One-on-One Expert Instruction

The peaceful life left Silvia feeling a little dazed.

A week after arriving in this quiet little town, Wang Shui had already begun settling into life here. He had become friends with almost everyone he could meet.

He came across as steady and mild-mannered. With his strange alchemy and superb mechanical repair skills, Wang Shui had become a freelance engineer with a decent reputation. Most of his work involved calibrating and repairing all kinds of heavy machinery for factories on the outskirts of town.

Every day, Wang Shui did plenty of socializing while also memorizing any books he could find. Most evenings were spent on combat training. Sometimes Silvia controlled the body to work out, while Wang Shui idled in the background, organizing his knowledge.

On the outskirts of [Resembool], near the river at the edge of the village, a wooden fence enclosed about a hectare of open ground. As land suitable for woodland, it had not come cheap. The annual rent for the plot alone was 4,000.

A simple brick-and-stone cottage stood on a rise in one corner of the clearing, with a construction site beside it. Judging by the foundations, the house Wang Shui planned to build was not particularly complex in structure. The back looked more like a spacious workshop.

Naturally, Wang Shui had thrown the cottage together as temporary accommodation. After all, he still had to work out at night. Constantly jumping out of the inn's third floor was too much trouble, and a waste of money.

"So you interrupted today's workout plan just for this thing?"

Silvia looked at the enormous design on the stone paving of the open-air plaza and asked the question flatly.

She really liked this enormous stone-paved plaza. Surrounded by open, quiet grassland and woods, it had peaceful surroundings and fresh air, making exercise feel wonderfully refreshing.

But tonight, Wang Shui had not only called off the workout, he had also covered the plaza in chalk diagrams and writing.

"I spent several days preparing this."

Wang Shui carried over some steel, rubber, copper wire, and similar things from beside the cottage, placing them at designated points in this world's transmutation circle.

"Amestris really encourages its citizens to study alchemy, but it hasn't established a dedicated education system. Even the elementary academies are loosely organized. I don't know whether there are too few people or the author just didn't think it through. Literacy isn't high either, yet somehow they can still maintain a high-quality military. It's baffling. Still, books on basic alchemy are easy to get hold of, which really saved me a lot of trouble."

Wang Shui finished checking everything as he rambled. He went to the edge of the transmutation circle, crouched down, clapped his hands together, then pressed them onto it.

Blue lightning surged upward, quickly dissolving the things inside the transmutation circle. As they fused in the brilliant light, a complex black mechanical exoskeleton took shape.

"Looks a little like the frame of powered armor?" Silvia noticed immediately.

"It doesn't just look like one. This is the structural frame of second-generation powered armor. But I redesigned the powered arms, and the power supply needs reworking too."

Wang Shui went over to the mechanical exoskeleton and used red ink to draw a new transmutation circle at the end of the steel structure protecting the spine. The array was quite simple.

He put on the mechanical exoskeleton and felt his body secured in place. Wang Shui extended the tentacle-like powered arms, grabbed the ground some distance away, then pulled himself over. It felt a little like being Doctor Octopus with two tentacles.

It was powerful, but not very flexible.

"Without a [Muscle Enhancement Module], the frame can't give you a leap in strength and speed," Silvia reminded him.

"That's fine. I only need it to work as a powered exoskeleton, boosting my strength, sharing the load, and helping me move things."

"Powered? But there's no [Energy Module] on it either?"

Wang Shui snapped his fingers. "That brings us to what's unusual about this world. The energy needed for alchemical reactions here isn't supplied by the alchemist, but by energy from the earth's crust. The alchemist is the cornerstone-the cornerstone that constructs the framework of knowledge and provides mental guidance.

"So transmutation circles in this world don't need to be drawn with spiritual materials. An ordinary piece of chalk will do. Combine the appropriate arrays and writing into knowledge, then have the alchemist's mind provide the spark to trigger the crustal energy, and the alchemy activates."

"So your mechanical exoskeleton uses crustal energy? Does that count as an infinite energy source?"

"Not just mine. The automail in this world all uses a kind of perpetual transmutation circle for power. It's shaped like a cylindrical battery, with a transmutation circle, writing, and cushioning material sealed inside. Very durable. I just drew the transmutation circle directly on the outside, because the specialized power sources automail mechanics use are too expensive to make."

Wang Shui was quite pleased with himself. It had taken him only two days to learn and crack this technology.

"So why didn't you do it during the day?"

Silvia was not impressed by Wang Shui's achievement. He had skipped the combat lesson she had carefully prepared, and Silvia felt this fellow was simply slacking off.

"Don't rush me. I'm not done yet. I made the mechanical exoskeleton to save myself some effort."

Next, Wang Shui continued moving things into the transmutation circle while also altering the writing and diagrams inside it. He worked for a full two hours. The plaza was littered with all kinds of materials: glass, plastic, rubber, leather, synthetic foam, large quantities of steel and aluminum alloy, and more. These materials alone had not been cheap.

"What a wonderful feeling of creation." As he spoke, Wang Shui brought his palms together and transmuted again. Soon, a huge black machine appeared in the plaza.

"[Desert Cat Armored Infantry Fighting Vehicle]?! You can even craft one of these?!" This time, Silvia was truly shocked.

"It's just a shell. I removed the turret and machine gun, and put the 40 mm cannons beneath the side panels. Speaking of which, I haven't crafted any ammunition yet. Just making this armored hull was enough work. My head's buzzing right now."

Even as Wang Shui complained of dizziness, he quickly climbed into the vehicle. He had scaled it down a little, and now it looked like nothing more than a large off-road vehicle with a strikingly cool exterior.

Inside the driving compartment were two broad seats at the front and a hollowed-out hull behind them. Removing the turret had also eliminated many of its supporting structures, leaving much more room in the back.

There were no electronic devices on the center console, only empty openings. Wang Shui was not in the mood to work on primitive circuits. He had simply left space for later additions.

"Renting cars all the time is too much trouble, and the cars you can buy in this world are lousy and expensive. Better to build one myself. What do you think?"

"It's pretty good, but this interior is way too stupid. There are sharp corners everywhere."

"It... it can still be fitted out." Wang Shui was a little embarrassed. The details really did need some work.

"Does this vehicle use crustal energy too?" Silvia had not spotted the familiar energy module.

"For now. I'll improve it later. The transmutation circle supplying the energy has limited output, and its efficiency at converting that into mechanical energy isn't high either. Besides, the circle needs an alchemist to activate it, and it wears out. Most vehicles in this world still burn fuel. This one will need other power sources installed later too."

"Can I drive?"