Grand Saint Alloy

Tristan rubbed his wrists. They had decided that so long as Luke was there, it would be safe to unshackle his upper body. His arms and head were released, and he could undo the latches on his knees and ankles, but not before Luke knocked him senseless. Again. Now that Tristan could move he realised something.

“Luke, did you break my kern?” Tristan asked.

For his part, Luke held a finger to his lips, “Don’t tell anyone about that, they’ll think I’m a bully. Thankfully Henry was there, light essence can heal just about anything.”

Tristan almost asked why Henry could work with kerns when he could not. Then he remembered, that surviving a broken kern was supposed to be almost impossible, you either needed to be tier zero to have a chance or an extremely powerful healing agent on hand. Tier zero’s did not have the essence reserves to use it in a way that would result in a broken kern. Tristan had used a loophole in his synthetic artifact’s recharging mechanism to break his kern. The phenomenon of a kern breaking was so rare that Tristan had only seen it close to happening in one other person. Even then, he was sceptical Regis actually took that final step.

His brain caught on the second half of Luke’s statement. He was filled with light essence and from someone with a tier four kern. That was something he would need to check later, light had a lot of forces he desperately wanted. Extreme efficiency was at the top of that list, endurance was not something that he struggled with most of the time. However, if he ever met someone with a metal kern at the same tier as him, the fact that he had an injured lung would decide the conflict in the other guy's favor.

Eve smiled, “Yeah, Henry is kind, I can see where Bruce and Lesly inherited their personalities.”

Tristan was not sure nice was a word that could be used to describe the Golden Heart patriarch. Eve would not be so positive about Henry if he was aware of who Eve was. Civil protectors rarely left the Caldera as it was their job to protect the Elders. Henry would have taken Eve hostage immediately if he had recognized her.

“Well, I’ll have to thank him then,” Tristan said.

Conni cleared his throat and started his story, “When I was young, I was part of a sect.” Conni paused, all the people in the room were frowning. He sighed, “A sect is a group of people gathered around an object, it could be a martial arts or a treasure any controllable resource will do.”

“So would the mine be a sect?” Tristan asked.

“No, it is part of the materials arm of the Forest Caldera,” Conni answered, “It does not really matter, I was part of the Agni Raja sect, a fancy way of saying Flame Kings. The story of the Steel Saint was widely circulated both as a tale of accomplishment and a warning against tyrants.”

“His name has been forgotten and his title has replaced it. The Steel Saint was born in a time before the mythical beast had taken over and the greatest threat he faced was from other humans. He had no sect, but he was happy with his simple life until raiders came and burned down his village. The Saint swore vengeance and trained himself to kill. Over time and many deadly encounters, he grew in power until he could rival the sect elders.”

“He killed the bandits. Unfortunately, he found that the bandits were actually mercenaries hired by a neighboring clan. This clan was led by a hero, so the Saint doubled his effort. One day, without warning he wiped out the clan to the last member. Again, he could start building his life. He built a clan of his own, he became wealthy and happy.”

“Unfortunately, it was not to last, a dragon was attracted by one of his treasures. It did not ask, it simply took, burning his home down again. This time the Steel Saint swore that he would never rest, if he had kept training himself, the dragon would not have stood a chance. So again he started working, he faced many experts and eventually overcame them. Prepared to fight, he faced the dragon and lost. See the dragon had learned the same lesson long ago.”

“Still, the Saint escaped and kept preparing. He set his sights higher, if he could not kill a single dragon, that just meant he was thinking too small. He set his eyes on the Elder Dragons, the strongest of the dragons. He trained and trained, lost battle after battle, he grew collecting more and more powers, until one day, an Elder Dragon lay dead at his feet. He moved from Elder Dragon to Elder Dragon killing them one by one.”

“When they asked why? He told them his story. The very next day, the dragon who had killed his clan was butchered by its own kind. This appeased the Saint, but he still needed to become greater, he set his eyes on the gods.”

“Supposedly, that was where the legend ends,” Conni said, “It was told to inspire young men to work harder and deter violent people as you could never be sure a survivor would not grow and kill you in the future. I suppose he managed to even kill gods before he died, so maybe there is no limit to how powerful a person can grow.

Tristan started laughing, and everyone looked at him, “It's ironic, the Silver Demon Lord is called a Saint. One man’s demon is another man’s angel, I was just born in the wrong area of the world.”

“No,” Conni said, “They’re not called silver devils, but anyone with a metal affinity is shunned.”

That was a little depressing. It would have been nice if people would change with the location. However, if people changed, they really wouldn’t be people anymore. Sure there were outliers like Conni, Grace, and Eve, but they were the minority. Luke too, but he fell into the same dangerous category as Tristan.

The story of the Steel Saint seemed to be startlingly similar to Tristan’s. Not in the violence done to him, but in the way he gained strength. He gained new powers by fighting. That sounded exactly like kern breaking coupled with the alloy force, taken to an absolute extreme. Tristan could not imagine how many times one would have to shatter their kern to crush mountains. It was more impressive due to the luck that would take than from the dedication it took. Life-or-death encounters should eventually come up death, and it only took one time.

“So, how does this affect what's down in the mine?” Luke asked.

“With such an important person involved in destroying the original fort, I believe it is very likely that there is an elemental lord at the bottom,” Tristan said, “Worst case scenario, the elemental lord is tier six.”

Luke raised an eyebrow, “Like the dark elemental lord was tier six, or its three parts are tier six when added up.”

The members of Siren’s warriors theorized that the elemental lords were made when all three discovered types mixed. Normal skeletal elementals would form the structure, the fibrous ones would become the muscles and organs, and the slime elementals would become the eyes and brain. It lined up with what they suspected, the dark elemental lord had three overlapping essence signatures, and if one were to add the power of three tier-three elementals together, it would be around tier six. No one was sure if it would work with different kinds of elementals. It would be a huge issue if they got to the bottom and found an elemental with three different elements, especially if metal was covering the defensive weaknesses of other elements.

“It would most likely be composed of the elemental of Ajax,” Tristan said. That thought had just popped into his head, The memories he had stolen recognized Ajax as an extremely capable general, at tier six. He was also at the front of the fort when it hit the ground, even at the hero tier, there was no surviving that.

“Not possible,” Eve said, “We, well Hadrid, has Ajax’s hammer, warriors don’t part with their weapons. so it has to be someone else.”

Tristan shrugged, he had no proof, but he had definitely seen the hammer in the hero’s hands. The memories were scattered, so he had no way of knowing how the hammer got from the front of the fortress to the Forest Caldera’s vaults. He really did not care either, so he would not argue the point. One tier six elemental was the same as any other tier six of the same type.

“Either way, it's probably best to let Siren know what’s going on. The elemental lord is ordering the elementals to dig. Fortunately, they suck at it, or we would already be dealing with him, however, we are currently doing their job for them,” Tristan said.

Conni nodded, “I will let him know.”

He turned to leave, however, Tristan stopped him, “Can I get the rest of the restraints removed?”

He paused for a moment. After weighing several scenarios, he finally nodded, “Yes, please shadow Luke. I want someone around to stop you if something goes wrong.”

That was probably prudent. Tristan had no idea what the long-term effects would be, but just like any other memory, he was sure he could dilute it with time. The hard edges and emotions would dull, leaving the foreign memories powerless.

Luke nodded, “you will be bored, but we can work with it.”

Tristan had a few questions he wanted to ask Luke. He glanced at Eve, she was not privy to any of these things and she would most likely get killed by Luke if she found out. Luke had only spared Siren because the man was trustworthy beyond all reason. Eve was soft, her very personality clashed with the path of violence that the two of them were walking.

“Hey, Eve could you step out too, there are a few things that I want to ask Luke,” Tristan asked.

Eve took on a hurt expression, “What kind of things?”

“Personal things,” Tristan said, her face darkened more. Did she think that they were close enough to share things like that? Had she forgotten that from his point of view, her grandfather was a monster that wanted him dead? It reminded him that it would not be a bad idea to approach Grace with some questions, he lacked quite a bit of information when it came to Eve’s emotional responses.

He sighed, “Things that could get me killed if someone found out.”

Eve went from angry to concerned, “You know you can trust me right?”

Luke raised an eyebrow, “Why?”

Eve glared at Luke, “We fought together, we traveled together, that has to mean something.”

Luke shook his head, “That does not matter, if your grandfather showed up and decided to fight to the death with Tristan, who would you side with?”

She seemed shocked by the question, “I, I don’t know. I would not want you to fight at all. That would never happen.“

Luke shrugged, “That exact scenario, no. Something similar, sure. You’re forgetting that this living metal detector is why your grandfather is losing his little war. The spies will figure it out and they will send someone to kill him. We can’t risk releasing an effective tier-nine elemental lord. In the end, your grandfather will die if Tristan lives. Not directly, but it is a certainty.”

Eve was horrified by the statement. It was true however, Elder Forest had only ever left two loose ends and both were related to his younger sister. Elder River would die, he was too potent of a rallying point.

“I don’t care about you,” Luke said, “I don’t know you, just know this is the longest I have ever left a potential threat alive for emotional reasons.”

Tristan cringed internally. Those words hit Eve like a hammer, her eyes started tearing up in both hurt and fear. Her whole world had started crumbling, she was about to lose everything and there was nothing she could do about it. Tristan could only watch as she clenched her fists and stomped out of the room.