The Runic Alchemist

In the vibrant afternoon sun, amidst a picturesque garden, a dazzling sword fight unfolded between two young souls.

A golden-haired 8-year-old girl, her eyes burning with determination, faced off against a 5-year-old black-haired boy. Their wooden swords clashed with swift, precise movements, and it was evident that the girl possessed a natural grace and skill far beyond her tender age.

In every strike and parry, her movements flowed effortlessly, showcasing a mastery that seemed almost supernatural. Though the boy tried to fight valiantly, his limited movements couldn't hold his ground and the outcome became inevitable.

As the duel progressed on, the girl's superior abilities prevailed, overpowering her younger opponent with each resounding strike, until she ended with a final kick to his exposed front, sending the boy sprawling in the dust.

Damian lay staring at the clear blue sky, a sigh escaping his lips. It had been a week since he had arrived at this new home and was only given a day to settle in before his 'education' began. Which felt more like him being an unwelcome addition to the genius young lady's classes, a grievous offense according to both the lady and the various teachers for some reason.

"Hmmph… What a disappointment… "

The golden-haired girl turned around and left the area, accompanied by the sword-training teacher, who stood by her side constantly lavishing praises on the young lady without even sparing a glance at the beaten boy.

"Aghmm…"

With a grunt, Damian pushed himself up and spat the blood in his mouth to the side. Grabbing his small wooden sword, he headed for the guest bathroom, ignoring the maid with a wave of his hand, who offered to help him out.

The only silver lining, if he could call it that, was that he now understood why his family had abandoned him and why everyone he met treated him like a nuisance. It all boiled down to his low Intelligence stat.

In this world, usually, when an average 5-year-old receives their stats it would start with the base stats of 5 maximum, which is very essential for early development of a child. If you couldn't understand the importance of why you must train and work hard, then there wasn't much point to it, is there?

But for some reason, Damian had just 2 INT, which was reflected in his old behavior. He was too stubborn and slow at learning things, yet he had far surpassed any child from earth.

Nonetheless, his family didn't even give him a chance and when the neighborhood Baron proposed a deal in which he would take their boy as a homemaker husband for the lady heir in exchange for large fertile land and an iron mine—his family quickly agreed to it.

"What an irony!" Damian thought aloud bitterly. "I might have the highest INT stat in this world for a 5-year-old, and yet I am condemned for it."

But all that was just useless chatter today. Today was the day he was finally going to do what he had planned to do from the very minute he transmigrated.

After stealing some basic ingredients from the kitchen, Damian had performed some simple chemical experiments in his room, but to his disappointment, nothing much had deviated from his Earthly knowledge. He thought that maybe having mana in the atmosphere would affect the stolen NaCl solution in some way or form, but it was the same old.

Today, however, he had managed to steal a magic stone from the lamp in the main hall—a feat that had taken him a week of careful planning to distract the ever-present watchful guards, nonetheless, he had managed to do it.

From 4 in the afternoon until 6 in the morning, Damian was mostly left alone, mostly to read various books—surprisingly, he was allowed to take them to his room.

It was mostly because in this world, from age 5, when a person's stats were first revealed, until the age of 10, when they received their first job, children were made to work relentlessly to accumulate skills, increasing their chances of getting prestigious jobs.

And now that Damian's name was permanently attached to the Baron's family, they grudgingly allowed him to access anything that would help him achieve a better job. Still, no one expected much from him, assuming that his low intelligence made him hopeless.

Damian locked his door and took out his stolen utensils. He hoped to get his hands on clear see-through glass, but guess they were too costly even for the wealthy Baron. He would have to make do with what he had.

After preparing the simple saltwater solution, it was time for some answers. He pulled out the magic stone from his hidden pocket—a pale yellow-looking misshapen crystal of condensed mana—and put it in the bronze container before waiting while holding his breath.

Five…ten…fifteen minutes passed and to his utter disappointment, nothing changed. Or maybe… there had been a change, but it was too subtle and impossible to be observed through the naked eye.

"Even the crystal has the same color and shape and the solution is… Hm… wait, the solution is…"

Damian rechecked all the necessary parameters again and again, even replacing the solution with a fresh batch, but the results came out the same.

There it was—hardly noticeable, but a set percent of the reduction in the volume of solution.

The magic stone had undergone no visible changes that could be observed through the naked eye and all other properties of the solution remained the same, including its thickness. Yet, somehow, a few micro ml had disappeared.

Either the liquid was absorbed by the magic stone or somehow it got evaporated due to an invisible power that is related to mana. There could possibly be a dozen different explanations, but there was one theory that Damian thought stood out the most—gravity.

It seemed the closest to the laws of physics that he understood.

'If the magic stone is condensed mana, and what the books said about mana being in everything is true, then wouldn't the greater volume of mana attract the loose particles of mana that are supposedly present in the solution? That would explain why the decrease in volume stops at a certain point and doesn't show any effect after that. It also affects the same kind of particles for some reason.'

"Because all the mana in the solution gets absorbed by the magic stone—or more accurately, the mana stone…"

'If this theory is true, then that means this solution, after mana extraction, was the most perfect version of the NaCl's atomic structure.'

'Ding'

[Truthseeker Lv.1 Acquired.]

"Hm? I got a skill just from doing random experiments?"

Damian picked up the small iron slab and imagined his status screen activating. Sure enough, a new skill in the skill section had appeared. He tried focusing on the name of the skill and it expanded like a drop-down menu.

[ Truthseeker Lv.1: A seeker of truth who uncovers the hidden mysteries of the world. (Effect : The Truthseeker's Eyes.) ]

"I got some kind of 'eyes,' but it doesn't say what they exactly do."

So without thinking twice, Damian activated his skill. Nothing happened. No changes at all.

"What the hell? Did I just get scammed? Have I really sunk so low that even the system is trying to pull my leg?"

Well, at least he had gained a skill. Damian had read a lot about jobs and skills from the books over the past week, but never had he seen or come across a skill called Truthseeker.

'Must be some kind of hidden skill,' Damian thought. He needed three skills leveled up to 9 if he wanted to reach level 25, the requirement for getting his first job.

He had already gotten one so far, so he just needed to level it up somehow. As for the second and third skills, he was already working on them, reading and doing sword training—both of which generally granted a skill upon reaching a certain level of knowledge or mastery.

"This skill seems related to doing experiments and coming up with various theories and stuff, I guess," he thought.

"Hm… wait… since I got the skill after thinking about the mana particles absorption theory and the skill is about unveiling the hidden truth of the world… Does this mean that my theory is correct? Man, scientists from Earth would kill me if they ever found out that just thinking about a theory here magically confirms it!"

Determined to level this skill of his as quickly as possible, Damian decided to conduct as many experiments as he could with his limited resources.

And so, he did just that by spending his days in a steady routine: early morning for breakfast, running and learning survival skills, after that for various lectures on history, geography, politics, proper etiquette, jobs and skill-related knowledge and even some details about common monsters and their weaknesses. After lunch came sword training until four in the afternoon.

However, the real work started after that. Damian conducted all kinds of experiments he could think of with whatever materials he could find in the kitchen, read all kinds of books in the library he found interesting, and sometimes even practicing the sword techniques he had seen Lucian perform on him.

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