With dusk settling in, the buildings surrounding the plaza glowed beneath warm yellow lights. Pedestrians still lingered along the roads, especially near the gardened square. Such calm was ordinary for those living in the city above the skies—at least from a surface glance.

  Lorien found Larissa standing at the steps leading to the Church of Travelers, gazing down the road. Her face rested in shadow, her thoughts drifting like her loose hair in the cold wind.

  “By the way, why did you even bother coming with me?” Lorien asked, tucking his hands into his pockets.

  “I came to check on Father Ben,” Larissa replied, brushing a strand of hair aside.

  “You could do that during the week. There’s no need to sit through the entire ceremony just to greet him—especially since you’re not a believer.”

  “The fact that I don’t believe in a ‘Dragon of Possibilities’ doesn’t mean his teachings hold no truth.”

  Deep down, Lorien shared a similar stance, though circumstance compelled him to feign devotion.

  “You’ve never told me what you believe in,” he pressed.

  Larissa rested her fingers along her chin, considering. “I believe in those who are dear to me.” She paused, as though about to add more, then reconsidered. “Anyway, it’s time to return to the inn. We still have a shift to finish.”

  After a long night in the kitchen, Lorien finally lay in bed, arms crossed behind his head, staring at the ceiling. He waited for the being of shadows to appear, but silence lingered across the room. Even so, he had made up his mind for the following day.

  At dawn, he left the inn and boarded a gondola toward the Central District. Though it was his day off, he returned to the campus grounds. With the grand Cathedral of Saint Liceas’Kun standing in the distance, he approached the nearby library building. Despite its academic function, the structure retained subtle religious motifs within its design.

  Though part of the University Complex, the library welcomed all citizens and travelers of the Republic, as mandated by law. Inside, a vast hall opened before him—five stories tall, lined with shelves that rose like temple columns. Above the entrance gleamed a golden inscription.

  “Temple to Knowledge,” Lorien read quietly.

  Despite its size, the hall rested in deep silence. His footsteps echoed faintly as he approached the main counter, where a young librarian waited.

  He slid his student identification forward and awkwardly explained his request, claiming it was for a history seminar project.

  “That’s quite an unusual topic…” the librarian remarked. She brushed a golden strand of hair from her face while reviewing nearby records. “I’ll see what I can find.”

  She placed a slip of paper into a capsule, which vanished into a web of pipes within the walls. Lorien watched with quiet fascination as other capsules sped overhead. After a short wait, one returned.

  “You made us search the archives three times,” she said with a faint, amused smile. “But we found something. It should be in the far-east corner of the third floor. That’s the only record we have.”

  “Sorry for the trouble.”

  Though he had not expected Professor Zenith to mislead him, Lorien still doubted that something as secret as the workings of the Nebuchadnezzar’s vault would rest within a public archive. The doubt faded as he reached the indicated section. Shelves stretched endlessly, packed with volumes of every size and age.

  How am I supposed to find the right one… Do I really have to search through all of this?

  He selected a shelf and skimmed titles by instinct. A few volumes brushed close to his topic, though they offered only vague references and hollow allusions.

  At least I have the whole day… though I’d rather not waste it.

  He considered asking for assistance again, but drawing further attention to his search unsettled him.

  Just as frustration began to rise, a peculiar volume caught his eye. Its cover was black, without title or author. Inside, there was no formal beginning—only fragments of thought and scattered annotations.

  He read the opening lines, then moved to a secluded corner where he would not be overheard.

  “Alchemy… There is much to say about this mysterious and inherently pseudoscientific art. It is believed to be a tradition inherited from demons, back when they roamed creation freely. A conjunction of methods seeking to alter the nature and composition of living and unliving matter… the capacity to turn something as worthless as stone into something as valuable as gold.”

  Lorien paused at the irony before continuing.

  “Certainly, alchemy’s reach is not entirely impossible, for its foundations are not wholly flawed. Chemistry has demonstrated that altering the composition of substances is achievable through the rearrangement of atomic and subatomic particles. Yet science has also shown that such a process demands immense energy—far exceeding any practical gain.”

  “In other words, it is far more efficient to acquire substances in their natural state than to create them artificially. Even then, such practices remain bound by the laws of energy and entropy. Therefore, one might conclude that alchemy—and its practices such as transmutation or the artificial creation of life—stand as unnatural, and thus a sin against the functioning of the universe.”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  The remaining notes dismissed alchemy as superstition—a euphemism for magic, heresy, and metaphysical delusion. It was easy for Lorien to understand why the Church of Possibilities condemned it. Many of its principles contradicted divine doctrine. The commandment “Change yourself before you change the world” stood in direct opposition to alchemy’s desire to manipulate existence itself.

  The text traced the origin of such power to the Dark Ages, perhaps earlier still—mentioning alchemists who supposedly performed miracles that twisted reality.

  To Lorien, those tales once seemed no different from the myths of Old Gods.

  Even the legends of current deities were difficult to verify beyond their native cultures, fading steadily into faith. Yet now he questioned whether such stories were truly fantastical. He had witnessed transmutation with his own eyes.

  If he confessed what he had done, would anyone believe him? Or would they call him mad? And more importantly—just as Laplace had implied—did he now wield power akin to that of a deity?

  The notion that lingered most strongly was the claim that alchemy stemmed from demons—just as he suspected Laplace to be one.

  At the very end of the book, a name appeared in elegant calligraphy:

  “Rora’V.”

  Lorien searched other volumes but found nothing as detailed. Eventually, he decided it would be wiser to follow the anonymous author’s suggestion and study chemistry itself. Perhaps through science he might understand how rusted iron had turned to gold—within known and measured laws.

  “The reason why we find iterative references to the Dark Ages,” the history professor wrote with white chalk while dictating his seminar, “is mostly because of the vagueness and range of the term, born from how little we truly know about that part of history. In fact, the preceding era—the Golden Age of the Histuzen Emprie—is far better understood and recorded. Thus, much of what we claim about this period remains speculative in nature.”

  The man, with an exhausted semblance, then turned to the class.

  “For instance, besides the deities of the pagan cults, certain societies believed in eternal demons wandering among men, sowing chaos with what one might call supernatural demonic abilities.”

  A hand rose suddenly amongst the students, which prompted the entire room to turn towards Lorien, who very much immediately regretted calling so much attention.

  “...Are there names for any of those supposed demons? Like… Laplace, for example?”

  The professor shook his head faintly.

  “Your’s is a fair question, and one that proves my earlier point. Thus, I’m afraid that knowledge got lost to the passage of time—most likely overwritten with the rise of the new states and faiths, now unbeknownst our fifth millennium.”

  After the class finished, Lorien wandered through the sunlit corridors between faculty buildings, moving without his usual urgency. In fact, other people had to instinctively step aside for his seemingly absentminded stride.

  But in reality, Lorien was rather well focused, trying to contain the growing echoes, which seemed to be trying to mutter something in the form of a whisper.

  In the workshop, professor Zenith observed Lorien working on his grappling arm device.

  “I want to change the material of the rope, to make it more resistant and safer. However, the alternatives make the device heavier, which affects the pushing and pulling functions.” He commented without looking at his tutor. “Then there’s the problem with the combustion engine and the compressed air… I could try the option of using a battery but-” he finally cut himself short.

  “It’s okay to only work on one limitation at once,” Zenith replied calmly. “The problems of engineering are mostly complex, mostly because they bow to limitations and logic of the universe.”

  Lorien then stopped tweaking the device, putting both hands over the workshop table.

  “But what exactly is the logic of the universe?” He asked with slight irritation, mostly at his lack of understanding. “Is it really a waste to try on these ideas just because we think we can’t?”

  The professor arched both brows, surprised by the sudden reply. However, like always, he answered temperedly while smoothing his moustache.

  “Would you look at that, you seem bolder than you were before.”

  Such realization made Lorien rub the back of his neck.

  “I just don't know what to believe truly anymore…”

  Zenith held his jaw thoughtfully.

  “Did you manage to find anything on alchemy?”

  Lorien looked at his sides, noticed his classmates busy, then nodded softly, choosing his words carefully.

  “they said it was mostly pseudoscience, with chemistry and physics on the other hand explaining the world with much more rigor and evidence,” he repeated, as if a product of practice.

  The man clasped both hands behind his back.

  “That may as well be the case, but alchemy still ponders on questions that will dwell forever in the human heart.”

  The boy with the silver eyes titled his head, puzzled.

  “For example,” Zenith continued, “if one could turn trash into wealth, would that end poverty? If one could summon endless food, would hunger cease suddenly? Suppose all of humanity’s needs could be sufficed in an instant—what then? And if one could reforge the world at will—purging every evil and erasing every flaw—how would everything be after? What would be the meaning of form and free will after that?”

  The echoes of those words stirred deep within the hidden knowledge, projecting the obsessive look from the unknown.

  “Only God knows…” Lorien answered from his lack of certainty.

  “A fitting answer,” the professor assured. “Once science sought to understand divinity. Now it claims certainty. It has become a sort of god in itself, though not less fallible.”

  Still, fourteen year old Lorien frowned.

  “So… what are you trying to say?”

  “Well, you said you don’t know what to believe, and that is fine. No system of beliefs, call it science, religion, or alchemy, is entirely perfect. However, when faced with questions we cannot answer, we should not despair so easily. It is important to test those problems and build an understanding of our own… discover the underlying rules. In such exercise, you will not find the absolute truth, but you’ll move closer to it—and that for us is more than enough.”

  The man then rested a hand on the worktable.

  “As for your prototype—you may not reach your ideal, but the important thing is improving what you have made. No great invention began any differently.”

  Lorien blinked twice. He had not expected the bald man who balanced on his chair constantly, glaring at his busy students, to utter such words.

  At the same time, Arin’Zenith stood with pride, certain that his speech had managed to leave a deep impression on his youngest and most impressionable student.

  To test and find the underlying rules… Lorien thought, over and over again, once more lost to his own worl—only to suddenly break away.

  “Professor Zenith… I want to know more about Chemistry.” he muttered, repeating his realization once more.

  However, such inquiry went far from Zenith’s capacities as a mechanics-centered academic.

  “I suppose my comprehension wouldn’t be enough to satisfy your need for knowledge. Nonetheless, I know of someone who can assist us in this matter…”

  Lorien could only wonder who would be the person who would help him solve the phenomena behind the inner workings of Alchemy and thus the power to change the world.