Krysta
“Come on.” Henrietta complained. “Your prices are exorbitant, and my allowance is only so much. I’ll do you a favor in the future.”
Krysta and Henrietta had, as usual, come to the new alchemically processed materials store in the main base of the Forest Cauldron, like they had once a month since it was opened two years before. The store, modestly named Universe’s Best E Rank Processed Materials, wasn’t large, only able to fit a few dozen customers in at a time, but, as far as Krysta was aware, its name wasn’t actually a lie, so it had quickly become popular among all the E rank alchemists in the Forest Cauldron, with quite a few D ranks and even some C ranks making regular visits.
Who the owner was, almost no one knew, but, from sunrise to sunset every day, the store was always manned by three golems and one employee, and that employee brought in even more business than the store’s products as he was by far the prettiest man Krysta had ever seen.
With bright amber eyes and shoulder length dark blue hair, normally worn tied in a loose pony tail, he could usually be found wearing comfortable black battle robes, and his aura was stable and powerful, his elemental mastery of space and time made obvious with even a quick glance.
Even Princess Henrietta, who’d grown up in the royal court of the Vin Clan, the ruling clan of the most powerful elven empire in the universe, thought the man was pretty, almost always trying to flirt with him whenever they came in.
With fiery orangish-red hair, golden specked green eyes, and skin of a healthy reddish color, Henrietta didn’t look like most of the elves in the Vin Clan, who were normally blonde with blue eyes and pale skin. And, while no one would describe her as voluptuous, she didn’t look like she’d be knocked over by a strong breeze, her figure seeming to appeal to humans a lot more than normal for elves.
In short, Krysta’s mother’s first apprentice was extremely beautiful, especially compared to Krysta herself.
Sure, Krysta’s silver semi-translucent hair was something human men often seemed attracted to, and her dark brown skin was smooth and flawless, but, when people saw her entirely black eyes, they generally thought demon, not divine embodiment of the space Laws.
There were good things about having a god who was practically the incarnation of the universe’s Laws of space as a father, even a distant one, such as the occasional incredibly valuable present, the knowledge anyone who wanted to attack her would have to face the revenge of her old man and his eleven divine brothers, and naturally growing into having the highest affinity with space Laws of possibly any E rank ever. But the creepy eyes weren’t the best.
“Alright. I’ll value your favor as 100 E rank credits.” The pretty shopkeeper, who Krysta knew to not be just a shopkeeper but instead her mother’s second apprentice and arguably the most dangerous E rank alive, summoned out an artifact shaped like a large stamp from the spatial storage ring he was wearing on his left hand. “Just agree to a contract, and I’ll subtract the value from your total.”
“100 E rank credits?” Henrietta, who did not know she was dealing with her master’s other apprentice, just looked at the man incredulously. “Every month the two of us buy materials worth more than 1000 E rank credits.”
“So?” Aalam looked at Henrietta with a polite appearance of confusion, but Krysta had interacted with him enough over the last two years to know he wasn’t actually confused at all.
Sure, Aalam didn’t have the best social skills, and it was actually quite common he would grow confused in social situations. But her mother had forced him to open a shop for a reason. According to the wisdom of the Alchemist of the Deep Woods, half of Aalam’s issues with social interactions was from a lack of experience, and half of the rest was that he generally just didn’t care.
Forced to run his own shop, however, the lack of experience part had at least mostly been fixed, but Aalam still liked playing ignorant, especially around people he found annoying, like seemingly everyone who tried to flirt with him.
“So? Do you know who I am?” Despite looking at Aalam, Krysta’s spatial senses allowed her to sense the tears forming in Henrietta’s eyes. “A favor from me is worth a lot more than 100 E rank credits.”
“Oh.” Aalam, likely not wanting to play anymore given Henrietta was about to cry, nodded his head and desummoned the contract seal. “In that case it is too valuable to be used as currency. Your purchases will be 1047 E rank universal credits and 139 F rank universal credits.”
Henrietta just stared at him for a few seconds. Then, the materials already in her own spatial storage ring, she transferred the credits and quickly left the shop.
Krysta, however, the only customer left as it was the least busy time of the day, stayed behind, summoning out a large case her mother had given her and passing it to Aalam. “Your allocation of pills has been delivered. Anything new you would like to tell my mom through me instead of your subordinate?”
“Not really.” Aalam grinned at her as he collected the large case into his own spatial storage ring. “But I would like to ask if I could stop acting as a shopkeeper.”
“She clearly stated you can do so when you finish all your assignments.”
“And she’s not one to go back on her word, even without an actual contract?”
Krysta, who by this point had a pretty good idea of Aalam’s personality, like how he’d generally never ask clarifying questions until the answers became relevant, felt herself start to get excited. “No.”
“Awesome.” Aalam then turned to look at the three golems in the store. “Alpha, Beta, Gamma, the store is yours.”
Aalam Alvaro, the Heavenly Spark Soul King, then disappeared. With Krysta’s affinity for space, she could determine it was a teleportation, and she even knew he was heading to her mother’s quarters within the Forest Cauldron’s main headquarters, but it was still incredibly fast despite not being based on an actual skill, instead on an array he drew with his aura, and it had a distinct time element component, something Krysta herself couldn’t do. Most impressive of all, however, she was pretty sure he’d used four Laws at once like it was nothing.
* * *
Aalam
The Alchemist of the Deep Woods, at least as far as Aalam could tell, was a decent master, hard yet fair. Still, her starting requirements were difficult.
First, he had to merge together his three Heroic grade crafting skills into the Fabled grade Triforce Creation, a more advanced version of Triforce Construction which allowed for much, much better Law infusion as well as the ability to work with soul matter. Then he had to merge the nine Epic grade skills his force had gotten him from their placement in the War of the Chosen into the three Legendary grade component skills for merging the Heroic grade Ruler’s Raiment, the last skill needed for modifying Sensory Domain.
Given he mastered skills four times faster than a normal cultivator, this part was quite easy.
Second, he had to make 2,985,984 E rank universal credits of pure profit with a store rented from the Forest Cauldron, while staying in the store during the day and not receiving any help from his subordinates.
Given the large space under the store where he’d been able to make automated assembly lines for most of his products, this had been relatively easy as well, at least once he made the decision to have every product cost at minimum twice its production. And the fact the store was temporarily made his Territory meant he could train his Laws faster there than anywhere else on the planet due to his King uniqueness quadrupling his Attunement stat.
Third, read a list of 3,691 books and watch 8,760 hours worth of video from the Forest Cauldron’s library on the local soul net.
This part just took a lot of time, but was actually quite a bit of fun, as it gave him most of the beginner and intermediate crafting knowledge he was missing.
Fourth, he had to solve over half the runic problems in Camoran’s 93rd and 97th Puzzle Books, which he’d already been training with for nearly two decades.
Given he’d already solved roughly 38% in each book before his apprenticeship, i.e. before he underwent repeated training using a program his master had recommended he buy for Earth’s soul net to vastly increase the capability of each of his minds to multitask, this was quite easy as well.
The truly hard requirement had been the fifth challenge, reaching fourth tier in the universal soul net program Universal Arena for all twelve accounts his master had given him.
Universal Arena was a virtual fighting competition where cultivators could fight against other cultivators of the same rank from pretty much anywhere in the universe, and it didn’t allow for cultivators to make accounts stronger than they were in real life or with skills they didn’t have. But making accounts which were weaker, with sealed skills and potentially other disadvantageous defects, was very much allowed. And, though there were twelve tiers for each rank, with the competition getting harder as the tiers rose, fourth tier fighters were generally within at least the top 50 of an entire galaxy cluster.
Of the accounts his master had given him, the one he was able to reach the fourth tier with the fastest limited his stats, removed all his skills other than Telekinesis, only allowed his three metal element Laws, and gave him nine handleless swords as a weapon. But that was probably the most generous of all the accounts.
The account for his light element Laws gave him flying needles instead, and the accounts for his life and darkness Laws only allowed his Runescriber skill instead of Telekinesis and no weapons at all.
Most of the accounts didn’t allow him any skills. The ones for his fire and water Laws each left him without one of his arms while arming him with 7 throwing knives and a shield respectively, and the ones for his space and time Laws each left him without one of his legs, giving him an axe or a mace. The accounts for his lightning and death element Laws limited his stats even further than the others, arming him with a sword and quarterstaff respectively. And the account for his earth Laws, while giving him a spear, changed his stat distribution ratios to make him fast, while the account for his wind element Laws, while giving him a halberd, made his stats excel at defense.
All in all, it had taken him six years to raise all twelve accounts to fourth tier, with the fastest metal account taking him 3 years and the slowest, the life element account, taking him the full 6—life element arrays were just not the best for fighting.
It was exhausting, and the added training to control his aura to emit only a subset of his Laws, like Mila normally did, wasn’t easy either.
Still, the results were very much worth it, with him now able to merge the effects of all three Laws of each element into a fighting technique and his control of his energy high enough he could probably awaken to at least a Fabled grade adept line class if he advanced to D rank. In fact, if he fought seriously, even outside his Territory, he’d likely be able to hold his own against Isaiah for a while, despite his knight having increased his skill level over the 6 years as well.
Aalam teleported his way down to his master’s own training chamber, the large cave which removed the A rank planet’s Law suppression where he’d first agreed to the apprenticeship, and found his master there working around a large metallic cauldron, about the size of a house, over what effectively looked like lava, seemingly brought up from the planet’s mantle.
Joma La’Vordi was known as the Alchemist of the Deep Woods for a reason, specializing in Life laws, and most of the architecture in the Forest Cauldron’s headquarters was made of high grade wood, with even the high tech technology of the force covered in the stuff, so the cauldron looked very out of place.
“Good, you’re here.” His master turned her head and smiled at him. “I got the notification that your last account finally reached fourth tier, so I figured you’d be coming.” She slapped her right hand against the large cauldron, making a ringing noise. “This cauldron is for you. You’ve been making processed materials, gaining a good foundation as a result, but now it’s time you truly start to learn alchemy.
“For the next month, you’re going to stay here with me. And I’ll get you trained enough to work on your own by the time I need to start focusing on the upcoming auction.”
“Awesome.” A wide grin appeared on Aalam’s face. “Anything to avoid sleeping.”
The alchemist frowned at that, but, seemingly deciding not to touch on the topic, which Aalam very much appreciated, she just started the lesson.
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