Chapter 124: The Philosopher’s Stone

One day, Emilia’s condition worsened. At that point, I no longer believed it was an illness, but rather a curse placed by my father. I didn’t know how he had done it, but if it were a disease, I had no idea what it was. And if I didn’t know what it was, then Emilia would die.

After years, I had finally returned to working on the Forster family research. If it meant protecting my wife and my son, I would do anything. But it was nowhere near completion.

So all that was left was to stay by her side until the bitter end. I stood at her bedside, holding her hand tightly. “I’m sorry, Emilia. I couldn’t save you.”

I must have looked terrible, because Emilia gave me a smile, and her free hand touched my cheek.

“It’s not your fault, my love. I just have very poor health. So don’t look like that.”

I could no longer hold back my tears. The family I had built was being destroyed right in front of me.

“It was a good life. Living by your side made me so happy,” Emilia said, her eyes closing more with each word she spoke. “I just wish I could have spent more time with you…”

Emilia never opened her eyes again after that night. And I made a decision—I would resume my research. I would bring Emilia back to life.

…

After reading up to that part of the diary, the girls looked miserable. Erina and Justine sniffled, trying to hold back their tears, but Sarah and Alicia let theirs fall freely.

“Is it possible that it was… a curse?” Diane asked me, her eyes sad.

“I don’t believe that was the case,” I said.

“Then what could have caused your mother’s death?” Sarah asked, wiping her face.

I sighed. “I don’t know for sure. If I were to suppose based on medicine from my old world, maybe she developed some complication during childbirth. There are cases where even a woman’s heart can weaken, but I can only guess. Without being able to identify the problem correctly, it’s much harder to treat before it’s too late.”

Alicia said with a gloomy look, “But he believed it was a curse until the very end.”

“Yes, he believed it was a curse until the end. Unfortunately, the wounds of his past, combined with watching his wife’s health decline and being unable to save her, made him believe in my grandfather’s plague. He lived his final days convinced of that curse. He neglected his own health, prioritizing his research, and when he reached the results he sought, he passed his findings on to me. After that, he spent some time bedridden, until he died.”

“What a sad ending,” Alicia said, looking at the floor.

“It seems like an irony of fate that David Forster’s bitter words were the catalyst for my father to decipher how to create the philosopher’s stone.”

Justine fidgeted at what I had said. “If he got that far, why didn’t he create the stone? Your mother…”

“Even tormented by his ghosts, he managed to find the answer he was searching for, but the stone wasn’t exactly what he thought. The philosopher’s stone wasn’t just a rock that could grant wishes.”

Sarah glared at me with a sulky look. “Could you please tell us what the philosopher’s stone really is, Rick?”

I took a deep breath. “There’s a lot of confusion about the philosopher’s stone. Perhaps because it’s such an ancient legend, alchemists thought it was literally a stone—a material object—and that by combining certain ores they could create it. But they were on the wrong track.

What was actually required to achieve the results described in the legend was energy—more precisely, mana. The philosopher’s stone is basically a ’stone’ generated through a ritual that channels mana from the world of the gods into ours.

Once the mana is concentrated at a single point in our world, the philosopher’s stone is created. That’s what Alex Forster discovered, and his descendants spent their lives trying to replicate it.

The biggest problem was controlling such an enormous amount of mana, especially divine mana—it’s impossible for a human. That’s why they dedicated their lives to figuring out how to solve that problem.”

“Huh? So that’s why you said it’s still incomplete,” Diane said, recalling our private conversation.

“Yes. Anyone who wants to successfully create a usable philosopher’s stone needs the formulas written on my back… plus one special ingredient.”

“An ingredient?” Erina tried to follow my reasoning. “Something capable of containing that?”

“Yes, but it’s not just anything. It’s more like a god.”

“A god?!” The girls screamed in unison.

“Exactly. No human can withstand that energy, but if you use a god to contain it, then it’s possible to control that amount of mana.”

Erina stared at me in disbelief. “When you put it like that, it sounds easy to understand—a god to control divine energy. You mean they spent their entire lives to reach that conclusion?”

“Of course not. It’s easy to say, but hard to do,” I said to her. “Can you think of a way to harness a god’s power using alchemy?”

“You have a point…”

Diane looked uneasy, furrowing her brows. “Those who intend to use the symbol on your back—what do they want? With that much power, anything in this world would be possible.”

“Indeed. With power of that magnitude, anything is possible. The King was right back then to destroy Alex Forster’s research. Being dethroned is one thing, but depending on someone’s will, a person with that power could destroy Ashia in a single night. Unfortunately, our enemies don’t just want to destroy Ashia—they want to destroy the entire world we live in.”

The girls froze where they stood, their faces showing pure horror at my words.

“The whole world…” Sarah whispered, her mouth agape.

“Seems like the stakes are really high, Justine…” Erina said, trying to contain her nerves.

Alicia covered her mouth with both hands, a gesture of horror. “Who could be so cruel as to do something like that?”

“The Night Apostles.”

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