Year 1, Fall, First Month, Fourth Week.

Tired of depressing thoughts, Karl decided to move on with his day and go check the processed materials. Since he knew that the meat and crystals would be in grandma Marlen’s hut, he headed straight there.

The wooden stand used for processing and storing the meat had been upgraded. While the team was hunting, Chief Omero asked the villagers to expand this hut and add more tables inside of it. Karl quickly noticed the difference and thought.

‘The Chief is always thinking big, maybe he has his own agenda.’

When Karl arrived, grandma Marlen was discussing how to prepare the meat with another elder. Seeing Karl, she politely asked the elder to go get more vegetables to prepare tonight’s feast.

After the elder left, she gave Karl a loving hug and offer some comfort.

“Oh Karl, I’m sorry about Carion... I know the details and I can only imagine how you’re feeling. But remember that it’s not your fault, everyone knew the risks and decided for themselves. Try to focus on the lives you saved.”

Karl had been repeating the same things to himself but was helpful listening to someone else saying it.

“Now young men, I need your help dealing with some pressing matters... You brought too much meat! Of course, I’m not complaining, in fact, it’s wonderful that we have more meat to eat. I just don’t want to waste it... Two months from now, winter will come and a lot of people will get sick. If we can put all this meat to good use, maybe we can reduce winter’s tragedies.” Karl nodded and she continued.

“The only thing that I know that could delay the rotting is to place the meat with lots of fat inside the half-buried pots. However, the beasts you slew don’t have a lot of fatness. Fortunately, the air is getting colder and the meat will stay good for more time...”

Karl listened attentively and thought about a solution.

“Grandma Marlen, can we cook the grey wolves and the feline beast tonight and let the spare meat be taken as additional servings like the last time? They’re wind beasts and are better eaten fresh. The hyena meat can last a little longer, so we should consume it next week. The salamander has a high magic concentration, it'll take time for it to go bad. We should save it for winter because the fire energy will help us through the cold. Also, I know about some herbs that can further reduce the rotting process, combined with the fat-storing...” Marlen was pleased and agreed with his plan.

‘So the red scale beast is a salamander... I heard about it but I never saw it. The kids are better than we estimated.’

After deciding the fate of the meat, he took the crystals and left to study it.

Magic Inventory

All

Unused

Magic Tools

Material

Qty

Qty

Tool

Qty

Material

Qty

LQ Energy Crystal

25

13

WET

3

LQ Energy Crystal

1

MQ Energy Crystal

1

0

LQ Water Crystal

1

LQ Water Crystal

4

1

LC

2

LQ Energy Crystal

4

LQ Earth Crystal

5

5

1

MQ Energy Crystal

1

LQ Wind Crystal

7

6

MAC

1

LQ Energy Crystal

1

MQ Fire Crystal

1

1

LQ Wind Crystal

1

LQ Magic Blood

8 l

MQ Magic Blood

2 l

After Karl checked what materials were available, he noticed 13 spare energy crystals and also some spare elemental crystals. Considering how low they were on materials when he starting crafting, this inventory was indeed rich.

However, Karl was just beginning, every day he would think about several different designs. Instead of seeing problems, he saw opportunities, instead of limitations he saw steps to greatness. He was developing what Master Al called a True Alchemist sight.

Before he could start designing new weapons and tools, he had to solve the plague problem.

From what Master Al taught Karl, he knew that life energy was present in all living beings, from plants to animals. Also, life energy could be measure as vitality.

Karl learned that when a living being is sick or dying, its vitality levels start to decrease. When fighting against sickness or disease, vitality played an important part. If one could measure vitality in sick or dying beings, one would see that its level was constantly dropping.

Therefore, increasing vitality would also help to fight against diseases. The most effective way of increasing vitality would be by using life energy. However, life crystals were very rare and difficult to find. Fortunately, Karl wanted to increase the vitality of a plant and thus had the option of using a plant crystal.

That’s why they collected the crystal from the Contple Tree. This tree would absorb a high amount of plant energy and form a core given time.

This kind of tree would only grow in places with a high magic energy concentration and it would require more plant energy than a normal plant. So, the tree would drain the plant energy from its surroundings, taking energy from other plants.

Karl planned to increase the green vitality in the plagued plants, so they could fend off the disease. Normally, increasing the vitality of a plant would mean draining plant energy from other plants or a crystal.

That wasn’t ideal because taking the energy from other plants would cause them to perish and taking it from the crystal would exhaust its energy.

Karl’s first option was to use his Direct Properties Array to direct the properties Growth and Nourishment to the plants. Increasing these properties would help the plant fight against the plague.

After using the Array for some time, Karl only needed one day to draw it. He would try to finish it before tonight’s feast. Anyway, tomorrow he would test it out.

.........

After Karl left, grandma Marlen started preparing the feast, she would need a lot of help to cook the three beasts. Fortunately, they already had experience with wind meat.

The elders helping Marlen were old but still had enough strength to cook. Since the village adults had already help in the cutting, they only needed to put the meat in the MAC and make the broth in the cooking pots.

The night arrived quickly and the villagers were all in the central square waiting for Chief Omero’s speech and, of course, for the feast.

“I would like to come here to celebrate and cheer like last time... Unfortunately, this hunting also took something from us, a boy with so much potential that was trying to save the village and change our miserable lives.”

The smiles and happy expressions in the crowd died instantly. The team members held their heads down, a mix of sadness, fear, shame, and even guilt for having survived, assaulted them. The Chief continued:

“We need to take this moment to appreciate what the hunting team and specially Carion did for us... But we shouldn’t give up on our dream just because he died. Every month we lose someone, to the famine, to the diseases, to the Kingdom... Carion’s death was different, he died fighting to improve our lives... For whom have the other dead villagers died?... For the nobles, for their comfort... Don’t give up because of an obstacle, because it’s difficult. Instead, rejoice because this was the first meaningful death in the village! I don’t know what you all think, but I would prefer to die for my family than to die serving the Serion Kingdom!”

With his speech, Chief Omero turned the sad atmosphere into a victory one. Even the members of the hunting team felt better after listening to it. The villagers felt a sense of union, they came to Karl and Diana to offer any help they could. Everyone wanted to help build a new Caiset village.

.........

“Come on! Johann, stop playing around and attack me with something strong!”

‘Why do I need to be so humiliated... This girl is not even 20... It’s so unfair!’

“Bah... You’re still refusing? So, you don’t leave me another option...”

Thundery ran towards him holding a sparkling sword and bearing a wicked smile. She was using Augment to transfer some electric effects to the sword from her hands. Usually, Mages aren’t inclined to use weapons or close fighting. But some choose to leverage their elemental affinity and abilities in close combat.

Low level Elemental Mages don’t have a lot of abilities and may be more inclined to use weapons. Which was Thundery’s case. Her long/medium distance attacks would take time to arrange and were costly, energy-wise. Her close effect abilities, on the other hand, offer ready-to-go effects and much less energy spending.

She crossed the green field faster than Johann was expecting, her sparkling sword slashing towards him without restrain. When she was midway, he tried to push the wind towards her creating a Slow effect. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to stop the girl’s charge.

He played the wrong cards. If he had started casting Wind Shield or Breeze earlier he might have blocked her, barely. Now, he could only escape by using speed boost. Even though she was fast it was difficult to match a wind Mage speed.

“Stop running! Coward... “

‘Not until I run out of energy...’

Johann remembered his training and started forming Breeze while running. The wind circling his hand and soon, his whole body, began to form strong currents. The attack wasn’t very powerful, it relied on increasing and controlling the wind currents to form a circling strong breeze, and finally direct it towards a target.

The wind current circling his body expanded, forming a four meters perimeter around Johann. Creating and maintaining it while running wasn’t a simple task, but Johann could be considered a genius among his peers.

He turned back and directed the Breeze against his persecutor. The girl tried to force her way through the wind but ended up being thrown back. She landed ten meters back and only managed to balance herself enough to avoid falling.

“Good... Very good...”

Thundery started to rearrange the small particles above her hand, forming sparks and increasing her attack’s potential. Johann almost lost seeing her wicked expression. Fortunately, he was used to it. The crystal in his ring shined and the wind flow increased forming a visible circle around his hand.

Soon, Thundery couldn’t hold the electric potential and directed the Thunder towards him. Johann matched her fierce attack with his strongest Wind Shield. He changed his hands to a pushing position towards her and the dense circling wind spiraled forward forming a shield to block the attack five meters from him.

The collision made a beautiful scene of sparks and lights leaving black marks on the ground. The Wind Shield didn’t hold but was enough to decrease the Thunder’s potential, causing it to dissipate before hitting its target.

Johann breathed a sigh of relief. However, his expression soon became ugly when he failed to locate Thundery in her previous position. Before he could process, the girl arrived at his side and pushed her hand, coated with Shock, into his stomach.

He flew against a tree, leaving a trail of smoke that marked his trajectory. Johann let several pain moans and couldn’t stand up. He failed to anticipate that she would use her strongest attack (Thunder) as a distraction to get close and Shock him.

“That’s payback!... Guards! Send for the healer, I might have exaggerated a little... “

.........

The next morning, Karl went to the village fields to test the tool. On the way there, he was given a warm reception by the other kids. Without noticing, Karl became their hero, he could only blush and thank them.

Karl looked at the ripping fields and made his way to the corner where the plague grew. To contain it, the Chief had ordered to remove all plants near the infected ones. He hoped that by making distance he would delay the spreading of the disease.

Although it worked, the plague still spread to the other plants. Currently, the village had lost around 15 percent of its harvest and another 30 percent were already infected.

Karl was now looking through a field of brown dead plants. He looked for the plant with the worst-case of infection that still showed some amount of green. The plague worked quickly and destroyed them by making their leaves die.

He positioned the bamboo stick so that the Array output was pointing to the plant and place the crystals to activate it.

The crystals on the tool shined while the green parts on the plant spread. The parts that were already dead just fell off the plant, but the parts where the green was fighting the brown grew.

Around five minutes later, the plant was renewed. Everyone started to cheer but Karl had a complicated expression on his face.

‘It’s taking too much time and energy to save a plant, how much would take to save all the infected plants? How can I improve its efficiency...?’

‘-- You have to remember that a magic tool needs to be efficient towards its function. It is possible to create anything, but True Alchemy only exists when you make the tool worth its use. --’

‘-- The efficiency is low because you are trying to move the properties of the crystal to an external target. When you used it on the weapons, you increased the properties in the same object in which the Arrays are drawn. In the WET’s case, you are moving the Affinity, which has a strong natural effect and needs less energy to attract the element. --’

‘But I can’t draw the Arrays in the plants or use Affinity because it would attract the vitality of other plants.’

‘-- Now that you considered the options and made the right questions, I can offer you another option. The Stimulus Rune can solve your problem. --’

Karl left the fields saying that he needed a couple of weeks to finish the tool. The confused villagers didn’t understand him but believed in his words.

.........

Two weeks later, Karl was back to test it again.

The Stimulus Rune uses magic energy to increase the energy manifestation of secondary energies, like elemental energy. The Rune was very powerful but Karl found its concept easy to grasp.

Something similar to how one puts branches in the fire and blows it to make it stronger. Even so, drawing it took almost all of his spiritual energy, so he spent days testing it.

Karl planned to use it to increase the manifestation of plant energy on the infected plants. Since the plants already had plant energy on them, the Rune would just increase its manifestation and thus help it fight against the plague.

Connecting the magic Arrays, however, ended up being a very difficult task. He was using the Extraction, Properties Extraction, and Direction Arrays, plus the Stimulus Rune. Again, he tried to combine the Arrays in several ways but couldn’t fit them together.

Fortunately, Master AI taught him a new Array. Actually, the Array was like an adaptation to combine Arrays' effects. The Combination Array was similar to the Execution Array.

The Array has the concept of Union and the aspect of Adding. Which made the parts more capable by adding their abilities.

He also learned that it could be used for combining more Arrays by drawing more internal circles. Since Karl was used to adjusting the Array´s effect by increasing its density, he could do it to match the small Arrays with the big Arrays.

In Karl’s final design, the Properties Extraction Array would extract the plant energy as a reference, increase its manifestation with the Stimulus Rune, and direct it to a target in front of the Direction Array. He named it the Vitality Enhancer.

After testing it, Karl drew the design on a bamboo stick asked Old Bill to craft placeholders for the crystals. Since he didn’t have other uses for the plant crystal he would make it a fixed holder, while the energy crystal would be used to activate and deactivate the tool.

In less than a week, the plague was finally over.