The Runic Alchemist

Lucian continued,

“Units of soldiers were sent to protect each shipment, but they barely made it back. In the end, a few regions banded together and decided to take it by force. The king tried to reason with them, but the tribes just aren’t accepting that everyone is treated as equal. They think humans are stealing most of the food and are hiding it for themselves.

I also felt doubtful, so I gathered info from other places, but it is indeed true that there was no attempt at discrimination by the royalty—maybe some soldiers or other regions’ human lords intervened in some cases and made the situation too far gone. The king had to act strictly against the rebellion, so he fought and lost. The tribes are not coming inside because they consider this city sacred. They believe in the same god, and this city has a sacred temple they believe their god’s essence lives in.”

All three of them nodded.

Damian already knew most of that from the people of the city—except he also knew the tribes were not treated well even before the winter became permanent. The last king had two sons—each from a different wife. One was human and the other a Drakyn (A humanoid descendant of a silver-skinned extinct wyvern-like intelligent creature). Even though the Drakyn boy was older, talented, and known for his kindness and powers, the king ultimately made the human child the heir because of pressure from the human region lords.

The current king is not a bad person, but he is also not a good enough king. He is too afraid to make any one side unhappy. The tribe lands are all away from the capital, so they did not meet the royalty much, but the human region was around the capital and, over the years, manipulated the king and used his pleasing personality to make it seem like he was too friendly with human lords.

When the tribes finally got tired of it and picked up arms and marched on the capital—the majority of the human lords surrounding the capital did not answer their king’s call for war and hid in their own regions, protected by high walls.

The tribes were too powerful, though, and they picked region after region clean of its food and all things valuable. They were united—and the humans, alone in their greed. They killed, stole, burned, and continued on.

The temple is the only reason the king is still alive. Supposedly, the princess—barely 21—is also talented and a good person. What few lords really did answer the call for the king’s war did so mostly because of her—they believed in her as their future queen.

From what Damian could see, the trial was not just a physical challenge; it was also supposed to test Lucian’s moral values.

Do the people tired of unfair treatment truly deserve to die?

Does the princess—and thousands of innocents, or those who have done mostly nothing wrong—truly deserve to be punished?

She had to become an Arch-Knight, though. And a knight had duty to both their lords and the people of the realm.

The army was here. The side at disadvantage were the royals. A knight is supposed to protect her king and princess no matter the cost, right?

Isn’t that the job of a king’s guard?

How does one choose who matters more?

“We will support you, whatever you decide to do,” Damian said.

They weren’t simple words—he truly would do anything that she told him to do. It was her trial after all.

“There is a powerful emperor-rank individual among the army—my guess is it’s the king’s older brother. If you must fight, take as much time as you need to prepare. Don’t worry about time—we will just rest for a while…”

Lucian nodded. Damian also handed her all the information he had acquired so she could understand the full scope of her situation, and it would also hurry things along. Their job here was done—it was all up to Lucian now. She had the mana cube, and he promised her he would make as many as she needed.

Damian told Maelor to do as he liked—he could stay and enjoy the VIP treatment or come with them. There was a hesitation in his eyes, so Sam and Damian just smugly smiled at him—irritating him even more—and left the guy in the castle.

Damian gathered a lot of steel with the gold he earned in a couple of weeks or so. It was easy to make money when one knew how to make runic tools of any kind. Then he flew toward one of the highest mountains overlooking the city. Sam decided to stay in the city. He liked the food there. They had made enough money to live for years easily. They closed the shop just in time before the nobles could notice them.

Damian modified a cave on the mountain to live there comfortably. He still traded runic tools through Sam in the city to get more steel and stuff. He had spare time on hand. Other than making new spells, Damian had one more goal in mind.

From the second he had seen that white metal on the princess’s head, he really wanted to get his hands on some of it. He had told Maelor to keep an eye out for any more of that thing. Apparently, it was called White Gold by these people, and it was something their god gave as a gift only to those who were tasked to rule. The king had a white sword, and the heir had a tiara. They were not runic tools, but they were magical in nature, from what people told Maelor.

Of course, there was no god here—only people who managed the temple. The priests were the ones acting as a political power and decided to gift these invaluable things to royalty. Damian was interested in this nice temple of theirs. He didn’t want to make Lucian’s job harder, though, so he made some steel runic tools to do this as sneakily as possible.

It was time to visit a temple.

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