Alchemical Weapons

Clang, clang. Shien set two heavy lead boxes on the wooden table and flipped open their metal clasps.

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 veins covered their surfaces, which pulsed slowly in the low light like two demonic hearts still beating.

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

The rough crystals quickly formed 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 lone eye narrowed involuntarily. Memories of the Inquisition's torture made him instinctively afraid of these alchemical materials.

But under Shien's steady gaze, he finally reached out with his remaining left hand and picked up the charcoal pencil.

He had not touched a blueprint in far too long. His fingers trembled badly.

Yet the moment the pencil met the parchment, the alchemical knowledge he had suppressed through countless days and nights slowly began to stir.

"My lord... if Sourceblood served as its power source..." Uncertainty colored Victor's voice. "Perhaps I could build a Combat Golem that never tires."

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

The lord's face gave nothing away, so Victor forced himself to keep digging through what he remembered.

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

"We could also make a Sourceblood Scorched-Earth Flame Engine. Fill its tanks with boiling Sourceblood and acid, and it could spray jets of corrosive fire...

"Then there's a Sourceblood Heavy Crossbow... Boil water with Sourceblood and use the steam to draw the mounted crossbow instead of manpower...

"And finally, Crystal-Acid Explosive Canisters... Crush low-tier Sourceblood, mix it with venom, pack it into clay jars, and have soldiers throw them into the wolf pack to set off Poisonfire explosions..."

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

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

When Shien remained silent, panic flickered in Victor's eye.

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

"These are the only rough designs I can think of right now... If they don't satisfy you, I'll think of more. I can still think of more!"

He bowed his head humbly and waited for the rebuke.

Shien merely stood there in silence. Deep in his mind, though, the alchemical skill he had just copied and fused was working at a terrifying speed.

The incomplete ideas Victor had offered were instantly broken down into their most basic models in his mind.

He understood them—and in an instant, he saw every fatal flaw hidden in the designs.

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

"An Alchemical Golem is powerful," Shien said, glancing at the sketch, "but it's still a single fighter. We're facing a Blood Moon Beast Tide of tens of thousands. No matter how strong one golem is, it won't change the course of the battle."

With a stroke of his pencil, he crossed out the first sketch.

"The Scorched-Earth Flame Engine has a more obvious problem. First, it costs too much. Sourceblood, acid, special metal containers—every one of them is scarce.

He tapped the drawing with a fingertip, his tone still calm. "Second, it has to go on the offensive. Our goal isn't to fight a mobile battle against Demon Beasts in the wild. We're going to hold our defenses and drag the enemy into a meat grinder.

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

Shien tapped the pencil lightly against the table, then turned to another sketch.

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

He pointed to the marks representing several fragments of Sourceblood. "But using High-Tier Primordial Blood would be wasteful, while low-tier Sourceblood has an unstable resonance frequency. 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 a harmonic range, it can easily produce secondary vibrations. If the tower uses ordinary stone and timber, its own sound waves will crack it apart."

Shien paused, then added one more point.

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

Victor froze, his cloudy lone eye widening slightly.

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

Some of his insights had never even occurred to Victor himself.

Even the Church's mid-level alchemists might not measure up to him.

Questions rose to Victor's lips, but the shadow left by years of persecution stifled his curiosity.

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

Shien paid no attention to the old man's trembling. He tapped the table, circled the last two proposals, then began writing in the blank space, reworking them according to a logic from another civilization.

"Proposal five will be renamed the Semi-Automatic Steam Repeating Crossbow."

Shien swiftly drew a few stark, simple lines. "A piston-driven heavy crossbow could work for air defense, but your rigid gears transfer power too inefficiently and jam 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 mechanism instead. The Sourceblood heats a boiler at a constant rate, steam drives the piston, and the connecting rod resets the crank.

"That way, it can draw itself and fire repeatedly. It won't need complex runes, either, which will save Sourceblood."

Victor was still trying to grasp the astonishing linkage when Shien's pencil moved to the final proposal.

"Proposal six will be renamed 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 intricate trigger mechanism.

"Make it a pressure-triggered mine and bury them across a wide area. When a werewolf's heavy body steps on one, it compresses a spring. The mechanism drives a firing pin into the acid tube inside, causing the Sourceblood to explode."

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

Silence fell over the tent again.

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

A scrap of iron wire twisted into a coil could store energy, then release it in an instant with the aid of a few runes. That crude spring trampled all over the Alchemical Trigger Arrays the Church had studied for centuries.

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

Victor drew ragged breaths. The awe of discovery finally began to eclipse the fear left by years of persecution.

Without stopping to ask permission, he snatched up the drawing and bent over the table, painstakingly drawing runes.

Shien leaned back quietly in 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 Mack build you a dedicated Alchemy Workshop in the safest part of the Inner Fortress."

Victor jerked his head up. Tears instantly filled his cloudy lone eye.

"More people will arrive in Blackpine Fief soon. I'll personally pick the brightest and most capable ones 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 other proposals.

"Bring me any new designs when the time comes. I'll help you work through them or point you in the right direction. I do know a little alchemy, after all."

Victor's knees struck the ground hard. He pressed his thin lips to the muddy patch of earth an inch from Shien's boot and kissed it.

Shien watched in silence as the deep-blue number above Victor's head continued to climb.

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

Looks like advancing through the tiers of the Canon of Grace and Righteousness isn't nearly as simple as I thought. I really want to copy a skill above level three.