The Art of Fire

No matter how much progress he made, he had to leave Blackwater Town within a week.

Lude knew full well that the risk of the Black Tide Society catching up with him increased with every passing day. He had settled on seven days because the shortest train journey from Vienna to Blackwater Town took eleven days.

The straight-line distance between Vienna and Blackwater Town was 235 kilometers. In theory, a train could cover that in ten hours, but trains weren't airplanes. They couldn't travel in a straight line.

The wilderness and terrain in this world were far more treacherous than on Earth, so the railway tracks had to wind around a lot more. On top of that, he'd have to change trains several times along the way, and their departure times were unpredictable. The journey ended up taking much, much longer.

Lude always prepared for the worst.

Suppose Vienna headquarters had pinpointed his location the moment Brandon and Polina died, and that they'd been tracking him in real time. Even then, it would probably still take them eight days to reach him.

He had a week, with one day to spare. Even by the most cautious estimate, he could still get away in time. The only thing he might need to worry about was another Elite Guard team, one whose direction of pursuit he didn't know.

But if it was only a two-person Elite Guard team, Lude reckoned he could handle them.

It would even give him a chance to add to his collection of Residual Flame.

Lude lightly tapped the Glazed Pouch at his waist. There was no way he could improve fast enough to completely remake himself in such a short time, but he could still make alchemical weapons and explosives... probably.

After all, Professor Beshe had personally determined that this body had a talent for Alchemy.

Alchemy was also known as the "Art of Fire." It encompassed all arts that brought about change through fire, including the arts of destruction and reconstruction.

Simply put, anything that involved "consuming one thing to make another" counted as Alchemy.

One of the four great disciplines of the Hidden World, Alchemy could even open the door to immortality when mastered to its furthest reaches. They said that any alchemist who reached the Rubedo level could gain eternal life through their craft.

Paracelsus had reached that level.

The eight great achievements of Alchemy represented its eight branches: [Matter], [Elements], [Life], [Intellect], [Spirit], [Causality], [Time], and [Space].

Professor Beshe had been best at [Life], [Elements], and [Spirit].

Of course, Lude had no grounds to discuss any of this yet. He didn't even count as an alchemist.

But he didn't need such profound skills right now.

All Lude needed for the moment was to forge a weapon that could withstand his full strength without breaking—perhaps also some sword oil and bombs with special effects, along with protective measures that could save his life.

The weapon was especially important.

With this body, Lude could hit his target every time within the range of a firearm. But if he were facing an enemy that firearms could handle, he wouldn't need a melee weapon at all. He could just use his fists.

What worried Lude were opponents like himself.

Lord Hypnos had once said that alchemical modification was one way for a spellcaster to grow stronger. That meant that if Lude faced another spellcaster who had undergone alchemical modification, the gap in physical strength between them might well disappear.

So he needed a weapon he could handle, one that would be effective in that kind of fight.

The sword Lude carried was still Aleppo's—the silver-green Dragon Tooth Sword. It was a pretty good alchemical weapon, but it had one fatal flaw: it was too short.

The Dragon Tooth Sword was a standard [saber]. That meant the kind of sword officers in the Loselin Empire's cultural sphere wore for self-defense. Designed for trench and indoor combat, it was comparatively short.

A sixty-centimeter, one-handed sword was long enough for an ordinary person. The problem was that Lude stood a full 196 centimeters tall, so in his hand, the sword looked like a toothpick...

Lude wanted to make himself a longsword, at least a meter long, that could withstand his full strength. With his power behind a sturdy enough weapon, he'd be a human meat grinder!

The first requirement for forging such a weapon was having metal strong enough to make it.

Professor Beshe's notes mentioned just such a metal, one suited to the kind of weapon Lude wanted to forge. It was called [Resist-Steel].

[Resist-Steel] was an artificial alchemical material.

An artificial alchemical material was made by transferring a material's supernatural properties to metal, then stabilizing them.

For example, the supernatural property—its [spirit element]—could be transferred from [Hellfire Stone], which was mined deep beneath volcanoes, into steel. That would allow an alchemist to forge [Hellfire Iron], which released heat at 1,500°C when infused with Psionic Energy.

Weapons forged from Hellfire Iron could inflict irreparable wounds on the vast majority of carbon-based life.

[Resist-Steel], on the other hand, was one of the few alchemical materials that could be forged without supernatural ingredients.

All it took was a basic process of destruction and reconstruction applied to steel, along with an infusion of pure Psionic Energy.

This material had no supernatural properties of its own, but it was highly compatible with all kinds of supernatural properties. Its physical properties were outstanding, even surpassing those of aerospace materials.

In plain language, this stuff was ridiculously sturdy and durable, and it worked with almost every kind of sword oil, enchantment, and transmutation.

According to Professor Beshe, being able to forge Resist-Steel independently was the mark of an alchemist. At least, that was the standard he set for his apprentices. They weren't considered to have entered the field until they could make it on their own.

After all, Resist-Steel was one of the most versatile low-level alchemical materials, with such a wide range of uses that it was practically everywhere.

I need to rent a smithy, Lude thought. And get some research equipment.

Besides that, Lude needed some basic materials to experiment with, even materials that couldn't be considered supernatural.

Under the influence of the ever-present winds of Psionic Energy, the boundary between supernatural materials and ordinary things was often blurred. Some of the lowest-grade materials simply needed special preparation before they could reveal even the faintest trace of supernatural properties.

Many herbs, for example, could be used by doctors to treat illnesses, but a potion-maker could bring out their effects more effectively.

From that perspective, Chinese medicine might even be a major discipline in this world.

After all, according to Professor Beshe's notes, extracting the pure supernatural elements from materials was also a branch of Alchemy.

Preparing herbal remedies and brewing potions, forging metal and extracting its properties—they used different materials, but there was no fundamental difference between them. That was why they were all classified as the [Art of Fire].

Potions... I'd better study those too. They might come in handy.

Lude frowned as he thought it through. Forge Resist-Steel, brew sword oil, make bombs, prepare potions... He hadn't had time to think carefully while being hunted, but now he could see just how much he had to do—and that he couldn't afford to skip any of it.

After all, everything he did was to make himself stronger. Just as the saying went, he was studying for his own sake now.

Lude frowned and touched the Glazed Pouch at his waist. "I'm also running low on kerosene. The smell is unbearable, but fuel really is the best food source for this body. At least it works as an energy drink to keep me alert."

It looked like he had a lot to do over the next seven days. He might even have to make some hard choices.

The sun had revolved, the crescent moon had risen in the east, and it was already nine in the evening.

As the steam engine's power gradually dwindled, Lude knew it was time to get off.

The red tiles of the station roof were already visible alongside the tracks. If the train schedule wasn't more than twelve hours off, the station where the train had stopped should be Pilsen.

That's right, Pilsen, not Blackwater Town. As a [town], Blackwater Town had neither the right nor the need to build a train station, so Lude would have to take a carriage from Pilsen to Blackwater Town.

Curiously, perhaps under the influence of the Loselin Empire's founding emperor, Loservia I, the countries in the empire's cultural sphere had mostly adopted the same administrative divisions: nation-province/state-city/commandery-district/county-township/village.

That saved Lude the trouble of researching it himself.