The Runic Alchemist

He didn’t have time to make something exceptional right now—that would need planning and materials. For now, Damian just needed a space where he could work in peace without getting constantly interrupted by the passing mana signatures outside the Keeper’s office room. He had never worked with so many people around him.

Einar and Evrin had reserved and walled up some 2 km of land in total, including the stone keep, for further building constructions. Damian had already built the temporary place to keep the prisoners on the left side, so he moved on to the further right of the stone keep. Facing the stone keep, both in front and back in a straight line were the city gates; there were four in total, the other two being on its sides, perfectly aligned. The stone keep stood right at the center of the four large wooden gates, reinforced here and there with steel and iron.

The simple city had formed all around the walled stone keep. There were early signs that the buildings nearest to it were constructed first, and then others simply lined up beside them. Right now, the whole city’s length was around 5–6 km, out of which two kilometers were occupied by them alone. It was a modest-sized city, its population falsely inflated due to war and the lack of safety in other smaller villages and towns, with men being busy in the war.

They did not have any vast forests, but monsters could still be found here and there. There was quite a large forest south of Sanctuary, between their border and Dawnstar’s—the harbor town to their east was nearby, while the rest of Dawnstar on the other side was far away.

The biggest border they shared was with Eldoris to their west, and those were the most populated and peaceful regions of the Sanctuary. By comparison, Sanctuary was barely bigger than a single duchy of any of the three kingdoms—yet having five Transcendents for this small land meant it would be the safest place to live in the future.

Damian activated his three sacrium mana cubes and used a vast, circular-shaped, powerful attraction spell to dig out the ground about one story deep. The mana needed for that was not small at all, but the townsfolk had been hired to gather raw material for the liquid mana generators, and Damian had already stored enough to last him a year or so with slightly above-average use.

The loud sound surprised the whole city and brought all the second-rank knights and other extra nobles roaming around the stone keep. Just seeing him surrounded by the golden floating wave of liquid mana was enough to explain what was happening.

He would make it simple yet sturdy—at least the base and support pillars should be fixed; those he wouldn’t change later. Right now, Damian decided to use wood as the main material, but in the future, he would have to see if he could use stone, steel, and cement. Even temporary, it was going to be a place where the Keeper resided, so it had to look the part.

Damian activated multiple spells at once, gathering iron from the land beneath and turning it into steel in minutes while using air shields as molds to shape pillars, all while he shaped the single giant-sized wood source to build the massive circular structure.

The steel base and support pillars were unnecessary for the single-source growing wooden structure—it was strong enough on its own—but those he had made for later, and also to inscribe some spells for the comfort inside the workplace.

Damian covered the whole one-story-deep circular hole he had dug up with long, growing, hollow giant roots and a simple wooden floor at the base. He filled the hollow roots with steel while keeping the air shield shapes until it cooled down. Once the base was ready and strong enough to support a tall structure, Damian started the actual designing.

The basement he just partitioned into five big sections with doors from both sides and a hallway—keeping the middle round section for the lift system. He covered the basement with a wooden ceiling. Then came the ground floor—Damian made a big circular hallway for this one, with two sides of the hallway connected with another hallway, as a result dividing the floor into four parts. He was thinking of having separate divisions when he thought of this.

Another floor on top of that had a similar setup—Damian did keep the radius a bit smaller than the base. Another even smaller floor above that had a big auditorium-like room for larger meetings and large rooms with open views. Damian made floor after floor of wood with steel beams supporting the added weight at points connecting all the floors. At the center circular space, he placed thinner steel beams and cross-sections to leave space for building a runic lift afterward.

After building some seven floors, Damian stopped—this should be enough. It looked like a simple tower, so he added a spiral staircase for added flair. Still, it didn’t quite have the look he hoped for, so Damian kept the three big floors at the bottom as the base and added more wood to the upper part, constructing a giant statue with hollow, crisscrossing wooden beams to reduce weight.

Now it looked like a three-floor wooden stage, and above that stood a full-plate armored knight holding his long sword downward, buried in the entrance of the giant structure. The knight’s face looked straight toward the city. He did not place anyone’s face there because it was supposed to represent Sanctuary and the Keeper—not a distinct person like Einar or himself. It was a position, a title, not a fixed individual.

The giant sword felt too fake as a wooden structure, so Damian coated it with steel, giving it a real look. Damian placed a crown on the knight’s head. Down on the outer face of the three floors, Damian wrote in steel: ‘Sanctum of the Crownless’, and added in smaller letters below it: ‘We do not judge the past. We guard every future.’

…

Damian let the others transfer all the items and place them wherever they wanted. This was sooner or later going to be reorganized from top to bottom anyway. For the plans and work Damian had in mind for the Sanctuary in the future would require a lot of manpower—he would need to hire a lot more people.

Then there was the matter of changing the ruling system. After dealing with the demons and forcing Faerunia to back down along with the peace treaty, he should have enough respect among the people of Sanctuary and everyone else. He was a Keeper, and even now, if Souldealer and Evrin were in agreement, he could change the structure of the ruling system—but those were not the people he needed to convince.

It was the whole region of Sanctuary, and all the soldiers and people supporting it, whom he needed to win over. Ending the wars should be good enough; if not, the waygates and opening dungeons to the public would surely make their Sanctuary a unique land of opportunities and attraction.

Damian flew straight up toward the seventh floor—that one he had made into his own personal workspace. He still needed to add the runic lift. The idea had been in his mind for a while, but he needed to test limits and various aspects before putting it out for general use. He also wanted to have a custom heating and cooling system for the whole building, along with other needed facilities.

Only one out of the four sections was an office, with a large space and wooden, fancy table and chairs with some added designs here and there. He was not much for decorating, but adding a few things made the empty room feel more alive—and that feeling he liked.

The second of the four sections he had made to store all the books and documents so he could get anything whenever he needed and put them back at once. Having a private library of his own was still just a dream—those books cost a lot. Having the time to select and buy enough of them was the hard part, not the money. Damian had enough ideas, both for runic tools and potions, from which he could make money. Not to mention, the Emperor had promised him lots of riches.

The third section was for all things related to potion crafting and the chemistry projects he had in mind for years but never had enough time or a sense of safety to truly try out. He would have to install steel and stone safety runic tools in here before getting started.

He had already coated it with steel for now to begin making those healing potions and to demonstrate how to make a raw batch into which he could simply add the spell oil he could produce with his skill, for the potion makers.

The last section he wanted to make into a runic lab. He would have to make a furnace—that was the safest thing possible—before doing anything in it, though. And he would need to make a stone floor to avoid accidentally setting the whole building on fire.

There were liquids he remembered which, if coated on the wood, gave fire-resistant properties. Guess he knew which chemistry project to give priority to.

After checking out the whole seventh floor, Damian returned to the giant office room and exhaled while seated on the ‘nice’ wooden chair he had made—preparing himself. Then he summoned the black and red spear and accessed the runic circle for the spatial storage etched on it.

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