The Runic Alchemist

All four of them were busy generating liquid mana with four big mana generators; they were the old stationary version ones, powered by mana stones of four different elements. This was more complicated than just converting liquid mana from air—the four types of liquid mana were only usable by their respective users. So they all had to do this four times and fill four containers, each with liquid mana of a specific element.

The liquid mana from fire mana stones was red in color, green for wind, dirt yellow for land, and blue for water.

Damian had light and dark mana stones too, but they were rare and he didn’t have a big supply of them—in the 30% space occupied by his mana stone chests, only 2% were for light-element mana stones and another 2% for dark. He didn’t even have a chaos-element mana stone; they didn’t exist. Or they did, but he couldn’t find any for purchase back in Edgeheaven.

Since they could survive with just four elements, there was no need for more. They could replenish half their mana pool as many times as they wanted. The constant refill was a strain for second-rankers—but they were not in a fight, so it should be fine.

Damian already had a nearly full mana pool, so after generating the liquid mana from one generator, he moved away from the others and started inspecting the white matter they were surrounded by from all sides. The thing was absorbing their mana—it could not be a solid aura. It wasn’t stone or some type of dirt, otherwise his Dust to Iron skill would have worked. It wasn’t as effective with stone due to its solid structure, but it still worked at a big mana cost. This, however, was something completely else..

Damian next activated his Essence Sight—the structure of the white matter was very dense and barely reacting, but it wasn’t completely untransmutable. It was metal.

Not anything nice and easy like iron or steel, but it was a metal. He could sense a few places where he could manipulate its essence with mana threads if he tried long enough. Turning brass into iron was easier than turning this alien metal into something breakable—and then there was the possibility that this white thing extended for meters or even kilometres below the surface. But this was their only hope.

Mana was constantly being absorbed from them—Damian could stop the thin mana threads extending from the white matter to all of their bodies that were stealing their mana, but he had to keep the barrier on to do that—the mana cost of that was higher than the stolen mana.

“We have to keep watch and sleep in shifts,” Sam said.

They had finished refilling their mana pools and had filled their mana containers—then came to sit around him, watching him do things as if he were putting on a show for their entertainment.

“I can stop the mana absorption—if any of you think it’s messing with your mind, tell me immediately,” Damian replied, deactivating the skill.

He could use the skill to dig through, but that would take a lot of time and mana, much more than he could afford to use behind just this one maybe-thing. Who knew if there was anything outside at all? Still, they had to leave this place—the waygate spell was not working here. It’s not a real place. At least not a place one could travel to in a traditional way.

“Those things the giant form of the demon lord was throwing at us.. Those ugly brown energy balls..” Sam said as if thinking aloud, “Those things destroyed the place they landed on. Can you copy that spell?”

The decay spell of the demon lord. That was good thinking. But..

“It’s not a spell, it was an esper skill,” Damian replied. “I do have a spell though that maybe..”

The runic circle of the forbidden spell he had seen beneath the elves’ palace could perhaps erode this white substance. The spell was supposed to disintegrate any object without mana. The absorbed mana in the white floor did not remain inside it—there was no mana he could sense.

“What are you waiting for then?” Maelor asked.

“I kind of made a mana contract with the Elf Queen. I will never use it or I will die..” Damian replied with a straight face.

“Fuck..” Sam muttered from the side. Maelor and Lucian also slumped their shoulders, dejected. After a second Sam added, “You know three lives are more precious than one..”

Damian stared at the guy, along with Maelor and Lucian, who turned towards Sam too.

“Oh yeah? You piece of shit, you want me to die?” Damian narrowed his eyes at him.

“It was more like a noble sacrifice in my mind..” Sam replied.

They stared at each other. Maelor and Lucian just turned their heads from Damian to Sam awkwardly, then suddenly both of them started laughing like crazy. It felt refreshing—after all that had happened. Maelor and Lucian also joined in and they continued laughing for minutes, none of them wanting to stop. It even brought tears to some of their eyes.

At last they quieted down. Damian’s eyes wandered into the distance—it was all white no matter how far his eyesight reached. He exhaled and said,

“Alright listen, I can’t use the spell, but you two can.”

Maelor and Lucian were surprised, but they nodded anyway. And so they started the arduous process of spell crafting for the most dangerous element of the seven—Chaos.

They were not as good as the Spellmaster herself, with their limited understanding and record of chanting, but Damian had to make do with them. Hopefully they don’t run out of mana stones before they manage to learn the spell from scratch.

Damian also kept up with his Essence Sight skill and the transmutation he could do with the help of its knowledge. He didn’t waste mana though and only did it for a coin-sized hole in the white floor. Knowing just how thick the white substance capturing them from all around was had to be their priority. From there, he could plan how to better destroy it.

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!