The next morning.
The hospital room was quiet. Early summer sunlight filtered through the gaps of the blinds, cutting strips of golden light across the white bedsheets.
Raku, as usual, sat propped up against the soft pillow with those half-asleep, lifeless eyes. He scrolled through his phone with one hand, casually browsing today's New Domino City news while replying to a few meaningless sticker messages sent by Akira. After that disaster, he also wanted to know what the outside world had become like and what kind of cover-up announcements Kaiba Corporation had released.
Just as he was about to tap on a gossip post about Duel Academy admissions, the piece of parchment placed on the bedside table suddenly emitted a faint dark-gold glow.
Raku set down his phone and picked up the parchment with its rough texture.
On the previously blank surface, it was as if an invisible quill was writing. Ink seeped into the paper, gradually forming neat and rigid lines of text.
"After a month, I once again converse with you."
Raku's brows furrowed slightly.
"In truth, I have already earned considerable profit and obtained the materials for the Philosopher's Stone. I am preparing to construct the alchemical array.
"Setting up the formation through alchemy will only take a few days, but for a long period afterward, I will be unable to contact you. "Thus, I came to inform you in advance."
Raku looked at the opening line, somewhat puzzled.
A month?
Since the last time he taught Eldlich how to make a fortune selling soap, only a few days had passed in this world at most.
"Hasn't it only been a few days?" Raku muttered softly, his tone filled with confusion.
"The flow of time between the two worlds is different."
A slightly lazy yet magnetic voice sounded from the corner of the hospital room.
Aleister, dressed in an ornate mage robe, had manifested at some point. Leaning against the windowsill with his arms crossed, his emerald-green eyes beneath the hood were fixed on the parchment in Raku's hand.
"And the exact ratio of time flow changes every day," he added.
"That unstable?"
Aleister shrugged.
"It used to be stable," he revealed a piece of hidden history. "But that was also three years ago.
"No one knows exactly what happened, but in the Spirit World, those originally separate card-art worlds began to merge. This caused increasing conflicts in the fundamental rules, and the timelines ended up like this."
Raku fell silent for a few seconds, processing this massive amount of information.
Three years ago. Yumi's incident was also three years ago. The merging of card-art worlds, rule conflicts.
"Sounds like…" Raku looked at Aleister, "A bomb about to go off."
"That's not entirely inaccurate." Aleister even smiled slightly, not denying it.
"Now we just don't know when that bomb will fully detonate. But that's the world's problem. You should reply first."
Raku shifted his attention back to the parchment. Picking up a pen from the side, he wrote a line at the bottom of the page:
"Understood. May fortune favor you in battle."
The writing quickly sank into the paper.
Not long after, new ink marks seeped onto the parchment again.
"No, sir. I intend to entrust you with a matter.
"The creation of the Philosopher's Stone is extremely dangerous, but it is also my ultimate ideal. Once completed, it will achieve absolute material abundance, perhaps allowing the creation of a prosperous and peaceful nation.
"But if I fail, I do not know what will happen.
"Even so, I will complete the Philosopher's Stone with all my strength. If I perish because of this, then please take my inheritance as the return on your earlier investment; I believe it will exceed those gold coins."
Raku looked at that final sentence, his hand holding the pen pausing midair. He pursed his lips, momentarily not knowing what to write.
Stop him?
That was nearly impossible.
If his goal in creating the Philosopher's Stone were merely to produce endless gold to satisfy his own greed, Raku would not hesitate to snap him out of it.
He would only need to say something like, "If you die, all that gold is useless anyway."
But… to create a prosperous and peaceful nation? To eliminate conflicts caused by material scarcity?
That ideal was too grand. So grand that Raku felt his own simple worldview, wanting only to enjoy dueling, could not possibly contain it.
When someone with such near-martyr-like ideals finds what they believe to be the path to realization, then no person, no words, can easily stop them.
Including him, an outsider who had merely provided a bit of business advice.
Raku stared at the parchment for a long time.
In the end, he let out a sigh. The tip of his pen touched the paper, and he wrote a few words.
"I will be watching."
That was probably the greatest respect he could offer.
After the words faded, a long time passed.
On the parchment, Eldlich's final reply slowly appeared.
"Life is always so small and fragile. If I can be remembered by you, that would be an interesting thing in itself. Should anything unexpected occur, the burning parchment will reveal everything."
Aleister looked at the now-quiet parchment, a faint smile curling beneath his hood.
Even he had not expected Eldlich to reach parting so fast; still, he enjoyed watching how people reacted in the face of life and death, and this was also a chance to see exactly what kind of person Raku was.
Spirit World, a barren plain far removed from the noise of Windless City.
This place had once been devoid of all life, but now, as far as the eye could see, there were towering piles like mountain ranges.
A closer look revealed that these were not natural mountains at all. On the left stretched endless, neatly cut blocks of pure white marble; on the right lay what resembled a gray-white ocean, an immense accumulation of limestone.
This exaggerated mobilization of materials had nearly drained most of Eldlich's fortune, which he had built up through selling soap and cross-world trading. Some of the materials had even been gathered personally by these alchemists.
At this moment, Eldlich stood before these "mountains," facing the dry and cold wind sweeping across the plain.
Behind him stood several alchemists clad in robes of various colors.
These spellcasters, hired either with high pay or vague promises, all had flickering expressions in their eyes.
Some, beneath their hoods, were filled with fervent curiosity. To them, even catching a glimpse of the Philosopher's Stone's powder would make their lives worthwhile, as they sought answers to all unknown truths.
Others were far more crude. Their gazes swept across the piles of marble as they calculated how many mountains of gold they could claim once the legendary stone was created and turned stone into gold.
Even so, none of that mattered.
Though their thoughts differed, they shared one solid consensus: they all needed the Philosopher's Stone, and they needed Eldlich, its initiator.
"How are the materials for the ritual hall?"
Eldlich turned around, his usual gentle and courteous tone now carrying an undeniable authority. It was likely the confidence built from both wealth and ideals.
A gray-robed alchemist in charge of logistics immediately stepped forward, opening the thick ledger in his hands.
"One hundred and fifty thousand tons of marble." The gray-robed alchemist swallowed; even he felt his scalp tingle as he read the number aloud. "Five hundred thousand tons of limestone. As well as the clay for structural support and the mana-infused mercury used to inscribe the array patterns, they have all been accounted for. Everything is here. Not a single gold coin's worth is missing."
Eldlich nodded.
"Then begin."
He extended his hand from within his robe, palm facing downward.
"Formation of the hall."
There were no lengthy incantations, nor any flashy visual effects.
Several alchemists simultaneously pressed their hands onto the cracked earth of the barren plain.
A violent tremor surged up from beneath the ground, as though some ancient beast had turned over in the depths of the soil.
And–
The one hundred and fifty thousand tons of marble and five hundred thousand tons of limestone began to dissolve in a manner defying physical laws. They melted into massive torrents of white and gray, flowing wildly along the intricate alchemical patterns pre-etched into the ground, reshaping themselves.
In just a few breaths–
The outline of a massive circular hall, large enough to take one's breath away, rose from the plain.
On the ground, the marble reformed into perfectly standard rectangular tiles. Yet piece by piece, interlocking without leaving a single gap, they formed a magnificent circle.
It was a visual impact of forcing absolute edges into perfect curvature.
Then, dozens of marble pillars, each requiring several people to embrace, spiraled upward from the edges of the tiled ground, forming the structure of the hall.
At the center of the hall, accompanied by the harsh grinding of stone, the ground collapsed downward, forming a hemispherical altar embedded into the earth. Its surface was polished to a mirror-like smoothness, reflecting the gradually dimming clouds in the sky.
The gray-robed alchemists, drenched in sweat, maintained the operation of the array, guiding the final portions of stone.
A heavy stone dome began to extend and close near the walls, forming a solid roof.
However–
Directly above the hemispherical altar, perfectly vertical to it…
The stone ceased to extend.
There was no roof there. Instead, a large and abrupt circular opening remained.
This was a semi-open dome.
Dusk was approaching.
The first ray of moonlight passed through that opening like a white pillar of light, falling precisely onto the center of the underground altar.
"The guidance of moonlight is complete." The gray-robed alchemist collapsed onto the ground, gasping for breath. "This is the pinnacle of alchemical construction."
Eldlich raised his head, looking at that beam of moonlight.
"This is only the beginning. The most dangerous refinement will take place when the full moon stands high, using this altar as the furnace."
Eldlich's voice echoed through the vast hall.
...
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