Creating an Alchemy Creature

Outskirts of Toledo fort,

On a grass field, a wind wolf lay on the ground before a blond-haired youth. It suffered not so severe injuries but it lost a lot of blood and felt weak. It growled hatefully at the blond-haired person that was responsible for its predicament but was ignored. Some strong warriors came and rounded it up in chains and hauled it onto a horse cart.

"Okay let us head back." The blond-haired youth who was August said to his subordinates. "Yes Sir!" they responded vigorously. They knew how powerful this young man was and they had a lot of respect and quite some fear for him as well.

It had been two months since his heart-to-heart talk with Mayra. Since then there were hardly any precarious situations that August faced and Toledo fort experienced a period of peace which did not happen too often.

He had come to this area north of the fort in order to capture a wind wolf to use in his experiments. Ever since he came into contact with knowledge of the basic alchemy creature creation manual, he had been thinking of ways to transform this knowledge into his strength or form of support.

During the course of the past weeks, Rhea had been analyzing the esoteric sorcery to fish out its flaws and also figure out ways of making it more efficient. He on the other hand had spent time procuring materials to begin his first production of an alchemy creature. By capturing the wind wolves, he finally had everything in place to begin!

After arriving at the fort, he met Amyra in from of his office who gave him a sweet smile as she handed him a package. "What is in it?" August asked. It is some spirit rice. Eating them helps in recovering your magic power. I'm sure you used up some magic power during your 'hunt' " Mayra took August's hands and placed the box in them.

"Ah! Thanks. I did not think of eating at all." August stated embarrassingly. "Okay, good luck with your research." Mayra encouraged as she returned to the office and continued her duties. He had left most of the day-to-day tasks in her hand and had focused on his project.

They both agreed to continue the pretence for now and therefore in public, he still gave her instructions as if she were an apprentice sorcerer. But in private, he was rather respectful towards her and Mayra did not put on airs as well. They both treated the other as equals.

Underneath the Toledo Fort building, August used the basement as his makeshift workshop. the wind wolf lay on the ground and its breathing was weak. August dragged it with him and placed it inside a cage after causing it to sleep.

According to the information in the original manual, the sorcerer had to implant a soul rune on a living creature that was mentally and also physically weak to resist the process and as a result, bond with the creature. The creature can then be implanted with various non-organic materials in order to transform it into one's battle creature.

Due to this soul link, the battle companion would be able to act in accordance with the master's wishes, upon a single command, assaulting the enemy with many attacks from magic items infused into it and they can also protect their master. The alchemy creature, due to the soul bond, could also read its master's thoughts and take independent actions to aid its master even without being ordered to. Hence many esoteric sorcerers who devoted their time and efforts to researching magic, and had very little battle experience, relied on this battle style.

However, it was not without its limitations. The master must form a soul bond with the creature. If one uses a mind-controlling rune on the alchemy creature, it will become mindless and it will only be able to perform basic actions which must be entirely controlled by the master. Hence many users of this manual prefer the use of a soul rune which makes it easier to control and give commands. Osslow was an example of this.

But this also meant that If any form of harm happened to the creature, then the owner would also suffer a backlash!

It was for this reason that apart from esoteric sorcerers, not many sorcerers were not keen on using this sorcery and preferred using other magical constructs which did not demand such high costs for failure!

Also one has to take his time in studying runology to master the creation of such constructs too. Runology is the study of runes and is a broad field of study in the sorcery world. For basic constructs, grasping the fundamentals is not so important. Hence one just needs to know how to manifest a few runes for the process.

However, it gets more and more complicated as one tries to create advanced second-rank and third-rank constructs. This meant that the study of runes is a time-consuming effort and only the talented can excel in it. Hence most rank 0 sorcerers do not choose to specialize in them.

Should I apply this method? August thought to himself some time ago. Although the alchemy creature sounded pretty convenient, he was not willing to risk harming his soul if his creature happened to die. What if he could try out a more convenient method without the risks?

"Rhea, can you find a way for us to control the creature without linking our souls?"

After some time of analysis, Rhea came up with a course of action. "Master August, I can modify the mind rune and control it myself. That way, I will be the one operating the creature, not you yourself, thereby mitigating the risks!"

Wait, that was a brilliant idea! The reason why the mind rune was not used by many sorcerers was that, on the battlefield, one had to concentrate all his energies on controlling the creature single-handedly and could not perform any additional action. This was too risky and left the user vulnerable to attacks.

However, he had Rhea. She acted more or less like his second brain- a parallel mind! He could relinquish control of the alchemy creature to her while he could just cast his sorceries! Now apart from a supporting role, she could also have a direct contribution in battle.

Within the lab, August took a look at the blueprint that he and Rhea had been working on regarding the alchemy creature. After trial and error, a blueprint of an evolved wind wolf that had been augmented with magical materials making it look twice as big as the original wolf was deemed by Rhea as the most suitable for this project.

This feature was possible because of the three medium-grade wind cores that were infused inside its body that boosted it with additional magic power as well as wind elemental particles, to enable it to move at a faster speed.

What was amazing was that this evolution if successful would enable the evolved wind wolf to have the power of an elite-level rank 0 sorcerer!

After many times of simulations, August began the process as he concentrated and used his magic power to condense a purple-coloured, pentagon-shaped rune, which he inserted into the wind wolf's body. After moments of struggling, the wind wolf stopped struggling and then lay peacefully, a pentagon-shaped rune glowed with a flickering light in its eyes.

This means that the first step of implanting the mind control rune was a success. Now I can continue with the next phase of my research. He took out three elemental wind cores at the medium grade and implanted them in its heart, forehead and mouth and waited to see the reaction.

The wind wolf started writhing in pain once again and its body was beginning to experience an evolution due to the forceful infusion of magic cores. It grew even more fur and its size was gradually increasing as it gave out a bloodthirsty roar. After that, it went into slumber again but its spirit fluctuations were steadily increasing.

"It worked!" August was ecstatic. After analyzing the biology of the wind wolf, Rhea was able to outline an evolutionary path for it. Through the infusion of magic cores at vital organs in its body, magical power was able to infuse faster with the wind wolf's body than natural external absorption.

Rhea was crucial in this aspect because if there was able to determine where the amount and location of the wind elemental cores too much power infused into the wind wolf, it would die and if it was too little, the effects would be useless.

A lot of esoteric sorcerers had to spend a lot of time and resources implanting other materials into the wind wolf because trying to evolve a living creature was simply too difficult and the knowledge in this field was limited and mostly held in secrecy among many bloodline clans.

August did not have to stop where others failed. In fact, with Rhea's assistance, he could continue finding ways of triggering evolutions among such magic beasts from scratch! Per Rhea's simulations and calculations, it would take three days to complete the transformation and this would mean that August would be able to have an elite-level wind wolf in his arsenal!