“…I brought it,” Grem wheezed, losing consciousness.

  It was dark near the gates. But the stench of bandages and the dry, burning skin of the Battle Master told Valm far more than his eyes ever could. The alchemist grabbed the guard’s left wrist, feeling for a pulse. Strong, erratic, uneven… Not good.

  “Teacher! He’s burning up!”

  “Shut up, long-ears! I can see that! Close the gates and help me!”

  Qian shut the gates and rushed to the Battle Master, a healing pill appearing in her fingers as she tried to shove it into Grem’s mouth. Valm barely had time to slap her hand away to stop her. The white pill rolled off the cobblestones onto the green lawn.

  Qian didn’t understand. At all.

  “Teacher, what are you doing?! I’m trying to save him!”

  “And I just saved you, idiot! You think he doesn’t have pills on him? That he didn’t take them just for fun?! Now shut up and do exactly as I say. Not a single unnecessary move!”

  She had never seen her teacher this angry. But what had she done wrong? She only gave a short nod in response. She’d ask her questions later.

  Despite not being particularly tall or muscular, Grem’s body—having undergone four transformations of the martial path—was heavy. Much heavier than one would expect just by looking at him.

  Valm and Qian grabbed the guard under his arms and dragged him toward the house.

  “Undress him, quickly!”

  Giving orders was one thing… Battle Masters’ armor was never simple, and Grem’s was custom-made for his fighting style, where speed was paramount. Those damned fastenings… The alchemist had no idea where they were or how they worked.

  “Screw this!” he snarled.

  A few tongues of bloodlust coiled around his hand, forming a bright red dagger in his palm. Without aura reinforcement, the armor shattered like chaff in a storm.

  Valm looked at Grem’s swollen, blue arm and shook his head. A complex fracture with displacement, internal bleeding… The skin was covered in a fine network of cracks.

  But the worst came when he cut away the bandages on his torso.

  In all his three years in the Healers’ Guild, Valm had never seen such neglected wounds. Even afterward, to be honest, he hadn’t.

  For a moment, he considered just shoving a pill down the guard’s throat and saying to hell with it…

  No. Grem would never forgive him for that. If he had made this choice himself, it wasn’t up to an alchemist to go against it. Even if the guard died in his hands.

  This was the choice of a Battle Master, and it had to be accepted.

  Valm looked again at Grem’s belly, now tinged with green, and the hole beneath his ribs. It was almost sealed shut from inflamed tissues swelling around it.

  With one swift motion, the alchemist swept everything off the table behind him.

  “Lay him here! And prepare thirty… No, better make it fifty liters of one-percent saline solution. Warm… Like human body temperature… Now!”

  He barked the last command when he saw Qian frozen, staring at the wounded man.

  “Grem, I don’t know if you can hear me, but I’ll do everything I can. If I fail… I hope you won’t be too mad at me when we meet in the next life!”

  With a single stroke, he sliced open the abdominal cavity from chest to groin.

  He wasn’t trying to heal him—without potions or pills, that was no longer possible. Valm only wanted to stabilize the Battle Master for the next few days, ten at most, until the breakthrough pill—one he still had to create—began to work. After that, it would all depend on Grem—whether his body could withstand a full reconstruction in this state.

  Qian dragged a giant cauldron filled with warm saline into the room and stood beside her teacher. The sight of the guard’s open belly raised even more questions, but she held back.

  An alchemist killing to heal?

  That didn’t make sense in her head.

  “You didn’t use it for feeding livestock, as I told you, but now it came in handy!”

  Valm glanced at the alchemical cauldron he had once harshly criticized and smirked.

  “Now, Qian, I’ll give you another lesson. It has nothing to do with alchemy, but since we have the opportunity…”

  “What lesson, Teacher?”

  Qian’s eyes widened in fear at Valm’s smile.

  “How to wash your friends’ intestines!”

  “Teacher, you—”

  “Yep! In the most literal sense.”

  She swallowed hard.

  Had her teacher completely lost his mind in that damn monster lab?!

  Washing the intestines of a living person?!

  Ignoring his student’s doubts, Valm got to work. He knew exactly what needed to be done.

  The most important thing was that Grem could endure it.

  The cleansing and flushing of the abdominal cavity from inflammation and pus, along with surgery on his right arm, took over six hours.

  After placing the last stitch, the alchemist smiled and collapsed into a chair.

  The Battle Master had endured.

  And now, with the root cause of the inflammation removed, he should have no trouble lasting until the breakthrough pill took effect.

  “Now listen carefully, Qian.” He held up a large bottle of some clear liquid. “You’ll use this to clean the skin around the stitches every six hours. I’ll be outside preparing the pill for Grem, and it’ll take a few days. But remember—no matter what you see, no matter what you hear—do not come near me! Understood?”

  “Yes, Teacher! Can I watch from the porch?”

  “You can watch, but don’t forget about Grem.”

  “Mm-hmm!”

  She sniffed the liquid in the bottle and grimaced at the strong smell of alcohol. It seemed even the tips of her fluffy ears turned red.

  Valm stepped outside. A grade-eight pill… It wasn’t that its creation made him doubt his abilities, but the unusual natural phenomena accompanying the process would reveal him to everyone. Even those he wished to avoid. If not for Grem’s condition, the alchemist would have found the deepest hole on the continent and prepared it there. Unfortunately, there was no time for that.

  Once the pill was ready, all the powerful figures in the world would want to snatch it for themselves. Back when he was a teenager studying under the Toxic Dragon, Valm had witnessed a battle between two Gods of War over a grade-eight pill his master had refined. It had been thrilling—and terrifying as hell.

  The alchemist set the Citadel’s defenses to maximum power and sighed. This thing would hold back Battle Ancestors for a while, but as for Gods of War… he could only hope none were within a thousand kilometers. Otherwise, Grem risked losing everything.

  Valm sat in the courtyard and pulled out several bottles of high-grade restoration and endurance potions. The backlash would be brutal… To ease his future “hangover,” the alchemist tossed a grade-five healing pill into his mouth. With these preparations done, he could begin.

  From his storage, he retrieved several hundred small boxes made of various materials, from wood to stone. Among them was the glass one Grem had brought. Taking one last deep breath and sharpening his focus to the peak, Valm turned his right palm upward and curled his fingers as if holding a large apple. White, translucent fire ignited over his claws and, in an instant, surged upward, growing tenfold.

  Qian, sitting a good twenty meters away on the house’s steps, watched her master in fascination. She could feel the warmth of the celestial flame. As it flared particularly brightly, the fire split into dozens of separate flames, forming a large circle around Valm. At this point, the alchemist closed his eyes and worked solely by relying on his inner vision, senses, and spiritual power.

  The various boxes began opening on their own, their ingredients flying directly into the flames, each of which became a separate, tiny alchemical cauldron. Inside, the materials disintegrated into dust, instantly expelling impurities straight through the fiery walls of the cauldrons. Qian’s nose caught a complex mix of aromas, making her head spin. Yet Valm, seated at the very heart of it all, remained still and calm, like a marble statue.

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  After several hours, all the boxes around the alchemist were empty. The number of flames had increased by a few dozen, forming a second, smaller circle. Once all the cauldrons stabilized, the circles began rotating slowly—outer to the left, inner to the right.

  Suddenly, one of the cauldrons in the inner circle shot forward and collided with a flame in the outer circle. A burst of rainbow light erupted from the impact, then the two flames merged into one, and the circles continued their movement.

  Qian clutched her hands to her chest, watching anxiously as the rainbow light struck the Citadel’s protective dome, then slowly descended, scattering across the courtyard before fading.

  But before it fully vanished, another flame from the inner circle leaped out and merged with one in the outer ring, sending another burst of radiance skyward. This pattern continued, at least one fusion per hour, and within a day, the inner ring of flames had completely disappeared.

  The first beads of sweat appeared on Valm’s forehead.

  From the moment the celestial flame ignited above his palm, he hadn’t moved a single muscle. Watching him, Qian couldn’t believe a living being could possess such concentration. She struggled to control a single alchemical cauldron for a grade-two potion, yet her master… He was managing dozens at once, not just overseeing the internal processes but even shaping the vessels themselves!

  Awe swelled in her chest, bordering on reverence. Could she ever become like him? Would she ever be able to practice alchemy at even a fraction of his skill?

  “My master is incredible!” she thought, nodding to herself.

  On the second day of the pill refinement, heavy black clouds began gathering over the Citadel in the otherwise clear sky.

  Qian watched in amazement. The sky remained pristine in all directions—except above them, where the clouds not only thickened but started to swirl.

  She glanced from Valm to the sky and back again.

  Was this because of him?!

  Was he creating something so powerful that even the world’s laws reacted?!

  Air hissed through Valm’s clenched teeth.

  It was time.

  Eighty-eight translucent fiery cauldrons revolved around him. Suddenly, two collided, merging, and a rainbow pillar of light shot into the sky.

  A loud rumble echoed from the clouds, and a short bolt of lightning struck toward the Citadel.

  Qian yelped and jumped, clamping a hand over her mouth immediately, fearing she had disturbed her master.

  She needn’t have worried.

  Right now, Valm heard and saw nothing except the processes occurring within the eighty-seven remaining cauldrons.

  One of the reasons he had ordered his disciple not to approach him was exactly this.

  Minutes later, another fusion occurred, sending a fresh surge of rainbow light skyward—followed by another peal of thunder and another flash of lightning.

  The cauldrons were now merging much more frequently. Thunder and lightning cracked every few minutes, until only forty-four remained.

  A long pause followed.

  During this time, the clouds over the Citadel changed. They grew darker, larger, but in the very center, a clearing appeared—revealing a glimpse of bright sky above.

  A bead of sweat rolled down Valm’s brow and fell, but froze mid-air before reaching the ground.

  Two flames out of the forty-four merged, triggering an explosion in the heavens.

  A massive lightning bolt split the clouds from within, this time striking the ground several hundred meters from the Citadel.

  Qian shot to her feet, sensing the aura of a Battle Ancestor swiftly approaching.

  Less than a minute after the first fusion, another occurred.

  The rainbow light no longer had time to dissipate, instead spreading across the courtyard, crashing against the protective dome.

  For nearly half an hour, thunder and lightning roared and flashed continuously over the Citadel.

  Qian felt the Battle Ancestor’s aura stop a few kilometers away. Most likely, he was afraid to approach, wary of being caught in a strike powerful enough to incinerate him in an instant.

  As twenty-two cauldrons remained, Qian thought her master looked… different.

  His body seemed to have dried out, making him appear taller, even while sitting.

  His eyes had sunken inward, swallowed by darkness.

  An unfamiliar energy spread around him, making her body tremble.

  During a brief pause, another fusion occurred, unleashing a wave of light that surged outward from Valm.

  Thunder rumbled nonstop.

  As the light washed over her, Qian felt a surge of strength—and something like a purification of her mind.

  But before she could process it, another wave passed through her.

  The lightning above the Citadel was now so frequent that the courtyard barely dipped into darkness beneath the black clouds.

  If Valm weren’t entirely focused on refining the pill, he would have explained to his disciple that these waves of light repeatedly passing through her were echoes of the Laws of Alchemy.

  And that, in fact, she should sit down and meditate right now—to better grasp the rules he had already taught her and those he had yet to.

  Such a phenomenon was rare but could occur when an alchemist infused new formulas into the creation of a high-level product—ones that had never existed in the Laws before.

  In other words, it could be called a revelation—an invention.

  When only eleven flames remained around Valm, the clouds above the Citadel began spinning faster. The center fully cleared, allowing a single, thin beam of sunlight to pierce down.

  The calm didn’t last.

  One cauldron fused with another.

  The sky seemed to lurch downward, sending a shockwave rippling for miles.

  Dozens of blue lightning bolts crashed to the ground, enveloping the Citadel like a shroud.

  “Ten…” Valm’s dry lips moved soundlessly.

  But as soon as they stilled, the sky trembled again.

  Another shockwave tore outward, toppling trees and ripping the earth apart around the Citadel.

  “Nine…” His cracked lips bled.

  Qian sensed several more powerful auras approaching—undeterred even by the falling heavens and relentless lightning.

  “Eight…” Blood trickled from the alchemist’s nose.

  Fires flared around the Citadel, ignited by the storm.

  “Seven…”

  The new strike extinguished some fires but ignited new ones, fanned by the wind from the sky.

  “Six…”

  “Five…”

  “Four…”

  The very ground was burning now, the stone itself ablaze… Black clouds of smoke, frequently slashed by flames, could easily compete with the dark storm clouds in the sky.

  “Three…”—now thin streams of blood trickled even from the corners of Valm’s closed eyes.

  Lightning cascaded from the heavens like a waterfall, unceasing. Because of the constant thunder in the sky, Qiang fell to the ground and covered her white ears with her hands. But it was futile—there was no escaping it.

  “Two…”

  “One!”

  Bathed in the light of the lightning, Valm slowly rose above the ground. Terrified, Qiang caught sight of his thin, withered figure from the corner of her eye. A final cauldron, woven from heavenly fire, drifted toward his bent arm. It seemed that the moment it touched those slender fingers, her teacher’s body would ignite like a bright spark and crumble into dust…

  But that did not happen. Unhurriedly, the heavenly fire settled onto Valm’s fingers and gradually disappeared into them, leaving a pill in his claws that shone like a tiny star. Valm opened his eyes. His amber gaze burned brighter than the pill in his slender claws.

  “Ninth… Ninth rank!” he whispered softly.

  There was no time to waste. Valm could not sense the auras circling the Citadel like hyenas, waiting for the lightning barrier to dissipate, but he was sure they were there. The grand spectacle he had orchestrated could not have gone unnoticed by the powerful figures of this world.

  Clenching the pill tightly in his fist, he descended to the ground and strode toward the house where the unconscious Grem lay. Qiang also rose to her feet, intending to follow him, but something caught her attention, and she froze.

  “Teacher… The Battle Ancestors are fleeing!” she cried out just as Valm was placing the pill into the throat of the Battle Master.

  This could mean only one thing—the God of War was approaching the Citadel… and the hyenas were fleeing from the lion.

  “Stop!” a commanding voice thundered from the sky.

  “Go to hell…” Valm muttered quietly, pushing the pill as deep into Grem’s esophagus as possible with his finger.

  “You dare defy me, alchemist?!” the voice roared.

  The protective dome over the Citadel crumbled into sand, which quickly dissolved on the courtyard pavement. An unimaginably powerful aura knocked Qiang off her feet and pressed her harshly to the ground. However, the aura avoided Valm himself. The God of War likely still hoped to negotiate with him.

  The alchemist slowly stepped out of the house and looked up. A middle-aged God of War hovered several dozen meters above him.

  “Esteemed God of War, I fail to understand how I could have offended you so greatly that you would attack my humble home…”

  “Wretched alchemist! You dared to choose that worthless Battle Master over me and fed him a ninth-rank pill?! And you do not consider that disrespect toward me?! I am Sart, a mid-tier God of War! Do you think I cannot rip out that half-corpse’s throat and take the pill that should rightfully be mine?!”

  Perhaps he wanted to intimidate Valm into doing it himself… But…

  “Damn, how familiar this all feels… Still the same arrogant and brainless fools…” Valm muttered under his breath before loudly declaring, “Esteemed God of War Sart! That pill was created by me, so only I decide who is worthy of it and who is not… As for your strength and capabilities… You may try, but be warned that everyone in my estate is under my protection, and since that is the case…”

  Valm spread his arms wide and looked up at the sky above him. From his chest burst forth a colossal green dragon, woven from emerald mist. It circled above the alchemist and Sart for a time before freezing in place, forming a massive magical seal over them.

  “You… You are a Stepchild of the Law?! Please, esteemed alchemist, accept my apologies. I never expected to encounter one in this wilderness…”

  The God of War withdrew his aura, descended to the ground, and, bowing, approached Valm. At that moment, the alchemist was at his most vulnerable. That green dragon—his very soul—was proof that the Laws of Alchemy had accepted him as their Stepchild. There were few such people on the continent.

  Valm’s body swayed slightly until the magical seal once again transformed into a giant dragon, which plummeted from the heavens onto him and was absorbed into his being. The alchemist’s eyes regained clarity as he looked at the God of War before him.

  “And otherwise what? You would have killed me, esteemed Sart?” Valm asked, almost mockingly. “With your strength, that would be easier than lifting a finger…”

  Killing a high-ranking alchemist was already an extremely risky endeavor, as other alchemists would immediately place such a bounty on your head that every stray dog on the continent would hunt not only you but also your entire lineage, just to lure you out of whatever hole you chose to hide in. But killing a Stepchild of the Law of Alchemy… That was a guaranteed death sentence. And humans wouldn’t even be needed—the Law itself would end you.

  So Sart no longer cared about the pill. Not just that—between potential gain and certain death, the choice was… obvious. And the God of War chose life.

  “Now, now, esteemed alchemist, this God of War has never laid a finger on a single member of your alchemical guild in all his long years… I am truly saddened by your words…”

  “Very well, esteemed Sart, I must apologize for my suspicion. Surely, you understand how difficult it is for us alchemists to survive in this world of the strong…”

  The God of War barely managed to suppress his grimace at that brazen lie. Difficult to survive? People treated alchemists like priceless relics, blowing dust off them just to gain favor and enter their close circles. But he did not say this aloud.

  “Esteemed alchemist, if you ever require the assistance of this God of War, or even a small favor—please, break this tablet, and I will surely come to your aid!”

  Sart placed a small tablet of fine white stone into the alchemist’s hand. Valm was unsure whether he should accept it, but wanting to end the conversation quickly, he stored it away. After all, it did not obligate him to anything.

  The God of War smiled with satisfaction.

  “Well then, esteemed alchemist, I shall not waste your time any further and will take my leave, with your permission.”

  Sart took one last glance at the house where Grem lay motionless with a ninth-rank pill in his throat. Sighing, he leaped into the sky.

  Valm watched him disappear into the horizon, lost in thought. Even though everything had ended well, the situation itself was already bad.

  Now that one of the Gods of War knew about him, the others would soon know as well. And sooner or later, that madwoman would learn of his existence. At that point, Valm’s life would likely turn into sheer hell once again…

  The alchemist sighed bitterly, but his heavy thoughts were interrupted by Qiang, who had finally managed to stagger up to him.

  “Teacher… Did you really create a ninth-rank pill?”

  “Yeah… At first, I aimed for the eighth, but the Olamas Grey fruit was so fresh that I decided to try…”

  “You are incredible, teacher! I always knew you were!”

  What a lying little rabbit…

  Valm saw the pavement rushing toward his forehead.