3.Alchemy [2/3]

3.Alchemy [⅔]

[Morning 8'O clock]

[3rd person POV]

"What I am going to teach you today is one of the most important and most common works of an alchemist. It is changing the elemental composition of one metal into another. Many foolish people tried but got no success. That is because only someone who actually understands alchemy and knows every little detail about the said metal can change its property." Bertha explained.

"So as long as I know about the object, I can change its properties?" Alexander asked curiously.

"Yes and no. You can change their properties only if you know about their structure and to do that you have to learn every little detail about it. And how many elements do you think are there in the universe? Countless! So even if you want, you cannot bend everything according to your wish. In truth, alchemy gives you reality-bending abilities but to use them, you have to learn about those said objects first not to mention the monstrous amount of mana required to change their properties. So, to change the property of an element you have to (a) Have thorough information about that element and (b) You need to have a lot of mana. And let me tell you something, alchemy cannot create items from nothing. To create something, you need to exchange one element with another. For example, if you want to conjure an iron sword from thin air, you will have to first gather those iron particles suspended in the air and give them form. Many believe that alchemy follows the low of 'equivalent exchange' which is not accurate. It is true that you cannot create something from nothing, but you do not need to give something up to create them. As long as the element is present somewhere in the world, you can force the elements to gather near you and take shape. That is alchemy, forcing and bending matter according to your wish. As long as you have mana, you can use alchemy." Bertha said in a serious tone.

Truth to be told, Alexander was highly impressed by this. Being able to create swords and weapons from the air? He earlier thought that those things break the laws of the universe, but now that she explained that those cannot be created without the elements already being present, he was truly impressed. For an 8-year-old kid, this was one of the best powers, creating multiple flying swords out of air.

"Observe carefully" Bertha's voice snapped him out of his stupor.

Bertha went towards the training hall and placed her hand on the iron door. The door started glowing and after a while, the door changed from iron to silver.

"This is how you turn one metal into another. You need to exchange the existing element with an element present in the air or an element that in contact with you. Now come here." Bertha said and Alexander went towards her.

"Now place your hand on the door and try sensing the other elements in the air. When you find the element, you want to exchange the current one with, pull away the current element and gather the desired element from the air and push it in place of the current ones that you pulled away. But make sure not to change the state of the door, keep the solid property intact and just change the element." She explained.

Following Bertha's instructions, Alexander placed his right hand on the iron door and started to apply mana on himself to increase his senses. Focusing all his senses to trace the elements present in the air he relaxed his body. After a while, he was able to feel all the elements that were suspended in the air from oxygen to methane(which was present in microscopic levels), iron to gold and even radioactive elements. Finding copper to be highly concentrated where he was standing, he decided to use it. He spread the mana flow from his body to the entire surrounding and started attracting the copper atoms towards himself. Pushing the iron particles away and changing it with copper, Alexander started adding mana to keep them in position. After five minutes a quarter of the door changed to copper and Alexander fell on his knees, tired from mana exhaustion.

"*Huff* *Huff* This *Huff* is more tiresome *Huff* that I imagined." He said while huffing.

"Obviously, what else did you expect? Changing one metal into another is not something that a normal person believes to be possible, but us alchemist can do that. But even so, if there was not even a single backlash for that action, us alchemists would have turned everything into gold and later get depressed because of gold losing its value. What I am trying to say is that if it would have been easy, us greedy alchemist would have only cared about money and used our abilities to turn stuff into precious metals and sell them. But since it takes an enormous amount of mana to change a metallic composition, many alchemists give up turning iron into gold and focus on other things like research. And considering you, an 8-year-old child was able to turn the metallic door into copper even partially, will make many alchemists cry tears of blood while chanting 'The world is unfair!' So be happy with what you did just now. With practice, you will be able to make even Mithril." Bertha explained while sighing.

Alexander was disappointed in not being able to transmute the door completely, but upon hearing Bertha's explanation, he was slightly less disappointed now. But he was not going to give up. He will find a way to increase his mana pool.

"Is there any way to increase my mana pool?" Alexander asked hopefully.

Looking at his hopeful face Bertha sighed and answered, "There are multiple ways to increase one's mana pool, but not every way is suitable for everyone. And at your current age, none of those methods is going to work."

Alexander became depressed and Bertha shook her head seeing this. "There is a way to increase your mana pool, but the process is very slow and difficult. But beggars can't be choosers, can they? So, if you want, I can teach you a breathing style that will increase your mana pool." Hearing this Alexander became excited and nodded his head vigorously. Bertha laughed at this and took out a book from her space-pocket and gave it to him.

"Vida Breathing Style?" Alexander read the title of the book and looked towards Bertha.

Bertha nodded and said, "Yes, this breathing style was found by my grandfather. He was a slayer but due to an accident, his body became weak. Slayer magic consumes a lot of mana, but due to his poor condition, he was unable to cast spells. So, he made this breathing style to increase his mana pool while strengthening his body and it actually worked. He was able to use slayer spells again albeit weaker than before but still, he was able to cast spells, nonetheless. So, I think this should help you a bit." Hearing this Alexander had stars appear in his eyes and quickly opened the book and started reading it. Seeing this Bertha shook her head and said, "Okay, this is enough for today. Go and clean yourself, you can read it later."

[Time-Skip: 8 months later]

In the past 8 months, Alexander trained vigorously and practiced the breathing style daily which increased his mana pool quite a bit, well a lot. Bertha was amazed by this since even her grandfather didn't have such an increase. His mana pool increased three folds and his body also strengthened. His bones were stronger than before, nerves wider and the skin was smoother. His height also increased by four inches after practicing for so long. His messy jet-black hair reached his shoulder and when Bertha told him to cut his hair, he said 'I will cut my arm off but not my hair!' After arguing for a while, Bertha gave up and allowed him to keep long hair. He also learnt a lot of alchemy and transmutation spells. Bertha also taught him potion-making and even housework like cooking and cleaning. His training progress went like this-

The first month after learning the breathing style, he spent his entire time in his room meditating and searching for ways to speed up the process. It took him two weeks, but he was able to speed up the process by absorbing pure Ethernano particles instead of absorbing mana, which is Ethernano mixed with elements. It was a bit painful absorbing pure Ethernano at first, but after a while absorbing it became as simple as breathing air.

During the second month, he figured out that using this breathing style he can also gather elements from the air easily. This sped up the process and he was able to do transmutations faster.

The third and fourth month he spent mastering his transmutation abilities.

During the fifth month, he was able to figure out a way to gather the scarce metal particles that are present in the air faster than before. He took the 'Vida Breathing Style' and tried reversing its process. And like that, he was able to create a method of gathering those particles by exuding the Ethernano from his body and releasing them in the air. When the Ethernano came in contact with the desired particles, Alexander brought them towards himself using the normal breathing style. This allowed him to transmute gold, platinum and other rare metals faster.

He spent the entire sixth month trying to figure out a way to change both the state of matter and the type of it simultaneously, without any success. He also learnt potion-making during this time.

He was successful in transmuting both the state and composition of the elements in the seventh month while also learning to make some rare potions. He also learned about astronomy and botany during this Month.

In the eighth and final month, he got two weird but deadly (if successful) ideas. Which led to him being locked up in the library by himself and spending time reading about anatomy and composition.

[Present]

"No!" Bertha said sternly.

"B-but grandma, I said I will take precautions." Alexander pleaded.

"I said no! Do you realize how dangerous it is to use alchemy on living beings? And you want to use it to change your own body composition? That is just plain stupid!" She said angrily.

"But think about it! If I am able to do it, I can change my muscles, bones and even organs to any element back and forth. Copper, gold, platinum, titanium and even mithril. That is like the perfect defense, we know that every element has a special property like tantalum is extremely fire resistant, Mithril is shocked and damage resistant, no physical attack can damage mithril. And I can always turn myself back to the plain old human after stopping the attack." He explained the benefits of human transmutations trying to persuade Bertha.

"And if you make even the slightest mistake, your organs might rupture, blood might turn solid, you may go blind, turn your bones to liquid or even transmute yourself into some weird monster. There I just too many risks involving human transmutations, I cannot allow you to risk your life for something so stupid!" she said disapprovingly.

"It is not stupid! If I don't find ways to make myself stronger, I will never be able to kill Acnologia and take revenge for my family and friends! Alchemy is really great, but it is not an offensive type of magic! If I don't figure out ways to get stronger using alchemy, it will all be for nothing!!" His anger exploded.

Bertha didn't say anything and went inside the mansion leaving the angry Alexander alone. It took Alexander a while to calm down before realizing that he took out his anger on his grandmother. He felt angry at himself for doing so. After thinking for a while, he decided to go to her and apologize.

[Bertha's POV]

'I knew he never forgot about the vow he took. Despite showing his happy smile when he was with me, he always cried remembering his family when he was alone. I know that I cannot stop him from having his revenge, I know after all I was the same blinded by the fire of revenge all those years ago. And I know that despite what others say that revenge doesn't help one get satisfaction, no one stops thinking about it.

One just cannot simply forgive a person who killed the ones he loved, no one can. Even I killed that accursed woman who took my husband and child away from me, the woman who killed my little baby. I never regret killing her, but what I regret is wasting my entire life for revenge. After I killed her, I felt empty. Empty not because of killing a person, but empty because I had nothing to do anymore, no goal, no family, no friends, no one absolutely no one. I was alone and the reason for that was my own revenge. I spent my entire life thinking about revenge that I didn't even realize when I lost my friends. I was left alone and that is why I decided to dedicate everything I had left to alchemy. What I regret is not revenge but it is wasting my entire life on it.

I know if I would have decided to not take my revenge, I would have ended up the same, lonely and depressed. But if I would have spent my time with my loved ones while not completely giving up on my revenge, which I could have never done. I would have been happy. Sacrificing my entire life thinking about revenge was my worst mistake and I definitely cannot allow Alexander to waste his life like that either. He will always think about revenge I know that I cannot and will not stop him from doing so either. But I need to help him find more reasons to live his life and enjoy it. What he needs right now are friends, family, goals (happy ones) and people he will want to protect. I cannot bring back the dead, but I can be his new family as his grandmother. He will have to find friends one day and I will make sure he does so. *Sigh* I left him there because I remembered my past, I should not have left him alone. After all, he is just a child. I should talk to him.' Bertha thought to herself reminiscing about her past. Right when she was about to go look for Alexander, she heard his voice.

"Grandma."

[Alexander's POV]

"Grandma," I called her, angry at myself for lashing out at the person who helped me when I was at death's door, took me as her family and teaching me about alchemy. I was angry at my stupidity.

"Yes, little Alex?" She called me in the same loving voice she always uses.

"I am sorry! I was stupid for taking my anger out on you, please forgive me." I apologized and looked towards her. She smiled. Smile? Wasn't she angry at me for shouting at her? Why was she smiling? I was confused.

"*Sigh* Little Alex, come here." She said waving her hand. I did as she told and went towards her.

"It was not your fault; anyone would have done the same if they went through the same things you did." She said ruffling my hair.

"But wasting your entire life on revenge is not something that I want you to do." She said which confused me.

"Eh? What do you mean?" I asked.

"Tell me little Alexander, what do you want to do after killing Acnologia?" She asked me.

"Eh? All I want is Acnologia's death, after that, I will… well, I will… huh? What will I do?" I got confused. What am I going to do after killing Acnologia? I cannot revive the dead. I cannot bring my family or friends back to life. So, what am I going to do after achieving my revenge?

"You never thought that far now, did you?" She asked.

"N-no," I replied feeling a lot of emotions. Confusion, embarrassment, anger and fear. Yes, fear. Fear because I have no idea what to do after killing Acnologia? What will be the reason for living after that? I was scared, scared of even thinking about being alone without knowing what to do.

"*Sigh* Very well, little Alexander. Let me tell you a story, a story of a woman who spent her entire life for revenge and in the end after achieving it, what happened to her." She said looking at the ceiling. I focused on her story.

"There was once a little girl who had an older sister. Both of them were very beautiful and famous. They were the daughter of a famous earl in the eastern continent. The little girl and her sister were very close and considered themselves to be the best of friends rather than family. But this friendship also led to many competitions. Both of them were good at different things. The little girl was proficient in painting and singing while the older one was good at dancing and playing the harp. Despite being sisters and friends both of them were a little jealous of each other's talents.

After many years the older sister met a boy, a very simple hunter who she fell in love with. She was afraid of confessing her love to him. It took her a while, but they became friends. One day she took him to meet her family as they were friends now, yet he didn't know of her love for him. When she took him to meet her family, he also met with her younger sister. The boy was attracted to her little sister. After that, he started visiting their house more often and he got close to the younger sister. Soon they fell in love and both of them got married, they also had a son. But the older sister could not handle this, her jealousy clouded her mind. She thought her sister took her lover from her. So, she decided to take revenge.

She got married to a powerful duke and later manipulated him into imprisoning the hunter. She later killed the hunter by mixing poison in his prison food and she killed the little baby boy by mixing the same poison in his milk. She killed both of them. When the younger sister came to know the truth, her entire world came crashing down on her. She cried, cried for days. But after a while, she decided to destroy her older sister, kill her in the worst way possible. But she was unable to do so. After all, she was just the wife a hunter whereas her older sister was the duke's wife. So, she spent years trying to find ways to take her revenge.

Soon she learnt about alchemy and was fascinated by it. She spent a long time practicing it and became quite famous for it. After a while, the King of the neighboring kingdom took notice of her talents and decided to take her in. Years later she became one of the king's most trusted people. Soon a war broke out between the two kingdoms. And with the help of the alchemist, the king succeeded and was able to take the kingdom under his control. He asked the Alchemist what she wanted for her service. Her reply was 'Give me the family of the duke.' The king was hesitant but ultimately, he complied with her wish.

He gave her the authority to control the family of the duke. But what he didn't know was all this was the alchemist's plan from the beginning, showcasing her talents, sparking the war and giving him tips to defeat his opposition. She never cared about the king or his kingdom, the only thing she cared about was revenge. After gaining authority over the Duke's family she dug out all the buried shameful secrets of the family and brought it in public eyes. The public enraged by the crimes committed by the duke family, burnt their entire family alive including the alchemist's older sister and her daughter. The alchemist later fled the kingdom when it was caught between the war once again.

But now that she had taken her revenge, she had nothing else to do. But there was alchemy, the thing she dedicated her life to. So, she spent the rest of her life for the development of alchemy. She made many things, founds many spells, made many potions but her biggest success or…. her biggest failure was the Philosopher's Stone. She made the stone and used it to make the Elixir of Life, she didn't plan on using it for herself. But she was blinded by greed, she consumed the Elixir of Life and obtained immortality … or that was what she thought. The Elixir of Life didn't make her immortal, but it instead gave her a long lifespan, a lifespan of a thousand-year. But that was not the major problem caused by the Elixir of Life, what it did was erasing her presence. It erased her presence entirely. No living being was able to see, hear or feel her.

She lost her presence and had to live her entire life alone until… Until she found an injured boy one day, a boy whose legs were burnt beyond repair. When she looked around her, she found that the entire place was destroyed, and he was the only person alive. So, she took him with her, to heal him. She believed that he would leave her after recovering. After all, she had no presence. But what shocked her was that he could see her. He kept staring at her when he first saw her. At first, she thought he was looking at somewhere else but when his eyes didn't move away from her, she was overjoyed. So, she decided to check if he could hear her. She asked him about when he woke up, and when he replied she was happy. Happy after centuries of living alone. But she realized that boy was like her, someone who lost everything. So, she decided to take him in, also she didn't want to lose the only living person who could actually see and hear her. After a while, the boy got close to her and started calling her 'Grandma' which made her happy beyond belief. But now that she saw him in the same dilemma as her all those years ago, how do you think she felt little Alexander? " she asked me.

I was shocked. I didn't know how or what to feel, after what she told me. Her life story was not something I ever imagined and is definitely not something I want to go through. But having her family murdered by her own sister? Going through all that for revenge and in the end, paying such a high price for just a thousand years of life with such heavy price? That was ridiculous! He felt really sad for her.

"Do you know why I told you this story, Alex?" She asked me, but honestly, I had no clue what to say. So instead of replying I just shook my head.

With a gentle smile, she replied, "I told you this to make sure that you don't end up like me. I will never stop you from taking revenge as I know the world is cruel and if you want to survive in this world filled with demons, dragons, monsters and wizards. You will have to kill at one point.

And listen to one thing Alex, 'Never show mercy to your enemies.' Unless you have a good reason to let them live, don't hesitate to kill them. If not, they will cause your destruction one day." She sat down on her chair and continued.

"What I am telling you is not to make revenge the only reason you live for. I want you to see the greater picture, make some friends, find people you can trust that won't betray you and will walk with you. Make a goal greater than revenge, like finding new places, searching for new magic, creating new things and finding items lost in time. If not for my alchemy, I would have gone insane within the first few years. So, don't waste your life for revenge, there is a world bigger than what any human could image outside. Search for it and live a happy life. That is the only thing I ever wanted, was to live a happy life. And now I want you to be happy since I already lost the chance. You are my happiness Alexander and I cannot bear to see you sad. So be happy, that is the only thing I will ever ask of you." She finished her sentence with a small tear rolling down her left eye.

Removing the tear from her eye, I told her, "Don't worry grandma, I promise that I will find a reason. A reason to live and a reason to be happy, I don't know what it is yet, but I promise I will find it. I won't let revenge blind me or destroy my life. It is true that I cannot let it go but I won't let it blind me or bind me to the path of loneliness either. And just like I am the reason for your happiness, you are also the reason for my smile. I lost my mother and brother and you are the closest thing I have as a family. I won't make you sad, so please don't cry." After I said that she hugged me.

Within all those months, she ruffled my hair, kissed my forehead, smiled at me but never once did she hug me. It was the first time she did so. And to be honest, it felt nice. I never saw my real grandmother. She died before I was born but my mother always hugged me when I cried and getting this hug was strangely similar but also different. It was warm and carried the same motherly love, but it also felt a little…sad? I don't know why, but it felt a little strange. But before I could say anything else, she told me.

"I will not always be there for you, so you will have to find people that will love and accept you. I cannot give you what your mother or father was able to give you, but what I can give you is the love of a grandmother and knowledge of alchemy. I was known as the greatest alchemist to ever exist and I will make sure to make you the next greatest alchemist. But promise me that you will never let the art of alchemy die." She asked me to promise her. I nodded vigorously at that, trying to hide my displeasure at the mention of the word 'father.'

"I will never let the world forget about alchemy, grandma. That's a promise and I never break promises." I told her and she smiled.

"Very well then, follow me." She told me after getting up from the chair.

She led me towards the library which made me a little confused after all I have read almost all the books available there.

But I was wrong. When we reached the library, she went towards the corner where a broken stool was kept and rubbed the stag-horn that hung above the stool on the wall. And guess what! It opened a secret chamber! Like the ones in all those detective novels that I read.

"Follow me." She said and I did just that.

When we entered the secret chamber, I noticed all the magic circles, weird designs and drawings that were drawn on the green walls of the room. It was less creepy but cooler. Going towards one of the many bookshelves in the room, she took a purple colored book from the shelf and passed it towards me. When I read the title of the book, my eyes nearly popped out of the sockets. The title of the book read 'Forbidden Human Transmutation: Lost Magic Arc'. It blew my mind because (a) It is human transmutation (b) It is forbidden and (c) It is considered lost magic! And lost magic are far rarer than finding diamonds.

"T-this h-how?" I said in a shaky voice which she laughed at and said.

"Your reaction is priceless. But if you want to know where I found this book, it was written by my teacher who taught me the basics of alchemy but unfortunately, he died before completing it. Later when I found it, I tried to complete as much as I could but even, I couldn't finish it. So, it is still incomplete, so proceed with caution. And *Sigh* if you want to know why I gave this to you, it is because I think you might be able to complete it. And since I have no children, my legacy will belong to you. You are my heir. And why I didn't give this to you earlier was because you only wanted this to use for your revenge but now that you might have seen the greater picture, you might be able to use it, also I hope that you can complete this in the future. So, there you have it, one of the most dangerous and forbidden books about alchemy." She said looking at my nervous state.

"I-I thank you!" I said bowing down. And I meant what I said, I was extremely grateful towards her.

"Don't worry about it. But you have to promise me that you will be careful, and you will practice it on smaller creatures like rats and cats before trying it on yourself." She said and I agreed.

"Now let's go, I am tired," she said shaking her head.

I kept looking at the book for a while, thinking about everything that just happened today. It was crazy but honestly, I believe, I got closer to her today. Finally, I have a family again. And the goal… hmm… now that is something I need to think about later, I really do.

"Are you coming, Alexander?" Grandma's voice came from the stairs.

"Coming!" I said and ran towards her.

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{A/N: Well here is the new chapter.. 5k+ words w/o author's note. I honestly started this chapter with something else in mind and wrote something else entirely. I changed majority of the plot I planned before midway. And a very important thing that I want to clear out, is that this fanfiction has no relation with Full Metal Alchemist. The only thing I might use are some spells and mechanisms(if I use) since this is purely a fairy tail fic with some major twists. Okay That's all I had to say, CYA!!!}