Rules of Biomancy: A LitRPG Healer Fantasy

"First, they say it's five thousand soldiers, approaching and ready for combat. Then it becomes two thousand, most of them young faces, before they correct themselves and call the attackers ruthless veterans who've got mages at their disposal. What makes it worse is that it's all from civilian eyes, so the descriptions of weapons and armor types are all over the place. We can't get a reliable frame of what and how many we're fighting against, and—"

Elijah drew the smoke from his pipe into his mouth, letting it swirl around before exhaling it through his nose. It gave a brief release of the tension that had been growing on his shoulders while listening to Vera's rambling version of a battle report.

"The specifics aren't as important this early on, Vera," Alin said, doing his best to soothe the queen. "As agreed yesterday, we are deploying our forces, sending out those ready into critical areas. Even if the enemy count were off by a thousand, our plans wouldn't change."

The war started yesterday. Not officially, of course. Castilla hadn't declared it. They'd just begun to send troops into Serenova, taking out the village closest by without warning. And, now, it seemed they were branching out, taking the next grouping of villages.

That was the idea, at least. As the day progressed, one more call for help had been issued.

"One thousand soldiers, accompanied by a dozen different types of mages, are a week's travel away from Kulvik," Vera said, fingers pressing against the table. "An hour ago, we thought the invaders were still only near the border. Six weeks of travel away. But now, somehow, they hit the village straight north of us."

"It's not the first time they used ships for transporting their people closer to us," Alin tried, but it only made Vera put her hands on her face.

"I know," she said tiredly. "We went over that possibility last month. We studied how they invaded fifty years ago, we made ideas for how to counter it, and yet it's still coming together like this."

Nobody was ready for war. Elijah knew that Vera had spent countless years preparing for the eventuality, both in terms of military might and mental preparations, but nothing could truly prepare a person to be in charge. The understanding that every choice had the potential to make the nation crumble, that every word could kill a thousand of her own… Elijah did not envy the role.

"Since it's a smaller force, we must assume that the mages are of a higher quality," Vera said, as she read through the documents Harper handed to her. "Unknown affinities, but that's hardly new. We know that there are fewer than twenty, so we can match them with might alone. Alin, do you have any suggestions on who to send?"

"Tina is a given, with her talent of controlling enemy mages, but I'm unsure of who to send for support against the non-magical enemies," Alin replied, rattling off another dozen names that Elijah could barely recognize. "Paul's constructs could also help with both sides, and I know his apprentices have been given the green light for entering proper combat."

"That would put us at… four mages, two being heavy-hitters and the two others being standard," the Queen summarized. By her tone, she didn't seem confident. "The odds would be in our favor, but I'd prefer not to take chances so early on. Losses could still be demoralizing."

"If you wish, there is another who could prove useful," Alin offered, leaning back in his chair.

Selfless as always.

"We both know we can't afford you leaving, Alin," Vera said, but the Earth Mage simply shook his head.

"I wasn't talking about me."

Elijah felt the eyes of the others fall on him as he inhaled from his pipe again. Nobody made a noise as he exhaled the multi-colored smoke through his nose.

"While I won't deny that I can prove useful in a fight, this would be my first time at a large-scale battleground," Elijah warned. And it was the truth. In his youth, when he had helped supply the hounds, the fights had never numbered in more than a few hundred. Even that final ambush, which had made him and Aleksi flee, possessed only a thousand combatants in total.

"Everybody has a first time," Alin said. "Your role would be one of a supporter. I've seen what your creations can do. Even if they're small, they can still make a man stumble, lose his footing for a second, or be blinded. Nothing permanent, but enough to give one of ours a better chance to take them. With the scale that we have worked on together for the past weeks, Elijah, I doubt it would be impossible for you to nudge the odds over in our favor on a battlefield."

… The more Elijah thought about it, the more he had to agree. The last three weeks had been nothing but constant practice with his new staff on mass-scale manipulations of areas. He and the others had terraformed the land around Kulvik again and again, doing everything possible to optimize their traps, to give them layers of protection so no army could charge the walls without great difficulty. Even if such matters were still ongoing, and Elijah couldn't call the work acceptable, it had allowed him enough of a mastery over the techniques that temporary constructs wouldn't be too much of a challenge.

To make a man lose his footing in grass?

Even without activating Breathe Life, Elijah could see in his mind's eye how the smallest change in the texture of a grass blade would make somebody stumble instantly. A mere push of liquid coating, alongside microscopic surface ridges, would make any boot lose much-needed friction. And, if Elijah had time to spare, it would be no trouble to include the fast-acting numbness from a stinging nettle, though it would require—

"I'll take that as agreement," Vera said. A quick addition from Alin followed, promising to keep Sasha and Jack safe while Elijah and Aleksi were on the road. It was barely needed, seeing as those two had been spending their time in the castle since the day before, but it was still appreciated. "If there are no more objections, I'll have the commanders gather together a thousand foot soldiers. It shouldn't take more than the rest of today, since they've already been preparing for excursions, so we can expect you to leave by nightfall."

Half a day to make his preparations. For an alchemist who lacked foresight, such a sentence would be devastating.

Elijah did not suffer such weakness.

They'd been back at Kulvik for three weeks. An eternity, in terms of work that could be done. And, while much of the time had been spent by the city walls, the early mornings and late nights had been spent inside his laboratory. With his body changing, he'd been able to cut down his sleep from seven hours to four, allowing him the opportunity to expand his repertoire.

Concoctions against superficial cuts? He had five crates ready. Something for mortal wounds that could kill in under a minute? Fifty doses' worth of paste, that any fool could figure out how to use and save a comrade, and let them be shipped off to a proper doctor. Burns, head trauma, a lack of sleep, twenty kinds of antidotes for the poisons that Castilla had been documented to use, and several general antidotes that could be used in emergencies. He had it all.

Likewise, Elijah could barely get started on what kind of offensive creations he'd made. He had enough Liquid Fire to last him a lifetime, alongside several variants that exploded on contact with the air instead of merely bursting into fire. Poisons were plenty as well, of course, since he needed them for the antidotes. He didn't plan to carry most, since they granted the enemy the same general effects, but one never knew when skin-eating slime was needed.

He had invested some days into non-lethal tools as well, of course. Two crates of vials of concentrated Radiant Wailweed, ready to be thrown and make anything within a hundred meters clutch at their ears, alongside a single crate of Altered Firebloom Concentrate that would make a person feel like they were on fire. The latter had been an accidental discovery two weeks before, but the non-lethal nature had made Elijah keep it.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

If only the immunity tablets worked.

It'd been one of Elijah's more recent ideas. Poisons had antidotes, but the human body could also be trained to resist them outright. It could learn how to fight back, not to suffer the consequences, and persist.

This normally required a rigorous regimen of micro-dosing, slowly building up the immunity, or a single dose of a variant that had been altered to be easy to fight. Elijah knew of old alchemists who had been able to hinder the spread of plagues through this method, by making the populace immune before it could reach them. A stroke of genius that Elijah wanted to exploit.

A fast-acting, non-lethal sedative in gas form, sent out by the grass and inhaled by every soldier on the battlefield. A sedative that one side was completely immune to, offering no ill effects while putting the other side on the floor.

The idea was terrifying.

It only worsened when Elijah became confident that he could make it. He just needed time.

"First attempt of the day," Elijah muttered, swallowing the warm tablet. If it'd been ingested by a normal person, they'd need a few days for the effects to settle, but a push of magic allowed the process to accelerate rapidly. "And… ready. Dawn, if you would."

The flowerhead in front of him flashed golden, before the white gas shot out into his face. The smell briefly reminded him of chamomile, before the effects of inhaling the gas reached him.

"Initial numbness in the fingers," Elijah said. He felt his legs shake, warning him of the imminent fall, but Dawn supplied him with a chair before that could happen. This wasn't their first time. "Rings of darkness in my vision, though it's much less than yesterday. I can still feel my feet. Feeling in fingers is coming back, and… everything is flushed. Time."

A branch poked the top of the stopwatch, the timer stopping with an audible click.

Seventeen seconds.

Better than the day before, where it'd required nineteen seconds, and last week, where he had needed a full minute to stop feeling pins and needles in his feet. Yet, it still wasn't good enough for usage in the field.

"Let's try the next one," Elijah said, getting back up before noticing the thud of boots outside the laboratory doors. They were loud but precise in their steps, leaving only one possibility as to who it was. "Aleksi."

"Just heard the— Okay, what is this?" Aleksi exclaimed as he tried and failed to step into the laboratory, a green vine hitting his head. "Did you finally go mad, while I wasn't looking?"

"I've merely optimized my workspace."

Going by the giant's unimpressed look, Elijah didn't think that Aleksi believed him. And, for once, he didn't blame the man. To anybody just passing by, a laboratory filled to the brim with young trees, ever-moving branches, and the constant dropping of various colorful liquids into vials would seem rather strange, but Elijah had a system to the chaos.

It started after the first large batch of Liquid Fire. With the amount of vials and clean-up, Elijah's patience had reached a low point, and he'd realized the minimal amount of effort required to delegate menial labor to plants. With his experience in creating small drones, with their ability for more complex movement, he was able to grow a small willow tree whose only task was to move vials from his desk, put them in cases, and stack the cases on top of each other. Three steps with repetitive movement and a clear, systematic approach. It'd barely taken half a day to perfect.

After that… Elijah's ideas might've gone overboard. Mixing simple ingredients for the general antidotes didn't require more than patient stirring and slowly adding everything together, so why couldn't he transform lilies to do that for him? And the part of recipes that required boiling had clear indicators on when they were finished, giving off specific scents or colors, so Elijah could easily make a snarethorn learn to turn off the heat and transfer the contents to another station.

Before long, Elijah had mapped out how several concoctions didn't need his direct input at all. Some minor hiccups did happen from time to time, but those were handled in a matter of seconds, and the sheer efficiency of delegating every simple step to the plants made his output ten times what it'd been before.

A shame that I didn't have time for automating the titration.

"Try not to break anything," Elijah pleaded, as Aleksi carefully stepped into the laboratory. With the network of connections between the central operations units and everything else running on the ceiling, the giant's height made every step a threat to Elijah's operation. "And watch where your shoulders are."

"I've tried not to question your methods for the past decades, but I think this is the strangest thing I've seen from you ever," Aleksi commented, pausing midstep to allow one of the willow's branches to grab half a dozen vials from the nearby table. Another set of branches from a small oak tree had already removed the used glassware, and a set of flowers reached down from the ceiling to clean the surface. "Is this why you said no to tea with Cleo last week? To work on this?"

"No, that was because one of the dukes had fallen down the stairs and demanded my presence," Elijah explained, raising a hand to stop the giant from approaching further. Only when a set of vines had reached over to grab some newly dried retort flasks did Elijah allow Aleksi to get close. "I was hoping that we could sit down with her this weekend, but the world didn't seem to agree with that."

'Do I shoot it yet?' Dawn asked, making Elijah remember the tablet in his hand.

Going by the clock on the wall that he'd forgotten to check for the past two hours, it seemed that he had little chance of getting through the rest of the variants before they had to leave. Not an ideal situation, since checking the differing results in the same conditions was a requirement when picking the best version to modify, but… it did give him an idea.

"I need to test something," Elijah said, pulling Aleksi close. The giant didn't resist, merely looking confused while Elijah made him sit down on the chair. "Face the flower, please."

"Okay…"

'Now,' Elijah ordered. Dawn obeyed instantly. The spray of white gas hit the giant perfectly, briefly covering his features before it dissipated.

Three seconds passed. Aleksi looked none the worse for wear.

"Was that supposed to do something?" the giant asked, as Elijah connected to Aleksi's nervous system to double-check. "Does this have anything to do with how introverted you've been recently?"

Zero effect.

The dosing used could make a normal-sized man hit the floor in three seconds flat, and make their bodies twitchy for the next day. With the half-immunity in place, Elijah could partially deal with those effects.

Aleksi just didn't feel anything. The body cleared away the intrusive obstructions before they could form.

"I believe you've called me introverted every month of every year for the past many decades," Elijah countered, which Aleksi didn't deny. The giant just grinned. "And, to be clear, I just needed to check if you could resist a sedative I'm working on."

"Planning to use it soon?"

"No. It's not done yet."

"Shame. It would've made our jobs easier," Aleksi said. Elijah grunted agreement as he handed the tablet in his hand to a waiting branch, who moved it over to the others. In the meantime, another had arrived with a half-bottle. "I'd been wondering what that smell was."

Elijah carefully handed the half-bottle to Aleksi, letting the giant inspect the swirling green liquid inside. It glowed in his hand, and Elijah could spot the green veins popping out on the man's arm. The elixir inside the body could recognize the contents, and it craved.

"It's a stronger variant," Elijah explained, as Aleksi put the half bottle in his satchel. "Since your body has been dealing with the regular elixir well, I thought it was about time we began to adjust the elixir itself. I don't have the old notes about the different variants, but this should improve your strength and durability without letting your mind be as clouded."

"Quite the promise."

He grimaced. They both knew that Elijah's words could normally be trusted when it came to alchemy, but something like this needed testing. Sadly, they didn't have time for that right now, seeing as they were supposed to be meeting and marching alongside a considerable force in thirty minutes.

"I don't think you'll need it, but it's better to be safe than sorry," Elijah added, as the giant went up from the chair. It seemed like the time had come to leave.

"Whatever keeps you the safest," Aleksi supposed. When Elijah finished packing the last potions and pastes for the trip, the giant took the satchel from him. Ever the gentlemen, it seemed. "Come on. We've got an army to tear apart."

'Am I allowed to eat an army?' Dawn asked as she disconnected from the laboratory network and flew onto Elijah's shoulder.

'We'll see what we can get away with,' Elijah promised, much to the duck's joy. Though… going by the sheer number of people he could see gathered outside the city, the chance of getting her a moment alone in the future seemed low.

War had started, after all. From now on, quiet moments would be a rarity.