Pursuing The Summit - Chapter 10 Louis

Two weeks started since Louis came to school. His schedule had finally regained some semblance of pattern: he would concoct pills all day and go to bed every other night. However, he would return to his house for every meal, especially in the morning when he had to check up on Amber’s body. Amelia and Amber spent all day in his alchemy room with him, he took more frequent breaks recently to look over what they were learning. They would soon become two star array masters, but Amber wanted to become a doctor and she would soon switch professions afterwards. After all, Louis only required Amber to become an array master so it would help her with both alchemy and medicine.

Louis had stop concocting the Convalescence Pills since the start of the week. While he had yet to concoct a grade 15 Convalescence Pill, he managed to concoct 3 grade 13 Convalescence Pills within the same batch and graduated from one star pills.

Now, he was crafting the elemental qi replenishing pills, a three star qi replenishing pill that can be used for the four main elements. While the crafting rank of this pill required three star mastery, the ingredients themselves were mass produced just like one star ingredients and the market value of this pill, while not cheap, was only the value of two star pills. Of course, the prices of the pills only were for the medium to high grade variety.

The Second Generation had researched, with the courtesy of Laura and Nancy, to produce two unique grade pills at the same time. These would not be sold but they were extremely helpful for reincarnators, who had the ability but not the qi to perform their tasks. Thanks to these pills, he could replenish his qi quickly and trade what was left for Spiritual Energy Upper pills, which would alleviate his exhaustion for one day, allowing him to stay up an extra day in a row.

Once he finished concocting two unique grade Water Qi Replenishing Pills, Louis saw Nancy laying just outside of his array, looking at him.

“Can I help you?” Louis asked.

“A bit. I just came to inform you that we need a large amount of water, wind, fire and earth qi replenishing pills, in that order. You can focus on water and wind, if you wish, but try to make as many as you can within the next two weeks.” Nancy said.

“What’s happening then?”

“We will be going to the ruins at the north of campus for a month to train. You and your family can come with.”

“All of them?” Louis asked, raising an eyebrow. That seemed surprisingly generous.

“Well, if they can disappear for a month and are as strong as Amber and Amelia at the very least, then yeah.” Nancy said, smiling.

“I thought the ruins were just for the students who have reached the second realm.”

“No, that’s only the first ten floors. Teachers can access the next ten floors pretty easily while we aim to train within the last ten floors. We modified it and made it easier for training there.” Nancy said. “So the pills will help us make the best use out of that time.” She got up. “Oh, I can bring Amber and Amelia to see the array master right now, if you would like them to have a teacher, since you are busy.”

“Is he a reincarnator as well?”

“Yeah. Joshua Oke who is part of the seventh grade.”

“That’s fine then, tell them to come back for lunch though.”

“Will do.” Nancy said, walking over to Amber and Amelia.

Louis looked at the three of them leave the room. Now that he thought about it, he had expected to see more members within the Second Generation, given that all old members taught a class, but he had only seen five members in total and only three of them regularly: Nancy Inzud, Laura Eten and Raphael Rosen, who was a sixth grade alchemist and also a distant relative of his, since his mother was from the Rosenburg family while the Rosen was a smaller branch of it.

It was at that moment, Raphael Rosen walked in. She had silver hair and silver pupils. Despite being fourteen, she was at the end of puberty, so she looked well into her later teens. Louis was surprised she was even a student when he first saw her.

In this world, at least for elves, the hair and eye color mattered. The hair color showed the element an elf inherited from their mother and the pupil color showed the element inherited from their father. Red meant fire, blue meant water, silver meant wind and brown meant earth. Elves do not have any other elements, but the high elves within the Great Forest were rumored to control a combination of the seven elements: fire, water, wind, earth, lightning, light, and darkness.

“I just saw Amelia and Amber leave with Nancy. Did the two finally decide to chase after someone else?” Raphael said, looking out the door.

“They are just going to see Joshua. I have been too busy concocting pills to properly help them.”

“You know, I can teach them too. I am a (four star) small array master.” Raphael said.

“I thought you were also busy concocting pills.”

“More than you know.” Raphael said, putting her head on his lap. “However, while I might not be the best at theorycrafting new pills and arrays, I am extraordinarily good at simplifying the process and completing pills and arrays quickly, so I finished my quota for tomorrow earlier this morning.”

“Better than me at least. I still take a full two hours to concoct a single batch.” Louis said. “Want to help me with my quota?”

“I can,” Raphael said, opening an eye. “But it would not be good for you if I did. You are treading on thin ice already.”

Louis frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Don’t you find it weird that you and your two family members aren’t invited to any of the club meetings? Perhaps you don’t even know that they exist. You probably haven’t met more than a handful of the Second Generation members either, I bet.” Raphael closed her eyes again, smiling briefly. “But knowing you, you find yourself right at home concocting pills all day and night. It’s what you do.”

“I just thought everyone was busy since it’s the start of a new school year.” Louis said.

“We are reincarnators, not little kids who get homesick or never experienced school or other obligations. Plus we only have five new members this year, and two of them are fourth graders. Although we are busy, we all are able to manage our time to squeeze in a thirty minute meeting each week.” Raphael said. “Are you justifying why you have been ignored this entire time?”

“Pray tell, why am I and my family being ostracized?” Louis asked.

“You should spend more time researching politics. At least have that much awareness.” Raphael said, taking out a thin book from her bag. “While it has little to do with you directly, almost every single member within the club has lost a parent due to your uncle’s cowardice. Laura, in particular, comes from an already hostile family and is especially grieved by the loss of her mother.”

“Laura? She seems pretty amiable though.” Louis said.

“Looks can be deceiving.” Raphael said, dropping the book onto the floor and sitting up. “Though, she won’t be a problem to you. She bottles things up and she understands that it’s not your fault, since you weren’t even born then. However, the other members of the Second Generation are particularly sensitive of the matter and some of them are more than willing to get revenge on you to curb their own sorrows for now.” She stood up and patted Louis on the shoulder a few times. “Read the book and figure things out for yourselves. You might not have as much time to relax as you think.” Then she left.

Louis grabbed the book. It was titleless and, while the pages seemed old, the oldest information seemed to start from ten years ago. Arthur Allyn, Brian Allyn’s older brother, was the Clan Leader at the time. On what seemed to be a fairly straightforward ruin expedition, Arthur brought a group of thirty people, all from nobility from Allyn County, to conquer it. Earlier expeditions had mapped out all but the last couple of floors and Arthur wanted to be the one that gave it that last final push, to prove his worth as the new clan leader. No one was really worried at that time. Although Arthur was inexperienced, he was the leading member of his generation, with a cultivation of the sixth realm just in his thirties and renowned for his magnaminty and straightforwardness.

But within a short two weeks, the expedition ended with a disaster. Only Arthur returned alive, missing his left arm, and the bodies of the rest of the members nowhere to be found. While the nobles in his party were not clan leaders themselves, they were either close siblings, children and relatives of clan leaders. Many of them wanted Arthur dead, but the previous Allyn Clan Leader refused to kill his own son and compromised to remove him from clan leadership and made Brian the new clan leader. The Eten, Inzud and Ayde families were the most fervent in wanting Arthur dead while the Camphill, Dusat, and Henderson families already possessed rebellious sentiments that were cemented because of the event. While many of the others still kept their relationships close to the Allyn Family, a divide was created between many of them, except for the Rosenburg family, which is considered by many to be a branch of the Allyn Family itself.

Louis laid down after reading the book. While he could understand the sentiments of the families, he had originally thought the reincarnators had given up their original families due to the disconnect they had with them and since he was the only one to bring his family members into the club. He put the book away. Thinking about it now wouldn’t help. He only had a taste of the information now. He needed a better picture.

Once more, he began concocting pills.