A week passed since the start of the siege. Knights from the 5th and 6th specials cleaned the hill and restored their fortifications.

Headquarters ordered them to stay in their current position without dividing and focus on hunting down the rest of the goblins that escaped to the forests.

So, Theo and others had a short period of rest to recover from the shock of the last battles.

Right now, Theo was inside Edward’s alchemy pavilion.

Large drops of sweat covered his face as he continued to use the “Alchemy Flame” on the mixture of different plants.

With each second, Theo used more of his battle energy to control the “Alchemy Flame” to give a form and create a basic pill.

Since he was still inexperienced with using his alchemy flame, Edward agreed to give him some pointers.

“No, that’s wrong!” shouted the alchemist. “You are wasting your components.”

“Control the flame. Don’t just put it on your mixture.”

“I am trying!” said Theo, concentrating his attention on the mixtures in front of him.

“Try harder!” cried Ed. “If you continue like that, you will burn your ingredients,”

Just as he said those words, Theo lost control over his alchemy flame, and his ingredients darkened under the effect of flame, losing their medical properties.

Sighing, Theo took the darkened pill and gave it to Edward to check.

Alchemist took the smell of his pill before shaking his head.

“Only five percent medical purity with over ninety-five percent of wastes,” said Edward, before throwing his pill away.

“Try again,” said Edward. “This time try to concentrate on controlling your alchemy flame and try to get rid of wastes one by one before leaving pure medical properties, left in your mixture,”

After hearing his words, Theo released a sigh before returning to work.

It was already his hundredth failure since the start of his lessons a week ago, and only now he felt he started understanding things in the alchemy.

In fact, before he started, he thought it would be much easier for him.

However, a day of constant failures was like a cold bucket of water for him, and he increased his efforts, trying to learn things Edward was telling him.

Though Edward was strict, he honestly told him about his mistakes and even showed him his own pills, created, using the same technique to motivate him while he was busy creating his own pills.

Hence, Theo couldn’t slack off and tried hard to master the Alchemy flame that he chose after his breakthrough as soon as possible.

After putting all needed ingredients into the alchemy furnace, Theo once again activated his alchemy flame and started the process once again.

He tried hard, but with each new moment of active battle energy usage for the Alchemy flame, Theo felt how is getting tired.

Hence, it didn’t take long till he made a mistake and all his ingredients disappeared when he lost control over the flame.

“Take a break,” said Edward. “In such condition, you will destroy more than create.”

Hearing his words, Theo released a sigh before approaching Maul and sitting next to him.

“Another failure?” asked the puppet.

Theo nodded and sat next to it before moving his glance at Edward’s figure.

Now, the alchemist had concentrated expression on his face and controlled a much bigger alchemy flame below his furnace and threw new ingredients with each passing moment.

Besides, he also got rid of any wastes that appeared from his work, using his flame to do it while saving and gathering all pure medical properties from the plants.

After finishing with this phase, Edward smiled before increasing his flame to give the form for his mixture in the furnace.

It didn’t take long before the new pill appeared from the furnace. Edward smelled it before nodding and putting it on his table to let it cool down a bit before taking a new portion of plants and starting the process once again.

Theo, who watched after his masterful actions, released a helpless sigh before turning and looking at Maul.

“Was he always like that?”

Maul who also concentrated his glance at the masterclass from Edward seemed to smile when he heard Theo’s question.

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“He? Hah,” said the puppet, remembering the past.

“Even worse than you right now when he started. You are several steps away from creating your pill, and just need some practice to polish your skill. You have enough knowledge, battle energy, and a wonderful teacher that points at your flaws,” said Maul. “He was different, with much less battle energy. He also had to make much more effort on controlling his alchemy flame. Ed couldn’t make ten attempts at once, relying on his energy reserve. He failed more than a thousand times before learning how to control his flame on an intuitive level, and only after that, a year later from the start, he created his first basic pill.”

After ending his words, Maul turned and looked at Theo before patting him on the shoulder.

“Don’t give up, yet. You have much more potential than the crazy guy over there. If he succeeded just by working hard, you can also do it, just keep trying.”

Theo smiled when he heard him. He didn’t plan to give up; it wasn’t his mentality to leave things without finishing, but it was pleasant to get such encouragement.

Hence, he wanted to say something to thank Maul when Edward’s voice reached them.

“Who have you called crazy? Don’t you have work to do?” asked Ed before looking at Theo. “Go, try again,”

Hearing his words, Maul jumped from his seat before rushing out of the room while Theo returned to his alchemy furnace before taking new ingredients for another attempt.

...

..

.

It was already the start of the night when Theo returned exhausted to the barracks.

After approaching the barracks, Theo noticed a familiar figure of Leonardo and Nora sitting near the bonfire and talking about something.

Though he was exhausted, he still had some energy left. Besides, it was also a bit early for him to go to sleep. Hence, it didn’t take long for Theo to join his friend and his captain near the bonfire.

After sitting next to Leonardo, Theo nodded to Nora and patted his friend’s shoulders.

“Don’t mind if I join?”

“No, I just finished telling our captain about what I did on the part-time job,” said Leonardo. “She just asked me about you when you came.”

Theo’s brow rose when he heard him.

“You wanted to learn something?” asked Theo, looking at Nora.

Their captain nodded before taking a slice of meat from the fire and looking at Theo.

“How is Ed’s doing? Hasn’t he scared you with his crazy experiments like all others?” asked Nora with a curious smile on her lips.

“He is fine. Yes, it was scary when I first took part in his experiments, and thank the heavens that I did it only for several weeks before we departed from the expedition camp. He can’t continue them here, hence he spends much more time on creating alchemy pills while I help him.”

“I see,” said Nora, nodding to his words. “What about his puppet? Haven’t it created problems for you?”

Theo seemed dumbfounded by her question.

“Seeing his expression, Nora realized what was happening.

“I see, looks like it also likes you,” said Nora. “You better stay ignorant to the things it did to those it didn’t like.”

Hearing his words, Theo felt how his instinct started shouting at him he accidentally evaded many cruel jokes from the puppet and thanked his luck for that.

He wanted to say something when a man in the brown uniform of water porter appeared, rushing to Nora.

“Captain, commander Paul is gathering all surviving captains,” said the man. “Hurry, please,”

Hearing him, her relaxed expression tensed up before she stood up, throwing her glance at two subordinates from her squad.

“I am glad that you weren’t among those losers who came to me asking to cancel the deal. I have earned quite a sum, thanks to you,” said Nora before turning and following the man.

The duo followed her with their gazes before returning them to the bonfire where meat has already finished grilling.

Almost immediately, the similar sound from their stomachs resounded around them.

Smiling, the duo took some meat.

A short time later, when they claimed their stomachs, Theo put the meat away before looking at Leonardo.

“Are you ready to buy those affinity-improving resources?”

“Yeah, thanks to my work for that bastard Gregory and my participation in the many battles in the siege, I have enough merit points to buy the ‘Wind leaf’,” said Leonardo, with a delighted smile on his lips.

“Good, then we should buy those things as soon as we reach expedition army camp on the new place,”

“Yeah, that’s true. I am already tired of sitting here and doing my usual routine while others hunt after the goblins. Even the main army has long ago passed through this area, and only we and rear groups are still here,” said Leonardo, complaining.

“True, I am also quite bored to stay here, but don’t worry, it won’t take long till when we will move out, leaving this hill,” said Theo, patting his shoulder.

Leonardo nodded to his words and continued to fill his stomach while their camp was entering the slumber kingdom.

...

..

.

Though many on the hill were already sleeping, except for patrols, several people were still active.

Aurellia continued to read a book on magic while Stella continued to move around her tent from one angle to another with a distressed expression on her face.

“Why don’t you stop?” asked Aurellia, raising her glance, “It’s already your 7th night since the moment you started winding circles in your tent.”

“Don’t you have other things to do except wait for new orders?”

Hearing her words, Stella stopped for a moment before sighing.

“I tried, I did. I spent the entire week after Barko ordered us to stay here in training and other stuff. But, now, I am dying from boredom, sis. This is my first time I got the responsibility to command family forces, and I don’t want to waste it on sitting here and waiting while others are battling with enemy main forces in the swamps,”

Hearing a similar-sounding argument, Stella already said several times, Aurellia released another sigh before returning her glance at her book while Stella continued her previous action.

Such a scene would have continued for several more hours if not for one sudden thing that changed everything.

Just as Aurellia returned her attention to the book, the flapping of wings resounded inside the tent, and a familiar owl appeared, delivering the message.

Almost immediately, both sisters changed their expressions, losing their calm composures, and rushed to the owl to take the message.

Even Aurellia, that seemed calm, showed an excited expression on her face. Not only the eldest sister suffered from boredom sitting here.

After unfolding the message, both sisters made serious expressions on their faces and started reading the order.

Several moments later, both of them raised their glances and looked at each other with a similar surprised expression on their faces.

“Is it a joke?” asked Aurellia.

“No, there is Barko’s signature together with August’s there on the right bottom of the paper,”

“Strange. Couldn’t they provide a bit more details instead of writing three sentences? Besides, why do they send two elite squads there?” asked Aurellia.

“Don’t know, but let’s look at that place on the map,” said Stella before putting a map of the surrounding landscape on the table.

Both sisters started looking for a certain location on the map and found it near the river Blue.

Several moments and a certain realization stuck them when they combined this order with the last intel from the battling units in swamps.

“It can’t be ...” said Aurellia with a shocked expression on her face.

“Looks like, the fun part is just getting started,” said Stella, smiling.