The Alchemists

Alaric was very happy during his stay at the Lewis-Baden castle, because the host, his aunt Portia, was very kind to him. For the first time in his life, Alaric felt like he really had a family, even a mother who cared about him. He was given his own place at the right wing of the castle, facing the lake. He was also welcome to do whatever he pleased while staying there.

Sophia also stayed at Ned and Portia's castle for several days. Her reason was because she wanted to help Alaric in researching various historical sources and records of their ancestral heritage. History stored in the castle was abundant as it went all the way until the first century AD.

Alaric was very pleased and proud to know that since hundreds of years ago, his mother's family line was highly respected and influential. The only problem was that their lineage stopped when the last two children born in the Linden Family were women and both had died. The only son they had didn't live for long.

One daughter was Princess Elena, who married a prince from the Meier family. Sophia was now their only child left in the clan. The other daughter was Princess Luna, who gave birth to Alaric.

Alaric felt sad seeing how the number of Alchemists was declining, because they were very rarely married and rarely had children. Ordinary people, on the other hand, who were incompetent in taking proper care of the earth, breed like rabbits and depleted the earth's natural resources, caused global warming, and slaughtered so many animals causing them to become endangered and even extinct.

He was eager to accelerate the completion of his automation project, so that the world could immediately conduct natural selection on humans who were not worthy of living on this planet. Humans were the ones who needed nature, not the other way around.

This earth would be more advanced and prosperous if it were inhabited by a small number of high-quality residents. Everything else could be outsourced to machines to maintain the quality of human lives. That was where his project would play a role.

After dinner, he excused himself to rest. He immediately contacted Pavel to arrange various things for him. He was tempted to call Singapore, but given the 8 hour time difference, he realized that it was almost dawn in Singapore. He did not want to disturb Aleksis' sleep.

"Pavel, I have an assignment for you. Enter the darknet and look for Wolf. I need information about someone."

"Wolf? The genius hacker? Who do you want to find that you can't find yourself?" Pavel asked in surprise. "Sisqo is our best finder, isn't he? You know that Wolf is a very picky person, he will not necessarily accept assignments from us."

"I'm not sure Sisqo can do this. This person is very mysterious, I need the best finder in the world," Alaric answered.

"Hmm .. alright. Who is the person you want to find?"

"He is called Aldebar. I don't know any more information but his name."

"Ok ..." Pavel noted something down and then confirmed. "I'll take care of this soon. Sir, how long will you be in Scotland?"

"Three days, I want to rest here before we continue work."

"All right. I'll arrange things with the others."

After hanging up the phone, Alaric started counting in his head. He would first try to find Aldebar himself and force him to make the immortality potion for Aleksis. He intended to offer something that Aldebar wanted. He knew from experience that everyone in this world had a desire for something. He was certain that Aldebar wanted something too.

Alaric would grant whatever he wished. Even if Aldebar's wish was to have him kill someone, even though it's Sophia herself - Alaric would do it.

If his methods didn't work, he would use violence.

But first he had to find Aldebar's location.

***

It was 5 in the morning in Singapore when Nicolae woke up from his sleep. He was still staying in the guest room of Aleksis' penthouse, and because he drank too much wine with his new family, he felt his head hurt so badly that he woke up before sunrise.

With his eyes half closed, he walked into the kitchen and took a glass of warm water. When he was enjoying his drink, his phone beeped. He opened his phone and noticed a notification from a special platform he sometimes visited. While yawning wide, Nicolae opened the site and read messages from the platform.

There was a client who was looking for someone named Aldebar, and the name Wolf was clearly tagged to fulfill the task.

The name Aldebar felt very familiar ...

Nicolae frowned and tried hard to think. His head still hurt because he drank too much the night before. Hmm ... he couldn't remember where he heard that name before.

Finally, he returned to his room and tried to sleep again, hoping that his headache would slowly disappear.

Five minutes later he got up.

Aldebar!!

Wasn't that Aleksis' uncle who mastered the immortality potion!? Who was the person who wanted to find him?? How did they find out about Aldebar? Why did they specifically ask for Wolf to accept the assignment?

How mysterious!

Finally he did not go back to sleep. His headache slowly went away because his brain was occupied with guessing who the client was and what they wanted from Aldebar.

He got out of bed and immediately replied to the message on Darknet.

-Wolf here. I will only accept this assignment if I know who the client is.

He waited for 10 minutes, but there was no reply. Nicolae felt rather worried. People only look for negative things in the Darknet, such as hackers, assassins, human traffickers, pedophile networks, child pornography, etc.

He was afraid that there were people who wanted to harm Aldebar. He couldn't wait for the morning to arrive so he could tell Aleksis and Lauriel and they could warn Aldebar.

***

Alaric woke up in the morning with a fresh feeling and good mood. Since knowing from Sophia that there was an Alchemist scientist who was able to make an immortality potion for ordinary people, his mood became light and his heart was happy; not cold as usual.

In his long life, Alaric had never loved and cared so much for a woman as he felt for Aleksis. If it were not for his aspiration to rule the world and arrange for the earth to be governed properly by chosen humans, not the current nine billion foolish and destructive homo sapiens, he would certainly choose death if one day Aleksis got old and died.

Alaric often considered himself the loneliest man in the world. His thoughts were different from most people, and he personally did not like most humans. There were only a handful of people he tolerated; they were his foster families, the children he fostered and raised with his own hands, and some loyal staff who had followed him for decades. Aside from being with them, he was actually always alone.

He had been feeling alone for almost a century, when suddenly his whole world was turned upside down last week, when he met a strange girl who entered his life like a storm. Since then, for some reason, Alaric felt that he found the only person who understood him and accepted him one hundred percent, unconditionally.

Aleksis made him feel love.

When Aleksis asked him to get married, even though they had only been together (again) for four days, he immediately agreed. Inwardly, at first he only considered the marriage as something that would not bring harm to him. He thought he had nothing to lose.

But after they were really married ... subconsciously, something in Alaric's heart changed.

In his head now there was only Aleksis and he only thought of things he could do to make her happy. His priority now, funnily enough, was no longer the automation project, but how to obtain the immortality potion for Aleksis, so they could live together forever. When that was achieved, he dreamed of ruling the world together with the girl.

He, Aleksis and their children would become the examples of how humans should live.

Subconsciously, his lips curved into a thin smile. He thought of all the possibilities that he could do, so that in the future, he could live in peace with Aleksis and their children.

If he and Aleksis had a child, then he would no longer be alone because, then, he would have his own family. He would be the best father to their children.

For nearly a hundred years, Alaric had seen many children living in poverty, suffering under the care of their unfit parents, neglected, raised in orphanages, living on the streets, and various other unacceptable conditions.

He hated humans who carelessly sow their seeds to produce children, but are thereafter unable to be decent parents. He did not want to be such a man, and so he always made sure that no matter what happened, he would not let any woman get pregnant with his seed.

He preferred helping abandoned children and giving them a better life by housing them in good orphanages or paying for their lives as an anonymous donor.

Some of them even became his foster children. He then raised and educated them as assassins. One of his best assassins was his own foster son, Mischa.

Mischa was the only child of a drug addict couple he rescued in Lithuania. He was now one of his favorite children as well as the deputy of Rhionen Assassins. Mischa was only 5 years old when he first met Alaric. Without hesitation Mischa tugged him on his shirt and asked to be taken along. After Alaric killed his parents who were stoned after beating their son to a pulp, Mischa left with Alaric and never looked back.

Maybe this was destiny. He was thinking about Mischa, when suddenly an SMS came in from his foster son. It was now 7am in Scotland, meaning it was 3pm in Singapore. Surely Mischa deliberately waited for morning to arrive before he contacted Alaric so as not to disturb his sleep.

Hmmm ... something must have happened, he thought.

[Sir, sorry, but there was a misunderstanding when Miss Aleksis was rushed by her friend yesterday. We thought she was kidnapped and so we chased after them. Takeshi and I fought with that man to save Miss. Takeshi was injured pretty badly and is now recovering, while I am still treating my wounds. We will immediately investigate who planned to kidnap Miss Aleksis after I recover.]

Alaric's brow furrowed. Takeshi's was severely injured  and Mischa was also wounded? And the opponent they faced was only one person???

How was this possible?!

Alaric knew exactly how tough his two people were. If they both fought against him at once, even he might not win. He was curious to know what had happened.

Oh ... didn't Mischa say that Aleksis was almost kidnapped? His mind immediately became uneasy. He hurriedly called the girl. He had to make sure Aleksis was okay.

RING

RING

RING

Until the tenth ring, his call was still not picked up. Alaric became very worried.