[Next day early in the morning Adam and Sigurd part ways to there different destinations. While later Adam stands at the front of the alchemy building.]
He knocks and hears a man's voice inside.
"Coming, give me a sec."
[A young man in his thirtyish life opens the door.]
"Hello, how can I help you."
"Umm, I saw a sign saying you were looking for an assistant and I wanted to apply. "
"Ooh, [opening the door wider,] come in then..umm."
"Adam, full name adamine but you can call me Adam."
[He walks in, the place full with herbs, plants and potions. Books on the floor that could cause anyone to fall and a distinct chemical smell.]
"Sorry Adam for the mess, [extending his hand for a hand shake.] Call me rocky."
[Adam extend his and shake hands.]
"So, Adam, do you know alchemy?"
"Not really, I was hoping to be taught if I get a chance."
"Don't worry then, I'll teach you the basics and give you a book to read. Next question, why do you need this job?"
"The pay looks good and I need to pay for magic classes."
"Mhmmm, valid. Then last question, have or will you make drugs?"
[Adam stares at him for a sec.]
"Not at least when I absolutely have to."
"Why?"
"I could give you a detailed paper mentioning all the reasons why I would do it but what I can say is, that really everything made can be a drug, if placed in certain conditions."
"Name one."
"Like you rocky. Your eyes seem to have not slept in days yet your not sluggish, look tired or in any sort of pain. Your using a potion to keep you awake, in that sense it's your drug."
[It goes quite for a second before rocky laughing aloud.]
"Hahaha...ha. Your really something Adam, guess I can let the last question slide."
[He stands up and opens the back door to the lab room.]
"Follow me, I'll be teaching you from now on."
***
The half of that day was rocky teaching him the basics of potions and potions brewing as well as what herbs work with which. They made healing potions and powders and left it on the shelfs to be sold. Adam later had to clean up the place and do some shipping for some mercenary guilds as well before going back to the shop. Rocky paid four silver and gave him a book to read.
***
[Later in his room, Sigurd hasn't arrived late.]
God's golden blood.
***
The war was over. The King of the end lay dead in the ashes of his throne, and silence swept over the continent like a long-awaited breath. But not all victories shine with peace. And not all heroes return with the same mindset.
He was not a knight. Not a swordsman. Not an archer or barbarian. He was an alchemist—a man of formulas, principles, and transmutation circles. Where others raised blades or shields, he wielded knowledge. His name was never forgotten as one of the eight great families, but legends remember his original title: The Alchemist Hero.
When he slew the king of the end—using a forbidden transmutation that consumed half the battlefield—the world did not rejoice. It held its breath, watching, waiting for the remnants of evil to fade.
But the Alchemist did not move. He stared, eyes wide with awe, as the king of the end blood spilled across the blackened stone.
Golden.
Not red, not black, not anything known to man. It flowed like liquid sun, gleaming with unnatural warmth, defying heat and decay. It shimmered even in shadow, like it held a pulse of its own. Divine. Ethereal.
He knelt by the corpse, dipped his fingers into the strange ichor, and felt the surge.
It was not magic. Not poison. Not aura. It was something beautiful, deep—raw potential so potent it twisted the very principles he lived by.
This wasn't just blood.
It was divine like.
And in that moment, a single thought went through the Alchemist's mind: What if I could recreate it?
He returned to the lands rewarded not as a hero, but as a recluse. Refusing honors, avoiding ceremony, he disappeared into his lab—a tall spire of brass and glass built on the cliffs beyond the southern frontier. The world whispered of his withdrawal. Some said he was grieving. Others said the King of the end had cursed him. Only a few understood:
He had found something greater than victory. A mystery. A promise.
For years he worked. He studied the preserved vials of golden blood he had gathered before the King of the end body crumbled to ash. He mapped every reaction, every trace of energy it emitted. He created hundreds of formulas, each one attempting to reproduce the miracle he had witnessed.
He called it the celestial project—the attempt to turn himself immortal.
He believed that if a being born of hate and sin like the king of the end could bleed such divine blood, then perhaps it was not evil or good that made the blood golden... but purity of self. Unfiltered will. Absolute identity.
He tried everything. Reagents so rare they cost entire kingdoms. Still, nothing worked. Each experiment collapsed, burned, or turned to black sludge. The energy was unstable, the essence missing.
Even when he attempted to infuse his own blood with fragments of golden ichor, his body rejected it violently—his veins seared, his vision clouded, and for weeks he hovered between life and death.
But still, he pressed on.
Years passed. The tower became a fortress of obsessions. Walls lined with transmutation diagrams, failed prototypes, and endless journals. His hair grayed, his hands trembled, but his eyes remained the same—burning with the memory of that golden light.
Until one night.
He stood before his final transmutation circle. Larger than any he had drawn before. It was etched into the very floor with silver and demon bone, powered by crystallized mana drawn from a hundred sources. He had poured all he had into this.
He bled into the center. Waited. Watched.
And nothing happened.
The circle dimmed. The symbols faded. The mana dispersed.
And the last hope collapsed.
He sat in silence. Not in rage. Not in sorrow. Just... stillness.
For the first time, he accepted the truth:
The Golden Blood could not be made.
It was not the product of science, magic, or alchemy. It was born, not forged. A reflection of something no formula could reach—perhaps a soul so vast it distorted the nature of existence itself. Or maybe it was simply something never meant for mortal hands.
The Alchemist stood. He looked down at the last vial of golden blood—the only sample that remained.
He did not burn it.
He sealed it in a crystal casket and buried it, Not as a resource. Not as fuel. But as a memory. A monument.
To the one thing he had never been able to control.
To the limit he had found in a world he thought he understood.
In time, the Alchemist passed away. His tower became a monument. His journals scattered across the lands for all to read. And the world never forgot the man who had slain the king of the end.
But buried deep beneath the stones, in a coffin of silence, the golden blood still rests—untouched, undisturbed.
A quiet relic of a dream that reached too far.
And a reminder that even among heroes, there are mysteries no mind can master.
***
The madness of one man still placed him as one of the eight heads, but now this was very interesting. The blood of king of the end is somewhere out there.