Fate Alchemist - A Regression Academy LitRPG

The Whitesurge river was the widest he'd ever seen, even in his past life.

During his time in the Academy, he'd stayed on the grounds almost religiously. Afterward, his adventures had been back in his homeland and much farther north.

The ground sloped down slightly until it hit the riverbed, where snow and ice crawled up the banks. He could barely see the other side, perhaps because it was so flat and the ground was only really elevated a few feet above the shore, but also just because the river had to be about a mile wide.

Due to its size, it hadn't frozen over completely, but there were still large sheets of ice on the river's flanks.

Wulf would've stared at it for hours had his stomach not been complaining the whole time.

After a half hour of walking the shores of the river, they arrived at a village. It lined the river's close shore (only a single shore; the river would've been too wide and fast to put a bridge across), and spread a few streets out onto the plains. A castle poked out of the center, beckoning them with smoking chimneys and glowing windows.

They stumbled into a tavern at the edge, then ordered a simple breakfast of toast and sausages before setting off again. No matter how much Wulf might have wanted to, there was no time to waste in taverns.

If he wanted to experience all the world had to offer, he had to save it, first.

~ ~ ~

The Whitesurge led almost directly south. All throughout the day, Wulf didn't see any sign of life—the farmers were probably all hiding inside—but that also meant no Academy patrollers had found them.

In truth, he expected them to give up after a few days and return to the Academy, but until then, he had to keep his eyes out.

But there weren't even any shrivelled, skeletal trees on the plains. Just cleared farmland. At sunset, they arrived at a slightly larger farming village, though it still was nowhere as lively as it otherwise would've been because of the temperature. They stopped for the night and bought a room—Kalee and Wulf's winnings from the tournament were footing the bill for their rooms and meals.

After warming up in the tavern and eating dinner, they returned to the single room.

"We should ration our silver," Wulf reasoned. "We don't know how long this is going to take or what we'll need to buy, so if we spend too much too early, we might run out."

"Hey, it's your money," Irmond said. "I don't get a say in it."

Seith nodded in agreement.

"Just the same, wanted to be on the same page," Wulf said.

"Besides," Kalee replied. "We'll buy a wagon and a pair of horses tomorrow morning. It'll go faster that way, and Wulf won't have to waste mana walking around in a golem."

He could do it, so long as he spent the evenings and mornings replenishing, but it meant that his supply was nearly only a quarter full, and when they arrived, he wouldn't have nearly enough to power an Oronith.

"As well as some travelling rations and a tent," Wulf said. "I know I said we'd have a town most nights, but some nights, we'll have to camp in the wilderness. I'd like to have dinners then, too."

"The winter is going to break soon," Kalee rationned, "and that means we'll be able to stay out in the elements overnight."

Wulf and Seith got the room's beds, as they'd been doing the most physically intensive jobs. Otherwise, Kalee and Irmond slept on the floor with the spare bedsheets. As they were settling down, Wulf sat at the foot of his bed. He placed his scissors, Fate Cutter, in his lap. Like a special sword, it had a name, though he hadn't even intended that. It was just what the Field had decided to call it.

But its special purpose was still too far away. In theory, if he could master xerion's order and chaos sapping abilities, he could destroy whatever he cut very easily. But that required it to be bonded to him.

And the process of bonding it to him was more difficult than he thought.

After a few attempts of pushing a little chaos into it (which he'd gotten from a poison potion he had on hand), trying to tune it to his will but making no progress, Kalee sat down beside him. "Your face is all scrunched up. It doesn't look like it's going well."

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

"It's not. I can't even get it to accept a little bit of the…essences." He held up his hand, showing the others the chaos that he'd extracted from the potion. They all crowded around.

"That's hurting my eyes," Seith said. "You mean…that's what you use to transmute objects?" She leaned over, and blinked a few times, then reached out as if about to touch it, but pulled back at the last moment.

"I'm sure there are other ways," Wulf said. "But this is the way I can do it."

"So…what are you trying to do?" Irmond asked.

"Well, I need to tune these scissors. Once I get them tuned to my will, I can basically use them to store and conduct base essences, by drawing them in and out of my opponents or their armour and equipment. It doesn't just have to be poisonous." He shook his head. "I don't know that for sure, either. The Field just says these scissors have a hidden effect."

Kalee snorted. "Why's it hidden?"

"Until I bond with it properly." He explained what his textbooks had said about bonding with a lump of xerion.

"They bonded to it by trying to use it, didn't they?" Kalee asked. "But your scissors aren't just a lump of stone. You shaped them."

Wulf considered for a moment. Then…he had to use them like scissors?

"In Threnia, in the pangian villages, the Pilots were often rewarded with enchanted weapons for doing good deeds—but they had to bond to the weapon first. You can't just bond to an enchanted weapon by holding it and pushing mana into it." She narrowed her eyes. "Did you…ever have enchanted weapons before?"

"My hammer was technically a construct," Wulf said. "Which I fuelled with brute force. Just pushing mana right into it."

"And there's your problem," Kalee said.

"I would've done the same…" Seith grumbled. "Damn, this whole 'bonding' thing. Artificing isn't about bonding. I don't know how you were ever an artificer in your past life, grandma, but hitting things really hard with a hammer tends to work wonders."

"This grandma thing better not stick…" Kalee muttered.

"We'll try not to let it." Irmond gave a playful smirk.

"Alright, but still one big problem," Wulf said. "I don't know how to use scissors. Like, not as a weapon, and certainly not when they're so…big."

But he considered what Ms. Wenarle had said. Weavers' Guilds.

"Irmond, can I see your map? It has important guild headquarters' locations on it, right?"

"A few, yeah. Why?" Irmond pulled his map out of his bag.

"Can I see it?"

Irmond laid out the map at the foot of Wulf's bed, and Wulf leaned over to look down at it. His eyes scanned back and forth across the stained parchment, hunting for any sign of a Weavers' guild. There were a few small Fletcher branches marked, a Farmers' guild, a couple Horseshoe guilds, but…

"There!" Wulf exclaimed when, nearly at the end of his hope, he came across the Whitesurge Weavers' Guild. It was a couple weeks away still, but it was along their journey. "If we stop there, they might have manuals for weapons like this. At least, Ms. Wenarle thought so."

"And if you learn how to use it, it might help you bond with it?" Seith asked.

"Well, that's if Kalee's theory is right. I'd bet it is. I dunno, last life, I wasn't much for the wishy-washy magic theory stuff. I was more of a 'hit things really hard' kind of guy." He rolled his lips inward. Before the others could say anything, he added, "Alright, yes, I still like hitting things hard, but alchemy's neat too."

Being in an inn, Wulf figured no one needed to keep watch. But, just in case, he placed their bags in front of the door, so if someone tried to barge in, it'd make noise and alert them.

~ ~ ~

In the morning, they met with a farmer near the edge of the village who was willing to sell one of his wagons and two horses. Altogether, it cost them a hundred silver, which Wulf and Kalee split evenly. Might have been pricey, but Wulf was willing to spare the silver in order to get them to their destination faster.

The horses were two old work stallions who'd carried much heavier loads throughout their lives. One brown, one white. The wagon itself was…rustic, at best. Its sides were splintered, wheels slightly misshapen, and some of the wood was rotting, but there was just enough room in the back to lay down Wulf's golem and pile in the hay bales—and then for Kalee, Seith, and Irmond to sit with their bags.

Wulf climbed up onto the driver's cushion and flicked the reins, and the horses trotted off across the fields. Wulf wasn't exactly sure where the road was, if there was one, but it didn't matter. The ground was cold and hard enough that the wagon wheels didn't get stuck in the mud, and the frozen crop stubble bent beneath the horse's hooves.

Once they were out of the village, Irmond asked, "So…the Silent Wraith, hm? You've set your sights pretty high. Like, wow. That's a Class-Five Oronith. It needs Silver tier pilots as a minimum."

Wulf chuckled. "Yeah, and they said the same thing about the academy's Oroniths. Even if the Field doesn't think I can do it, I don't think that'll be the first time it's underestimated us."

"What's the plan?"

"Well, it's in an old mine," Wulf said. "When we arrive, we're going to pull it out and activate it, and hopefully, in time to turn the tide. If not, the Confederation is going to lose a really important city."

Clegghold's industrial forges manufactured most of the Confederacy's armour, weapons, arrows, and Oronith components that didn't need Artificers' direct help. Not to mention non-military equipment, such as wagons and farming tools.

If Clegghold fell, it would vastly weaken the entire continent. They couldn't have that.

"It will hold," Wulf assured them, but spoke as much to them as he did to himself. "We changed fate in Arotelk, and we can do it again."