Heretical Fishing

Book 3: Chapter 7: The Alchemist

With the sun’s approach, the sky’s color was starting to change. As Barry and I crossed the sand flats on the south side of the river, I marveled at the sea of stars above us. They’d soon be banished, replaced by a brilliant blue of day. I tried to burn their image into my mind as and breathed deep of the cold night air.

The moment we entered the forest near New Tropica, an odd sensation shattered my mindfulness.

The bag of pearls on Barry’s belt thrummed with power and we both froze, staring down at them. As if in protest of our hesitation, the leather container shifted, moving subtly toward the west where we’d find the System-built buildings. Sharing a smirk, we resumed our passage, racing through the trees.

By the time we stood within the main crossroads, the pearls demanded that we use them.

Without a word, Barry and I sat cross-legged. He removed the bag from his belt and set it down between us as we closed our eyes.

“Ready?” he asked.

“Ready,” I confirmed, extending my awareness toward the pouch of chi potential right beside me.

The pearls drew me in, and just like the coins, they began dissolving into clouds of power. Unlike the gold coins, however, they didn’t all dissipate at once. The moment two of them had become chi, their essence shot off to my left, entering the building I knew to be the smithy. Another two went off to the tailoring building. Three tunneled to my right and sunk into the amphitheater, permeating its stone bricks. A full thirty of them accumulated before winding through the streets and entering the prison; I followed their passage, watching in my mind’s eye as the entire structure was reinforced, becoming impervious to cultivators.

Barry was right there beside me, helping guide the pearls to where they wanted to go.

The entire time we worked, a sense of supreme ease washed over me. With each building we reinforced, the world seemed... better. Like this was exactly what was supposed to happen. It reminded me of the way my chi flew out-of-control back in the capital, but I banished that thought when Barry gave me the mental equivalent of a flick on the nose.

Sorry, I sent back, returning my attention to the task at hand.

I had no idea how long it took, but when I opened my eyes again, the sky had shifted from black to a deep purple. I released a slow breath, feeling the life that now filled every building of New Tropica. Even the streets had chi flowing through them, seeming to connect the entire village. I peered down at the leather bag between Barry and me, and when I hefted it, the clink of pearls rang out.

“We didn’t use them all?” Barry asked, his eyes narrowing.

“Nah, mate.” I stood and stretched, groaning slightly at how stiff my body felt. “Man, last night is catching up to me.”

“I can imagine, I feel exhausted and I didn’t do a fraction of what you did.” He chewed his cheek for a moment before giving me a questioning glance. “I don’t suppose you’re up to talking about how it felt taking a more active role in the church?”

“You’re a force of nature, Barry.” I let out a weak laugh. “I’ll need to sleep on it first, but I promise I’ll talk to you about it tomorrow. Or later today? Whenever I wake up. I can’t even think straight right now.”

“Deal. Should we get back, then?”

“What do you mean?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

“What do you mean? Don’t you wanna rest?”

“When there’s a perfectly good village and some fantasy creations just waiting to be explored? Do you even know me, Barry?”

“And I suppose if I ask you to walk and talk about the church, you’ll say something along the lines of, ‘It would be downright negligent for a bloke to speak while inspecting creations of vast, cosmic importance, mate...’ am I right?”

“Hey!” I laughed, enjoying his exaggerated hand movements way too much. “You do know me!” I clapped him on the shoulder and led us toward the smithy. “Come on. We’ll just check everything is in running order and won’t accidently isekai someone.”

Barry shook his head at me and rolled his eyes as we set off to inspect the village’s structures.

***

Hidden in a squat room within the bounds of Tropica, a man stood very, very still.

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With each breath he took, the acidic haze suffusing his workspace made him want to cough. Solomon, Tropica’s resident Cult of the Alchemist representative, knew that making a noise could mean his death, so he tried to ignore his scratchy throat.

Of late, there had been numerous surges of chi. Either they’d been getting stronger, or Solomon’s detection of them had grown more refined as his ascension drew close. One thing was clear: each pulse had to have been caused by his patron, lord Tom Onsnan Jr.

It rankled Solomon that he had to be beholden to another, even if it was only temporary. Being under the watch of a cultivator allowed him a certain level of protection while conducting his experiments, though, so it was worth it.

Not that the foolish Osnan boy knew the extent of Solomon’s work.

The Cult of the Alchemist had long worked with Gormona’s hidden cultivators, and as far as Soloman knew, they were the only group outside of the royals to know the truth. Not all the cultists knew, of course—only the highest of their order were brought into the fold. Solomon was one such member, having climbed the cult’s ranks over his many decades of life.

A disagreement with the other leaders had seen him relegated to this backwater village. He’d spent many a day fantasizing about the moment he returned to Gormona as a cultivator; he couldn’t wait to rub in their faces that he had become the Alchemist that their scriptures prophesized.

He’d have to ascend first, but with how much his body had been changing of late, it was only a matter of time.

His frail frame had filled out, and he didn’t cough nearly as much as he used to when inhaling the chi-suppressing smoke that always floated around his workspace. The recipe for said concoction was a relic of ancient times, the manuscripts for its creation having survived the gods’ departure because of his cult’s meticulous record keeping. At first, Solomon had assumed the recent bursts of power had been able to penetrate his brew’s shielding properties because of how close he was to awakening. After all, of course his awareness of chi would increase as he approached ascension.

But then the explosion of chi happened.

Solomon had been working on some pills at the time, having decided to stay up after being woken by the Osnan boy doing something just outside the village earlier that night. The moment the chi had burst from almost on top of him, he froze, which was the position he still remained in now, over an hour later.

It was widely known among the Cult of the Alchemist’s leadership that the nobles of Gormona, those hidden cultivators that thought themselves the pinnacle of power, were just children that saw themselves as warriors. That they needed to rely on mortal alchemists for their pills was proof enough. That blast, though, had told Solomon a different story.

If that was the level of chi they wielded, he had wildly underestimated the nobles’ capabilities. They all had.

It told of a level of control that would shred through Solomon’s—and the entire cults’—plans. Their obscuring haze was a defensive measure, designed to protect the prophesized Alchemist from prying eyes when he awakened. With the level of control that Osnan had just shown, Solomon’s shielding would do nothing.

Despite not having awakened his core yet, that burst of raw, overwhelming power had struck Solomon a physical blow. Even if his body hadn’t been sent reeling, he instinctively knew that he stood no chance against such a being. Whether it was his base instincts or the knowledge that Osnan would snuff out Solomon’s life if he discovered the whispers of chi flowing through him, the result was the same: Solomon wasn’t going to move until the time was right.

He was nothing if not a cautious man, and he had already charted his escape route for just such an event. The door was hidden behind and to his left, obscured by a clever system of hinges. It led to a tunnel he’d painstakingly dug through the earth, a practice that caused part of the scorn the other cult leaders felt for him. It had taken him months to dig, his aged frame no longer built for such labor. It was all worth it, though—he may just survive this ordeal because of it. Normally, he’d have relished in that fact, rejoiced that he had another thing to throw in the cultists’ faces when he made it back to Gormona as the Alchemist.

Now, though, all he felt was terror.

Abruptly, another pulse of energy shot out into the world. It had the same feel as the blast that rocked him an hour ago, and a spike of glacial ice drove itself into Solomon’s spine. As his knees wobbled with the knowledge he was about to die, he realized where the pulse had come from. Its source was far away, perhaps over a kilometer from the shed behind the Osnan household that Solomon now occupied.

Tom Osnan Jr. was far, far away.

Taking one last breath of the acrid air, Solomon whirled, heading for his secret door. He pressed its right side, causing it to swing inward on the hinges. Solomon slid it back into place and lowered the barricade, sealing the door off forevermore.

He scrambled along the passage, his mind fighting his body’s instinct to sprint through the pitch-black tunnels. He kept his footfalls as silent as he could, still worried about being discovered despite how far away Tom Osnan Jr. was. As he approached the exit point, his hopes rose. If he could make his getaway, nothing was lost. Solomon could retreat into the mountains to finish his ascension, and once he became the Alchemist, he would grow in power with the help of his alchemical creations, just as the prophecy foretold.

Light peeked down from ahead and Solomon finally allowed himself to sprint toward it. When he got there, he threw the trapdoor open, poking his head out to ensure he was alone. The only things surrounding him were grass, trees, and birdsong, the feathered creatures calling out to each other as the light of day shone over the eastern horizon. He climbed out and closed the door to his tunnel, pausing to spare one last glance at Tropica.

What he saw there made the blood freeze in his veins.

To the southeast of the village, a giant tree grew from the ground, its vast canopy reaching for the heavens. Even if Solomon wasn’t aware of House Osnan’s plant affinity, he’d have known it was created by Tom Osnan Jr. The tree rose in the exact spot he’d felt a pulse of chi from earlier that night, its impossible mass having sprung up from literally nowhere.

“Persephone’s luscious growths,” he swore, not even realizing he spoke aloud as he fell to his knees. “Just how strong is he...?”

Solomon scrambled to his feet and fled, focusing only on the forest before him.