I Am The Only Witch Hunter

"Tell Kraus to keep a close eye on Thane Beaumort and the Bailiff. Be extra careful around the Bailiff, he is a witch. Avoid detection at all costs.

As for Thane... There isn't that much of a need for secrecy." Siderius said.

"What do you mean, Master?" Ashe said.

"Let him know that I'll come. I want him to dread for his life."

Ashe lowered her head. "I understand, Master. I will order the recruits accordingly."

"Good. Let the recruits watch over them for a few days. From tomorrow, I will teach you the next steps of our training.

"Yes, Master."

"Now. I will show you something that I haven't been able to show you a lot. Mercury Transformation."

Ashe's eyes lit up. "Have you found Mercury, Master?"

Siderius nodded. "There is a place called Rose Springs not far from here. That place has a lot of Mercury.

Fetch me some stones, Ashe."

"Right away, Master."

Ashe placed a pile of different size rocks and pebbles in front of Siderius. He picked a few of them that looked fairly clean and constructed a Mercury Transformation Seal.

"Because of the nature of mercury, you need to be extra careful when working with them. It is very toxic. If you have grafted your first mutation, this won't be a problem anymore. But for normal people, a lot of precautions must be taken."

Ashe watched everything carefully with unblinking eyes.

"There are a total of 5,673 Transformation Signs. Each will have a dedicated use to control the length, width, depth and shape to the material you are transforming.

Unfortunately, there is no shortcut in learning these Transformation Signs. All you have to do is to remember them one by one."

Ashe's eyes widened when she heard about the sign number. She involuntarily gulped. She had shown quite a talent for Alchemy. Everything felt very natural to her. But over five thousand signs weren't a small number.

"You don't need to feel discouraged. Learning all the signs without a structure can be impossible. But you can make it simpler by dividing it into groups. I personally divided all the signs into six groups in total.

The first group is Direction. These signs consist of twelve signs in total.

Imagine the object you are transforming is in a three-dimensional cube. This cube is separated into smaller cubes. Each smaller cube is the location that you need to direct the power of the seal into.

So the twelve signs include all the parameters for you to divide, identify and target the space you want to transform. This is why it is called the Direction group.

The second, third, and fourth group are Length, Depth and Width. These consist of the most amount of signs, totaling 4,009 signs. These signs have a lot of overlap between them. The reason why there are a lot of them is simply the difference in numbers and your purpose. When you understand its mechanic, all of these signs should feel the same to you.

The fifth group is Shape. These are all the signs needed in case you want to make a very specific shape that length, depth and width can't accomplish. Curve, connections, parallel, shape within shape,...

This group has the second highest number of signs with a total of 1,347 signs.

The last group is State. This consists of signs that deal with the properties of the material instead of its appearance. Its density, purity, stability or even volatility is controlled by State signs. This group has 305 signs in total.

Now I will show you a very simple example.

I will fuse these rocks together into one piece using the Direction and State signs. Then I will condense them with the State signs. Finally, I will turn it into a piece of stone brick with Length, Depth, Width."

Siderius clasped his hand together. The Mercury lit up in white and it climbed upon the rocks and pebbles. Soon, all the stones dissolved and became one.

Siderius' hands turned into a blur as the stone quickly took shape into a piece of perfect rectangular stone brick.

The Mercury returned to the seal on the ground and calmed down.

"May I touch it, Master?"

"You may. There shouldn't be any Mercury left on it."

Ashe picked up the piece of brick. It was gray, different from the orange or dark brown clay brick that she used to see.

"This is incredible, Master. The surface is so smooth. I have never seen a brick this smooth, not even in my clan."

"By using Alchemy, we can control every object to the tiniest details. It can create marvels that no craftsman can replicate.

But it does have its limitations."

"What kind of limitations, Master?"

"Many things. It can't manipulate the elements inside a material nor exceed the natural boundaries of said material.

You can turn stone into brick but you cannot make it flexible and soft like fabric. You can craft a bow with perfect appearance but if its integrity is not sound, the bow will break immediately after the seal.

Craftsmen cannot replicate what Alchemy does. But alchemists need the knowledge of craftsmen in order to transform an object.

Whatever we do, it cannot exceed the natural laws."

"I see."

Ashe caressed the smooth surface of the brick. It felt very good on the finger. She knew a lot of nobles would pay a lot of money to buy sculptures with this fine surface.

"I'm showing you the Transformation Seal for another reason, my apprentice."

"Oh? Please enlighten me, Master."

"You have done a great job in building the underground shelter. There are only two things I'd recommend to improve.

One, all shelters should have two exits. One that we use and another to escape in case the enemies come to our door.

Second, dirt provided pretty good insulation already. A fireplace can be very useful in winter. But where will the smoke escape to?"

"Ah! I totally forgot about that." Ashe blushed gently and lowered her head.

"It's alright. It is my responsibility to guide you in cases like this.

So. Apart from teaching you the next part of our training, we will also improve the hideout as well. We will build an escape passageway and a circulation system."

"What is a circulation system, Master?"

"Air pipes to let new air in and push bad air out. It will take care of the smoke and gas problem if we're going to use the fireplace and guarantee we won't die of suffocation."