THE RUNIC ALCHEMIST

The searing hot sensation returned, but it wasn’t as uncomfortable as Damian remembered. The small waygate travel barely felt like a second in this state, but this millions-of-miles-away planet hopping was truly felt by all the people present inside the Dreamlight. Damian had to keep his mind clear, though—the second they successfully crossed, he needed to steer the Dreamlight and avoid crashing into anything.

He remembered Earth being just a vast black wasteland when he had come with Vidalia before. This time, it shouldn’t be any different—maybe a century or so had passed if the travel to Earth really did cost over a thousand years.

However, when they emerged from the swirling blue portal and the blinding light cleared, the scenery in front of Damian left him shocked to his very bones. It wasn’t a wasteland. It was a city. A very familiar one at that. And it looked old.

The river was filled with countless wooden sailing ships, merchant vessels, and small boats, where sailors shouted—only to suddenly stop as they spotted the massive blue waygate and the flying steel vessel emerging from it. Hundreds of wooden houses and buildings lined the streets, most of them sending dark coal burning smoke into the air through their chimneys.

In the distance, a massive bridge spanned the river, packed with houses and shops built on top of it. It looked more like a narrow street than a bridge, bustling with pedestrians, merchants, and carts. Wooden and stone buildings lined both sides, some hanging precariously over the edge.

Men wore tricorn hats, long coats, knee-length breeches, and stockings. Women were dressed in elaborate gowns, bonnets, and corsets. The streets had only horse-drawn carriages rolling over their dirty, grimy roads.

London Bridge.. Damian realized. The river below Dreamlight was the Thames. And beyond that, he could see the huge dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral, which he knew had been rebuilt after the Great Fire of London in 1666. It dominated the skyline, as no skyscrapers existed—only church spires, rooftops, and chimneys. Back then, it had been one of the largest buildings in the world.

It had to be sometime around the 18th century.

What kind of time fuckery was this? How was he back in time instead of further into the future? And ignoring the fact that Sister Hadley shouldn’t even be born in this time, why in the hell was he in London instead of his home in Michigan?

On the streets, people were visibly panicking—shouting and running in all directions. Well, it wasn’t every day that people saw a flying ship emerging from a glowing blue portal.

For the others beside Damian, it was a complete cultural shock. The size of London was five times bigger than anything they had ever seen back in their world. Damian ascended and circled northeast of the city. After crossing a few hundred kilometers over a dense forest—whose name he didn’t remember—he finally landed in a clearing.

It was at quite a height, and from here, half the forest could be seen stretching far into the horizon.

Who ruled England around this time? Was it King George II? Or George III?

Well, if they could go back to their world, it shouldn’t matter. Though Damian would like to collect some IDs for future travel.

Before the others could bombard him with questions—they were still chatting amongst themselves about the things they had seen in a few minutes—Damian quickly exited the Dreamlight. Lucian and the Prince, connected to him by a single mana thread, followed right behind. Without wasting any time, Damian immediately used a full tank of mana liquid from the ship to open a waygate back to Vidalia.

And.. it didn’t work.

He tried everything—and everyone—he could think of, but to no avail.

A waygate cube was used by every person on the ship, yet it still refused to function.

As he had expected, access to that planet had been cut off by some external power.

It had to be that bastard pigman Sun God.

Other than him, no one else had power over an entire planet.. except their own gods.

But if their gods had will and consciousness like the pigman Sun God, why would they block them?

Instead of providing answers, Earth had only raised a dozen more questions.

The biggest one gnawed at Damian’s mind: Why was there such an inconsistency whenever he traveled to Earth?

‘What if your initial assumption about the waygate taking thousands of years to reach your home was wrong?’ The Prince’s voice rang in his mind.

‘What do you mean?’ Damian asked.

‘The waygate spell relies on deep memories.. or more accurately, a person’s soul connection to someone else as a bond to reach them, right? You have fond memories of this ‘sister,’ so the spell activates, but it can’t connect all the way—because the body you reside in right now has no connection to this person,’ the Prince explained.

“The spell gets confused..” Damian muttered out loud, his eyes widening. “After establishing a connection to Earth, it just throws me into any random place and time on the planet!”

The others heard his muttering, but seeing his unfocused gaze, no one asked for clarification. They knew he was talking to himself.

But that meant..

Was the assumption that the waygate spell took time to cross vast distances wrong?

No, that should still be true. But the difference in time shouldn’t be as wide as he had initially assumed. Otherwise, once reaching Earth, the return journey should take the same amount of time—but last time, when he and Vidalia traveled, it had only taken six months for what should have been a journey of 2–3 hours.

If that was the case, then the return journey to the pigman planet shouldn’t take more than a few years either—assuming they spent only a couple of days here.

“Damian, where are we?” Lician asked beside him.

Damian stopped racing through his thoughts and looked back at her. The others stood waiting as well, having failed repeatedly to use the waygate cube.

Regaining his composure, Damian spoke. “It is the same place I intended to arrive at.. It’s just way into the past of this world. But a good thing for us—there’s still a large population of humans.”

He exhaled, his expression unreadable. “The waygate back to our world doesn’t work. Not that we had high hopes for it anyway. Let’s just stay here—without the fear of the demon lord catching us—and figure out another way to return. At the very least.. we can relax here.”

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