Clear Skies Project

James and his new assistant Crescent got to work building more, with Crescent's vastly superior physical abilities and James' own physical improvements from the training of lugging around heavy pots of water and mud starting to be realised, each water distillation station built faster than the last.

Not just that improved however, along with the speed, the quality of the runes inscribed by James as well as their positions quickly improved as his "training" progressed. In terms of actual training, Crescent would periodically complain of boredom and James quickly realised that his friend was a warrior through and through. Only real combat would get him fired up, and so throughout the process of building the furnaces, they'd take breaks to spar.

"Too slow!" yelled Crescent, his muscular arms swinging down the wooden pole in his arms hard and fast as he nimbly sidestepped around James, slamming into his flank and sending him skidding across the floor, barely maintaining his stance. "Again!" shouted Crescent, prompting James to quickly turn to face Crescent once more, a steeled look of determination across his face as he leapt towards Crescent, pole extended in front of him like a javelin.

With a twist of his wrist, the pole flicked up and to the right, circling around, ready to strike his opponent in the ribs. With a whistling of air, the wooden rod flew through the air, anticipation in James' eyes as he watched Crescent's shoulders ready for a reaction. Just before the attack hit, he felt the air leave his lungs, his vision blurring and a sharp ringing sound bombarding his head.

"Too slow again!" shouted Crescent, stepping out of stance as James lost his own, stumbling onto one knee. "What am I doing wrong? I put my all into that and it was definitely fast enough! What even happened there!" complained James, still dazed. Sighing to himself was a habit Crescent had picked up from James during their short time together, and it was used to its full effect as Crescent knelt down and began to explain. "You're TOO focused, you didn't even notice the counterattack, nor did you prepare for it. Your left side was entirely open for me to jab you in the ribs." Crescent patiently explained.

Dropping down to the floor, James took a deep breath, recovering from his winding, before preparing to flip back up to his feet to begin sparring again before Crescent started right then and there. But instead of getting into stance, he sat back down with a look of realisation - "You're right! I'm not focused on the big picture at all!" he exclaimed, tilting his head back to the clear, blue sky above.

Slowly sitting down next to him, Crescent prepared to console his friend, knitting his eyebrows as he tried to think of what to say.

"Well, don't beat yourself up, we've only -"

"No no, you seem to be perfectly capable of that, I've just thought about it some more" interjected James, his face becoming uncharacteristically pensive for a moment, "Like the water, it might be useful, but there's so many issues that I could solve here, the houses for example, during the winter, a wooden shack isn't going to cut it. We need proper brick and mortar housing. We need transport, connection to the outside world, agriculture, education - the big picture is that the two of us can't make a difference alone making some nicer tasting water, no matter how strong we get, we need everyone on board to get this show on the road!"

Practically dragging Crescent along, James ran to the big tent with the blue steam coming out of the top that he remembered seeing coming into the village. 'There must be some sort of shaman inside this village, surely…' thought James to himself. Entering the tent through the tassels at the entranceway, James saw a well-kept middle aged man slowly adding a viscous yellow liquid into a large cauldron, taking great care to ensure it was evenly distributed around the pot.

"Honey?" thought James out loud, shocking the man to attention, his shiny blonde hair flipping around over his shoulder as he turned to look at his unexpected guests with curiosity. "Yes, but I had it painstakingly carried over from Leopold City, the journey took over a year to complete - how would you know…" contemplated the man, stroking his stubbled chin. "Ah yes! You must be our guest from afar! The angels blessed us with you and these hooligans tried to kill you without even consulting me!" he gesticulated, pointing at Crescent with a frown, causing Crescent to go a bit red with shame.

Dropping and scratching the back of his head with an embarrassed chuckle, Crescent simply retorted "Weren't you uninterested in 'another damn spy' and continued whatever it is you do Betel?". Tilting his head up and letting out a roaring laugh, Betel calmed himself and said "Of course my alchemy is beyond you savages, if I didn't owe you all I would've gone back to Leopold City years ago, so show some respect!", flamboyantly turning back to a messily arranged variety of brightly coloured plants and tinctures.

Picking up what looked like a red orchid, he carefully pinched out the central protrusion in the stem, placing the flame-shaped stem delicately into the centre of the pot. Instantly the roiling of the pot ceased, the blue smoke rising from the surface seemed to settle on the top of the liquid, which quickly changed from a putrid brown to a refreshing blue. James' eyes twinkled a deeper shade of blue as a translucent aura of energy erupted from the calm surface of the liquid like a raging bonfire, engulfing the surroundings in an overwhelming pressure.

Already exhausted from sparring with Crescent, James' knees began to buckle, but just as he was about to collapse onto one knee, the pressure completely disappeared; throughout this, Betel's hands had rapidly formed various signs and at the moment the pressure disappeared and the last sign was made, he plunged his hands into the liquid, seemingly unphased by the heat.

James instinctively ran towards Betel, ready to pull him away from seemingly burning himself, but he quickly stopped himself as he saw the liquid begin to condense into almost solid pellets, each looking like a rough sapphire, filling the cauldron as the flame extinguished itself and a deep pervasive chill filled the room. Wiping the sweat from his brow, and turning to the 2 boys in front of him, each with identically confused and amazed expressions, Betel pulled a contented smile and simply said "Now that I'm done, what do you two want then?".

Taking a moment to compose himself and shaking himself out of his stupor with a sharp exhale, James began to explain, "So I have this plan…", going into detail about his thoughts he detailed to Crescent earlier, expanding on his ideas for improving the living situation in the tribe and developing it forward into the future. Listening intently, various emotions flagged up on Betel's face - excitement, curiosity, amazement, but also a hint of regret.

Noticing Betel's hesitancy due to Analysis' keen eye for details, James paused his rambling and decided to ask, "You seem hesitant, I thought an alchemist would be super on board with this? Especially considering how you said you're from a city, don't you miss the conveniences?". "Well yes…" followed Betel after a pause, "But the reason I owe this tribe, and the reason this plan can't work, is the Purple Cloud Tribe". Slightly confused, James asked, "What do you mean? I understand they're pretty nasty people, but surely if we're more prepared that can't be a bad thing?".

After another pause, with a sigh, Betel lifted his shirt. 'Oh my lord' was the first and only thought as he saw the gruesome sight before him, Crescent merely lowered his head, a look of rage flashing across his face knowingly. A mark the shape and size of fist was indented in the form of a huge, welted purple scar just under his ribs. "One punch. They took one look at me and attacked. As a Grade 1 Alchemist, I'm a Lower stage cultivator - condensing pills takes magical energy and quite a bit too, so I'm not some pushover, actually I was rank 8 in the stage when it happened". Sitting down on a crude stool by his desk and lowering his shirt, Betel took a swig of distilled water from a leather flask and continued.

"I was a young upstart back then, probably only a year or two older than you both. I took a trip out to the forest with my alchemy master. The old fool saved up a year of Alchemist's Guild contribution points to afford the supplies and tiger-horses we needed to make the trip there and back. But after a month of travelling we finally arrived at an Ironsoul pond and so we knew we were in the right place. Problem is it was definitely the wrong time."

"See, those buggers from the Purple Cloud were out dipping their purple plants into the pond, I assume it's some barbaric excuse for basic alchemy they've passed on through their tribe for generations, but they took one look at us and decided then and there to attack. I got lucky in retrospect, in the blink of an eye my master's head was minced. I don't mean that figuratively, I literally blinked and saw the fragments of his skull littered about the floor".

Pursing his lips and blowing out some air, Betel shuffled about in his seat a bit. After yet another short pause, he continued. "I had just enough time to try and jump away as I saw the same bastard who'd just brutalised the only person I had left in this world leaping towards me with this demented smile on his face. He looked genuinely pleased with himself, the fucking psychopath, but what did I really expect from a man with deer antlers drilled into his skull? After he drilled his fist into my chest he just laughed to himself and they walked off with our bags and tiger-horses and left me for dead next to the Ironsoul pond".

"It was actually your older brother who found me Crescent, he was a great fellow really. If it wasn't for him hoisting me on his shoulders and taking me back to the tribe, I don't know how I would have survived that ordeal. I not only owe the tribe, but I owe your brother's goodwill to keep this place safe in memory of his honour. So yes, I like your plan boy, but those Purple Cloud wretches are growing stronger and bolder by the day. Whoever's backing those maniacs is planning to use them to get rid of us, and soon, so if we want to improve - we need to survive first".

James turned to look at Crescent, but he'd already turned to leave, presumably to vent his anger, by taking the message behind Betel's words to heart and training until he passed out. Turning back to look at Betel, the man in question looked at James with a questioning stare, wordlessly asking the question - what now? "I think I've got a solution to that" answered James. "We just need to strike first", he stated confidently. "That's level 1 of the Clear Skies project!".

"An adequate name" responded Betel, following up with the question, "And how do we go about doing that without everyone dying?". "Well lucky for you I've been asking myself the same question for quite some time now, and I think I've finally got the answer, right here" he continued, picking up one of the gem-like pellets and rolling it between his fingers, before flicking it over to James to inspect.

"That's great!" shouted James in excitement, ecstatic that his earlier words had reached such discerning ears. He basically had to do nothing by the sounds of it, and these pellets were the answers to all of his problems! "There's a catch however" said Betel, almost instantly crushing James' naïve dreams of an easy time. "See this pellet is fine for me to take, I could take one right now as a matter of fact and my Clear Sky Pupils would integrate into my body as something always active, as if that's how my eyes always were from when I was born, or like a passive trait that doesn't require activation". James scratched his head for a moment, puzzled, "So where's the problem then? So far this sounds like a good thing, no?". Betel just chuckled before answering the question with a question of his own, walking off to rifle through a rickety shelf of clay jars, each emitting a strong aroma of dried herbs. "How many Lower rank warriors at stage 7 or above do you think we have?".

"We have 5. 5 people who can handle the violent energy within the pellets without their eyes turning into mincemeat. There's me, the old chief, the chief's son, the captain of the Cloud Banishing Order, and their training instructor. We can't win against a tribe of warriors that have dozens of warriors at least that strong with 5 of our own. We need to start pumping out warriors of that calibre, and we need to have started yesterday". After a long silence, Betel turned to face James and looked him dead in the eyes with a serious glare.