AK - The Alchemy Kingdom

Chapter 147: An Alchemy Mage?

Year 4, Fall, Third Month, Second Week.

Hana hesitantly moved the small black stone closer to the red X mark over the table. She contemplated other options for over a minute before finally giving the order.

Tell team wind to advance two hundred meters northeast, and team fire 50 meters west. Team earth should stay put and wait for orders.

The operator started to relay the commands, pressing the activators on the message board faster than a normal person could. For each key (activator) he pressed, the Array would glow, sending the information through the Alchemy mark to the messenger (tool) installed on the roof, which would transfer the lightning signals to CC. Usually, the messages sent to CC would be handled by an operator, but the ones sent through a private channel would just be automatically relayed to the recipient. In this case, the lightning signal traveled through 100 kilometers until the recipients board.

Sparks appeared over the metal rod as the keys in the message board started to glow one by one. The operators trained eyes didnt miss a single glow, and a message was soon formed.

Sir, command told us to move 200 meters northeast.

Johann smiled and gave the order to advance. Today, he would be making history.

Back in the capital, inside of Hunters Inc.'s command room, Hanna anxiously waited for an update. The room had a big stone board, a central table for operations (copied from the Council), and four other tables for the other workers. Suddenly, the keys of the board from one of the operators started to glow madly.

Target is moving southwest

Hanna barely finished listening to the report and was already issuing new messages.

Wind to the east, fire to the southwest. All teams prepared to engage.

The two operators struggled to send the three messages fast enough to make a difference. They were dealing with wind beasts, so every second counted.

Johanns team receive the message and changed their movements accordingly. Any time now, they would be engaging the beasts. Johann started to circle the wind energy around his hands, the Arrays on his gloves activated making the wind energy strengthen and grow.

Respecting the elements natural behavior, Johann increased the wind flow and created feedback to form a rotating circle. The team spread behind him to escape the extending Wind Shield, but he continued pushing more wind into the circle until it grew to dozens of meters and became a Wind Wall. It was his first time casting the elemental spell that supposedly belonged to the Commander tier. The Wind Wall left his control but didnt disappear, it would continue rotating as long as he provided energy or until it was dispelled.

Coming on their way, five silver figures blinked through the trees faster than they could track. The hunters swallowed dry and reconsidered if they should have signed up for such a crazy mission. Johann quickly tied the magic connection with the Wind Wall to his bracelet and focused his attention on casting another spell. If another Mage saw this, they would probably vomit blood.

Casting simultaneous spells was impossible for an Invoker, even if the spell was auto-controllable after casting, like the Wind Wall. Even Commanders would struggle to do it, only the more static elements, such as earth, would offer enough stability to maintain the spell on its own. However, Johann wasnt a common Mage anymore, aside from having a stronger connection and an in-body supply of wind energy, he was using magic tools.

The drawings on his gloves were helping increase his area of control and affinity, improving his ability to manipulate the element by levels. Usually, he would have to use his spiritual energy to attract and control the wind, paying a hefty price to shape spells. However, with the introduction of the Stimulus and Focus Runes, he only had to supply a small amount of energy, thus saving energy and speeding the casting. The improved quality of the wind energy under his control through the Focus Rune even allowed him to cast a Wind Wall.

Similarly, the bracelet on his left wrist could Manipulate the wind energy supplied by his crystal body to maintain spells active. Instead of despising Alchemy as a shortcut to magic, Johann decided to embrace it and use it to empower his own path. He already had another dozen ideas, but first, he would need to prove his worth to AK.

On the opposite side, the fire team moved fast while pressing the energy pulse to scare the beasts towards Johann's group. The energy pulse was created to push the beasts away from the path of AK's transport missions. The tool used the Focus and Manifestation Runes to create powerful energy waves to capitalize on the beasts' instinct of fleeing from stronger foes. Through the beast's perspective, a stronger beast was clamming the territory. The problem with the tool was the amount of energy used since it had to create a strong enough wave to scare the beasts.

The wind Mage started preparing the second spell as the beasts approached at high speed. Behind him, the hunters arranged a line of archers to intercept the beasts at a crucial moment, while another line of defenders waited to intervene. The five beasts, which were now visible (two adult silver wolves and three cubs), crossed the last 50 meters in two seconds and finally entered Johann's spell range.

The collision with the Wind Wall generated less attrition than expected, they were after all, MQ wind beasts. Even so, the rotating wind slowed them down considerably. The first volley of arrows flew concentrating in two points at both sides of one of the beasts, while Johann formed a Wind Tunnel aimed directly at it. The beast easily dodged the arrows, but failed to escape the elemental attack and was launched back. At this point, another volley of arrows appeared from the side, shot by the earth team, which was quietly hidden, waiting for this moment.

The separated wolf was assaulted and blocked by the arrows, while Johann's team repeated their first move with the second adult wolf. This time around, the Mage had to use two Wind Tunnels to push the second beast back and almost ended up having a physical confrontation. The unguarded cubs, halted their escape to look for their protectors, but they were already on Johanns reach.

Instead of dealing with the far from harmless cubs, Johann dispelled the Wind Wall and used an adapted Wind Canon to dash past the cubs and move on the adult wolves. The rest of the team quickly circled the enraged and confused cubs with a wall of shields. The beasts snapped attacks against them, but each shield was temporarily coated with bubble barriers. They didnt have one crystal for each defender but they could afford the cost of imprinting Contain Runes on every shield, which could hold the effect for some time.

Johann didnt save on energy to face the furious beasts, he started to madly erect Wind Shields and release them unfinished, causing brief wind distortions, which, on top of the arrows of now two groups, were barely enough to keep the wolves back.

Now!

The Mage yelled as he cast a small Wind Tunnel against the silver wolf that was dangerously close to him. The wolf was pushed back a dozen meters by the weak spell, while two special arrows were shot around its partner. The Alchemy marks on the arrows shined, and a shock effect was activated between them, hitting the wolf directly. The beast growled in pain, which distracted the wolf threatening Johann, giving the Mage enough time to cast another Wind Tunnel. This time, strong enough to push the beast further.

The shocked wolf was dashing towards one of the arrows, when the purple lightning arcs stopped given place to a dark blue barrier that cadged the beast. The other wolf was struggling against saving its growling partner, the cubs, or attacking Johann. Fortunately, the dozens of arrows, the wind attacks, and the other diversions kept it distracted enough for the hunters to use the same strategy, cadging the second silver wolf.

However, the mission wasnt complete, the restraints wouldnt be strong enough to keep the beasts contained for long. So, the hunters quickly approached, moving the arrow marks close to reduce the size of the containers and thus gain time, and activated more shocking effects to neutralize the beasts. Although these attacks could be activated from distance, they couldnt maintain both effects due to energy costs, not remotely at least. Fortunately, the containers held long enough for the shocking attacks to put the beasts down, hopefully, only temporarily.

Another ten minutes and the cubs were also restrained. Apparently, the mission had been successful, now they only had to wait and hope that no permanent damage was caused, after all, they wanted them alive.

Back in the command room, Hanna and the others, who had just been informed of the results, cheered. Although their business had grown a lot in the past months, they had taken many investments to make this mission possible. In other words, either their success would announce their ascension, or their failure would bury their business. Just as Johann liked, high risks, high rewards.