The Earth Online

28 Abheek the Alchemist

“Let me get this straight, we can’t make it on our own even the animals managed to do it on their own? Are we stupid like that?” Haya asked while confused with the whole notion of looking for an alchemist.

“Yep. Ever since getting their metal parts, the gods have blessed them with better invention skills to fight against humans and other beasts.” Thaleos replied as they were looking around the Lagash market.

They were looking for one of the Alchemist Guild’s located on the southern part of the marketplace.

Haya and Kedrick looked in Thaleos’ direction in hopes of hearing a more in-depth explanation.

“Alright, so the gods designed the animals to evolve that way to make it harder for players like us, as we gradually leveled up. Since the animal kingdom’s slowly following our footsteps in the industrial revolution-spirit, they’d gradually start making weapons similar to ours.” The beast tamer explained, as he closed his eyes for a quick second and went over his mental map.

After a few more steps, Thaleos remembered James mentioning something about the Hiperion Guild being the strongest alchemist guild in Lagash.

But James, also, explained how the group was too haughty and elitist for his taste, as they refused to believe that they can make mistakes.

This little bit of information prompted the beast tamer to remove them from his list, and instead went for another guild James mentioned.

“Okay, so which guild are we looking for specifically?” Kedrick questioned the other man, as they finally reached the southern part of the city center.

“The Acanit Guild.” Thaleos muttered while looking at the weary sign, a couple of meters away.

“Looks like we’re here. Hope we can find a decent alchemist for our little team.” The berserker stated in a serious tone and led the group towards the entrance of the cozy-looking lodge.

Once entering, they heard the bell, located at the top of the door threshold, ring. This made the people inside the wooden lodge’s lounge look up.

The woman at the desk immediately placed her newspaper and coffee down and started cleaning herself up.

There were three other people hanging around the lounge, just mixing up some herbs and casually dissecting certain plants and beast parts.

The people in the lounge just stared at them as they slowly walked towards the front desk’s direction.

“f*****g humans, again. Ugh, just kill me now.” One of them said while staring at them in absolute disgust.

“Ephyr, they can hear you.” The female elf muttered as she was mixing up some potions.

“See if I give a f**k, Daphnyr. I should’ve joined Hiperion instead. Things were doing great before that b***h came here.” Ephyr uttered with a hint of anger and glared at the woman manning the desk.

Suddenly, they heard a loud thwack and ow, and saw that Daphnyr has smacked the other elf across the head. The woman at the desk gave the female elf a nod of gratitude.

“Sorry about this, we don’t usually get that many guests. How can we help you?” The woman started, as she was fixing her hair up in a bandana.

“Oh, we’re looking for an alchemist, unless you have other services to offer?” Thaleos answered, which made the young woman blush. Seeing her reaction, the two other men laughed, and Thaleos just realized his mistake.

He quickly tried making amends in a frantic tone, “Oh no, sorry that came out wrong. Please know that I don’t mean any harm and I fully recognize your agency as a person. I was legitimately asking about other services.”

Whenever the beast tamer became a panicking mess, he always used his psychologist language to regain his peace. This autopilot mode of his pushed him to better communicate.

“Don’t worry about it! Thanks for saying that, it really helps. As the first female human in this guild, filled with male elves, it was tough adjusting. Anyways, I’m Abhi, a Shadow Assassin under the Assassin profession.” Haya and Kedrick gulped loudly and easily understood how she dominated the guild that had egotistical elves.

“Anyways, yes,” Before Abhi could even continue, Ephyr muttered under his breath, “Anyways is not a word, English isn’t even my language. Stupid human.” Abhi’s blue eyes shifted from a happy-go-lucky vibe to a read-to-kill-you one.

Before they knew it, a knife flew across the room and slightly grazed Ephy’s cheek. This made the elf’s face pale up and mouth shut close.

“Anyways, as I was saying before, we do have alchemists who are ready to be dispatched. Our guild’s main rule is that even if one of our alchemists becomes part of your group, ultimately, they still answer to the Acanit Guild. If this is clear to you, I’ll show you our top alchemists.”

Abhi stood up and messed around with her brown hair before motioning them to follow her.

The trio looked around the lodge and saw that it was actually bigger than they suspected. They passed through multiple labs, training room, alchemy tables, and a couple of stairs before they finally reached the Head Alchemist’s room.

They saw an old man, with white long hair and a matching fuzzy beard, was teaching six people sprawled around the room.

“Okay, class, now we’re going to try mixing a potion that turns 18-year-old guys into frogs and then into mice five seconds after.” The old man hummed out.

His eccentric tune made the trio smile, as they remembered the kind librarian that taught a couple of street kids basic coding.

He would always put weird premises and conditions that made the whole learning process exciting.

The four of them just watched the old teacher having fun with his class, as some of the members were turned into frogs.

“Arch Alchemist Kawan, we have a new customer looking for an alchemist.” Abhi chimed in, before the man proceeded with his next set of instructions.

“A customer, you say. Why, it’s been months since we last had a customer.” The Arch Alchemist mumbled out in merriment.

Upon spotting Thaleos, the old man gave him a knowing smile and just chuckled lightly, making his eyes almost disappear in sheer joy.

“You must be the one Ganuru’s talking about. Nice to meet you, son. May I know your name and also your friends’?” The ancient alchemist asked with curiosity embedded in his tone.

“I am Thaleos, and these are my brothers, Haya and Kedrick.” The beast tamer uttered in a confident tone. The three of them felt comfortable in the old man’s presence, almost as if a safety blanket of sorts.

Must be because of the amount of mana he has, Kedrick thought to himself.

“I am Kawan Eta, the Acanit Guild’s Arch Alchemist and head of the Central Guild. Tell me, what do you need in an alchemist?” The old man questioned them while scratching his beard.

As Thaleos was lost in thought, thinking of Ganuru’s connection to the alchemist, Haya answered for him,

“We’re actually looking for an alchemist that’s willing to stay in our base for a couple of months, doesn’t matter if he’s the best or not. What we need is someone’s who’s hard-working and eager to learn.” Kedrick just shook his head at his friend’s recruiter-like voice.

“Dude, you make it sound like we’re looking for an intern. We just need someone to help us build some things and alchemize the s**t out of ‘em.” Kedrick said while looking at the six students that were staring at him, after his loud outburst.

“Ah, yes. Interesting, alchemizing the s**t out of them. I might have the perfect candidate for you. Truthfully, the boy’s a bit rough around the edges, but he absolutely loves alchemy and incantations.” Kawan explained as he called for a boy that was sitting on the corner, quietly chuckling at the hopping frogs in the vicinity.

“Abheek, come here.” The young boy swiftly approached their location and looked at them with a blank expression,

“This young boy is Abhi’s younger brother, one of my most brilliant students, and also the quietest.” Kedrick and Haya took their hands out to shake the young man’s hand, but Abheek just blankly stared at them.

“Trust me, the boy seems to be anti-social, but he’s just incredibly timid.” Kawan explained, looking like a doting father explaining his son’s shyness.

Thaleos stared at the young man, which unnerved him a bit, but stared right back at him.

Once the beast tamer saw the familiar determined look—one that they all had when they were younger—he proceeded to ask the Arch Alchemist a couple of questions,

“How advanced is he in his studies?”

“What are his specialties?”

“How does he fare in the battleground? Not to say, that we’re bringing him to all our battles, but there would be certain cases where he would need to fight.”

Kedrick and Haya looked at him weirdly, since the beast tamer usually never cared about the first two things.

Before the old man could ever answer his series of questions, the young boy with pitch-black hair and green eyes quietly muttered,

“I can make blood-fighting potions using butterfly wings.”