“I think I’ll need a couple more living quarters in the Citadel, Master Mahur…”

  The guild leader had no desire to return to that dreadful place, so he quickly replied, “Of course, Master Alchemist! I even know exactly where to arrange it! Everything will be ready soon!”

  Valm was walking briskly toward the exit of the crafts guild, while Mahur struggled to keep up. But right before the gates, the alchemist suddenly stopped. The guild leader thought he had something else to discuss, but instead, Valm pulled out a small signal flare and launched it into the air. A green light shot up with a whistle, then exploded into a red sphere with a blue fire disc inside. The passersby on the square in front of the guild lifted their heads to see what was happening.

  “Master Valm?” Mahur was just as intrigued.

  “Hmm. Looks like he left the city…”

  The alchemist sighed. Most likely, those who had tried to assassinate him already knew he had survived. For a strong warrior, tracking his aura from a few kilometers away wouldn’t be a problem. And that meant only one thing—the attack would undoubtedly be repeated in the future. Valm had wanted to seek help from the warrior who had saved him in the fight against Sari. But minutes passed, and the warrior in the white straw hat did not appear.

  Reaching the Citadel alone could be an impossible task for the alchemist. He had every reason to believe that another attack could happen the moment he stepped outside the guild gates. Should he turn to Mahur for help? The guild’s security was likely strong enough… But he didn’t want to be in Mahur’s debt.

  “Do you need my help again, Master Alchemist?” A soft voice sounded behind him.

  Valm flinched slightly in surprise, once again realizing how easy a target he was for people like this.

  “Yes. I need protection.”

  Mahur glanced at the two guards standing by the gate. How had they even let this person pass? Had they noticed him at all?

  “Protection… That is possible. I am a mid-tier Battle Master, so my services—”

  “I’ll raise your level by one tier, to a high-tier Battle Master,” the alchemist interrupted. “In return, you’ll guard me for three years. Deal?”

  Three years to advance a whole tier among Battle Masters… That was incredibly fast. With his offer, Valm had practically taken away the warrior’s right to refuse.

  “Deal, Master Alchemist! But may I ask why you need my help?”

  Valm pulled out the strange needle that had been stabbed into his back.

  “A few hours ago, someone stuck this into me.”

  The warrior took the assassination tool and examined it carefully.

  “The strongest aura I sense belongs to a third-class mid-tier warrior. In fact… this aura feels familiar, though I can’t quite recall where I encountered it. If that’s the extent of your enemies’ strength, then protecting you will be no trouble at all, Master Alchemist.”

  “Good. Call me Valm. And your name?”

  “I am Grem, Master Alchemist.”

  Valm nodded, said farewell to Mahur, and confidently stepped beyond the guild gates. At first, he intended to head straight to the capsule to return to the Citadel, but suddenly, a thought changed his plans. Smiling, he turned toward the city market instead.

  Grem didn’t care where he had to protect his employer. As long as the enemies’ strength didn’t exceed his own, the Battle Master was confident in his abilities.

  The market was noisy and crowded, filled with the stench of human sweat and animal dung. A bit lost, Valm stretched his neck, trying to see past the throng of people, but with little success.

  “Master Valm, what exactly are you looking for?” Grem pitied the sight and decided to help.

  “Ducks. I need ducks.”

  The request didn’t surprise the guard at all—who knew what strange things alchemists needed? Using his aura, he quickly located the stalls selling poultry and led Valm there.

  “How much for a duck?” the alchemist asked a hunched old man standing beside a cart full of birds.

  “Three bronze coins.”

  “And for a hundred?”

  “Twenty-eight silver,” the seller replied without hesitation, offering a slight discount.

  Valm silently handed over the money, then walked up to the cart and started twisting the birds’ necks himself, stacking the lifeless ducks into his storage. The merchant carefully counted, making sure the client didn’t sneak in an extra one.

  The alchemist was smiling. If his student had appeared so unexpectedly in his life, then he would walk the same path Valm once had. And these ducks were meant precisely for that.

  As he left the market for the capsule, Valm kept thinking back to his own time training under the Toxic Dragon. Sometimes he even sighed, feeling something like nostalgia and sadness for his teacher. Though, to be honest, back then he had often hated him.

  He opened the capsule door.

  “Get in,” he said to Grem, nodding toward the opposite door.

  The warrior shook his head.

  “This toy will only get in my way if something happens on the road. It’s too small inside. But don’t worry—I’ll be right beside you.”

  Of course. Valm got inside and started the capsule. This speed was nothing to a Battle Master—just a casual stroll. Sometimes the alchemist regretted not having any aptitude for magic or martial arts. He even envied those who did. Back in the day, that envy had driven him to study tirelessly to become the best in alchemy and healing.

  “If you like, you can use the library for now,” he told his new guard when they returned to the Citadel. “And I’ll need to draw some blood from your vein to create the serum for your advancement.”

  With that, the alchemist hurried to his laboratory—he had been away for several hours longer than expected. And the monster was still waiting.

  Pamlek was hanging there patiently—where else could he go from that frame? Valm noted how much the wound he had left on the creature had healed. No doubt, the regeneration of these beasts was insane. No human could do such a thing without pills and potions.

  The alchemist sighed and pulled on a fresh blue suit. Before putting on his mask, he took another sip of his restoration elixir.

  Not good—relying on these things unnecessarily was bad for the body. Even if it was his own carefully crafted potion with almost no side effects. But still… it was like borrowing energy from himself—he’d have to repay the debt later.

  However, Valm wanted to finish with Pamlek already, to complete his notes and draw his conclusions.

  “Shall we continue?” he asked the monster, picking up a scalpel.

  Pamlek only trembled in response, eyeing the sharp steel in the alchemist’s hands.

  With quick, precise movements, Valm removed the fresh layers of skin that had grown over the creature’s chest in the past few hours. Then, carefully, he began separating the muscles from the bones of the ribcage. He had to clamp down on some of the larger blood vessels, while the smaller ones he simply cauterized, keeping his workspace clean.

  “Whew,” he finally said as he exposed the bones within the cut section of skin. “I want to see how your core works when you regenerate. Ready?”

  The surgical circular saw buzzed softly, cutting into the white ribs. The monster’s body twitched in pain, so Valm had to pull out a few more steel rods from the frame to secure its torso more tightly. Tiny clouds of bone dust continued to rise from the saw’s disc for a while, forcing the alchemist to occasionally wipe the glass of his mask.

  “Now, let’s see what we have here!”

  He said, carefully placing the instrument on the tray behind him. Then he grabbed the separated part of the ribcage. He tried to remove it easily, but it wouldn’t budge. He tugged once, then twice… Finally, with a sickening squelch, it came loose so abruptly that the alchemist nearly fell.

  “Perfect, wonderful…” he murmured, pulling aside the tall, thin membrane of the diaphragm and the fatty tissue growths that were in the way.

  The monster’s heart pounded wildly before his eyes, its rhythm accelerating by the minute.

  “Hey, freak, you’ll go into fibrillation at this rate! Don’t you dare die before I finish my study!”

  The alchemist had no way to medically influence the monster’s condition—no substances affected their bodies. That left him with only one option: to speed up his work while the creature was still breathing. Cursing the wretch with every word he knew, Valm quickened his pace and exposed the white sac between the monster’s heart and right lung. Thin white strands connected it to the organs, and inside, something glowed with a red light.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  “There it is!” he exclaimed joyfully.

  Taking his scalpel, he carefully incised the sac, partially exposing the monster’s red core. And it glowed.

  Valm had theorized that the core transferred mana to the monster’s body, sustaining its life. But this—this was a discovery. No book had ever mentioned that monster cores glowed. He had seen them shine in various magical devices and mechanisms, but this—this was glowing inside a living organism!

  “Dammit! Is this real?!”

  Valm had so many questions, so many ideas for further experiments on the monster. But at that moment, the creature’s heart gave out, and one of its ventricles simply exploded, dousing the alchemist in a stream of blood.

  “You bastard!” Valm bellowed in frustration.

  But there was nothing he could do—the monster was dying rapidly, convulsing in its final throes.

  “Fucking wretch! Ten minutes! I just needed ten more minutes, and you had to die?!”

  Abandoning the idea of immediately extracting a new monster to repeat the experiment, Valm began methodically separating the internal organs and individual muscles, exposing the skeleton for documentation and the creation of a monster carcass atlas.

  After spending hours on the task, he then spent even more time cleaning up his workspace, scrubbing it to a shine. The dissected corpse itself would be used to feed the other temporarily living creatures locked in the Citadel’s cages.

  Exhausted and sleepy, the alchemist left the laboratory and went straight to bed. He was hungry too, but… sleep was more important.

  “I’ll check on you in a few hours,” the alchemist told Grem before collapsing onto his bed without undressing and instantly falling asleep.

  Those “few hours” stretched out quite a bit, and eventually, construction noises woke him up. Even before opening his eyes, he mentally wished Mahur good health and many long years in this world. Then he sat up in bed. His head buzzed a little, and he was both thirsty and hungry. Likely, the symptoms were also due to the restoration potion he had taken.

  While standing under the hot water in the shower, he heard someone clattering dishes in the kitchen. Then his sensitive nose caught the smell of delicious food. So, it wasn’t just the builders—the entire staff he had ordered from the head of the craftsman’s guild had arrived.

  For the first time in many years, Valm didn’t eat breakfast alone. He invited Grem to join him. He even wanted to strike up a casual conversation, but all he managed was a question: how long had Grem been at his current level of strength, and had he ever used alchemical substances to boost it?

  Hearing in response that it had been nearly ten years and that no, he hadn’t used anything, Valm smiled.

  “Then there won’t be any problems. Follow me.”

  Together, they walked to the laboratory, where Grem immediately sensed the lingering aura of the monster. And that aura told the Battle Master a lot. A shiver ran down his spine as he felt the despair in which the creature had died.

  He froze in front of the needle with a thin transparent tube at the end, which the alchemist held out to him.

  “Roll up your sleeve. I need blood from a vein.”

  Grem swallowed hard. This man frightened him. This place, too… was unpleasant. The aura of the monster, which had died a painful death, unsettled the Battle Master.

  And how could this weak alchemist stand here? Did he not feel it?

  “Grem, do you hear me? Give me your arm!” Valm repeated.

  “Huh? Oh, yeah. Sure.”

  Grem quickly removed part of his armor, baring his sinewy arm up to the elbow. Valm worked deftly. With his left hand, he pinched the vein above Grem’s elbow, and with his right, he precisely inserted the needle. Even without a tourniquet, dark crimson venous blood flowed into the small vial at the end of the transparent tube.

  “Done!” Valm said after a few seconds. “Now I can easily create a safe formula for your breakthrough to the next level.”

  He withdrew the needle and sealed the puncture with blue paste—the same one he had used earlier to patch up the monster’s skin. It didn’t heal wounds, but it mechanically sealed tissue, posing no threat to the body.

  Grem hastily grabbed his discarded armor piece and darted his eyes toward the exit, his nerves fraying.

  “Thank you, Master Valm!”

  But his voice was unsteady. Grem himself didn’t understand what was happening to him or why he felt so uncomfortable here. He sighed with relief when the alchemist finally opened the door.

  “I’m never setting foot in this cursed place again!” he thought, echoing the very same sentiment once expressed by the head of the craftsman’s guild.

  And he wasn’t a coward or a sensitive man—he had fought in many battles where only the strong survived.

  But this place…

  This place evoked an irrational terror.

  Valm didn’t even notice the state of his guard, completely immersed in analyzing the blood. The blood of a Battle Master. To a skilled alchemist or healer, this substance could reveal a great deal—unveiling both the warrior’s past and the potential of his future. Droplets of blood passed through one medical device after another, and gradually, the alchemist pieced together a complete picture in his mind. Not a prodigy of martial arts, but with the right approach, Grem’s strength could be developed to the level of a high-stage Battle Ancestor. Valm was certain of it.

  He smiled and stepped outside. Finding a quiet corner in the Citadel where no one would disturb him, he pulled out his alchemical cauldron, a couple of sixth-class monster cores, and around thirty wooden cases filled with alchemical ingredients. He had no recipe for what he intended to create, but that wasn’t necessary. The important thing was that the alchemist knew the foundation—ten key components. Everything else was just additional elements best suited to crafting pills specifically for Grem. For others, this preparation would be useless, perhaps even harmful.

  Blue flames with orange sparks engulfed the cauldron, into which Valm tossed several plants from the cases. After a while, his nose caught a faint sweet aroma, prompting him to start counting the seconds… one… two… three… At the precise moment, he added a few more plants and began shaping the first pill with his spiritual energy.

  Valm created seven pills in total. They now lay before him, each in its own separate case. The alchemist carefully closed them one by one, meticulously numbering them from one to seven. He was satisfied. In alchemy, he could be called a perfectionist, given how meticulously he approached his work.

  “When you’re ready,” Valm said to the guard, “take one pill each day according to the number on the case. Remember, you must not skip a day! At first, you’ll feel discomfort, as if you’ve caught an illness, but don’t pay it any mind—that’s just your body beginning to restructure. By the end of the eighth day, I guarantee you’ll break through your current level.”

  He handed the pill cases to Grem and, ignoring his words of gratitude, returned to the laboratory. With a satisfied smile, he clapped his hands and rubbed them together.

  “Who’s next?!” the alchemist asked himself.

  He ascended to the control station and activated it with a practiced motion. The manipulator’s mechanical arm came to life.

  Meanwhile, tensions boiled in the mayor’s estate. Gorp had quickly learned about the assassination attempt on the alchemist, nearly suffering a heart attack himself. That damned Ladbor… On top of that, his own daughter hadn’t spoken to him for days. In frustration, the mayor hurled a plate of finely sliced fruit against the wall. Everything could fall apart at any moment.

  If Valm discovered the name of the one who ordered the hit and then connected the adventurer to the mayor’s daughter… It would all be over. A disciple of the Toxic Dragon. He was certainly no fool. And not the type to forgive easily. The mayor clenched his fingers around the edge of the table with such force that the wood cracked and broke off. All because of one idiot.

  “Master Gorp, Lord Ladbor is here to see you,” the servant said quietly.

  “How timely!”

  The mayor stormed out of the dining hall, striding toward the sitting room with such urgency that he nearly knocked over the frail servant.

  “Master Gorp, I’ll fix everything!”

  Ladbor’s outcry was interrupted by a resounding slap as the mayor’s palm struck his cheek with full force.

  “Fix it?! You brainless fool! Were you even listening to me?!”

  Another loud slap rang out as the mayor backhanded him across the other cheek.

  “Do you remember my order, you idiot?!”

  Gorp grabbed Ladbor by the nape of his neck, pressing their foreheads together.

  “I told you not to touch him, you damn bastard!”

  A heavy punch to the ribs crumpled the adventurer’s ceremonial armor.

  “You swore to me that you wouldn’t lay a finger on him!”

  The second blow landed in the same spot, shattering the armor and breaking several of Ladbor’s lower ribs.

  “And now, not only did you disobey, but that damn alchemist survived your assassination attempt!”

  The third punch, rupturing his spleen, sent Ladbor crashing to the floor, curling up in pain. He gasped for air, struggling to hold back the nausea rising in his throat. The mayor tossed him a third-class healing pill like one would throw a scrap to a dog. He looked down at the writhing adventurer beneath his feet and straightened his hair.

  “And you even used my Gray Ravens squad! Did you think I wouldn’t find out?! I turned a blind eye when you ordered all sorts of trivial jobs from them, but this is a disciple of the Toxic Dragon, you fool!”

  A powerful kick shattered the bones of Ladbor’s thigh, splitting them in half. This time, the adventurer couldn’t suppress his groan of agony.

  “Master Mayor! I’ll fix it! I swear I’ll fix everything!”

  “Fix it?”

  Gorp crouched and grabbed the adventurer’s hair in his fist.

  “Do you realize that thanks to your actions, we are practically dead men? I’m giving you one week. Either the alchemist disappears, or the Gray Ravens do. And they must disappear in a way that leaves no trace leading back to us. Do you understand? No more stupid mistakes?”

  Ladbor nodded frantically, leaving strands of his hair in the mayor’s grasp.

  “Yes, Master Mayor! This time, I’ll do it right!”

  Gorp exhaled and slammed Ladbor’s head against the floor before wiping his palm clean with a fine silk handkerchief.

  “A week. Remember that.”

  The mayor left the room, abandoning Ladbor to writhe helplessly on the floor. Rage boiled within the adventurer. The mayor had beaten him like a helpless beggar over the Gray Ravens’ failure. If they had just done the job properly from the start, this wouldn’t have happened!

  Ladbor lay there, feeling his shattered bones gradually mend under the effects of the healing pill.

  He had to go to them. He had to ensure he received satisfaction for today’s humiliation. And at the same time, make it clear that he wasn’t playing games.

  After a few minutes of thought, the adventurer carefully pushed himself to his feet and hobbled toward the exit of the estate.

  And as for this disgrace—the mayor would pay for it in time.

  Ladbor paused at the gate, looking back at the mayor’s mansion.

  He would pay.

  And it would all begin with his marriage to Sara.

  Ladbor grinned.

  This time, the duffu monster proved more resilient than the previous pamlak. It endured the dissection of its chest cavity quite well and only perished during the cranial trepanation, when Valm attempted to study the connection between brain activity and the monster’s core.

  Initially, based on its reaction speed, the alchemist assumed the core was linked only to the peripheral nervous system, but the evidence didn’t add up. Even after mechanically severing the nerves along the spine, the core continued to react to stimuli, indicating that the brain was involved in the process.

  If only they could speak…

  Valm gazed regretfully at the mutilated carcass of the monster. A pity it had died so soon. Figuring out how to sever the link between a monster and its core was becoming an increasingly perplexing mystery.

  The alchemist sat down to sketch individual organs of the duffu, intending to compile an anatomical atlas of the monster.

  If only he could find the chain that bound them and understand how to break it… Without a core, any monster would become nothing more than an ordinary beast—easily slain by a common swordsman.

  Valm sighed again, realizing the immense challenge he had set for himself.

  But… He had only just begun. Two pathetic first-class monsters were a mere fraction of the hundreds of existing species.

  Sooner or later, he would find the answer.

  Finishing his notes and sketches, the alchemist stored his records and cleaned up his workspace until it gleamed.

  After wrapping up, he stepped out of the laboratory to dispose of the experiment’s remains, when Grem called out to him.

  “Master Alchemist, there’s a beastwoman at the gate asking for you. She insists she’s your apprentice, but I think she’s lying.”

  Valm laughed, and at that moment, a high-pitched but loud feminine voice rang out:

  “Alchemist! Did you think you could deceive me?! If you don’t open this gate right now, our next meeting won’t end well for you!”

  “She really is my apprentice, Grem, as strange as that may seem.”