Fate Alchemist - A Regression Academy LitRPG

The sailors cut the main sail free from the mast, severing the stays at the bottom. It fluttered in the wind for a few more seconds, before a powerful gust caught it and ripped it off the top spar as well. It floated up and away.

Before Wulf could say anything else, a hand clamped down on his shoulder. Dr. Arnau. "How do you know what we're facing, boy?"

Wulf whirled around. He held his arm up to the sky, where the central spirit would come from, and reached out with the Field, trying to sense it. The Field responded, and ink flowed through the parchment on his bracer. It was tattered and falling apart, crumbling in the waves and rain. (With mild annoyance, he remembered that waterproofing your enchanted parchment hadn't become common practice yet.)

Still he made out a message:

[Storm Sovereign – Low-Ruby]

Strong. He wouldn't beat it alone. There was a reason an Ascendant accompanied most ocean-going traffic, in case they encountered storms like this. This beast was unusually powerful, though, and especially if the Field decided that it was worthy of being called 'Storm Sovereign.' A unique name, for a spirit that had become powerful enough to gain a consciousness of its own.

As soon as his eyes glossed across the rank message, the wind caught the tatters of the sheet and tore it off his wrist. A few chunks of wet, crumbling parchment remained behind, but there was nothing legible. Nothing worth keeping. He brushed the wet tatters off his bracer so he'd stop thinking about them.

Inhaling deeply, Wulf turned to Dr. Arnau. "We used to have intense storms like this back home, in the plains of Carolaign! Massive tornadoes, the like! Nothing this strong!"

As he spoke, the clouds above took shape. Through the sheets of rain, shadows twisted, and clouds boiled, until they formed an enormous skull looking down on the tiny caravel. Lightning flashed behind it, illuminating its eyes and hollow nose.

"Alright, listen up!" Dr. Arnau called, bringing her hammer to bear. "Everyone gather close! If we play our cards right, we can still escape this in one piece. Mr. Callaros, get your men below deck. We'll handle matters up here."

Once the sailors scrambled to the relative safety of the ship below the main deck, Dr. Arnau looked directly at the ten students. "We will use you as a show of force, but this is a complex spirit. We may be able to negotiate passage."

That was the Dr. Arnau Wulf knew. No other professor from the Centralis academy would say that, or even think that. They'd been told that spirits, like the husks of the mountain giants they used for Oroniths or the hollowed out golems they gave to pilots, were simply lesser. They were to be defeated and mastered through supreme intellect.

Dr. Arnau had never believed that.

"Who are you to enter my cluster…?" the Storm Sovereign bellowed. Its voice was wispy, like a wind blasting across the waves, but there was a deep, old quality to it. "This area of the sea is under my protection…" As it spoke, the skull's jaw shifted. Lightning crackled behind its mouth, making its cloudy teeth sway.

"Who are you protecting it from?" Dr. Arnau shouted. Her voice boomed loud, emboldened by a Mark and possibly a Skill—Wulf didn't remember what exact Skills she would've had at this point in her life. Judging by the reactions of everyone else but Kalee, they hadn't heard a voice that loud before, ever.

"From…from fiends and ruffians who would steal my winds!"

But just because spirits were conscious enough to talk didn't make them wise. Sometimes, they went mad with age. It took them centuries to get to Low-Ruby, and that came with some unfortunate consequences to the mind.

"We are no fiends!" Dr. Arnau yelled back. "We fight the fiends!"

"No one fights the fiends. They crash in the waves, they breathe their fumes, they create steam, and they kill the storms!"

Wulf had half-expected it to say that they killed the fish, but that was out of the purview of a storm spirit.

"We have fought the fiends!" Wulf shouted, jumping up on the railing. He wasn't supposed to, and Dr. Arnau would probably be mad. But he pushed that off. It was a problem for later.

To keep himself balanced as the ship rose up to the top of a swell, he grabbed one of the ropes supporting the mast. He wasn't sure if his voice would carry over the wind, but he triggered as many of his Marks as he could, enhancing his physical strength.

It wasn't enough.

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He reached into his haversack and retrieved a splatter potion that he'd experimented with over the summer. It was a slight strength enhancing potion, very weak, but it lasted for days. The golden-brown liquid could be mistaken for liquor, and with all their enchanted parchments in tatters, no one would be able to assess it properly.

"I make you an offering, Storm Sovereign!" Wulf shouted, then splashed the potion up in time with a gust of wind. The air caught the particles. They washed back over across the crowd of students, landing on exposed skin and taking effect. [Bastion] activated all across his body, and though he couldn't yet match Dr. Arnau's volume, he was getting close.

"Hm. The elixirs of men mean nothing," the Storm Sovereign said.

"What are you doing?" Dr. Arnau asked, running up to the railing behind him. "I will deal with this."

"Sorry, ma'am," Wulf said. He'd tried to whisper, but with [Bastion], it came out as a shout. "But I have a Grand Mark. From fighting fiends and demons. I think there's a chance it…works. It shows the spirit we're on its side."

Dr. Arnau narrowed her eyes and said nothing, which Wulf knew meant she was conceding. She didn't have a Grand Mark yet.

He folded his fingers, then grinned. "Right, then. Storm Sovereign, I have fought many demons! I have destroyed fiends, and we are aligned!"

"Hmphhh." A gust of wind washed across the deck, nearly blowing him off the rigging. He clung on tight, but his grip was still slipping, despite his enhanced strength. Kalee used a spell Skill to keep him grounded, and he gave her a nod.

When the gust abated, he looked back up at the sky. "Reach out with the Field, spirit! Sense me! I know you can!"

"A Grand Mark. No…two. Both for defeating fiends?"

"Correct," Wulf said.

"He says he is not my enemy, yet he destroys my brethren."

"And you have destroyed many ships, I'd think," Wulf countered.

"He is…spiky."

Wulf scrunched his eyebrows. Spiky? But still, he insisted, "Let us pass, spirit. You don't care for your brethren, except to use them as a bargaining chip." That much, seemed, consistent about intelligent spirits. They lacked comradery, and competed greatly with each other.

So, really any different than Ascendants?

Wulf shut that thought down. Ascendants had the capacity to care for one another, and some chose not to. Spirits just didn't care.

"He is…old," the cloud said.

Wulf swallowed. Surely, the spirit couldn't tell how old precisely Wulf was?

"But he is willing. There is a great future ahead for this one."

Wulf tried to respond, tried to shout back at the clouds, but the wind strengthened, blowing cold gusts across the deck even faster. He jumped down to the railing and fell to his stomach. Dr. Arnau knelt in her golem, and a shield of granite extended from her left wrist. Slates of stone unfurled, forming a wall in front of the students. An Iron-tier Mage created a sphere of flame at the center of the cluster, radiating heat and warming the students.

Mist rolled over the railing of the ship, and the waves churned around them. The ship spun and shifted, and it sloshed up and down, getting dangerously close to tipping prow-over-stern. Wulf couldn't see anything, and the rushing wind was even louder than the roaring thunder.

At first, he thought the spirit had chosen to annihilate them anyway, but the mist slowed, and eventually, the sky cleared. As the lightning faded, everything darkened. When Wulf looked up, the clouds were whisking away faster than he'd ever seen them move, revealing an empty night sky. A moon shone down on them, casting the ship in pale green light.

When the wind slowed, Wulf leapt to his feet and ran to the railing. The storm retreated to the south, probably to terrorize some other ships, but for now, they'd made it. And the hulk, though a few days behind them, would hopefully have an open route now.

There was a thud at the bow of the ship, and Wulf glanced over. A glass sphere about the size of an apple had fallen from the sky, and though it didn't break through the boards, it must have been close. Before any of the other students shook off their stupor, Wulf rushed toward it and snatched it up. It was mostly clear, but a small cloud of black vapour swirled inside, flashing and sparking with lightning.

The storm spirit's core? But he'd seen it retreat—he hadn't killed it, and it hadn't died. Still, he tucked it into his haversack.

Dr. Arnau stood up and pulled her golem's helmet back. The sheets of granite covering her head folded away, revealing her stern but bewildered expression. "Mr. Callaros, the skies are clear!"

A few moments later, Mr. Callaros, who Wulf had learned was the ship's captain, emerged from below deck. Long black hair flowed behind him, still curly despite how wet it was. His sailor's tunic was drenched but he held his composure.

"A Ruby-Tier storm spirit," Dr. Arnau said. "That doesn't bode well. The Field must be agitated if it allowed a storm spirit to grow so strong."

"Do you expect to encounter another one?" Mr. Callaros asked.

"I hope not, but keep your eyes out." She crossed her arms. "I will inform Dr. Azanthius of this development." Then, she turned back to the students. "Go below deck. Dry yourselves off. Mr. Callaros will get us moving once more."

Shakily, the other students stood up, whispering amongst themselves. They were good, clearly. Their grasp on the Field was admirable for people their ages, but they'd likely found themselves promoted to the Centralis Academy on their test scores. Their real combat experience was limited.

"A Grand Mark?" someone whispered.

"Not just one," another student whispered. "Two."

So much for not drawing undue attention to himself. But he was tired and cold, and mentally exhausted from so much mana use. He didn't want to think about that right now.

Wulf was about to follow the others below deck, but Dr. Arnau caught him, gripping his bicep with a stone hand, and said, "Not you, Mr. Hrothen. You're coming with me to the great cabin. Now. You have lots of explaining to do."