10. You, Become My Alchemy Slave (2)

“What is it you’d have me do alongside you?”

Shin Junseok had slipped into polite speech without realizing it.

His gaze was a tangle of bewilderment, expectation, and suspicion, and those conflicted eyes demanded an answer from Yujin. Had Yujin not shown him a Mid-grade Healing Potion in the making, the conversation would never have gotten off the ground.

Considering what that fellow’s been through, it’s fair enough.

Shin Junseok had once been a researcher at Daeseong, the largest corporation in the country, working on mana-circuit development and potion-recipe research and turning out results in field after field besides.

He got stabbed in the back.

His direct superior, so the story went, had cunningly worked an angle and walked off with every last one of his results. By the time he realized it, it was already too late. He raised an objection, but with no proper evidence it was dismissed, while the superior who’d stolen the work climbed the ranks at a furious clip, all the way to executive. Not a single person at the company would take his side.

Was it luck, then? Around the time he finally grasped the whole affair and felt his will to stay at the company draining away, the System’s invitation reached him and he became an Awakened.

“I resign.”

He submitted his resignation without a moment’s hesitation, came back down to his hometown, emptied his savings to the last won, took out a loan on top of that, and built the workshop the man now stood in before Yujin.

“I’ve got a fair bit of alchemy knowledge, see, but no equipment and no skills.”
“So you want me to be your hands and feet?”
“That’s right. If you don’t want to, nothing to be done about it.”

When Yujin reached a hand toward the finished Mid-grade Potion, the red liquid sloshed at his beckoning, and Shin Junseok’s eyes tracked left and right in time with the motion.

He won’t be able to resist this.

He had watched the potion do exactly what it was supposed to, with his own two eyes; of course he’d want to know the catalyst and the ratio that finished a Mid-grade Potion. The bold little performance had landed, no mistake.

“And what do I get out of it?”
“The recipe to complete the potion. And I’ll teach you plenty besides.”
“I don’t believe it. No price at all…”
“Heh, look at this guy. Trying to get my knowledge for free.”

At Yujin’s sneer, Shin Junseok’s face went red.

“When did I say I’d just hand it over?”
“You did ask me to be your hands and feet, didn’t you.”
“It’d include a royalty on any items you make from here on with my advice.”

Yujin gave the potion another shake.

Shin Junseok muttered, his voice gone low with chagrin.

“I could’ve finished that myself if I’d just had a little more time.”
“If you don’t want to, nothing to be done about it.”

Not a trace of reluctance showed in Yujin’s manner, and Shin Junseok’s eyes quivered.

Torn, aren’t you?

Having seen the finished potion with his own eyes, he’d find it hard to give up. Take Shin Junseok on as a sla… no, as a partner, and not only would the money troubles ease, every tedious scrap of alchemy work could be handed off to him.

“Ratio’s sixty-forty. The four-tenths is only for what I had a hand in producing.”
“That’s a bit much.”
“I’m not asking you to decide right this second.”
“Thank you for giving me time.”
“Just let me use the workshop in exchange. I’ve got things to do myself.”
“That much isn’t difficult.”
“Think it over, take your time. I plan to stay here a few days anyway.”

You’ve already bitten the hook.

Yujin smiled softly.

Yujin roamed the alchemy workshop set up in the abandoned factory as easily as if he were coming and going from his own home, gathering up materials and tools one by one.

“Um. Could you not—”
“I know how to handle them and what they do, so don’t worry about it.”
“You’ll still have to pay for them.”
“…”

The future Grand Alchemist, sure enough. Not one to be pushed around.

“Don’t worry. I’ll pay it all within the month.”
“And just how long do you intend to keep talking down to me, anyhow?”
“If it galls you, drop the formal speech yourself. Then we’re even. You managed it fine when we first met.”

Sheer absurdity written plain across his face, Shin Junseok finally heaved a deep sigh.

“Forget it. I’ll just be the only one using polite speech.”

What a pushover.

His hands never stopped moving even as they traded words, sorting through the workshop’s materials and picking out what he needed at speed.

“Got any dark blood and ghoul bones?”
“Those are black-magic catalysts. There’s no reason to handle… them.”
“Narrow thinking won’t do any good for the advancement of alchemy.”
“Ah, ngh, nghh.”

Unable to summon a word of rebuttal, Shin Junseok groaned over it for a good while.

A narrow field of view and narrow thinking don’t help alchemy — those are your own words.

Watching Shin Junseok wrestle with his own future self, Yujin let out a short snicker, kik.

“Throw in a Darkness Orb with that and put in the order, then.”

Order placed, he tossed in blue herb, mana grass, and red mint at a four-to-two-to-one ratio and ground them with practiced ease. The herbs turned to powder in an instant.

“Smelt me five F-grade mana stones and bring them to forty-two percent.”
“Are you putting me to work?”
“You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

When Yujin muttered though who’s the one losing out here, I wonder, Shin Junseok rolled up both sleeves.

“Just what the devil are you doing, barging into someone else’s workshop out of nowhere.”

Sorry, but you’re going to have to suffer a little too.

Smelt, an alchemy skill, broke down an object’s form and drew out only its essence. Had he reached 2nd Rank and unlocked the alchemy-school knowledge with the Ring of Black Darkness, it might have been another matter, but for now Shin Junseok’s help was essential.

Shin Junseok gathered up a bundle of mana stones and stood before the tub, a five-meter-wide basin marked off in millimeter units. He drew water into it and dropped in every one of the mana stones.

The hard surface of the mana stones turned soft and mushy, then dissolved all at once like salt melting into water. The liquid gave off a faint glow, and Shin Junseok, his expression grave, gathered mana into his palm.

“Forty-two percent, correct?”

Shin Junseok had matched the ordered ratio perfectly on a single try.

Because he’s the man who’ll become the Grand Alchemist.

There were the mana stones’ peculiar wavelength, the volume of water, and the rate of mana loss that arose during smelting; all of it had to be calculated, and that was far easier said than done. Even a seasoned alchemist found a smelting ratio hard to match.

Meanwhile, Shin Junseok stole sidelong glances of his own at the deft work of Yujin’s hands as he tossed assorted leaves into a mortar and ground them.

Not a wasted motion.

These were otherworldly plants, the kind found in gates or in erosion zones. Grind them carelessly, with too much force, and the sap held in the leaves met the air and the herb’s mana bled away with it. To keep the potency in, one had to channel mana into the mortar and turn it at a steady rate.

He looks like he’s just stirring it any old way, yet it’s flawless.

Back in his days at the Daeseong Group laboratory, Shin Junseok had seen no end of Magic-line Hunters. It looked simple at a glance, but one slight error would often spoil the catalyst and drop the efficiency. Even among the high-flyers at Daeseong, how many Magic-line Hunters had handled herbs as casually as Yujin did?

Even I’d only manage something close with a skill correction.

— Gulp.

Without meaning to, Shin Junseok swallowed.

“Ugh. This is exhausting.”

Grumbling, Yujin tipped the fully ground herb powder straight into the mana-stone smelt fluid. The fluid bubbled, and the faintly bluish liquid stained purple in an instant.

“Release.”

A whitish mist seeped out of the Ring of Black Darkness, and from a gray current too murky to see into, a Draconian corpse came bursting out.

“Hieek!”
“What’s there to be startled about. It’s just a corpse.”
“Isn’t that the bigger problem?! You can’t go dumping a human corpse in here!”
“Does this look like a human to you?”

Shin Junseok stared at the Draconian corpse laid out in the tub, then let out a low “Ahh,” the air gone out of him.

“Honestly. What a fuss.”
“Is this how all undead are made?”
“If it were, anyone could be a Necromancer. Only special corpses get processed.”

Yujin tossed off the reply and plunged his hand into the smelt fluid, brimming with mana now that the F-grade mana stones had just been smelted. Slowly, he dissolved the essence of death, converted through the Ring of Black Darkness, into the purple-stained liquid.

— Vmmm!

Mana, reacting to the essence of death, gradually wound itself in.

“A property meant to be repelled, and yet how…”

Watching from the side, Shin Junseok let out a short groan.

Sorry, but I can’t explain.
I have to put every nerve into this.

The essence of death was the needle; the mana trailing after it, near enough the thread. To inscribe a formula into a dead body without a single skill correction took an extreme degree of focus.

The formula inscribed across the bone activated, and its density climbed.

A sorcery that heightened the resonance between spirit and corpse, lifting the undead’s performance up a notch, was inscribed into the brain.

Beyond those came a formula to loosen the muscles back to suppleness where rigor mortis had stiffened them, a magic circle to raise mana receptivity, and more besides. Only Yujin, a master of both necromancy and alchemy, could manage such craftsmanship.

— Drip. Drip.

Beads of sweat gathered on his brow and fell to wet the floor, but he did not stop. His focus was so complete that a blade going into his neck would not have registered. Only once the smelt fluid had all soaked into the Draconian corpse’s body did he let out a short “Phew” and drop straight down where he stood.

“A-are you all right?”
“No. I’m hungry and worn out enough that my eyes are about to roll back.”
“The artistry of weaving mana together. Truly, it was beautiful beyond anything I could put into words.”

His hostility had melted away like snow. For all his snarling earlier, in under an hour Yujin’s technique had so captivated him that the bar across his heart had come down.

“Ah. I said I’m hungry.”
“Next time, teach me that technique too, would you.”

Shin Junseok rattled on about only what he wanted to say.

Right. This man had always been like this. A human obsessed with alchemy, an oddball who, even at a conglomerate the size of Daeseong, had cared for nothing but his research.

“I’ve got a lot to do, so I’m working the moment my stomach’s full.”
“Then I’ll get dinner ready quick.”

Shin Junseok fussed about and pulled food together.

The next day.

“The materials you ordered are here.”

Shin Junseok set down the materials, still in their packaging.

“I figured it’d take three days at least.”
“I’ve got my own supply contacts, you see.”

Connections that could get a delivery out to this mountain valley on short notice, contacts he had to have built back in his big-corporation days. No need to dig too deep into it.

“The Darkness Orb’s out of stock, so it’ll take a little while.”
“How long?”
“Around a week, by their estimate.”
“Good. I’ll be staying here for the time being, so that’s no problem.”
“You can have the payment ready, I trust?”
“Don’t worry about it.”

As for the money, I’ll have to start hustling for it now.

Once Shin Junseok had a Mid-grade Potion production line running in earnest, it would be a different story. Until then, though, the funding problem needed minding too.

“Do all these materials go into making undead, as well?”
“No, not these. I’m going to make magical armaments.”

Yujin’s eyes scrutinized the materials with care, a satisfied light circling over his keen-edged pupils.

This much should yield a usable armament.

Smiling with satisfaction, he held out the black liquid, the dark blood, to Shin Junseok.

“What’s this?”
“What are you doing, not taking it. It needs distilling.”
“I’m asking why I’m the one who has to do it.”
“You agreed to be my hands and feet, didn’t you.”
“I haven’t decided yet, you know?”
“Don’t, then. We’ll call our deal off too, while we’re at it.”
“Ah, I’ll do it. I’ll do it!”

Grumbling, Shin Junseok poured the dark blood into the distillation apparatus. Grinding herbs Yujin could manage on dexterity alone, but the distillation apparatus was alchemist-only equipment, so here Shin Junseok’s help was essential.

Now then, shall I get the rest of the process ready.

First he sorted out half of them in order of soundest durability, then poured an excess of spirit-power into the remaining bones.

— Kraddk!

The ghoul bones, granted energy beyond their limit, cracked with a crrk and shattered into hundreds of fragments. Yujin gathered the fragments in one place and laid them atop the ghoul bones he’d set aside.

First, the necromancy-line formula.

He shifted the spirit-power that had soaked into the bone, inscribing a mana circuit within. Next to reinforcing the Draconian corpse, the work was easy enough to make him yawn.

— Saaaak!

A ghoul was an undead that craved the blood and flesh of the living, the concept of Gluttony dwelling in its bone. As the sound ghoul bones absorbed the white fragments he’d split off, they grew sturdier and larger.

It changes the shape, too.

This was the domain of reconstruction now, beyond mere reinforcement. Splitting the bones had been a way to step into the absorption process and reshape them into a form fit for a magical armament.

The ghoul bone had grown sharp, reshaped into something close to a stake.

By the System’s classification it was still “Sundries,” then.

The first stage of the work was done.

“How’s your end?”
“Finished. It separated into dark essence and dark matter.”
“Splendid. Then carve a reinforcement spell in here too.”
“You processed the bone already?”

Shin Junseok ran his gaze over the ghoul bone, eyes glittering.

“A mana circuit inscribed with spirit-power. Precious indeed.”
“Use the dark blood as the medium for the reinforcement circuit. The knack should be the same.”
“Understood.”

A mana circuit, this time inscribed with dark blood, took hold. The ghoul bone dyed pitch-black, then gave off a droning vmmm. With the reinforcement circuit in place, a Necromancer-exclusive magical armament was complete.

“M-me, completing a Rare grade…”
“Is Rare such a big deal?”
“It’s not just anything — it’s a Necromancer-exclusive item that isn’t even in the Daeseong Group’s records!”

The corners of Shin Junseok’s eyes quivered.

He’d be curious, no doubt. The recipe for the Mid-grade Potion, the method for crafting Necromancer-exclusive items unheard of at this point in time, and everything else of the sort.

If you’re curious, take my hand.

Yujin worked the Cursed Fang with Bone Control, and the magical armament floated up lightly.

Spirit-power loss is around 7.2 percent, is it.

That was excellent for a Rare-grade armament. Control anything remotely and some force was bound to bleed off in the process; back in the Garden of Antiquity he had wielded the Staff of Resentment as an offensive weapon too, and the loss then had been considerable. The truth was that Yujin’s process had come that close to perfection.

By way of a test, he loosed the Cursed Fang at a sizable boulder outside the workshop.

— Kabooom!

The boulder split into several pieces along with the roar.

“What did you do?”
“A power test. This much should be worth using when I tackle a 1st-Rank gate.”
“1st Rank, you say. You — don’t tell me you’re 1st Rank?”
“It hasn’t even been a week since I awakened. My Stellar Rank will climb soon enough.”

Yujin spoke in an unruffled tone, and Shin Junseok was struck dumb.

Going purely by the power he’d just shown, this was a level capable of subduing not a 1st-Rank but a 2nd-Rank Hunter. Having met no end of Hunters at Daeseong, ranker-class among them, he could be certain of it.

This man. He’s a monster.

— Gulp.

Shin Junseok’s throat bobbed hard.