Ishval

Ishval was far more beautiful than Burne had expected. It was a town built in the middle of a desert, but the architecture was better than most other places. They were still made from cheaper materials but Burne couldn't deny the beauty of the place. 

Children were playing on the open road, which was not an issue as rarely any vehicles went through those roads.

The people had mixed reactions to Burne's visit. Some seemed welcoming while the rest were sceptical. Burne didn't blame them as their trust had already been broken by Amestris. 

'As they say— Trust is as fragile as glass, in which it is easy to break and very hard to get back.' He thought as he walked through the street and greeted the people on his way. 

'I should look for an inn.' Burne thought. 'Should have asked the old coachman for suggestions.'

He walked for a while, looking for a place to spend a few days. But he wasn't quite successful. The architecture made it difficult for him to spot an inn while the names were also unlike anything he has ever heard. Most shops and buildings were named after flowers, so it made it twice as difficult for him to differentiate between the stores. 

Getting tired of cluelessly searching the place, he decided to take help from the natives of Ishval. 

"Hey, little guy." He called out to one of the boys that were playing over the road. The boy looked up and found Burne waving at him. Confused at being called by a stranger, he waved back. 

Burne guessed that he was sceptical of going towards a stranger despite the place being quite populated. So he decided to walk towards the boy instead.

Putting a smile on his face, Burne asked. "Do you know where I can find an inn, little one?" 

The boy didn't speak but instead pointed his finger towards a building that was a little taller than the rest. It had a signboard that read 'Moonflower' in Ishvalan.

'That makes sense.' Burne thought as he realised that the important buildings will have at least a slight difference from the rest, and this one was bigger than the rest. 

"Thank you." Burne said.

He smiled at the boy and walked towards the inn.

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The inn, or the hotel— the place was too fancy to be called an inn— was bigger from the inside than it looked. But despite that, it was pretty empty. Burne figured it was mostly because of the tension between the nations.

As he walked inside, a middle-aged lady noticed him and smiled. 

"Ah, welcome sir." She said. "How may I help you?" 

Burne sighed in relief at her behaviour. 'At least she didn't tell me to get out. But then again… while the citizens of Ishval may not be very welcoming to foreigners, people still has to run their businesses.'

"I am looking for a room." He said as the woman beamed. 

"Oh, we have the best rooms, sir." She said. "You came to the perfect place."

Burne nodded and walked towards the counter.

"How many days are you hoping to stay, sir?" She asked, taking out a massive register from the drawer underneath the table.

"Three days and four nights." He said. 'That should be enough for me to explore this place.'

Giving a slight nod in affirmation, she went through the pages of the register. 

"A big room, medium room or a small room, sir?" She asked and Burne instantly replied with 'Big.'

She nodded and asked him about the location. "Do you want your room to be upstairs or downstairs? And may I have your name?

"Upstairs would be nice." He said. "And it's Burne. Burne Adley."

"Alright." She smiled and went through the drawer to take out a numbered key. "Here is your key, you will be staying in room number twenty-four." 

"Alright." Burne took the key which had the number '24' engraved on it. 

"You will be provided with breakfast, lunch and dinner which is cooked by my husband. For additional food like snacks, you will have to pay extra." She said. "For three days and four nights, you have to pay ninety thousand cens, Mr. Adley."

Cens was the standard currency used in both Amestris and Ishval. And considering that a simple cup of coffee costs a thousand cens, Burne found the price quite decent… if not a little cheap. 

He paid half of the amount first as it was the rule in Ishval and the rest was to be paid once he checked out. 

"Thank you." He said and walked towards his room. His room was at the top left corner and when he checked the room, he wasn't dissatisfied. It was a well-furnished room with proper decor. 

It had a medium-sized bed covered with a white bedsheet. As he was tired from his travel, he instantly crashed onto the bed. 

'Tomorrow morning I will go to the library and look for both the geographical and alchemic history of this place. For the rest two days, I can explore the place.' He thought, laying in the bed. 

'The only reason I decided to start with Ishval is because gramps once said that the library had a lot of ancient books about alchemy… Which I would like to explore.'

Burne decided to force himself to forget about the devastating truth he discovered in Xerxes— by drowning himself into more alchemy. Alchemy had countless sub-branches and while the Philosopher's Stone was a legendary item heard by alchemists of all the alchemic branches, it was mostly popular in the 'Animation alchemy' branch. And after Xerxes, he promised himself to not dive into it. He was more interested in elemental alchemy.

'Elemental alchemy is mostly popular in Amestris.' He sighed. 'Well, at least… I know where to go after Ishval.'

Burne had a very low opinion of the Amestris' military. But he didn't dislike the country as a whole. Amestris was one of the most popular tourist spots and he knew that if he wanted to expand his alchemy knowledge, he had to go to Amestris. 

He sighed and took off the monocle from his eye before proceeding to change his clothes. 

Standing in front of the mirror he sighed. "I fucked up big time." He mumbled as he ran his fingers over his left shoulder. 

Behind his clothes, his arms and body remain hidden but once he opens his shirt, it doesn't take long for people to notice the massive scar around his shoulder followed by multiple stitches around it. The arm below the scarring appeared normal but upon closer look, one could say that it was not a real arm. It was quite different from his right arm that looked perfectly normal, excluding the alchemic circle tattooed over his wrist.

People that lost their limbs often had two choices. One was to remain without a limb or the other was to add a mechanical limb. Most rich people, or at least the ones with a decent amount of money go for the mechanical limbs, called Automails. They are made from expensive non-rustic metal that allows them to move limbs quite easily. But one could rarely hide the jarring noises made by the metal joints whenever the person moved their limbs. And even the ones that didn't make any noise had a very unappealing look and they were far heavier than an actual limb.

But the prosthetic arm that Burne had attached to his left shoulder was different. It was not made from any metal but instead from a substance specially crafted by himself. 

"I am glad that grandfather had written the book on 'Alchemic support on the human body." He mumbled as he looked at his prosthetic arm. "If not for that book, I would have never been able to make the substance for the prosthetic." 

The substance that he used to make the arm was a mixture of a large number of elements. From carbon, silicon to aluminium amongst countless others. He was successful in coming up with a substance that was very light yet durable and which made no chemical reactions. 

The tricky part was lining the nerves inside the arm and connecting it with his own. But with the help of his grandfather's notes, he was able to come up with a perfect prosthetic arm. 

"I reckon that I can make a perfect arm one day. But for that, I need to expand my knowledge of elemental alchemy." 

The only reason a person would have been able to tell that it was a fake arm was due to its colour. The substance he used was strong, light, soft and durable but it was not perfect. Due to the blood running through the artificial veins, it gave the arm a slight reddish look that made it stand out when compared to the rest of his pale body.

He was not muscular— but alchemists rarely cared about their physical fitness and Burne was no different. He mostly spent his days improving his alchemy while neglecting his body. It was a wonder that his body was in decent shape despite never tending to it. 

He had no muscles but he wasn't necessarily fat or lanky either. He had a decent body and his black hair and his grey eyes gave him the 'pretty boy' look, which he didn't like. But there was not much he could do about his face. As for his body, he was lazy.

"At least the eyes are perfectly alike." 

He smiled as he placed his hand over his left eye. 

His left arm was not the only artificial part of his body. One of his eyes was too. The left eye was made from a combination of plastic acrylic, silicon and a variety of other substances. But it was nothing more than a cosmetic item, which meant he was completely blind from his left eye. But he was used to it and it didn't pose much of a problem to him.

"Maybe one day I will be able to turn it into a functioning eye like the arm. But that will take quite a long time." 

He put on a new pair of clothes before looking at the clock. 

"It's around the time for dinner." He remembered the lady informing him about the timing. "I should probably go."

Saying that, he went out of the room.

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[A/N: I just landed in France, so not sure if I will be able to post later today. Therefore I decided to post the chapter now. I haven't checked the chapter as I was in a rush, leave paragraph comments next to the mistakes so that I can correct them later.]

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