Tresk’s latest imagining of Gronro was lazy. Theo stood on the imagined walls, looking down at what she imagined to be the area. It was rendered without enough resolution, painting the entire area as blocky and unimpressive. The alchemist cut his arm on a sharp edge as he leaned over the wall, cursing the marshling’s name.

“I can’t be bothered,” she said.

The remaining cleanup in the mortal realm had gone well enough. Theo had been satisfied with their progress. After excusing himself for dinner and a bath, he plunged into the Dreamwalk with Tresk and Alex. While the marshling’s rendering wasn’t ideal, it was good enough.

“We face two problems,” Theo said.

“Three.” Tresk held up three fingers. “The undead, Uharis, and Qavell.”

Theo ran his fingers along the edge of the jagged walls, nodding. The most concerning of those issues was Qavell. Alran, the spymaster within Broken Tusk, had no new information on the city. That was more concerning than anything, seeing as he knew about things happening a world away. The alchemist’s initial thought was that the crowned prince would launch airships, taking the path between the mainland and Gardreth to reach the Southlands Alliance to the south.

“The undead are a work in progress,” Theo said, shaking away the thoughts of Qavell’s prince. “We need to talk to Glantheir if we want the Uharis plan to work out. And Qavell? That’s the wildcard. How hard is it for you to talk to those in the high heavens?”

“The Prime Pantheon has a lot of magical warding over their realms. I can send a message, but that’s about it.”

If Uharis and Sulvan took Glantheir’s cores, they would be bound by the god’s passive nature. That would neuter them, removing them from Theo’s list of enemies. At least they would become inquisitors in a righteous cause.

“Let’s make Glantheir a priority. We know he saved the continent when Balkor fell the first time. Maybe he’s interested in finishing his good work?”

“That’s worth a short.”

Maybe ask the dragon? Alex honked.

“Good luck moving the dragon.” Theo grumbled.

“Yeah, I’ve been disappointed in old Pogo. I tried to pick a fight with her yesterday, but she didn’t move.”

“Let’s not add the dragon to our list of problems.”

Theo, Tresk, and Alex discussed their problems for some time before splitting up. The alchemist shifted the scene to an area outside of Broken Tusk, near the river. It was far more pleasant than the low-resolution form of Gronro. That place was depressing enough as it was. It needed nothing to help it along. Instead, he turned his attention to his leveling progress. As expected, both the Tara’hek and Governance core were stubbornly locked at level 30. The upside to the problem was that his alchemy and herbalist cores were now lined up in levels. Both sat at 25, ready to roll over to 26 at any moment.

The connection between Drogramath’s two cores was stronger than ever. Theo closed his eyes, focusing his thoughts inward. The heat from the stills he had imagined rolled over him for a moment, but then he felt the firm connection between the cores. After Drogramath had told him he was a champion, a minor change had settled into his soul. That sensation was a kind of unity he couldn’t explain. Like the town’s synergy feature, they seemed to work as a pair.

Theo labored away in the Dreamwalk, writing notes in his interface as he worked. By the time dawn came, he had enough experience for both cores to hit Level 26. The [Toru’aun Mage’s Core] joined with the festivities, hitting Level 16. All this activity caused the alchemist’s personal level to roll over to 26 as well. He woke in his bed with a fresh point to spend.

“Ding!” Theo said, placing a single point into Dexterity. He felt a rush of agility fill him as it tipped to 20.

That was the last point Theo planned to place into Dexterity for a long time. With gear and core bonuses, every attribute was at 20 or higher. But it was a problem for another time. The alchemist noticed several notifications in his administrative interface, requesting meetings. He wanted to ignore Alise’s request, but it seemed urgent. Throk wanted a meeting, which was rare. Finally, Salire needed help in the lab.

“Could you stuff some food into the shared inventory?” Theo asked. Tresk hadn’t dashed out of the room yet. She only nodded before rushing downstairs to get breakfast.

The alchemist rose, stretched, patted the goose, then headed off for Throk’s workshop. The old marshling woke early and didn’t take breakfast, unlike much of the town. As expected, he was waiting in the artificer’s lab with a grumpy expression. With his hands resting on his hips, and his short stature, he looked like a child throwing a fit for candy.

“Airships?” Throk asked. “Really?”

“That conversation was private and not meant as a work order.”

“I’m busy enough as it is without airships.”

“Are you?”

Throk kicked at the ground, some of the grump fading from his face. “Not really. Rail is done, isn’t it? We’re not doing the over-the-sea rail for a while, are we?”

“So, what you meant to say was ‘Theo, can I please work on the airship project?’”

“Yeah. Come here. No, not in the workshop. Out back.”

Theo followed Throk around to the back of the workshop. Resting on a log was something that looked suspiciously like an old-era Earth jet engine. Turbines with an intake on one side, and a narrowed exhaust on the other.

“If you’re building a jet, I’m all in.”

“A what? No. This is a hover engine. I’ve been working on it since I got my core, but a few skills revealed the secret to make it work. Well, skills and something else.”

“What’s the ‘something else?’”

“Money! Yeah, it’s literally powered by gold coins,” Throk said, laughing as he slapped the engine’s side. A part fell off, clattering to the ground. “Yeah, let’s not turn it on. Bit of a test.”

Throk was in a better mood today than Theo had expected. But an engine that ran on gold coins wasn’t gonna work. “Tell me we have a better idea than a gold-powered hover engine.”

“There are a few problems. Right? Ignore all the issues with magical interference and you have an artifice that requires massive amounts of refined mana to run. To the workshop.”

Theo followed Throk into the workshop. There were too many strange machines to count, but one stood in the center of the room. It appeared to be a massive hydraulic press, only with far too many extra doodads hanging off the side. The marshling had a look of pure pride on his face as he approached the machine.

“Care to guess what this is?”

“Turtle crusher.”

“Close.”

Theo inspected the thing for a while longer. It was a press. That much was clear. As the alchemist came closer, he looked at the plate of the artifice press. He then noticed the function of some artifices on the side of the machine, but could not put it all together. Only when a Wisdom of the Soul message popped up did he get it.

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“Discount coin press?”

“There it is!” Throk shouted, pumping his fist in the air. “This is a makeshift version of a coin press. It cannot create system-generated currency. What it can do is refine power and press it into magically reactive metal. Tworgnothi or Drogramathi metals should take to the process.”

Throk held up a coin-like object for inspection. Theo took it in his hand, flipping it over. Both faces were blank, but it felt enough like a real coin to fool him. There was magical potential stored inside.

“Explain something to me,” Theo said, appreciating the heft of the purple-black coin. “Motes are refined pieces of mana, right? Have you run tests to figure out how your coins compare to motes?”

“Think of it this way. A single mote has about 10 mana worth of energy. These ‘coins’ sit at about 200.”

“That’s absurdly impressive. What’s the catch?”

“Yeah, they’re hard to make. I have the plans all made up, but I need two buildings the size of your manor and another building the size of your lab.”

Theo blinked slowly. It took little mental math to know that three large artifices meant only one thing. Explosive failure. “Where do you plan to put these buildings?”

“Oh my. You doubt me?” Throk said. He was on a streak. “Follow me, dear alchemist.”

Theo felt a shiver run up his spine at that phrase. Fenian always called him ‘my dear alchemist,’ and the utterance of the phrase left a wider hole in his heart than he expected. Throk led the way through town as the pain in the alchemist’s heart eased. There was always a risk when taking on a god. All that pain washed away when the alchemist spotted a strange structure near the quarry. There were rolling fields filled with large boulders between the quarry and the eastern wall. No one built there because it was too annoying to level the ground. Now there was a massive stone structure made of glittering marble.

“What the hell is that?”

“My blast chamber. Come on.”

The ‘blast chamber’ was stupid. Theo approached the gate of the chamber, gawking at the thickness of the walls. It was about five-times as thick as the walls that surrounded the town. Each layer of stone was supported by a layer of metal. Massive metal sheets, thicker than the alchemist’s forearm, provided a shielding layer. And, of course, inside there were three massive buildings. They were all made of Tworgnothi Copper and Drogramathi Iron, sitting beneath a wooden roof to shield them from the elements.

“You already built them.”

“Of course I already built them. This is my artifice coin pressing operation. I need your blessing before I start production.”

“All right. Explain how this crap works.”

“Sure!” Throk said, more chipper than Theo had ever seen him before. “The two things on the side are industrial power condensers. They suck power from the air, then turn it into mana using artifice condensers. I already had that one figured out, so it wasn’t a problem to make bigger versions of them.”

“Those are the things most likely to explode. Right?”

“Yeah. When power is refined into mana, it becomes volatile. The key was to use Tworgnothi Copper in the condensers and containers. Raw mana is… weird. Burns everything it touches. So, containment is necessary. The next thing we have is the press. When you compress Drogramathi Iron until it’s red hot, you can infuse it with mana.”

Theo didn’t want to approach the machines. He had a deep understanding for how dangerous this stuff could be. It wasn’t because he didn’t trust Throk. When a person messed around with crafting recipes far above their level, bad things happened. Alchemy was a great example, as it was always volatile.

“The discs you’re manufacturing… Can they power the towers?”

“The towers, the rail. Everything.”

“Why doesn’t the press melt when you’re making them? Isn’t it made of Drogramathi Iron?”

“The press is made from an alloy of Drogramathi Iron and Tworgnothi Copper. The same stuff I made the carts out of.”

“You’ve outdone yourself. I’m giving you my blessing, let me know if you need it in writing.”

“I will. Alise is going to be mad, but look at that wall.”

“I saw the wall.” Theo edged backwards out of the work yard. “Not sure how I didn’t see you building this thing.”

“Me and the boys threw it together over the course of two days. No big deal.”

Throk shared a few more details about his new machines. Theo was interested in a small version of the power siphon, which the artificer claimed he could do with ease. If they were compact enough, it would be a step in the right direction to create golems that could go forever without needing to be recharged. The alchemist departed from the new, massive artifices and headed off to his next meeting.

Alise was in an ongoing meeting with the other administrators in the town hall. They were talking about their next steps on several things, including the undead. To his surprise, they didn’t have a problem with Throk’s new project. That resulted in several hours of boring meetings about almost nothing. While Alran was there, he provided no new information about the state of Qavell. What he had to add to the meeting was slightly troubling.

“I lost contact with all my spies in Qavell at the same time. They were compromised simultaneously, or… something else.”

“I don’t like ‘something else,’” Theo said.

Alran shrugged. “I can offer no more information. Magical interference, maybe? But my skill normally pierces through the most ardent defenses.”

There was nothing more they could glean from the matter. The meeting ended, freeing Theo to work on the thing the meeting was about. He laughed as he made his way to the Newt and Demon, where a small group of frog-like creatures had gathered. One frog left a trail of frost wherever it went, while another left little pools of fire. The alchemist waded through the creatures to enter his shop. Several made it inside, and they were unceremoniously tossed out the window.

“Do we have any frog repellent?” Salire groaned. The hard-working woman was up on the third floor, working in the lab.

“I don’t think so.”

“Next time Bilgrob wants to heal me, just let me die. This isn’t worth it.”

“I’ll make a note.”

Theo had seen a few frogs in town, but nothing like this. He decided that Bilgrob’s spell attracted every frog-like creature, but those things had to travel to reach their destination. If they didn’t do something about it soon, it might become a problem. But unless the frogs found their way into the stills, they wouldn’t impede the creation of potions. It took a while for the alchemist to get his apprentice’s mind off of the frogs, but they got to work.

“Everything is ready,” Salire said, gesturing to the various equipment she had cleaned and prepared.

The most annoying part about creating third tier potions was the alcohol infusion. Salire and Theo had worked to create 5,000 units of [Bound Enchanted Dilution] for each reagent. They split the batch in half, using five stills for [Hallow Ground] and five stills for [Sow]. The labor itself wasn’t terribly hard, but the alchemist had worked up a sweat by the time they rested.

“Great job,” Theo said, sagging into a chair. “We have enough suffuse potions, right?”

“We should. At least for a test run,” Salire said, finding her own chair. “Have you read the reports from Gronro?”

Theo had, in fact, ignored the reports from Gronro. They were running tests on the soil and had come up with a rating system.

“The more green the soil, the more they figure it’s corrupted. Our current second tier potion is doing a good job, but…”

“There’s too much area to cover.” Theo nodded. Of course that would have been a problem. Every square halm of land between Gronro and Qavell was corrupted. And corruption spreads more corruption. It was an endless loop.

“I ran some numbers.” Salire produced a notebook from nowhere. “At our capacity, we can clear the land in about twenty years.”

Theo groaned. This wasn’t a problem they could solve with alchemy alone, but he didn’t have any other means. Not unless Glantheir took mercy on Uharis and Sulvan. Or sent some of his elven clerics over to help clean the land up.

“But we can halve the time with the third tier potion.”

It wasn’t very encouraging, but it was a start. Theo and Salire worked on their book while they waited for the stills to finish the run. The alchemist wanted to do anything to take his mind off the next part of the process. Creating primal essences to bind with the [Suffuse Potion] was labor-intensive. Instead, they fixed mistakes in the book and created more based on their current industrial process.

“I had another idea,” Salire said, crossing a long section of information out. “We could make a regular alchemy book.”

“Hmmm.”

Before making the recipe for mundane alchemists to use [Swamp Truffles], Theo would have disagreed. But there was no such thing as too much information. Salire was already delving into normal alchemy more by the day. It was a way to distract herself between her duties in the shop or in the lab. Unlike Theo, she didn’t have a nation to run, giving her free time to do interesting projects.

“There’s a cultural connection with the Drogramathi concerning mundane alchemy,” Theo said, lounging in his chair. “Most Drogramathi don’t settle down. As far as I know, this is the first industrial operation of his alchemy.”

“I had never seen a dronon before you. You hear stories about folks running into them, but that’s it. They show up, get what they need, then leave.”

“They’re given instructions from the various dronon patrons to hide. Why? I don’t know. Seems like they’re fighting each other, rather than fighting against the other races of the world.”

“Do you think that’ll change?” Salire asked, sounded hopeful.

“Not soon. The patrons have to change first. That doesn’t seem likely.”

The stills bubbled away over the hours. The internal storage of the building filled with third tier essence. Theo and Salire whittled the time away, talking about whatever and working on their books. When the timers went off on the stills, the alchemist rubbed his hands together. It was far too exciting to get a crack at a third tier suffuse potion.