Divine Number Theory

"Is it, is it done?"

Baize stammered as he approached the iron barrel piled high with slag; he simply could not bear to watch precious ores being treated like scrap metal for experiments.

The discarded ore piled in the open space had almost become a small hill. Kas, lacking any understanding of alchemical mysteries, had no concept of resource management, tossing new ore into the heater while it still contained uncleaned residue.

Some rare and precious ores would have their structures and properties destroyed by preliminary smelting. Aside from metals like Adamantine that could be re-smelted, the gold spent on this experiment alone could have filled an entire room.

"Still missing something..." Kas observed the state of the heating barrel for a moment; there should be enough left for two final tests.

He did not rush to have the Black Guard toss in the remaining ore and heating crystals, instead closing his eyes to ponder for a while.

Perhaps it needed a little boost... I mean, some mystical stuff, like drawing some patterns around the iron barrel or something.

Kas's research into magic was effectively zero.

In his past life, the only thing he remembered from Fullmetal Alchemist was that there were three cute and charming villains who were always defeated by a blue cat that pulled out all sorts of strange gadgets.

But "pondering" meant letting his thoughts wander without limits, allowing his intuition to roam the realms of the unconscious, waiting for a spark of inspiration to appear.

Kas crossed his arms and fell into deep thought for a long time, his breathing so steady it felt as if he were about to fall asleep.

This made Baize somewhat dejected; so, even "Inspiration" had times when it was just bluffing?

"Forget it. For this southward raid, I will go myself. I will not return until I find Radel. I swear on the bones of my late father..."

Kas snapped his eyes open, grabbed a lump of dark ore that had melted into a pile of dog-shit-like sludge from the slag, and squatted beside the heating barrel to begin drawing the pattern that had emerged in his mind.

He first drew a straight diagonal line beside the iron barrel, then drew two more in the same manner, forming a perfectly equal equilateral triangle.

Stepping back, he drew a zigzagging line from the vertices of the triangle to both ends, sketching out a square that enclosed the triangle.

As he focused on drawing the pattern, his inspiration pulsed wildly. Countless characters flooded into the subconscious layer of his brain, processed by his rationality into columns of perfect, intricate, and harmonious patterns.

Project: Transmutation
Status: In Progress
Inspiration: "1" is the scale, revealing the essence that all things can be measured, the beginning of the undivided, the origin of all numbers.
"2" is negation, the first even number, the overflow of origin, the opposite of truth, the number of division.
"3" is harmony, the first odd number, the sublimation of contradiction, the number of dissolution.
"4" is justice, the first square number, the four seasons of heaven, the four qualities of matter, the number of order.
"5" is combination, the union of odd and even, marriage and reproduction, the number of life.
"6" is balance, the scale; the product of negation and harmony = scale; the sum of negation and harmony, the number of perfection.
"7" is creation, God is the sum of harmony and justice, standing alone in solitude...

Project: Transmutation
Status: In Progress
Inspiration: Nigredo, Albedo, Rubedo—death, purification, rebirth, the cycle of the trinity.
The roots of the world—earth, air, water, fire; calcination, dissolution, separation, combination—purification, refinement, conversion, transmutation, order returning to wholeness.
Gold, silver, copper, iron, tin, lead, mercury—the Sun, the Moon, gold, fire, earth, wood, water; the combination of the seven metals is...

Project: Transmutation
Status: In Progress
Inspiration: "3" is planning, "4" is justice; when combined to "7," it is the authority of God, contained within the perfection of "10"...

Kas snapped awake once more, staring at the circle that lacked only one arc to cover the vertices of the square, falling into an inexplicable sensation.

His intuition told him not to let the inspiration continue to diverge, to stop it while the project was still in progress. This was not a path prepared for him.

It was highly likely that once the Transmutation project was completed, everything would undergo a world-shaking change.

A rational impulse tempted him in his brain; I know exactly what the final content of those inspirations is. I only need a little more time, perhaps another hallucinogenic mushroom, and everything will change.

That [Long Road Home] that had always hung in his heart would also be completed.

He half-squatted, biting his tongue, using the physical pain to suppress the two restless thoughts, analyzing the [Project: Transmutation] that had temporarily paused in his mind.

No one would be bored enough to study the mystical theories of a mathematician from over two thousand years ago, not even Pythagoras, who laid one of the foundations of mathematics.

Just like Sir Newton, everyone only cared about the three laws of motion; no one cared about the "Alchemy Manuscripts" he had written.

The inspiration in his brain came from the number theory of the Pythagorean school. These things all came from his chatty roommate, who would preach things that should have earned him a pair of silver bracelets every day in the dorm.

So, my inspiration diverged, causing the alchemy based on the Four Causes Alchemy to connect with the Pythagorean mathematical ontology of the universe, relying on intuition to draw a strange pattern.

If I finish drawing this circle, what will happen?

Kas pondered for a moment, then cleanly and decisively filled in the missing arc of the circle, but no matter how he looked at it, it was vastly different from the pattern he had drawn unconsciously just moments ago...

Ugly, abrupt, lacking any sense of beauty, like a piece of dog shit stuck onto perfection.

"Ignite."

The iron barrel heated up rapidly, burning as fiercely as before, turning the ore into molten iron...

This time, Kas felt a connection to the minerals inside the iron barrel—an inexplicable sensation, as if his own body were burning, allowing him to precisely direct the flames to purge the impurities from within.

Strip away the useless impurities...

Hardness, toughness, wear resistance... The flames purified this precious ore, and following the inspiration he gained from the Four Causes Alchemy, Kas found the necessary magical carrying capacity.

Next came the refinement...

He grabbed the Black Guard's operating hook and pried open the barrel lid; a wave of heat surged from the narrow opening, washing over his entire body and turning his skin a searing red.

He tossed in a steel ingot devoid of any magical carrying capacity and sealed the barrel again, attempting to imbue the molten steel with magical potential.

But the results were poor; the mere thought of it made his brain feel as if it were growing again, as if countless steel needles and daggers were stabbing into his scalp.

I cannot turn a steel ingot without magical carrying capacity into Radel, but I can extract the magical carrying capacity from the ore and imbue the steel ingot with an effect comparable to Radel.

With his thoughts clear, he funneled the extracted "Radel" substance into the molten steel, squeezing it bit by bit to strip away the excess impurities.

As the furnace fire began to die down, Kas's face turned pale and he braced himself against his knees; his inspiration had been completely exhausted...

Damn it, I should just be a barbarian warrior.

The feeling of his brain being hollowed out was like pulling an all-nighter at an internet cafe for a week straight, only to walk out into the cold winter wind every morning to find a beauty to relieve the fatigue, eating a bowl of noodles while feeling like he could collapse into the broth at any moment.

In the pitch-black night, the severely overloaded iron barrel transformed into a miniature sun, softening into a lump that looked like a crushed soda can.

Baize swallowed hard, carefully prying open the lid that had fused into a single mass, and saw a silver-white metal strip the thickness of a pinky finger.

The metal strip was 3 centimeters long and 1.85 centimeters wide; the shaman did not know why.

He felt that this unremarkable strip of metal was more beautiful than the first time he had seen a woman's naked body, more moving than the first dagger he had ever forged; it transcended all past physical desires.

In that instant, thoughts slid like electricity from his spine into his brain, and memories branded into his mind like frozen hailstones slowly melted in his frontal lobe.

Baize knew: this was "beauty," the supreme good he had been pursuing.

He took the pinky-sized silver-white metal strip from the barrel, his expression shifting from confusion to surprise, then to instant ecstasy, and finally, he fell to his knees and wept, as if he had lived an entire lifetime in the span of three seconds.

He wanted to share this joy with the greatest contributor, only to find the ox-strong Kas bracing himself against his knees, gasping for air.

"Kas, Kas... are you alright!"

"Get me some Blue Lip, we're... doing it again, put all the remaining ore in."