The Sage's Alchemy (1)
"Director Choi! This is Ascender Kim Hajun, the one I told you about."
"A pleasure to meet you."
Seeing Director Choi for the first time, he looked to be in his early forties, with an unusually severe, sharp-featured face.
Lv 61
Choi Bu-cheol
Whoa.
Now that was a level worthy of looking that severe.
Director Choi was, incredibly, a 7th-floor Ascender — squarely within the ranks of the high-tier Ascenders.
"…Your trait is in the alchemy line, I take it?"
Director Choi's eyes swept up and down me, his expression making it abundantly clear that he was not impressed.
"Ah, yes. You could say that."
Technically, it's a perk skill derived from the Sage trait… but either way, I do have the power to be classified as an alchemist, so it's not exactly a lie.
"Hmph. Follow me."
I followed the stony-faced Director Choi into the interior of the Seolhwa Clan Research Lab.
"The documents you reviewed through the young lady were only a summary. This is the original research data."
I accepted the research materials Director Choi handed over and combed through them calmly.
They contained a vastly greater volume of information than what Han Gain had shown me before.
And I understand every bit of it.
As I flipped through the pages, I experienced the strange satisfaction of dense content that would be impenetrable to anyone without serious alchemical knowledge slotting into place in my head, one piece at a time.
"Hajun, do you think you can do it?"
Did my flipping through the pages look like I was just skimming without understanding?
Han Gain asked again, a flicker of unease crossing her face.
"Yes. Absolutely. I can do it."
Whether I looked at the summary or the full data, the result would be the same. I knew exactly what the problem was — and I knew how to solve it.
That was why I answered so readily.
"Hm."
At my words, Director Choi's eyebrow twitched.
"Aren't you being a little too glib about this?"
"Judging by his outfit, I'm not even sure he's really an alchemist…"
"Mmm. Well, the young lady must have brought him here for a reason."
At the same time, thanks to the sharpened hearing granted by the Sage trait, I could make out the researchers whispering among themselves.
Apparently I was a bit too casual just now.
I could understand why Director Choi looked so sour, at least to a degree. Judging by his level alone, he was clearly a man with a great deal of pride in his own abilities. And then some young man who looked like a green combat-type rookie strolls in and says, in effect, 'Ah, yes. This is easy. I can do it.' No wonder his mood had curdled.
"You did say it was easy, did you not?"
True enough, but apparently my tone and manner came across that way to them whether I meant it or not.
I considered my options for a moment, then decided to simply show them with skill instead.
As far as I knew, this was a world where, if you had the ability, you earned respect regardless of rank or age.
Hermagnon, the world's number one alchemist, was also famously young — younger than me, if I recalled correctly.
He, too, had been widely dismissed early in his career because of his age, but in the end his skill had won everyone over, and he had become the most respected alchemist on the planet.
"We can begin right away, then?"
"…By all means."
I arrived at the laboratory under Director Choi's guidance and inspected the materials on hand.
Steel powder, check. Ooh, they even have steel grass. Mana crystal powder too…
It really was a Five Great Clans laboratory, I supposed. Nearly every ingredient I could think of was stocked and ready.
Only the materials I specifically needed were missing, so I made my request to Director Choi.
"I'll need Iron Spider webbing, Silver Leaf, and glacier water."
In truth, brewing a potion that granted skin as hard as true mithril would have required even higher-grade materials — but mass production of something like that would be nearly impossible.
So the ingredients only needed to be enough to reach exactly the level of Steel Skin they were aiming for, at a level that could be mass-produced.
"Iron Spider webbing… Heh. Silver Leaf? Glacier water? You're telling me you need ingredients like these?"
On their face, the materials I'd requested had no visible connection to the Steel Skin Potion.
Perhaps because of that, Director Choi countered with a hollow laugh.
"Yes. They're absolutely essential."
"…I'll have them fetched immediately."
He met my eyes for a moment, then nodded. He had read the look in them — that I wasn't joking around, that I was fully committed.
"You certainly look confident, but I don't see how throwing in ingredients like that changes anything."
"Confidence alone doesn't get it done, that's true."
"Ah… Still, he does seem earnest, doesn't he? Please, please let him succeed."
"It's not just you, Su-hwan. Everyone here is thinking the same thing."
Their voices sounded utterly desperate.
Three years of failure, apparently.
No wonder they were grasping at straws.
I absolutely have to nail this on the first try.
If I fumbled and failed through some careless mistake, the weight of their disappointment would be beyond words.
No pressure or anything.
All right, then. Focus, and let's pull this off in one clean shot.
Han Sang-chul, Clan Master of the Seolhwa Clan.
He was receiving a report from his secretary in the clan master's office.
"Gain brought in an alchemist?"
"Yes, sir."
"Hoh."
Han Sang-chul stroked his chin.
At that dinner with Han Gain some time ago, he had sighed and complained about the Steel Skin Potion project. And now she had apparently gone off on her own initiative, sniffing out an alchemist from somewhere.
Clever girl, I'll give her that…
But he shook his head before long.
This was a project that no one, not anyone, could succeed at. It had been designed wrong from the very start.
Why am I so certain, you ask?
Because even Hermagnon turned it down. Who could possibly succeed where he failed?
Yes — though he'd never told Han Gain, Han Sang-chul had once pulled every string he had to secretly meet with Hermagnon, the alchemist acknowledged as the best in the world.
"I'm sorry. Even I cannot see a solution to this."
A project that even Hermagnon had declared impossible.
In medical terms, it was an incurable disease that even the legendary physician Hwa-ta could not have saved.
If the person Gain brought in were an alchemist greater than Hermagnon, then perhaps there would be hope…
But that was a fantasy. A pipe dream, plain and simple.
And yet… even so, just this once, fantasy or not, I find myself desperate to grab hold of even a single thread of hope.
Thinking of the investors who had been breathing down his neck lately, Han Sang-chul let out a long, heavy sigh.
The Steel Skin Potion was a colossal project funded by over 10 trillion won in investment.
Before the Sky Tower appeared, developing a new drug had cost an average of 2.5 to 3.5 trillion won — this project had swallowed three to four times that.
There was no helping it. These days, Ascenders known as alchemists commanded far higher prices than the bio-researchers of the old days, and materials that could only be obtained from the Sky Tower had climbed to prices in a league of their own.
In exchange, it was high risk, high return. If it succeeded?
The operating profit would dwarf the sunk costs and risks many times over.
But with failure now staring us in the face, the Seolhwa Clan is on the verge of a liquidity crisis.
The clan itself had sunk a tremendous amount of money directly into the project.
Losing the investors' confidence was the lesser concern. If the capital the Seolhwa Clan had invested couldn't be recovered, they might be forced to sell off several of their operating businesses.
And now, at this point, when failure was all but certain —
For Han Sang-chul, the situation was agonizing.
I've never believed in miracles… but God, let one happen now.
Burbble!
Bubbles rose from the beaker.
The Iron Spider webbing had begun reacting with the mana in the Silver Leaf.
"Huh? What— what is that?"
"A mana reaction from that combination? That's impossible!"
The researchers, who had all begun the day in an attitude of half-resigned indifference, slowly had astonishment spreading across their faces.
"But… it has no connection whatsoever to the binding formula for the Steel Skin Potion."
"This won't work unless he rewrites the formula from scratch…"
Thanks to my exceptional hearing, every one of their mutterings reached me clearly.
I answered them in my head.
Don't you worry. This is where the real work begins.
I began blending the pre-prepared steel powder, steel grass, and mana crystal powder into a separate mixture.
This was the exact process where they had come within a hair's breadth of succeeding at the Steel Skin Potion — only to taste the bitter cup of failure.
"The original formula is unchanged."
"Whew. Figures…"
Resigned sighs drifted up from behind me. Was it because they'd known nothing but failure for three years? They all looked positively on edge.
Well, of course they're anxious — the project gets scrapped in three days.
Some of them, unable to say a word, just kept biting their nails.
Leaving their reactions behind me, I continued down the combination formula.
And now, the glacier water.
Burrrble!
The beaker holding the Iron Spider webbing began to erupt with bubbles in an explosive surge.
Left alone like this, it would spiral straight into a mana runaway.
But was I about to let that happen?
Sage's Alchemy!
Sage's Alchemy
Flaaare.
Mana poured out from my hand — the mana of Sage's Alchemy.
At the same instant, my senses sharpened to an extreme degree. My pride and joy, my Mana Control, began to shine.
Burrrrble!
Along with it, the mana particles that had been thrashing as if on the verge of a runaway settled down, docile and stabilized.
"You've done it!"
Aleon burst out in an exclamation of approval.
That's right. Now that I've made it this far, the hardest mountain has already been crossed.
All that's left is the synthesis.
A far simpler step than everything that came before. I poured the liquids from the two beakers into one.
Burrrrrble!
The liquid in the beaker surged again — but this was not the mana runaway that had occurred when the Iron Spider webbing dissolved.
Quite the opposite. This was a mana fusion.
GoooOOOo!
The liquid in the beaker swirled of its own accord, spinning a vortex within the water. It was further proof that the process was racing toward success.
"Huh? Huh?!"
"Th-the two formulas are showing a binding reaction!"
"No… way?"
In the eyes of the people who had been watching my experiment like dead fish, hope began to sprout.
I flashed them a bright smile and held out the potion bottle.
"It's complete. The Steel Skin Potion."
Inside the bottle, a ruby-red liquid swayed gently.
"Truly… you're saying this is the finished product?"
At that moment, Director Choi, who had been watching in silence from the back, stepped forward. His eyes, too, were a mixture — half hope, half disbelief.
Looking into the director's eyes as they wavered between so many emotions, I answered in a voice brimming with certainty.
"Yes. It's complete."
"Hmm. I'll verify it myself."
At my words, Director Choi gave a low grunt, then took the potion bottle I offered. Without a moment's hesitation, he began pouring the liquid inside onto a mana core made for potion testing.
And then —
Vuuuuuum.
The mana core began to react.
If the potion had failed, there would have been no reaction at all — just as there had been nothing but silence for the three years these people had tried.
"Wh-what…"
"Don't tell me…!"
"It's… real?"
The instant the researchers' eyes went wide at the mana core's reaction — the first they had seen in three years —
FLASH!
Spitting out a brilliant burst of light, the mana core revealed the result of the Steel Skin Potion I had brewed.