Grand Saint Alloy

Tristan tried to recollect his scattered mind. The alchemist had not really explained what was going on. If he understood correctly, he needed Tristan’s essence to create him a weapon, he had no essence so Hadrid had him eat some essence. It was to much for his body to handle, but Hadrid was able to extract it using Tristan like a filter. He really hoped thats what happened, if Hadrid stole his kern he was not sure what he would do. Tristan decided he had better keep an eye on him.

Hadrid took the two essence cores over to a table with several glass tops. A pot sat on top of one of the plates and Tristan realized that the pot was made of a type of clay, while the liquid inside was bubbling metal. Hadrid stirred the metal with a rod and nodded to himself. He tossed the two metal cores into the pot, and watched them dissolve before nodding in approval.

“Kid, you may be as weak as a drowned cat, but you can sure take a beating,” Hadrid said, “Get over here, I need some blood, maybe I can get some force tier ones.”

Tristan had no idea what the alchemist was going on about, all he knew was that he felt terrible and a blood donation was the last thing he wanted to do. Not that Hadrid cared. Luke helped Tristan stand, while the maid cleaned the vomit and blood off the extraction coffin. He promised himself that he would never get in one of those things again.

“Come, come, toddle on over. I don’t have all day,” Hadrid nagged, “You don’t want to keep me waiting.”

“Yes your tubbiness,” Luke mocked.

“Troll.”

“Midget,”

“Bastard.”

“Oooh, low blow I guess reaching higher was to much to expect for such a small man,” Luke said, enjoying the conflict.

“Could you both stop, “ Tristan asked, his head was pounding and the two of them were getting louder and louder.

“Ah yes, young man, I just need some blood,” Hadrid’s hand gripped Tristans wrist, and he placed a syringe into his arm.

Tristan tried to pull away, but Hadrid was freakishly strong. His efforts did not even make Hadrid’s bicep flex while holding Tristan’s arm still. A few seconds later the alchemist pulled away and inspected the blood under the glow stones lighting the room. He flicked it a few times and Tristan was surprised to see flecks of silver light floating in the blood.

“Does all blood look like that?” Tristan asked.

“No, as you are asking sensible questions, you may now call me Mister Hadrid,” The tubby alchemist glared at Luke while he squirted the blood into the clay pot, “My blood is around eight times more dense with metal essence, and other elements have different colors, luminosity, and temperature.”

That made sense, it was common knowledge that a light kern had glowing blood while a fire kern had extremely hot blood. Wait, something that Hadrid said caught Tristan’s attention. He said the essence in his blood was eight times denser, Tristan did some quick math. If the concentration of essence in ones kern determined tier level and it was a fifty percent geometric increase between each tier. No wonder the man was so strong, and also why the elders left the man alone.

“You have a tier five metal kern don’t you,” Tristan asked.

Hadrid paused and nodded, “Yes, good with numbers are we. After I killed Rail, I had the strongest kern in the Caldera. I think that also makes me the most important person.”

Tristan could only mutely nod, he felt like an ant with titans walking all around him. He worked with Luke, the son of something higher than this alchemist, Hadrid himself was the most dangerous person in the caldera, and he slept about one hundred and fifty feet above what he believed to be a tier seven metal elemental. No wonder, Luke had asked if he could slay a hundred men when they first met, his only point of reference for a metal kern was Hadrid.

“I think I dazed the poor kid,” Hadrid mused, “It can be hard to get used to me.”

“Yes,” Luke said, “But not for the reasons you think.”

Hadrid snorted as he started on a mold. He filled a box with sand and packed it in, he then handed Luke a sheet of metal, “make yourself useful, draw the blades you need on this.”

Luke nodded and grabbed some chalk off a board with numbers and polygons drawn all over it. The sheet of metal was thin, and would bend if Luke was not careful. Fortunately, Luke was very careful. He had been trained how to both read, draw, and alter blueprints. Outlining two different knives would not be an issue for him.

The sword breaker had V shaped notches along the back and a blade made for slicing on the front. It would never be the greatest knife, as the notches would make it difficult to stab and could make it difficult to brace in the event a second hand needed to be used. The second knife was longer, edging up on the length of a short sword. It would be thick with a slightly curved blade and a tapered point that could pop open the links in chain mail.

When Luke handed the two drawings back, Hadrid simply nodded and condensed a blade from the essence in his blood. He was a scientist and with steady hands, along with the scalpel like tool he created, Hadrid had no issue cutting out the drawing. After, reabsorbing the scalpel, Hadrid picked up the two cut outs and placed them in the sand. He gently pressed them down with a board, then he used a magnet to remove them.

This left a perfect, paper thin imprint of the two knives. He grabbed some tongs and removed the pot of boiling essence steel from his stove. Carefully he poured it into the two molds only stopping when they were full. The red hot metal slowly cooled, which did not take long, as the blades were so thin. Hadrid managed the amount and distribution of metal essence in the metal. It would be better if Tristan did this, but he was not capable. Doing this allowed Hadrid to skip the tempering process, as that was the force he currently wanted to instill into the blade.

Fortunately the essence tempering resonated with Tristans unique essence, it was the reason he needed the blood. Hadrid grinned at the two blades and inspected them when they were cool enough to be picked up. He walked over to a grinder and started to put an edge on them. He was careful to push the essence from the metal he removed into the part he would keep. Contrary to what mythology would have most people believe, sharpness was not the result of some mystical power, it was the product of a narrow angle. And Hadrid wanted to get an extreme angle.

Tristan took several hours to completely recover from the essence absorption and subsequent extraction. It would have most likely taken longer without Lukes wind tuber drink. He was starting to understand why Luke was in love with the stuff.

“All done,” Hadrid said, excitement evident in his voice.

He brought Tristan the two blades and handed them to him. Tristan drew them from their leather sheathes and found that they looked quite odd. Both were extremely thin, to the point that the edge was translucent. Despite the narrow cross section the blades were more solid than the pick axe heads at the mine. They both had a rubbery hilt that was wrapped in wire and had a silver marble set into the handle.

“These blade will not break, and they will not need maintenance, while these essence reservoirs are full. The core will passively feed off your meager essence to recharge. I estimate it will take a week to charge them fully with your meager reserves,” Hadrid said.

“Thank you, These are amazing.” Tristan said with a genuine smile. He could not wait to learn how to use these.

“How would you know? You have nothing to compare them to,” Hadrid said.

“Luke are these amazing?” Tristan asked.

Luke grinned, “They’re only OK.”

“I hate you,” Hadrid said, “They are awesome, worthy of awe. I have your money, now get out of my town.”

He hustled the two of them out of his lab and shoved them out of his home. Tristan tried to thank him again, but got a door slammed in his face fore his troubles. He could only shake his head in exasperation as they walked through the sleeping herd of golize on the way out of town. Tristan did wonder if the alchemist just mashed two nouns together and called it good when it came to naming things.

He drew the long knife and inspected its edge, it was odd and mesmerizing. The translucency made it look more like glass than metal, but he knew it was only translucent due to how thin the metal was. If the essence cores were not attached he was sure it would collapse on itself at even the slightest breeze.

He grinned, Luke had taught him how to use his hands, but a tier zero kern gave him a comparatively weak body. These knives were a force multiplier that could make him a threat. He looked forward to that day.