Master Of None

”Hm?” The soft response from the wandering blacksmith was out of the ordinary. Then again, he had just received a very interesting letter. Not that he was the only one to receive it.

Instead of a communication crystal message, Walker had written several letters. Not for any fancy reason, but so that the beginnings of a new plan can be better planted in the minds of those reading it.

The reason the wandering blacksmith had such a response was simple, Walker had written a simple letter to him. ”It may not be the elemental planes, but we have new islands to discover. And new materials.”

Now this was the sort of thing that caught the wandering blacksmith’s attention. A new land to explore? That was even better than just waiting for the elemental planes to be safer to travel in to for him. He wouldn’t need the same kind of guards or protections. Instead he could find new materials he had never thought of and make the protection equipment he needed for the elemental planes.

This would make it all so much easier!

”I am a bit busy right now, leave me alone!” The shout was from the four attendants who showed up outside of the arena that Scylla was fighting in. She had been training with the young general and making sure she knew exactly what it meant to be the leader of an army. How to protect the people.

”I was told that if you did not read the first two letters to let you know that you will be leading an exploratory army.” This stopped Scylla allowing for the several demi-human soldiers and generals to recover. She hadn’t been delicate with them, but that was that and this was this.

”Tell me about this army I get to lead.” If she needed to lead an army, that meant new challenges and new battles to have. That’s what she wanted right now. She wanted to step further above where she was now. She hadn’t grown much lately. How could she? She has been way too caught up in meeting leaders and giving orders. She might start going soft.

”What’s this request?” One of the workers in the adventurer’s guild was going over recent requests to set a quest, however, when they saw it was a letter from Walker, there was a larger commotion than expected. Not simply because there was a request from one of the most prominent figures there was within Genesis, it was because it asked for at least a hundred adventurers to be prepared for an elite exploration.

This news swept through the adventurer’s guild and reached every staff member, including the familiar face of the adventurer’s guild master. She knew all too well that Walker was going to be making larger waves this time, but she still smiled with some excitement.

”That should be everyone that needs to hear about this plan. If we can figure out where everything is, we can make a plan to travel the oceans and skies to get to the continent and begin a proper exploration. Especially once we have a teleportation rune formation.” Walker had already considered the benefits of the new space elemental runes and how the formations would allow for there to be a better teleportation to this new area once it was discovered.

This wasn’t everything on his mind though. He wanted to keep the archivists busy so that they would be able to come with them as scholars with the most knowledge about the land from ancient times. They should have the best knowledge of what monsters may still exist, what ruins may be on the land, and most importantly, what dangers might be faced.

Their work on all the records being found of similar accounts were gathering more than what Walker expected. However, the reason behind that became clearer.

”You were saying that seven of the books you found came from an old ship graveyard?”

”Yes sir, we discovered frozen wood and the adventurers responsible began investigating. They feared it was an older wreck from the coast or the rivers but they realized that the northern ice allowed for it to be protected enough to recover the contents. This is why it is believed that the books we are researching, including these seven from that wreckage, are from an ancient wood ship that escaped dangers within their home continent.”

”I see. So the continent we are searching for had someone escape it and try to sail away, but they failed and the wreckage froze for many years. Did the adventurers find anything else?”

”The report here that came with the damaged books we received says that they found bone fragments, old carvings, and what seemed to be decayed leathers and other items that would hold value.”

This painted a picture for Walker. One that explained how knowledge from such a place could actually get here.

Just like Genesis and their attempt to get across the ocean and make it to the Sigil continent, there was a group that most likely tried to cross oceans to be able to get to a new land as well. However, they failed and left behind wreckage that was lost to the issue of the world after mana had been cut from moving between the elemental planes and the world. Now that things had returned to a proper flow, it was time to discover such remnants.

”Walker!” The shout and following grab of his shoulders did not surprise him at all. He knew that Remey had been coming but he had a feeling that she was not going to come to help with the recent plan he had just begun just a few hours ago. ”Before you try to drag anyone to hunt for a new piece of land or ruin or whatever you are going to help me break the mold for grand potions.” She was already dragging him away much to the interest of the archivists who had never seen Remey do such things.

While it was not necessarily something that the archivists knew about from seeing it, they had heard Remey was the type of hero to pull people away and recruit others using her force rather than her words. Then again, she also made potions that helped all of them when they had struggled with the work load at the beginning of the archive and copying duties. She had tea blends that helped replenish energy and calm the mind, so, none of them reached out to help Walker despite his clear desire to remain focused on the books before him.

”I can’t go looking for a new continent just yet, Remey. I have to find an idea of where it might be and if we can even take multiple ships and floating ships to find it. I also needed to build a team. That’s why Scylla is finding soldiers good enough and the wandering blacksmith is finding craftsmen who can handle a trip like this.”

”I don’t care, whatever you are doing is on pause until I have you help me. I need your mana to make sure that nothing explodes. I have a space ready for testing and if I fail the explosion could kill a few people.” Walker blinked thinking he had just misheard Remey. She didn’t often have experiments with potions that might literally kill people if they failed.

Even the explosive potions made for combat would not be that devastating. Yet, here she was saying that this potion could do a lot more damage than normal potions would. ”Yeah I said that right. This is a lot of condensed essence from herbs, smaller potions made from herbs, and a whole lot of mana. Do you think I am dumb? If I mess up the mana inside and out will explode worse than clashing manas when you play with magic.”

He turned and started paying more attention, Remey took notice and started to more calmly share details while they moved quickly toward the outer edges of Genesis territory and toward an open field. Walker already saw some stone walls made by earth mages in preparation for the worst case.

”I have essence from seventy three herbs condensed in to oils, liquids, and infusions. They will be able to be distilled in to one potion along with other herbs and a whole lot of balanced manas to make a potion higher than a grand potion. I’m pretty sure it will also ruin the cauldron I am using too if I succeed.” It was astonishing hearing that a very high grade cauldron for alchemy would be disposable in this case. Also that Remey was using one again instead of using just her alchemical magic.

This meant she had to use all of her focus and required the help of a rune carved cauldron that would enhance her abilities. She wasn’t just trying to make something perfect, she was trying to be better than that. She was about to attempt to break her own limits. She had been preparing for this since they returned to Genesis, but it was much sooner than he had expected her to try this.

”I will help as much as I can. But I won’t promise success. That ’s up to you and Ignus. I know you two work hard on all of this.” Remey just nodded in agreement. She was focused and that was that.

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