"This leads us to the edge of the city, near the museum." Myera took another look at the tiny piece of paper.

"That old lizard had to make his house all the way to one end corner of the city huh." Razor complained.

The three were looking for the address noted in the tiny piece of paper given by the Alchemy association. That address would lead them to Hotaz, the master alchemist.

"You're not too kind towards Saurians, I never thought you to be the racist sort." Eon pointed.

"Not my fault, they're the ones who keep picking fights with me." Razor replied in an angered tone. "Their bossy attitude pisses me off."

"But the association did put him in a high position. He's some sort of big deal." Eon looked at Myera.

"Well, he's a dry alchemist." The elf girl explained. "They're very rare, and you need to be really proficient in both alchemy and magic to be able to pull that off."

Apparently alchemy had two branches, wet alchemy and dry alchemy.

Wet alchemy focused on alchemical solutions. Mostly for preparing medicine, tactical weapons (poison gas, smoke bombs, lethal acids, explosives and so on) and researching various radiations (atomic or magical).

Dry alchemy was a modified and more precise version of alteration, where one would alter the very atomic structure of an object to transform it into something else of similar mass. To perform that, one needed to have complete knowledge on wet alchemy, as well as insane attention span and unnatural amount of magic proficiency. So obviously the number of dry alchemists were non-existent. The few that existed were all well funded and also kept an eye out by the government so they don't do anything shady, like causing inflation by creating money out of dirt.

It took them another hour to reach the destined location. They marvelled at the luxurious palace that was in front of them. "So that's the life of a dry alchemist." Eon gasped.

The guards let them in as they revealed themselves as Leonhart's messengers. A Saurian dressed in a fancy expensive robe greeted them and ushered them in a giant room. The giant windows covered by expensive curtains and the wall paintings proved the owner's exquisite taste. Eon noticed the bookshelves on the wall that were filled with books of different size. But he knew the books were for pure decorations and the owner probably never even touched them, like most other rich families.

"Welcome, young onesss." The Saurian greeted them again. "I never thought the Shiftbladess would have contacted me again, but there they are." The Reptilian lacked the density of scales others of his race exhibited, pointing his old age. He guided the three to the seats and made himself comfortable as well. "I am told you are on behalf of the Blue Mage. I am Alchemisst Hotazz, what may I help you with?"

Eon narrated the whole thing to the alchemist. He handed the latter the silver sphere, who inspected it with great interest.

"We were told you'll be able to keep the investigation going." Eon ended.

"What an interessting sphere.. it'ss almosst identical to the ssphere from the Grandor Musseum. The one they never let me exxamine." A slight frustrated Hotaz commented. "Well.. I have made decent progresss on my sside as well. But I'll be needing some.. help.. to continue thiss." The old alchemist spoke slowly, prolonging every word with 's' in it, just like other saurians.

"I'd like to know about your findings please." Razor asked boldly. He probably wasn't listening to the old Saurian in the first place.

"Ah, you're the curiouss sort, aren't you?" Hotaz laughed. "Very well. Tell me, how much do you know about Elementalss?"

Elementals were ancient spirits that were on the highest level of the spiritual plane. Even though mostly anything of spiritual plane could be summoned via summoning magic (or Red magic, as they are called), Elementals were impossible to be summoned like that. There existed multi-caster summoning rituals but they were simply to guide those primal spirits down to the material plane, not taking control of them. So for the brief period of time they existed on the material plane by being summoned like that, they caused massive destruction. So calling upon the Elementals was nothing but a death wish, not to mention the ritual itself was illegal as well.

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Elementals were embodiment of elements such as fire, lightning, wind, water, foliage, ice and earth. Some people theorized that the Elementals were the very origin of elemental magic. Some studies claim that when an Elemental was nearby, any magical spell's power of that element increased by tenfold. The spirits radiated an exotic essence in the environment around them that caused the power spike.

"There's no way the dragon master can summon the Elementals and have them under his control." Myera exclaimed. "That's simply impossible!"

"Or sso we thought. What we didn't know wass the fact that the spirits of higher order would readily obey you if you proved your worth to them." Hotaz laughed. "Would you be so kind to pull the third book from the upper shelf and open page 46?"

A surprised Eon followed the instructions and took out a brown covered book titled 'Jewel Hunt'. It was a map of Primora and its vicinity, with tiny 'X' marks spread throughout.

'I was so wrong about this guy.' Eon thought to himself. "What is the map?" He asked the alchemist.

"A rough location of all posssible mana jewel locationss. The writer of the book sspent his whole life gathering info and rumorss to esstimate the posssible location of as many jewel as he could."

"How are these related to the Elemental summoning?" Eon asked.

"The Elementalss look greatly upon thosse who possess (it sounded pretty normal to Eon, probably because of the 'exxcessive' amount of 's' already present in the word) natural relicss of the old. One needss to accomplishh legendary featss to get their handss on thosse." Hotaz replied.

"And mana jewels are considered natural relics." Myera guessed.

"How much can one trust this information?" Razor asked. The alchemist gave a shrug. He did not have that information apparently.

"How many of the mana jewels does one need to possess to be able to control them?" Eon asked. The alchemist gave another shrug.

"People spend their entire life looking for mana jewels and end up finding three or four, maximum." Razor commented. "The map shows nineteen of such jewels. Maybe the dragon master is after these ones as well."

"But.." Myera asked with a confused look on her face, "How exactly does one carry these giant boulders of crystalized mana? As far as I know, the crystals are unbreakable under any circumstances. Last time someone managed to break a tiny piece was the king Elemental itself, and that tiny piece is currently in Grimoria's possession."

"And let uss not forget that the crystalss radiate a dangerouss amount of mana to itss viccinity. Long exxposure to the jewel'ss radiation may lead to permanent effectss in one'ss body." Hotaz fidgeted with the silver sphere. "But I believe thiss little ssphere here is linked to the ansswer."

"The dragon attacked the jewel but didn't actually take it." Eon commented. "Maybe they don't actually need the actual jewel, but something from the jewel. Like a signature."

"That'ss it!" The old alchemist exclaimed. "Good job, young one. That hass to be it. I can not ssay for ccertain, but the ssignature iss very likely the radiation of the jewel."

"And you need to be very close to the jewel to acquire the particular radiation needed to satisfy the Elemental." Razor deducted.

"How to stop the dragon master then?" Myera asked. "We can't just go to him and stop him from getting close to the jewel. We don't even have an idea where he might be right now."

There was a long pause.

"How about we collect the jewel signatures faster than the dragon master and summon the Elemental ourselves?" Razor suggested.

"And what do we do after the Elemental is summoned?" Myera asked.

Razor looked puzzled, clearly suggesting he didn't think that far. "Uh.. ask them nicely to not listen to the big bad dragon master?"

Two pairs of eyes were rolled at him in unison.

"Boy got a point there. If you have enough jewel ssignaturess, you will probably have an equal ground of giving commandss to the Elementalss as the dragon masster." Eon was slightly amused by how Hotaz started referring to the mastermind behind the dragon attacks as 'dragon master' as well. "I will look for some capable merccenariess to help me with thiss."

"What do you mean by looking for mercenaries? Don't think we are enough for the job?" Razor asked.

"Oh young one, did you really think I would send you fresh bloodss deep into the Primoral foressts to help me with thiss mana jewel exxpedition?" Hotaz laughed. "You aren't even qualified fighterss yet. You won't lasst one night in the foressts. It'ss nothing like the local tamed areass of southern foressts."

"But we are far more capable than the royal army in this particular job!" Razor protested. Before Hotaz could give a reply, a huge explosion caught their attention.

A horror-stricken Eon looked outside through the window. The city was in panic, Grandor museum was burning.