Alchemical Weapons

Thud, thud. Shien set two heavy lead boxes on the wooden table, and their metal clasps sprang open.

A dim crimson glow immediately drove the shadows from the corner of the tent.

Inside lay two pieces of Tier Three Sourceblood. Fine blood-red lines covered their surfaces, which pulsed slowly in the gloom like two demon hearts still beating.

Shien picked up a bulging burlap sack and poured thousands of pieces of Sourceblood onto the table.

The rough crystals quickly piled into a faintly glowing mound.

"We need a core weapon that can truly kill in one strike. Tell me, as an expert, what can you make with these?"

Victor's single eye contracted. Memories of the Inquisition's torture made him instinctively fear these alchemical materials.

But under Shien's steady gaze, he finally stretched out his trembling left hand, the only one he had left, and picked up the charcoal pencil.

It had been far too long since he had touched a blueprint. His fingers shook badly.

But the moment the pencil touched the parchment, the alchemical knowledge he had suppressed through countless days and nights began to stir.

"My lord... if Sourceblood powered its heart..." Victor's voice lacked confidence. "Perhaps I could build a tireless Combat Golem."

After finishing the first sketch, he stole a glance at Shien.

The lord's face betrayed nothing, so Victor could only steel himself and keep dredging ideas from his mind.

"Or... we could build a Sonic Resonance Lure Tower. It would use Sourceblood's resonance to emit high-frequency noise and draw lower-tier Demonic Beasts from dozens of miles away into a killing zone...

"We could also make a Sourceblood Scorched-Earth Flame Engine. Fill a tank with boiling Sourceblood and acid, then spray out a pillar of corrosive fire...

"And a Sourceblood Heavy Crossbow... boil water with Sourceblood to draw a siege crossbow in place of manpower...

"Lastly, Crystal-Acid Explosive Canisters... crush lower-tier Sourceblood, mix it with poison, and pack it into clay jars for soldiers to throw into the wolf pack, setting off poisonous-fire explosions..."

By the time Victor had managed to sketch those five or six designs, sweat covered his forehead.

He had once been a master alchemist, but his mind had lain unused for too many years. It had grown rusty.

When Shien remained silent, panic flashed through Victor's eye.

He hurriedly put down the pencil and hunched over, his voice trembling. "My lord... it's been too long since I used this knowledge. My mind has grown dull.

"These fragments are all I can think of right now... If they don't satisfy you, I'll think of more. I can still think of more!"

He lowered his head humbly and waited for a rebuke.

Shien merely stood there in silence, but deep in his mind, the alchemical skill he had just replicated and integrated was working at a terrifying speed.

Victor's incomplete concepts had already broken down into their most basic models in his mind.

He had not merely understood them. In an instant, he had seen every fatal flaw hidden within them.

Shien picked up the charcoal pencil Victor had set down. His tone held no reproach, only a certain chill.

"An Alchemical Golem would indeed be powerful." Shien glanced at the sketch. "But it's still just one fighter. We're facing a Blood Moon Beast Tide numbering in the tens of thousands. However strong one golem is, it won't change the course of the battle."

A light stroke of his pencil crossed out the first sketch.

"The problem with the Scorched-Earth Flame Engine is even more obvious. First, it costs too much. Sourceblood, acid, special metal tanks—every component is scarce.

He tapped the drawing with a fingertip, his tone still calm. "Second, it requires us to take the offensive. But our goal isn't to fight a mobile battle against Demonic Beasts in the open. It's to hold our defensive line, drag the enemy into a meat grinder, and wear them down.

"So there's no need to build such an expensive, dangerous offensive weapon. Rejected."

Shien tapped his pencil lightly against the table and turned to another sketch.

"As for the Sonic Resonance Lure Tower, the idea itself isn't bad."

He pointed to the marks for several pieces of crushed Sourceblood. "But using high-tier Sourceblood would be wasteful, while the resonance frequency of lower-tier Sourceblood is unstable. Without a stable Rune Array to lock it in, the sound would fade on its own within a few dozen breaths.

"And once Sourceblood resonance enters the harmonic range, it can easily produce secondary vibrations. Build the tower from ordinary stone and timber, and its own sound waves could crack it apart."

Shien paused, then added another point.

"If we do build it, we'll need precious metals and a stabilizing array. Otherwise, the tower will collapse before it draws in a single Demonic Beast."

Victor stood utterly stunned, his clouded eye widening slightly.

This young lord knew far more about alchemy than Victor had expected.

He had even considered things Victor himself had never thought of.

Even the Church's intermediate Alchemists might not measure up to him.

Questions rose to Victor's lips, but the shadow left by years of persecution smothered his thirst for knowledge.

His lips trembled, yet he did not dare ask a single one.

Shien paid no heed to the old man's trembling. He tapped the table and circled the last two proposals separately, then set his pencil to the blank space and began redesigning them according to the logic of another civilization.

"The fifth proposal will be called the Semi-Automatic Steam Repeating Crossbow."

Shien swiftly drew a few remarkably simple lines. "A piston-powered heavy crossbow would work for air defense, but your rigid gears transmit power inefficiently and would jam far too easily."

Two crank-and-connecting-rod mechanisms and a steam valve soon appeared on the page—structures Victor had never seen before.

"Forget the rigid gears. Use this system instead. Sourceblood will keep the boiler running, steam will drive the piston, and the connecting rods will reset the rotation.

"That will let it draw itself and fire continuously. It won't need complex Runes, either, so it will save Sourceblood."

Victor had not yet recovered from the astonishing connecting-rod design when Shien's pencil moved to the final proposal.

"The sixth proposal will be called the Pressure-Triggered Poisonfire Mine. Soldiers would have to throw the Explosive Canisters by hand. Their range is too short, and they're too easy to dodge."

Inside the clay jar, Shien drew an ingenious trigger mechanism.

"Make it a pressure-triggered mine and bury them across a wide area. When a Werewolf's heavy body steps on one, the spring compresses, and the mechanism drives a firing pin through the acid tube inside, detonating the Sourceblood."

Shien tossed the pencil back onto the table. "The cost is extremely low. We'll make hundreds, even thousands, and turn the outer perimeter into a Minefield."

Deathly silence fell over the tent again.

Victor's remaining left hand hung in midair. He had forgotten to lower it.

A length of scrap wire twisted into a spiral to store energy, a few Runes, and a spring that released that energy in an instant—this crude arrangement trampled the Alchemical Trigger Array the Church had studied for centuries and ground it to pieces.

This was no mere improvement. It was an entirely new structure, one that could overturn traditional alchemical construction.

Victor gulped down air. The fear left by years of persecution was finally being eclipsed, bit by bit, by his awe at this knowledge.

Forgetting even to ask forgiveness, he snatched up the drawings, bent over the table, and began laboriously drawing Runes.

Shien leaned quietly against the back of his chair. Above Victor's head, the deep-blue halo representing his Grace Value churned violently.

At last, Shien said, "We'll use these two for now. Keep thinking about the others. I'll have Mike build you a separate Alchemy Workshop in the safest part of the Inner Fortress."

Victor jerked his head up. Tears instantly filled his clouded eye.

"In a little while, more people will arrive in Blackpine Fief. I'll personally pick the sharpest minds and the deftest hands to serve as your apprentices.

"And if we obtain higher-tier materials, more complete Sourceblood, or other spoils, you can keep improving these designs or try the others.

"Bring me any new proposals when you have them. I'll help you think them through or give you a direction. After all, I do know a little alchemy."

Victor's knees struck the ground hard. He pressed his shriveled lips to the muddy patch of earth an inch before Shien's military boots and kissed it.

Shien watched quietly. The string of deep-blue numbers above Victor's head kept climbing.

But the color remained at the limit of deep blue. It did not transform into a higher-tier purple halo.

It seems advancing through the ranks of the Canon of Grace and Righteousness is nowhere near as simple as I thought. I really want to replicate skills above lv. 3.