Chapter 17: COMPOSITION
As far as Ivan knew, all living beings were composed of water. And a part of his alchemy is transmutation; that means to comprehend his target, deconstruct it, and make it anew.
While there were many ways Ivan felt he could develop his path as an alchemist, what he was looking for now was versatility. A simple way would be to focus on the Four Classical Elements (Water, Earth, Fire, and Air) Earth was already marked off his list as transforming the earth around him was already something he was capable of. Fire was too destructive in his opinion. And air was something he wasn't confident he knew enough about.
Water on the other hand was something that piqued his interests. It being a large component of living beings only meant that by learning how to control it it'd be the same as killing his enemy upon touch.
His knowledge of water was quite basic and yet he felt he knew enough to make great use of it. What temperature to make it freeze, how hot for it to boil instantaneously, and while learning how to transmute using water wouldn't mean he'd be invincible; it was by far something that would catch his enemy off guard so long as he touched them.
The only stipulation would be that the conditions similar to his regular transmutation might apply to his water based transmutation. Meaning if he wanted to transmute the water contained in a human being or a monster then he'd need to touch them with both of his palms.
An inconvenience that'd leave him open without a chance to defend should his enemies outnumber him or attack at the same time.
But for now he'd train on transmuting water before he goes through the effort of making himself able to attack with it otherwise if it turns out he's unable to use it practically then all of his effort would be useless.
It was moments like this that Ivan felt that maybe he should've kept the carcesses of a few monsters just so he can experiment. Then again he didn't really see any use of them seeing as how one he can't even eat them and two the materials they're made of have no use for him currently.
In the end he'd just be dragging them to his hole for them just to rot until a need arose.
As for going back and retrieving carcasses, he didn't have any hopes that another monster wouldn't have already grabbed the free meat and made off with it already.
Though he attained a skill that made him require less sleep, Ivan decided to stay within his little abode for a few more hours. He sat with his legs crossed as well as his arms and focused his eyes on the stones that laid before him. They weren't quite large, in fact they were about as big as his hands.
Well what did he want to do with these stones? They were just things to train his control with his Hands of Mana. As mentioned before, while his range of transmutation increased with its inception, they wouldn't be all that useful in a fight if he broke concentration with them.
As such he decided that for at least what he believed to be three hours a day, he'd lock himself in his room and practice the speed and finesse of his Hands of Mana.
The only way he saw as a practical way to practice would be to create intricate and ornate statues using these tiny stones. With that he'd have a small playing field to do complex designs and such even while limited.
And hopefully the repetition of such an act would familiarize himself with using the Hands of Mana as if they were his actual hands. In all his days of living the one thing that's never failed him was repetition.
CRACK!
As for the statues that didn't turn out the way he envisioned, well they would be ground to dust then transmuted back into a little stone ball for him to retry again.
It was a tedious and mentally exhausting process, but as far as Ivan was concerned so long as it was effective then he'd endure.
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"AAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!! I'm finally finished!"
The calm and collected expression he'd shown when training vanished in a single moment. Ivan laid on his back and stretched his arms above him, arching his back forwards as he attempted to relieve all the stress his body felt from sitting in that uncomfortable position for hours.
Now that he was done with that he finally had some time to play around with some water based transmutation. He had taken a moment to look at the maps he had on him and see if any of the future floors had any lakes of water he could test stuff on.
And as far as he noticed it'd be on the 35th floor that something that appeared to be a lake was drawn into the map.
As grateful as he was for having maps of the future floors he sure wished they at least had some more detail on them, at least a map legend or a short description to explain some of the features of each floor.
Sure it'd take a long time writing at least 65 short explanations that'd fit on the side of the map but he believed that the benefits outweighed that troublesomeness!
Getting off his back, Ivan dusted off his dirty coat and slung his backpack on. Seeing as how he had to advance he didn't waste any time taking out all of his things last night. He wanted to be prepared should something or someone find him.
With out having to lift a finger, the door made of stone descended.
'Hehehe, it sure feels great!'
He merrily hooped his way through the doorway and made a dash for the next floor.
Seeing as how exp wouldn't be earned by clearing out enemies, Ivan stealthily slithered his way through the floors trying his best to avoid getting into any fights.
But it wasn't until he reached the 35th floor that he met a real troublesome enemy-
RUMBLE RUMBLE
The ground trembled and Ivan who was just about to jump in cheer seeing as how he finally managed to spot the lake located on the floor tried his best to catch his balance.
As ecstatic as he was at having spotted the lake he did have to agree that there was something quite odd about it. A water source in a hell hole like this would surely be coveted and monopolized by some of the stronger and more intelligent monsters, if that were not the case then maybe it'd be shared upon the inhabitants of this floor.
And yet upon a first glance there were no signs of such a system, in fact he hadn't seen a single monster since making it to the 35th floor.
It was eerily silent to Ivan who was often annoyed by the howls and chirping he'd often hear on the other floors.
The composition of this floor was quite different from the others; instead of a solid stone floor, what surrounded the area was instead an abundant amount of red sand. It was a change that Ivan personally found pleasant as he was beginning to be sick of the amount of gray the labyrinth was made of up until this point.
Of course what he forgot was that similar to video games a change in a stage usually equated to a change in enemy types-
RUMBLE RUMBLE
The ground trembled again but this time Ivan was prepared as he made his way to the nearest pillar of rock and sat from above attempting to find the cause.
That's when he noticed a large movement in the sand, that same movement approached closer and closer to Ivan.
Ivan readied his spear once more and displayed his Hands of Mana as he braced for whatever it was to jump out of the sand and attack him.
"AAAAUUUUGHHHHH!!!"
Ivan stared in amazement as the monolith of a beast drilled out of the sand and made a lunge at him.
He swiftly dove off his platform and rolled into the sand as he watched the entire thing get engulfed by what he could only describe as a 'World Eating Worm.'
Sure like Ivan said he was quite grateful for the maps but they did omit some important details, such as the giant killer worm!
Now he was exaggerating quite a bit. Sure this thing was huge but if it were really a 'World Eating Worm' then no one would have made it beyond the 35th floor. Instead it was about 20 meters in length and about as thick as two elephants.
SWISH
Ivan made for another roll as the worm's tail made a swipe at him.
Now normally he'd transmutate a foothold to get some sort of highground against that thing but even with how dense the sand was the amount it'd raise him by was quite pitiful. Sure walls of sand might be helpful but seeing as how that thing expanded itself to swallow the stone pillar he was standing on he felt a wall would only buy him a few seconds.
He had no doubts the thing was a king in the sand anyways considering how fast it approached him while submerged.
Ivan readied himself for another attack as the beast dove into the sand once more.
Withdrawing a purplish vial of liquid from his satchel, he made no movements as the sand around him began to kick up into the air.
The moment that beast would rear its ugly face and open its mouth to devour him he'd throw in the vial to hopefully melt its insides apart.
RUMBLE RUMBLE
"Now!"
Ivan tossed the vial straight into the air and dove as far as he could, using his Hands of Mana to propel himself forward.
The giant worm that drilled straight up from beneath where he was standing flew into the air as it engulfed the elixir and enclosed its insides by instinct to crush whatever ever had entered it.
The sound of glass breaking resounded from Ivan's ears as he watched on with a sadistic grin.
"RAAAAUGGG!"
It took a few minutes, but the worm that swallowed the contents of the potion became unable to battle as it convulsed and started spewing bones and the like from inside it's stomach.
Sooner or later it'd be inevitable that when it runs out of stuff to throw up it'd die.
It was something Ivan made from some of the most disgusting things the Kingdom could bring him but it held the same properties as bleach. Of course it had some amplified effects as burning through the flesh of humans was something that Ivan felt needed improving if he wanted it to destroy the insides of monsters.
"I see, so that's why I couldn't find any other monsters here."
If Ivan had to guess then the worm was so sensitive to movements in the sand that even with the instinct of some monsters to hide in it they would be found right away. As for some of the quicker beasts that should have felt it coming from miles away he summarized that the worm would probably hunt its prey to exhaustion, leaving no room for it to recuperate.
That leaves the matter of what the worm would do should it run out of prey on its floor. Unlike other floors there was no impenetrable door that separated the 34th and 35th floor. Meaning it'd prey on the monsters that'd wonder down the steps curiously.
And if it were any smart it'd allow the trespassers to procreate and inhabit its floor long enough to grow a family, the lake was a great incentive to do so. Then bang! It'd attack the family it allowed to live for a large period of time as soon as it got hungry.
As for the trespasser's source of food, the berries that grew along the shore of the lake made this place perfect to live in.
Ivan marveled at the creator of the dungeon's creativity, it seemed whoever made all this went through the effort of having the monsters in the dungeon adapt and create their own ecosystem.
If that wasn't the case the worm would've devoured all the berries and any trespassers into this floor probably wouldn't stay long enough to start a family as food was a necessity. Sure the water was a plus but they could always just go home then come back to this floor whenever they're thirsty
And so feeling grateful at having experienced what he likes to believe to be a beautiful ecosystem, Ivan made his way to the lake. This time to get to work on his new transmutation.
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Welcome to the nature channel! Just kidding. Sorry to those of you who were expecting something exciting, things like ecosystems get me all excited. To me its the sign of a living world. As such I felt it was important to demonstrate.
Maaa, but the next chapter will feature the development of Ivan's alchemy. I'm particularly interested in the alchemy of Isaac McDougal.
By the way, I forgot to announce the creation of my p.a.t.r.e.o.n. Here you can receive up to 10-15 chapters ahead. If you're interested you can check it out at: https://bit.ly/ardoaleister
With this it should be easier for me to purchase the source material. It's quite expensive. In the future I plan on uploading more than just chapters to this or any future works so stay tuned.
Anyways, thanks for reading and may you have a great day/night!
Discord: https://discord.gg/tQ5TWbYd9t
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