, and many others would have. I would have deserved it."

Wulf rolled his lips inward, considered for a second, then said, "No, no. Your father would've deserved it, and probably his father, and his father before him, for making monster after monster."

"That was my Fate. You broke me out of it." Valens stood up and walked around the edge of the table. "Wulf, you are not meant to walk with Fate. You're not meant to rely on luck, hoping that your potions work out. You are built to defy Fate."

He nodded. "Yeah, I suppose…hey, so you're like…an Oracle? An actual one?"

"We're better. We're much more practical. We don't require sacrifices, we don't require a year's worth of mana for a half-baked prediction."

"Can you tell me where the demons' stronghold is?"

"I can tell you where the Cords are leading. I can tell you the general area to search. Our drawback is the time it takes to make a prediction on such a scale. We can make readings of the future, to detect a threat, and we can do it more often than an oracle. The farther away something is, the more difficult it is to predict. By the time you get more than a week out, there are so many potential Cords that any prediction is a gamble."

"I don't need to know the future," Wulf said. Then, he thought, I'm not sure if I can trust you to tell the truth, anyway. After a few seconds, he said aloud, "I just need to know the general location of the demons."

"At the end of your exam break, I will leave a note in your dorm room telling you what I found."

"Thanks."

After a few seconds of thought, Wulf left the Order's hall, then stepped out into the streets. It would take a little while to process what he'd just learned.

Whether Valens was right about anything…well, at least now, Wulf had a way forward. That was all he could ask for.