The Runic Alchemist - Chapter 828: The Grand Opening Celebration Week 24
Chapter 828: The Grand Opening Celebration Week 24
Damian and Lucian rested in his personal quarters. The dungeon projection show was just as popular even in the late night. Tomorrow was the last day of the celebration week. Thereafter, everything will go back to as it was. Added with some extra things.
Like an academy, a dungeon, a new island, and numerous people following all that.
With floating ships and waygates connecting all major cities, traveling in the Sanctuary was as fast as it could be. For people of sanctuary, at least. City waygates could not be accessed by foreigners. The floating ships had solved that small problem, too. Damian had already decided to make it an everyday thing, even after the celebration week.
“Something worth sharing?” Lucian asked after returning from the shower.
Droplets of water from her wet, blue hair were slowly moving down from her fair shoulder to the smooth back. Disappearing inside the white towel wrapped around her alluring body.
Damian was seated on a padded chair placed right in front of the massive translucent air shield window. A glass of Empire’s alcohol in hand. He was shirtless, with only pants on.
For a while, Damian’s mind did not register what she had asked; another droplet was just about to reach her breasts. Not until she walked near him and seated herself in his lap and repeated.
“Something I witnessed multiple times before. A spell even we transcendents can’t begin to learn…” Damian answered, taking a sip from his glass. The flowery fragrance of the soap and shampoo, mixed with her own, coming from her body and hair, was like a calming spell.
“You wish to learn it?”
“No, well, someday. But I saw the glimpse of it again on the chains of that bearded shadow prisoner.”
“You can’t tell what spell it is?”
“Normal spells we use are one simple construct, like a runic circle I draw. This has several layers of that, and the parts inside move around constantly. All I could decipher was that it’s a type of space-time spell mixed with light, chaos, and fire. A combined spell to keep a man alive but not conscious.”
“Shadow organization can’t possibly do that.”
“Exactly.”
Lucian and Souldealer had transported the two fellow prisoners of Anthony, guarded by members of the shadow organization. One was a beast-woman that Anthony seemed to care for, and another was…. Damian was not sure what the man was. He resembled quite a lot to a dwarf he had seen in movies, though.
Only that dungeon in the far Dawnstar had any signs of such civilization. If the mainland ever had a dwarf population, there was no recorded history of it.
“You want to include Highswords? Is that what you were thinking?” Lucian asked, looking in his eyes.
“Yes,” Damian lied.
It was the thin mana thread connecting the head of Neo that had occupied his thoughts. When, after the retrieval of Anthony, a waygate to the island of demons was opened by Damian to complete the mana contract, and Neo revealed the identity of the existence that was guiding his actions.
Thauren Al’Kareth was the name he was given. No explanation as to who that was or what that was.
Damian had checked all the historical books he could get his hands on; there was no mention of Thauren Al’Kareth anywhere. There was no house called Al’Kareth in any country on the mainland either. Damian even asked the demon queen when he went to warn her about the intruder he had let out. And even they had no record of House Al’Kareth.
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The next morning arrived, and the sanctum was prepared for the last event of the busy week. Around ten, once again, thousands of people had gathered outside the Sanctuary city walls. Unlike most cities, which had barely any structures outside their high walls, Sanctuary had all outside walls covered with wooden houses and shops.
Most of which was hastily made by opportunistic people taking advantage of the mainland’s desire to stay in Sanctuary for the week of the event. The simplest of wooden rooms had been rented for 10-20 silver a day.
And the population boost wouldn’t be limited to just the week, either. If worked on, these simple structures could be transformed into something more sturdy. With a large factory area and now a massive academy built outside, not to mention the waygate points and war memorial, the outside of the Sanctuary walls was just as packed as inside. Even the nearby villages had seen a considerable boost in their population.
A closing speech was given by several heads of the Sanctuary, some of whom also described the special festival markets that will open today. Some gave info on dance and music performances that will continue on this giant floating stage, and the fireworks event in the late evening. And of course, the dungeon projections will go on for the full night today as well.
The dungeon projection received the most cheers and shouting. It was a hit.
“Sanctuary will open the dungeons soon, along with the admissions for the academy and the Sanctum Research Center.”
Lastly, it was Damian’s turn.
“All of this. All the Sanctum’s efforts.. All my efforts to create a place where people could think of a bright future instead of repeating the same age-old tale of tragedy and vengeance.”
The murmuring stopped, and the attention of the people was fully on him. The speeches were not exactly entertaining things for the masses, but the sanctum heads did not waste their words. Especially since Damian had placed the ’unveiling of a monumental endeavor for the realm’s future’ in the schedule.
He continued, “More food so we don’t have to live in constant fear of lacking it, a free transport system so our people can prosper through various businesses, and free education so we learn skills that are more than just needed for survival. And now open access to the dungeons so we, the people of the mainland, can grow stronger together—raising the bar of what is considered average strength! We polish our skills through constant challenge, earn better rewards, create better tools to face bigger and faster monsters than we ever could.”
“But all of this for what?” Damian asked, pausing for a second, then answered himself.
“Because our civilization needs to grow! Humans, beastmen, elves, and all those who are part of our history. Compared to the civilizations of the dungeons that are leaps and bounds ahead, ours has only started taking baby steps just yet. Maybe those are real or not, but the lessons they teach us are one hundred percent real! If a giant civilization as advanced can be crushed by darkness unknown to us, so can ours.”
“I do not say this to spread fear. But we need to be prepared for anything. It is not the time to look at past grievances but to take a step further and evolve. We are the Sanctum; we accept all those who need help, a place to belong—but it is also our duty to keep the community we have built protected and well prepared to face troubles we are not even aware of yet.”
“And to follow this aim, we have to start from the very ground we live on. We, the creatures of this world living on this land for centuries, still don’t know just how big it truly is. Are there people like us across the sea? Or is it just an endless world of monsters? Before tackling mysteries of dungeons and other worlds fit in them, we have to try to know ours better.”
“So, for the first time in this world, we are unveiling the grand ambition of the Sanctuary. Using the fastest flying ships we can make, Sanctuary will travel the whole world and create the first-ever map of the entire world.”
The excitement of the gathered crowd was through the roof. The shouting and cheering of so many people was shaking the very land they were standing on.
Traveling this world had always been on his list. With the runic engines nearing readiness, Damian could finally begin building the runic jets. He could travel on his own and learn all about this world, but that would be rushed and imperfect. Doing it alone for years and taking the help of an entire kingdom to do it in considerably less time—the choice was a no-brainer.
Along with the fastest jets, Damian planned to build multiple massive carrier ships that could carry large cargo and could be used by the army to survey vast land. With the help of that, ground exploration will become much easier. It would actually be difficult not to notice anything important this way, and they could have a complete map.
Not to mention, Damian could connect waygates to all those pieces of land scattered across this world and truly expand the mainland. If they found a civilization, that would actually be much better for Sanctuary—they needed manpower.
With that, the last large event of the celebration week ended. The dungeon material market and the fireworks show were all set up already. The army had dived quite a lot into the dungeons, and they had gathered numerous things in thousands of spatial storage; if they could sell that, it would be perfect. At least Evrin would shed tears of happiness with that.
There wasn’t anything too problematic in that; the list of materials was checked and rechecked by them many times. It was mostly harmless dungeon relics, many types of ores, different civilizations mixed metals that were lesser than steel, monster hides, monster materials for crafting tools, etc.
