4. Alchemy [3/3]

Inside the library, a boy with messy shoulder-length black hair and green eyes could be seen sitting with a weirdly designed book in his hands. The boy was so immersed in reading the book that he didn't even notice that he had been sitting there for six hours. 

"This is not what I expected." He said to himself reading the contents of the book.

Rules for Human Transmutation:

(1) The human must be over 10 years old. Otherwise, their body might not be able to handle the transmutation and die 

(2) Transmuting organs require the alchemist to keep pumping mana inside the subject or it might cause organ failure.

(3) Doing full-body transmutation requires the alchemist to complete the entire process within 19 minutes or the subject will die.

(4) If the alchemist runs out of mana during the process the subject will die instantly, and the alchemist will suffer a heavy backlash.

Closing the book, he sighed and looked towards the clock.

'Damn! I didn't even notice the time.' Quickly getting off the chair he went towards the training ground. Along with human transmutation, he also had another idea back then. He knew that if he could master the human transmutation technique, his defensive abilities will multiply by ten-folds, but this still won't be enough. After all, he had no offensive abilities. And people generally associate alchemists with research and not battles. There was never a battle alchemist. Even his grandmother, Bertha Vida who was known as the greatest alchemist to ever exist was not a battle alchemist. She was more of a support type alchemy user. Generally, alchemists never get themselves involved in battles, but since his grandmother did, he asked her how she fought. She said that she never directly got involved in the battle but helped the soldiers by providing support. She erected earthen walls to protect them from arrows, turned the ground into quicksand to kill the enemies but never once she engaged them directly. 

This made Alexander a bit sad since even with all those cool abilities there was never a battle alchemist. The only battle alchemist to be described in books were from fantasy novels or myths.

After contemplating this issue for a long time, he decided that he will be the first battle alchemist to ever take part in battles. But doing this was not going to be simple since there were no 'direct' offensive alchemy spells. So, he had to figure out ways to make new spells that can rival mages. 

But this led him to another issue.

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.

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He cannot use magic.

Well if you consider playing with Ethernano and mana, he can use magic. But using them to form spells, that he cannot do. Mages use Ethernano as a base, but no one knows how it actually works. Alexander read in a forbidden magic book that all magic originated from 'The One Magic' which is the predecessor of all known magic types. But what made him frustrated was that magic is said to be formed by the feeling of love. And Alexander calls that bullsh*t. 

'Using emotions to cast magic? That was just stupid if love was used to cast magic spells than how are sociopaths able to use magic? How are people who don't love anyone are sometimes even more powerful than the most merciful person? This was pure stupidity, just because the researchers were unable to decipher the cause of magic formation, they made people believe that love is used in casting magic. And he was surprised that people eve believed that theory! That was outrageous! If a person thinks seriously about theory for even a bit, he or she can figure out the countless plot holes in it, but *Sigh* no one bothered to do so. I am going to figure this out one day, that's a promise!' He promised himself.

He tried using magic spells as described in the books, but he was unable to do it. And this was weird because Bertha can use water magic, but he cannot. It is true that alchemy cannot be learnt by everyone, but magic is different, theoretically, everyone should be able to use it as long as they can access Ethernano. Only people who cannot use Ethernano are unable to use magic. But here was the twist, Alexander can access Ethernano, but he still cannot use magic.

Deciding to think about this issue some other time, he entered the training ground. Last night he prepared a lot of test dummies to test his offensive alchemy. Stretching a bit, he took deep breaths.

"*huff* I hope this works." Saying this he lifted his hand towards one of the test dummies and started concentrating Ethernano in front of it. After a few seconds a small chaotic sphere of air, which was almost the size of his fist formed in front of his hand. It was chaotic because the sphere was not stable and looked ready to burst at any instant.… and it did. It exploded even before Alexander could shoot it towards the dummy and instead the recoil from the explosion threw him a few feet away from his initial position.

"Ouch, that hurt!" He said rubbing the back of his head.

'Adjusting the pressure will be an issue. I did manage to gather the hydrogen atoms from the air and compress them, but I seem to have applied a little too much pressure. The hydrogen atoms are explosive and if I am not careful, it might cause me harm. Hmm… what to do…' he mumbled thinking of ways to adjust the pressure.

'I cannot apply too less pressure either or else the bonds will break, and the explosion will occur at random places. This is so confusing!!!' he got frustrated as even after pre-planning this attack for so long, it was still unsuccessful. 'Well, it was just the first try. Let's keep going!' He thought before getting back on his legs.

'Let's try making the sphere smaller than earlier. That way it might be able to handle a little bit more pressure.' 

Alexander took the same position as earlier and started repeating the same process but this time he used less hydrogen atom. He forcefully compressed them in the form of a sphere and applied a very thin layer of helium around it. The helium prevents any reaction from taking place. Then he threw the sphere towards the dummy. Despite not reaching the dummy, it still went further than before.

[6 hours later]

"*Huff* *Huff* Finally!! *Huff*" Alexander exclaimed while huffing. In front of him were multiple destroyed test dummies. The damage done on the dummies was horrifying. Many of them lacked the entire torso, few had their head blown away and 2 of them barely had any parts remaining.

"So much time and effort wasted for not applying a bit of rotation to the sphere." He said in an annoyed tone.

The reason his spheres did not reach the target was lack of rotational force. The rotational force kept the atoms from bursting out of the sphere before hitting a solid object. 

Now he can create bigger spheres without much risk. The bigger the sphere the more the rotation required. Once the sphere's rotational field hits a solid, the rotation stops abruptly, and the sphere explodes causing high damage.

'This should be enough practice for today.' He said before going inside the mansion.

[Time-skip 1 year]

Standing near a huge boulder, Alexander was looking at the destruction he caused. The entire area place was in ruins. The trees were burnt, the river was split in half and even the entire landscape was messed up.

This was caused by Alexander's alchemy spells.

Turning his head towards the boulder, he said, "Looks like you are the only one left, aye?" Saying this he puts his index finger on top of the boulder and within an instant, it turned to powder. Alexander broke down the bonds inside the boulder within a few nanoseconds. This was a proof of his improvement. Earlier it took him a few seconds to change even a quarter of the boulder but now he can turn the entire thing into dust in less than a second. 

"That was easy." He said before picking up his books from and ground.

[30 minutes later]

"Grandma, I am back." He said putting the books in the selves and going towards the bathroom to take a shower.

"Man, this feels good." He said enjoying the cold water. 

After cleaning himself up, he got dressed and went towards his grandmother who was setting up the plates.

"So, were you able to make any breakthrough?" Bertha said looking at his smiling self. 

"Yup! I was finally able to transmute, thirty percent of my body without any backlash. Also, I am now able to gather any and every element with a 4-kilometre radius." He said with a toothy grin.

Happy with his recent breakthrough, she said, "That is good if you are able to keep up this pace, your training will be completed within a few more months." 

Alexander was really happy with this. Completing his training meant he will be able to travel the world and will be a step closer to completing his goals, both goals. 

"But are you sure about me leaving?" He asked.

"Yes, I am going on a search for the 'Dragon-heart flower' and it will take at least a few years before I reach the place where it grows. That place cannot be found by any mages or normal humans. Only dragons and alchemists can access it. Besides you need to travel in order to achieve your goals." She said.

"Hmm… I do need to go and check the development of the other continents." He said thinking about it.

"Yes, you need to do that. Besides, in order to achieve your second goal, you will have to find people you can trust." She told him while filling the glasses with water.

"Yeah, I will have to find some people I can trust. After all, I cannot build an alchemist guild without finding trustworthy people." He said.

Yes, his goal after killing Acnologia was to build an 'Alchemy Guild'. In the past, hundreds of years ago, even before the concept of guilds were introduced, many alchemists made their own union and ran it. In one way, it could be considered like the guilds as they took missions of figuring ways to make new spells, help people make new potions, find ways to cure diseases etc. He was not going to teach anyone offensive alchemy, Bertha forbid him from doing so. She said it was way too risky. So, what he had planned was making a guild which also functions as a school for alchemists, that teaches people the basics of alchemy and ways to develop it. And the guild will work like the unions of the past. This was his goal. Goal to revive alchemy.

Also, during this past year, he was able to learn human transmutation. He was now able to turn thirty percent of his body into any element he wished as long as that element was present within four-kilometers of where he was standing and the element must be of equal quantity as the cells of the tissues he wished to transmute. Also, he must be able to maintain and contain the element, as many elements explode when they come in contact with certain elements that are generally present in the air. As long as these conditions were met, he could transmute parts of his body.

"After 8 months, I will leave." Bertha said.

"*Sigh* My training will also be completed by then, I should be able to transmute fifty percent of my body within 8 months. I will also go on my journey after that." He said.

"Alright, now eat your dinner. We will talk about other things later." Bertha said while sitting down.

"Okay." Alexander said doing the same.

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[ MC's Alchemy Development:

Transmutation: Can transmute any and every item into any desired element, as long as the said element is within 4 kilometres of him.

Human Transmutation: Can transmute 30% of his own body with elements present within a 4-kilometre radius. Also, the transmutated element must be able to withstand the atmospheric pressure and must be non-reactive to the elements present in the air, otherwise, it might cause Alexander to lose his life. The element must be of the same amount as the amount of tissues he wants to transmute.

Offensive Alchemy:

Ariel Burst: An explosive hydrogen sphere that explodes when it comes in contact with a solid.

Transmute- Quicksand: Changes the ground into quicksand.

Transmute- Spikes: Erects spheres made from any element from the ground.

Poison Burst: An explosive sphere made of many toxic gaseous elements that explodes when it comes in contact with solids.

Acid Burst: An explosive sphere made of many acidic elements that explodes when it comes in contact with solids.

Solar Burst: Causes an explosion of burning noble gases which causes a huge burst of light that blinds the enemies.

Absolute Dissolution: Causes the molecular bond to break, turning the object into dust. (Must be in direct contact with the object).

*These spells requires absolute knowledge of the elements up to sub-atomic levels, also it required monstrous amounts of mana to cast even a single spell. So Alexander cannot just spam these spells.*

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{A/N: Welp, I am kind of rushing this, but I want to complete the training part fast and then make Alexander go to Magnolia. So, there is that. As for why he cannot use magic, I will explain it in the later chaps... Also, I always thought that using *Love* to cast magic was pure BS. And no offence to Hiro Mashima(I love all his works including Fairy Tail) but the last battle against Acnologia sucked. The show was good but the 'power of friendship' kind of ruined the boss battles. Well, enough whining for today. Hope you enjoyed the chapter. If you did, please leave a review. It means a lot to me. Thank you and CYA!!!}