The Runic Alchemist

There was nothing left in this village. The villagers told them there was no other village anywhere near here — maybe after crossing the mountains or the dark forest there could be one or two — they had never been able to go that far though.

When Sam asked why they didn’t need to eat, the people tilted their heads in confusion as if the word was alien to them. What weird things were these?

“What now?” Maelor asked. They were standing off to the side, away from the bound and gagged villagers.

“No other choice. We have to see everything that exists in this world — there has to be some way to get in and out,” Lucian said.

Sam also nodded. “The forest will take too much time to cross. Let’s first climb the mountain and take a look. With our strength, that should be easier.”

The villagers had no need to eat or go to the loo, so they kept them tied up — not like they were going to die. Damian was still out cold; Sam lifted him up and placed him on his shoulder. Maelor had done a few minor healing spells on Damian, but it didn’t seem like there was any effect — Sam could not let the guy keep wasting his mana like that; it could be the difference between life and death for them here. He wished so badly that he could use the healing spells, but he was an esper, and only lightning was his share.

Climbing the stone mountain, even as a second-ranker, was not easy — but Sam had enough strength for all of them to climb like it was his everyday job. He could even fly a little if he wanted, so there was no fear of falling — not that it would damage much either. After he climbed a little, he then used a rope to get the other two up. Little by little, they scaled the black and white mountain and reached the very top.

They sat down at the top; it had a little snow piled up. The sharp top was not very big, barely 30–40 meters wide. Sam placed Damian down on the snow and took a look, walking to the edge. The other side of the mountain was also an ocean. There was land — maybe double the size compared to this side of the mountain — but it was full of dark forest. No village, animal, or monster in sight — fuck, not a single thing was even moving.

The sky too, as if plotting something nefarious with the black and white world, had suddenly started to slowly turn darker and darker. It looked ominous and creepy, to say the least.

There was barely any air, and all the trees barely had any leaves, only dark ugly branches sprouting all around, looking like monsters trapped in wood. Not a single thing in color. Sam sighed and sat down at the edge with Lucian and Maelor — they too had seen it and found it equally disappointing. The exhaustion from doing even the simple things was really noticeable. Sam could barely feel it, but Maelor and Lucian had used up more strength than necessary for climbing just one mountain.

Was this place increasing the toll on their bodies and minds with more time passing?

That would explain why Damian was not waking up even after the healing spells.

Suddenly, Lucian, looking intently at the village side, spoke up.

“Have you seen the villagers use water?”

The question was a weird one, seeing their hopeless situation. For a second, Sam got worried for her mental state. Maelor, looking equally puzzled, exchanged glances with Sam and then shook his head.

“But there was water in the village, right?” Lucian continued.

“Yes,” Sam answered this time.

There was water. The whole piece of this land was covered by a massive ocean — there was too fucking much water, to be precise.

“Was it white?” Lucian asked.

“What?” Sam could not understand the head or leg of this conversation. Maelor too looked at Lucian with worried eyes.

But Lucian continued without any pause; this time she even pointed below. “Everywhere we saw, the water was white. Then why is that river black?”

Black river? Wait a second.. now that she mentioned it. The single river flowing through the grass field was indeed weirdly shiny black. Sam and Damian had seen that before when they climbed halfway up this mountain, but at that time they had hardly seen anything, so they just assumed the black river in a black and white world was a normal thing. But it was indeed an oddity.

There was a well in the village, and Sam had seen the water was white with shades of black for shadows.

“Guys, do you know what the color of our spheres signifies?” Maelor asked. Then, without waiting for the answer, he looked at Sam and asked, “Was yours light blue?”

Sam nodded. Damian had told him he had entered the big blue sphere — after breaking it with an axe. The colors of the spheres.. it matched their aura. Sam had a cyan, bright aura. Maelor’s strange armor skill formed a golden armor made entirely of a weird mix of aura structure and mana — a thing that only a unique skill could explain. Lucian’s was dark blue — matching her icy powers.

Then..

“It has to be Damian. His sphere must have broken somehow, and the dark energy inside is flowing as a river. It starts in the forest without any source and ends in the distance abruptly, see?” Lucian pointed at the end of the dark river.

The flow of the black river was a weird one — they should have noticed that before. Half was flowing downwards, while the other half was going up, locked in an eternal circle.

Sam muttered, “His aura was black.”

“Exactly,” Maelor said.

Sam looked back at the figure beside them. If the real Damian was still trapped in a nightmarish memory trap, then who exactly was this person beside them?

“We will know if we touch the thing with our own hands..” Lucian ended the discussion with a simple sentence.