AK - The Alchemy Kingdom

Chapter 110: Divergences

Year 3, Spring, Second Month, Third Week.

Karl tried to hold on to the concept as the energy left him to transmit his intent to the Array. The invisible spiritual energy traveled through the ink, giving conceptual form to the drawing. This concept was so complex that Karl could barely grasp it, even with Master AIs help. After a month of reflection and meditating on analogies, he finally got an initial view of it, so he decided to start experiment drawing it.

The first impression of the villagers, when they got in contact with Alchemy, was of a craft, in fact, this was the term used to refer to Karls work at that point. However, as their contact and involvement with Alchemy deepened, especially with the department's creation and the appearance of disciples, the comprehension of the subject also changed. Now, many considered Alchemy a magic system, a word Karl used for different uses of magic.

Although drawing designs was still the main purpose of this system, Alchemy was also reaching the realm of theory. At night or in their spare time, the Alchemists, students and even people from other areas start meeting in groups to discuss the subject and many of its concepts. For example, Oliver was participating in a group that met every week to discuss the aspects of Alchemy, while Anya was sporadically attending meetings that occurred every day to talk about ideas for new magic tools.

Even outside the department, Alchemy was gathering a lot of enthusiasts, not only for its study but also for its uses. The Council was even considering formalizing another department to deal with training people to use the magic tools as the importance of expert users became more evident in the different departments.

But back to Karls work. Despite grasping the basic concept of the Array, dozens of times he failed to keep that concept during the entire drawing process, which was the same as wasting the Array. Aside from being a complex concept, the drawing form of this Array wasnt easy. Now, for the first time, he was on track to draw it while also maintaining the concept. He was already on the last line, the probability of failing now was very low, but then, his spiritual energy started to fail, and at the last moment, it was exhausted.

The urge to curse and break the wooden plate was quickly overturned by the fainting sensation that spread through his mind. The risks of depleting ones spiritual energy were well known amongst the Alchemists and only Anya was adept or comfortable with doing it. Fortunately, Karls rare spiritual recovery rate kicked in and save him from falling victim to this amateur mistake. Actually, he only had himself to blame for failing at the last moment, estimating the right energy density to uniformly draw an Array or Rune was a basic preparation step, which Karl grew used to ignoring due to his large energy pool.

The awkward self-blaming and cursing situation was fortunately interrupted by one of the Councils assistants, who came to tell him it was time for a meeting. Karl unwillingly asked the man help to stand and walk towards the Council pavilion until he regained strength and gratefully thanked the assistance.

Previously, when they only paused their journey overnight, they only built necessary facilities, like shelters for elders, the sick and children. However, this time they would stay longer in this camp, so building a few more places was fine. Karl entered the pavilion and sat after greeting the Councilors. Almost everyone noticed his poor complexion, but they could only ignore it to preserve the meetings brevity, they all had a lot to do.

Samia, who was taking a mandatory (forced) rest in the camp, opened the meeting without any solemnity.

The scouting team tracking the potential enemies finally reported the results of their mission

The operation happened a few days ago, but only now the team managed to make a complete report. The communication tools helped a lot with passing simple information, like emergencies and team status, but complex information still needed to wait for a personal report.

Katlyn felt extremely irritated for not being the one giving the report, actually, she wasnt happy the report had arrived at the girls hand while she didnt have a clue of its content. This problem started months ago with divergences about the special scouting unit and has been intensifying since. The crucial conflict erupted two weeks ago when the shadow unit started to report directly to Samia.

At that time, Katlyn wanted to replace the members of the unit but the usually quiet Samia intervened in favor of the hunters, who were former members of her hunting team. To deescalate the conflict the Council decided to place the shadow unit under Samia and give her some freedom from the Hunting Department. The divergences between the two women went from the units equipment, which Katlyn defended should be less expensive, to their formations.

Although Katlyn was the departments head, Samias popularity had grown a lot recently. The tales of her successes spread fast and were amongst the most popular stories. Who in the camp didnt know about how she escaped from a group of Adventurers and two Mages? Or how she had faced two MT beasts and survived to tell, even bringing a MQ crystal back as proof? Even when she wasnt the protagonist, like when they collaborated with the Adventurers and brought back more than a dozen MQ wind crystals, people would talk about her heroic actions.

Of course, the timid and introverted girl wasnt responsible for this sudden popularity or for spreading those tales. This was the result of her twin sisters propaganda, who was discretely spreading the stories of Samias adventures. The actual subject of those tales was happy to stay in the shadows and only do her part to help. In fact, if Katlyn hadnt moved against the members of her former team, she wouldnt have requested the separation from the department. However, what both women didnt know, was that those scouts who decided to pass the information directly to Samia were instigated by someone else.

They made visual confirmation of the numbers and estimated their power, but I asked for an emergency meeting because of another information

Samia told them what happened during the operation and the message that was passed by the Mage. Their initial reaction was panic, but they soon regained composure, being pursued or threatened wasnt something new to them. The challenges faced in the last months didnt only wound them but also brought confidence in dealing with difficult situations.

The contact and proposal coming from one of the most important figures of the Kingdom were completely unexpected, of course, the threats underlined in the message were also clear. After discussing possibilities, they realized they knew nothing about some parts of the message, like coming from a new Wind Lord, or the Mages decision of mentioning the Wardens name.

Omero and Lew knew enough about the Kingdoms decorum to point out that referring to one of the Wardens by their name was extremely impolite, especially when done by servants or nobles of a lower level. Of course, they didnt dismiss the possibility of this not meaning anything in particular, but it was something strange.