An Immortal Legend: The Tale of the Sightless Wanderer

Chapter 14: Witch Hunt

Due to the mayhem that occurred during the Battle of Seeds, Wanda was immediately dragged into several appointments when he finally returned as Lugiel two days later with the Alchemy Tower being the first stop.

Thanks to its reformation, the Tower is now stable financially but when it comes to the individual qualities of their Alchemists, if Lugiel is removed, the Tower is no different from a second-rate union of Alchemists and the crisis during the Battle of Seeds had just made that obvious.

However, nurturing top-tier Alchemists is not something one can simply resolve with crests. To produce an exceptional Alchemist, an apprentice must have an exclusive tutelage. A rule of two, one mentor to one apprentice.

Regrettably, given the Tower’s long history of decline prior to Lugiel’s management, the Grimlands sorely lacks experts and veterans in the craft of Alchemy and on top of that, those that are has no association with the Tower. They are scattered and exclusive to the major Houses and big families that managed to recruit them, mostly to fill the role of a family physician.

It’ll be a wishful thinking to expect that those major powers of Clan Fawkes will surrender or loan their Alchemists to the Tower without an equal or even a bigger return. Something the Tower can’t afford to provide.

Fortunately, his next stop which is an emergency assembly the Clan Master arranged upon the news of his return, the Clan Master decreed that he’s obligating all the Houses and families to do just that.

In this new arrangement, all the Alchemist residents of the Grimlands are required for a mandatory registration to the Tower to legally continue their practice and businesses. Those without successors and apprentices are encouraged too to have one with an encouragement to take a Tower trainee. In exchange, the Tower can award them with grants on top of a stable stipend.

It’s a win-win for the resident Alchemists, who all complied right away. It is favourable to the Tower and since it is personally decreed by the Clan Master himself, the Houses and families were hindered to say otherwise.

Hence, effective immediately, their most competent trainees were taken under the wings of equally competent mentors. Their resources and their wisdom, the union opens the path for the rapid improvement of the Tower’s Alchemists.

As for the reward Magnum received under the Clan Master’s insistence. Within a certain parameter, Magnum was eligible to claim a Clan Fawkes treasure of his choosing and under his instruction, the item chosen was the Mana Core of the hawk demonic beast called Peli.

The core is rich in Mana but unfortunately, the core was also extensively contaminated with the violent and chaotic will of the Peli, deeming it unfit for absorption. Still, with the amount of Mana it possessed, it was kept in case a use might arise someday.

Lugiel had been eyeing that Mana Core for years now but before the Battle of Seeds crisis, he was without a justification or a merit to claim it. Thankfully, that’s over now and the Peli’s Mana Core was successfully converted into a capsule of the purple hue.

[AMETHYST THE OPPRESSOR]

Succeeding that stressful day, four days had passed and jumping back to his original identity as Wanda, he and Magnum are navigating the stems once again to meet another associate.

In the highly industrialized Mid-Branch realm, the realm of Soordoon, they entered the city of Trini and into a pub where Gorge is waiting for them.

“This is abrupt but welcomed,” Gorge said, greeting them. “What or who shall we find for you?”

Gorge is the leader of the Mid-Braches’ underworld’s ace tracking and retrieval group called the ‘Hounds’, a nod to group’s race, the Houndrills.

Houndrills are wolf demi-humans and a selected few of them are born with the ability to piggyback into the senses of other living beings including vegetation. Unfortunately, such ability tends to overwhelm the untrained and thus, as cubs, those with this ability are sent out from their forest-heavy homeworld of Wolzard to less green and even barren realms such as Soordoon until they gain full control of their abilities.

However, there are some, like Gorge and the Hounds and their predecessors, that had chosen to not return to Wolzard and utilize the ability to broaden their horizons.

Wanda then slid a sealed bottle he pulled out from their interspatial pouch towards him before relaying, “This is a residue of her latest handiwork. I can also give you the last known coordinates.”

Gorge took and opened the bottle.

Then Wanda resumed, “The pay won’t be an issue. In fact, I’m encouraging the mobilization of all that’s available and then some. I just want this person found as soon as possible.”

Gorge nodded after sniffing the content of the bottle. “I will need the personal details of the person.”

They provided it and with the revelation of who it is, Gorge was a little shock.

“She left a trace? That’s unexpected.”

“Not her lucky day,” Wanda said. Because of his special circumstances as Wanda and Lugiel, Vanja was completely oblivious that she was targeting a Wanderer. If she had knew, she would never have accepted the job regardless of the pay.

Gorge nodded again. “Alright, I will send all the Hounds available, all twenty-six of them. Each will cost you five hundred thousand crests. Duration is a hundred days. Is this acceptable?”

“Like I said, pay is not an issue.”

◆◆◆◆◆◆

Leaving Soordoon, he and Magnum had headed right away to the eastern Outer Branches, into the realm of Authon which will serve as their starting point.

The Witch hunt is not exclusive to Vanja. To make locating her valuable, they also needed to locate Gwyn, his fellow Wanderer, and the most powerful in the Tree who will give a damn onto where she is.

According to what he is able to gather, her last known coordinates are here in Authon dated a couple of years back. Quite a while but it is still within the margin where he can work something out.

By the way, for the record, he is a much better tracker than the Hounds. It is just that he can’t accomplish two high-level detection jobs at once in a short time period and thus, he needed someone else nearly as good as him to accomplish the other.

Entering Authon, it shares some similarities with Soordoon. Both are dried up and piled with machineries. However, Authon was a desert dominant realm to begin with unlike Soordoon which was gradually industrialized to its limit.  Also, Authon functions as a grave for airships and golems of the eastern clusters. The machineries mentioned are for the junkyards that salvage and recycle still functioning parts.

“She’d been here, which means there are ancient graveyards here somewhere.” Wanda remarked as he muses which among of Authon’s six cradles of civilizations he shall start.

Similar to him, Gwyn belongs to the Wanderers whose focus is towards ancient structures, specifically on resting places such as tombs and graveyards. As for the actual specifics? Like any other Wanderer towards another, everything is as good as a guess except that, like all of them, it’s primarily in compliance to their creed.

Resorting to his Mana Sense, they can locate the graves but relying solely to it can be time consuming. Fortunately, they’d just reaped something from their previous expedition which could help.

The capsules from the Lich’s inheritance.

[PHANTOM MIDNIGHT] [SPECTRAL GREASE] [HAUNTING INDIGO] [ETHEREAL COBALT]