The abundance of biodiversity in Eoum has many benefits to in them especially in terms of food and other stuff like the biological alarm clock, Shreskav grasses… but mostly food.

On the other stuff, majority of the plants and some of the animal parts have medicinal and enhancing properties but if you want to fully extract or mix these properties, there is a proper method. That’s where the Art of Alkhemia comes in.

Alkhemia is equivalent to what alchemy was back in our world but then again, that alchemy was just a crude chemistry mixed with philosophical values and it was actually pretty boring as it lack the punch of what you would expected like the alchemy you read in fiction but here, it’s more or less nearer to that.

But Alkhemia is quite an inferior discipline when compare with Eomancy.

First of all, unlike Eomancy which energy is omnipresence as long as you are in Eoum, Alkhemia ingredients are varied and specified and not to mention that some ingredients only grow on certain parts of Eoum.

Also depending on your skill, something two out of five potions would succeed while other would become defective so it is a slow process which could take hours just brewing a few successful potions.

Lastly, Alkhemia is also a more rigorous study than Eomancy.

It was only introduced at the General Education Class where Keh Tauzad had only said a few words about Alkhemia.

And so, unlike Fighting Arts and Eomancy, Alkhemia falls into the optional category and not many people in Athryshiayl practiced Alkhemia but it seems to be quite popular in the South as it was there, the Art of Alkhemia was created.

Because Eomancy and the Enchantment by itself was exhausting in terms of mental fortitude even with the help of Blue Eomancy ‘Mental Restoration’ spell, I can’t afford to take some time to learn Alkhemia because it would take up a lot of my times and I simply have no patient or interest in it.

I only know Akujin, Stryklos and Tevalini had taken some interest in it but just two days ago, I realized Ghiscra had also studied Alkhemia when she had identified a particular flower when we had installed the last node. It was a type of plant that can only be found on Symokiva.

And it had an effect that can be made as a possible new element to be implemented into the operation.

[Things here a little bit different, some of them guards are acting suspicious. By the gods, I hate this, when the fuck does these tribesmen learned how to be sneaky. All of them are trying to covertly keep an eye on me and Ghrukka like we were under some sort of house arrest. Honour my ass!]

Right now, I was in the room where we lodged, talking on the phone with Shakil.

The situation within the fortress had grown tense as I had expected. Since we left, Shakil reported some ominous movement from some of the guards like they were monitoring the remaining Summoned. He had identified that some of them belonged to the tribes on the west side and east side.

If I have to speculate or rather build a conjecture based on some evidences throughout these weeks, the tribes are rather united in a sense of achieving independence so why is there a brewing tension?

I been thinking about what had happened to the previous Summoned stationed in Symokiva and I realized something. There’s a political trap and Ubermensch had fallen into that trap when he went along Koizumi, Stryklos and Ghozano to find those missing tribesmen of the north.

He mentioned that he was forced to return due to some ‘tribal conflicts’ occurring near the Fortress. Now that I thought about it, it was all a staged act, a theatre for all to see.

It seems that there are stages to lure out the summoned into the political trap. Ubermensch, ever the responsible one, got into one by the missing report case but I was forced to venture out here because of unsanctioned conflicts since I didn’t took the first bait and now, they’re pressing me into it.

About those tribal conflicts occurring near the fortress that forced Ubermensch to drop the missing cases, when I checked the record, it was under the high prioritized but solved cases then again, tribal conflicts occurred daily so it was strange but what makes these conflicts different was that it had arrayed tribes that had long lost grudges and blood oaths with each other, with hundreds of tribesmen participating. Of course, there was no death as only the worse casualties were seriously wounded and what more, these conflicts were properly disseminate, with the reports greatly exaggerated especially emphasized on how the summoned failed to react properly when it reached to all the tribes.

Of course, these exaggerated reports were only available fellow tribesmen at first until it spreads.

Seriously, what kind of honour-filled battles that are needed to be thoroughly publicized? Well it’s the kind that needed to flame the political implication. Besides, what else can they do to incite their tribes into action? They can’t openly do actions that could invite severe censures from Athryshiayl. The best they can do was subtle actions well within the sphere of being reasonable, as petty as it may be.

Not only that but the implication of a failure in finding the missing victims would also be added in the mix to further damage the authority of Athryshiayl.

And now, it seems that a second incident of a same nature would occur during our tenure.

Aside from this, in these last three weeks, there were other incidents that reeked of political implication like supplies waylay by highwaymen or more criminal acts occurred due to lack of patrol in their tribal lands caused by the only troublemaker in this land is the tribe’s outcasts, forming their own gang of thieves and robbers although the impact seemingly doesn’t measure up like what happen at that time near the Fortress.

Also, ever since we were posted here, I don’t seem to understand why the fortress was half-filled with local soldiers instead of making majority of them should be from Athryshiayl.

“Just play along with them and follow the details of the plan I made. Besides, I made you my replacement. If that doesn’t work and they use that legal clause, we go to plan B.”

He laughed and-

[-Goddamnit, I thought one of them chieftains was the biggest snake but the biggest snake of them is actually our leader! Well whatever, good day to you!]

He closed the communication channel abruptly.

……

I’m not that devious.

During my time with him, I realized that his calm and laidback exterior was only around when the stress doesn’t reach him. He gets erratic at a time like the time he get stalked by unseen figures day and night or surrounded by ominous eyes.

Not a good spy material.

Oh, Alkhemia!

Now let’s see, right now, Ghiscra is currently brewing potions from the plant or rather flowers we had founded near the location of the last node, just at the next connecting room.

When she found them, she excitedly launched into a speech about the effect of the plant as an ingredient.

I myself at first was dumbfounded and then turned somehow delighted with amusement as some of the keyword of her speech had caught my interest.

The plant that she had harvested was called Ghervash, a five-petal violet flower that can only grow in the unique soil of North Symokiva.

During her speech, she had mentioned a notable trait of the flower was that it can be extracted to make a hallucinogenic elixir or as the local here would say-‘a key to a spiritual journey.’

No wonder those northern tribes are so into superstition. They’re always high enough to believe in weird shit.

With this new element, I think I can implement a new factor in our operation to influence the power of Symokiva.

I don’t know how much we can control the effect of the elixir but this is still worth considering.

It was such luck or rather a coincidence that we had found them on our last installation of node. Ghiscra was able to recognize the plant in an instant when she had explored around looking for a suitable tree to install the node on.

She had harvested them and although both of us were excited, our excitement stemmed from different sources.

For her, it was because the plant was quite exclusive as the northern tribe Eomancers or ‘Medullar’ or shamans would often use them for a certain ‘spiritual’ ritual, so most of them are grown under the properties of the tribes and finding them in the wild is almost non-existent.

Since that was the case, records of using them as Alkhemia ingredients had existed in the form of a traditional formula made by those shamans but she wanted to use her own insight of the Alkhemia art to see what she can achieve by using the original formula as foundation.

For me, aside from the alcohol which was made from various ingredients similar to their counterparts on earth, I was curious about the so called spiritual journey upon consuming the elixir.

I mean, who wouldn’t want to experience a magical psychedelic experience?

So while waiting for her to finished brewing, I had waited for about two hours.

Oh, there’s another reason why I didn’t want to take Alkhemia because the whole process is a hundred types of different smell of shits. The only way you can avoid them was to learn the Deep Green Eomancy, which has the only spell that can give you a magical gas filtering mask or you can use a persistent Light Blue spell to constantly whirl the air around you but that would tire you out from channelling it and diverting your concentration.

So the former Deep Green Eomancy is technically the only method. I haven’t learnt Deep Green Eomancy but Ghiscra had so she can survive the processes.

Just as I was about to get bored and knock on the door to her room to ask whether some of it were ready, the door opened and Ghiscra came out. Since she left the door opened, the smell inside of that room casually drifted in here, bringing in the pungent smell worse than a carcass.

I reacted by coughing violently as I was assaulted by this airborne offense.

“Close the door!”

I said that in-between my coughing as I ran towards the window. Where’s an automatic window opener when you need one? But then again, the places in here don’t even have the Basic Home System like those in Tchekaz.

Seeing me like this, Ghiscra with the door close behind her, turned around with her right hand swings along as she turned and caught the doorknob, closing the door. On her left hand, there was a vial filled with violet coloured liquid.

After closing the door, she turned back to the front and she sighed.

Meanwhile, I reached the window, stood towards facing opposite the window and quickly cast a Light Blue Spell.

(‘Eo, Luxear, Orax, Ventus’)

As soon as the spell was cast, I stepped aside to the left.

The spell circle sucked in all the air inside the room like a black hole, expelling all the contaminated air outside on the other end.

“Sorry, I was so excited about the result. Aside from being a main component of a hallucinogen, you can actually make another elixir that can stimulate the mind into-”

“I apologize but my head is already spinning trying to keep up in our communication project. In this endeavour, I just want to be a test subject.”

My eyes were almost pleading as I looked her face. She narrowly avoided making eye contact.

It’s quite true. Between my personal study of Eomancy, the communication project and masterminding the operation, I am mentally fatigued doing all of these so today, I just want to get high on an otherworld, enhanced of a recreational substance.