The Runic Alchemist

Mindseer separated from the Land-breaker and wiped her tears, smiling widely. Then, looking towards Damian and the others, she said,

“These are kids from our academy. Do you remember everything that happened?”

The Land-breaker’s eyes lost the affection held in them. It wasn’t anger or hate—just a hard, simple look. The man may have looked like he was in his 40s, but his eyes held the knowledge of centuries behind them.

“Yes, I know them and everything,” he answered.

Then, looking away from them to the empty ocean, he added, “It was a mistake keeping me alive. You have no idea what that thing is capable of.”

“He’s gone now,” Sam said from the side.

“He can’t be killed. There is no way to kill him,” the Land-breaker said with quite a bit of frustration, letting his emotions come out a little.

“Commander..” Mindseer called, “This boy destroyed that whole world.”

“..World?” the Land-breaker muttered.

Mindseer started the story from the very beginning, when they had entered the Highsword dungeon to get him back using Damian’s spell. After minutes of explanation, she ended it with,

“We have thousands of natives from that world—all were being controlled by the Demon Lord, but for the past two weeks they have awakened from their slumber. How much time has it been since you regained consciousness?”

“A couple of weeks..” the Land-breaker answered.

He wasn’t looking at Mindseer when he answered, though. Halfway through the story, when Mindseer began describing the scale of war they had fought and survived, it was Damian and the two beside him who held his attention now. Damian felt all the emotions he had gone through, amplified by the effect of the Divine Seeker spell.

After the whole range of it, the emotion that finally stabilized was genuine respect. The critical change happened when Mindseer mentioned how easy it would’ve been for them to leave that world—they didn’t even have to fight the Demon Lord, but they did, for others. These strangers weren’t even human, and yet they had gone through so much to save them.

Damian disagreed, though. From day one, he only cared about killing the Demon Lord. He didn’t hate the pigmen, but they were not his priority. He didn’t voice it, though—it wasn’t necessary. And it was only true for him. For the others, what the Land-breaker was feeling was the right and deserved emotion.

“He is truly dead?” he asked.

It was hard for him to wrap his mind around that after sharing it for such a long time. According to the Land-breaker, he didn’t have control over his body, but he could see clearly what was happening. He was aware of every second—even those seconds when he killed his fellow Highswords with his own hands. Needless to say, it wasn’t a trauma easily cured. He was a Fourth Ranker, though—if anyone could pull through, it had to be him.

Same as with the pigmen, Damian did not sense any darkness in him. The Demon Lord, at the peak of his strength, could not control his own black pigmen from afar; he needed generals to give commands—like Bloodedge and Shadecaster. Damian doubted he could control people across worlds, even if he were somehow miraculously alive.

Not a single living thing should have survived on the pigmen’s planet, but Damian was no geology or animal expert. There could be some types of creatures still alive. He had no idea if the Demon Lord could control creatures with no Astral Plains at all.

Damian did not object to Mindseer’s wish to bring him with them. He didn’t release him, though, from the influence of the Divine Seeker chains. Damian had spare clothes in the Dreamlight, so he shared them with the Land-breaker. He let Elias fly above the sea in a random direction, not opening the waygate just yet.

The Land-breaker wasn’t talking much, but his eyes wandered all around the ship. Damian noticed him watching the mana-holding enchanted pipes that powered the whole metal ship. Mindseer talked constantly, explaining what he was seeing and how Damian had built it, etcetera.

They were in the back of the ship—the seating compartment. Some of them were just standing there, the door open as the ship flew steadily above the blue water. At last, the ancient knight muttered, looking at Damian,

“A flying metal ship. Sacrium swords and armor.. Runefather was right. A true Runesmith Transcendent could literally change the world in ways unthinkable.”

He just nodded slightly, acknowledging the praise. If the man had all the memories from the fight, then he knew more about Damian’s abilities than anyone else present.

“What is your name, boy?” asked the Land-breaker.

“Damian Sunblade,” he replied.

“Sunblade.. It’s been a while since I’ve heard one of those. But I didn’t ask for your fake name—what’s your real name?”

“Real name?” Damian asked, confused.

Mindseer interjected, “It’s only been a month since those three transcended. They don’t know the spell.”

“All three?” Mindseer nodded.

“And they’re so young.. That’s never happened before.”

When a person becomes Transcendent, they stop aging. So Damian, Sam, and Lucian were now forever going to be sixteen. Damian had become much older in appearance—looking more muscular and taller. From his face and body, he looked like he was in his mid-20s. Lucian and Sam, on the other hand, still looked like high school seniors. It was indeed quite young—and they would remain so for all their lives.

“Let’s show them then,” the Land-breaker said with a smile.

He was about to say something, but as if he suddenly remembered something, he stopped and just looked at Mindseer. She started chanting, and in a minute, a unique white-colored runic circle formed in the air. It had sections for ID, but there was something more—an additional section for self, mana, and a few new things Damian had never seen in any spell before. If he had to guess, he would call the whole collection their tags—a system-recognized identity other than just their IDs.

Its effect was simply writing the word in English in mid-air using mana as a semi-transparent medium.

The word MINDSEER was clear to see for everyone.