Day two.
Adam lay perfectly still, eyes half-closed, every sense tuned to the rasping mutters of Professor Thomas.
The man had grown worse over the last forty-eight hours. His quill scratched violently across parchment, circles of half-formed equations covered the chalkboards, and vials clattered as he stumbled from desk to desk. His disguise potion slipped more often now — his form flickering between the "gentle professor" façade and the scrawny goblin-like husk beneath.
And through it all, one word kept leaking from his lips.
"The jester… the trickster… the fool…"
Adam swallowed bile. He knew exactly what that meant. Loki.
In canon, this was the point when Thomas began hearing the whispers — the fork in the road that would seal Adam's death in less than a month.
Thomas pressed his ink-stained fingers to his temples, whispering too fast, too low. Then, abruptly, he turned to the pod. His beady eyes lingered.
"My dear child… five days. I'll return then. Oswald, that smug old swan, insists on inspecting the departments. Hah! Let him. He'll choke when he sees what I've created. When I return, you'll be… perfect."
His grin cracked wide. He cursed Oswald's name one more time before wrapping himself in his professor's coat, gulping another potion to transform into his taller, smoother self.
And then he was gone.
The heavy door sealed, rune-locks melting into the wall until the chamber looked like nothing but stone.
Adam waited. One minute. Two. Five. His heart — the synthetic aura core lodged in his chest — pulsed weakly but steadily.
Then he opened his eyes.
"Status."
The window unfolded before him, shimmering faintly. His gaze slid immediately to the only thing that mattered: his title.
[Interdimensional Wanderer]
Heightened sensitivity to surrounding energies.
In his novel, titles had always been a mechanic of extremes. Some gave blessings. Others curses. But this… this wasn't one he remembered writing.
Which meant it was new. A boon given to him simply because he'd transmigrated here.
His heart beat harder, excitement sparking in his veins.
"Sensitive to energies, huh? Let's test that."
He turned his senses inward, focusing on the tubes that fed into his body. And there — faint, but undeniable — he saw it. Not with his eyes, but with something deeper.
Threads of light. Red and yellow, swirling together.
Fire and lightning.
He nearly laughed. Of course. If Thomas wanted to craft the most destructive homunculus imaginable, what better elements to engrave than the two most devastating in nature? Fire to consume, lightning to obliterate.
His artificial heart wasn't fully formed yet, so he couldn't wield it. Not properly. But he could feel it. The raw power being pumped into his veins.
That was enough.
Because if he could sense it, he could learn. He could adapt.
This… this changes everything. My plans just got easier.
But not his escape. Not yet.
The reality was brutal: his body was weak, softer than a newborn fawn. Every time he tried to struggle or lash out, the pod detected it and dosed him with the numbing drug. He'd counted carefully — each time, he lost about eight to ten hours of consciousness.
Five days left before Thomas returned. At most, ten chances.
But he didn't need ten.
He needed five.
His eyes flicked to the glass encasing him. Flimsy. Weak. The only reason he hadn't already shattered it was because he was too weak.
So one strike per cycle. Five strikes, five days. Break free before Thomas returns. That's the plan.
It was a gamble. If he failed, Thomas would come back, hear Loki's whispers, and complete the ritual. Then Adam would explode on schedule.
But Adam Godwin wasn't going to die to his own damn script.
He clenched his fist.
Already he could feel the drug mechanism stirring, the pod hissing as it prepared to suppress him again. He had seconds.
"Now or never."
He pulled his arm back and slammed his fist forward.
THUD.
"FUCK!"
Pain screamed through his hand, raw and stinging. His bones ached, his knuckles split. But on the glass — faint, almost imperceptible — a crack spread like a hairline fracture.
His previously pained lips twisted into a grim smile.
"Good enough."
Then the drugs hit him. His vision spun, his body went slack, and blackness swallowed him whole.
+
The Alchemy Department was small. Too small.
Other wings of the Central Academy had glossy lecture halls, floor runes that actually aligned, and assistants who filed things. Thomas's corridor kept its heat by forgetting where the windows were and its prestige by not discussing it. The plaster flaked. The benches wobbled. His students—when he had them—were the sort who needed "easy credits" and left once they realized there weren't any.
Thomas had learned to live at the edges. He always had.
He had been born wrong. The midwives said "curse" and passed him along; his mother agreed and sold him before he learned her face. After that it was collars and ledgers, households that bought him like a novelty and traded him on when the novelty soured. He remembered the weight of chains better than he remembered his own weight. He remembered whips, parties, a certain kind of laughter.
It would have continued, except one night the walls shook and the doors burned. A woman with midnight hair stepped through the smoke and didn't look away. She cut his owner loose from his life in three gestures, then asked a question he had not heard before.
"Do you wish to live?"
At that, he nodded. Why wouldn't he? Even if this beautiful, powerful woman turned out to be another crazy person, he would still accept it.
After all, right now, he just wanted to leave this god-damned place, and live. Whatever happens after, would happen, after.
That was, until he heard another question from the woman as the chains around him fell one by one. He would never forget that question ever as long as he lived.
"Do you accept me as your master?"
Back then, he remembered crying, weeping tears of joy for some reason as he nodded and became a disciple of Kim Jihoo, a Korean, more known as the Witch Of Salvation and a direct descendent of the Fifth Hero, the Savior of the East.
She was also one of the ten [Sovereign] in the world, basically, one of the ten strongest beings in the world.
After rescuing him from his captivity, she brought him to a cold ridge where the air tasted clean and the roofs were simple. He didn't exactly remember how he got there, but he knew enough that his master had made this place as a sort of secret area for her, and her disicples. Yes, disciples.
Other outcasts lived there, all were those that she'd saved—a blind swordsman, a poison-blood girl, a boy who spoke in flame—and they treated him as if "cursed" was not the last line of a ledger entry.
His senior sisters and brothers, those that he truly, truly loved. After getting over his trauma with the help of his senior sisters and brothers, his hands found work in glass and scale. Alchemy liked patience and precision; he had both. For a while he had a master who smiled at him and senior disciples who argued about ratios in the evenings, as his talent in alchemy became more and more pronounced, until his master sent him to the Central Academy to be a professor.
With her authority and his talent, he'd even been made as a senior professor in just under a year. . ..until that 'incident' happened. When he'd been set up by that fucking woman, and his reputation had all gone down the drain.
It was funny. How talent, and his good-deeds all went down the drain when all it takes is for a woman to whistle 'rape'. Or, was it because that woman was just that good at planting the evidence that even when his master personally came to investigate, she found no evidence that he was innocent.
And, just like that, in a single month, his master had excommunited him, and his senior disciples had all but thrown him aside, and his reputation fell down the drain.
Although, that fucking woman begged the Academy, and his master to not kick him out of the Academy, thus painting herself as some sort of benevolent savior, it didn't matter since everybody looked at him like a perverted wolf, a rapist.
Nobody helped him. Nobody believed him, and everyday that woman walked scot-free with the likes of that knife-eared fool Oswald, the more his mind and sanity broke. So, for months now, he'd used his talent in alchemy to create one of the 3 goals of all alchemists:
A Perfect Homonculus.
And yet, somebody had apparently complained about him, and his deeds, and now he was subject to an investigation of his work quarters.
Thomas gritted his teeth, but tried to put up a smile.
"See, Oswald?" he said now, in a classroom that still smelled faintly of vinegar. "You must have heard wrong. I can't imagine who would claim I bear any ill will toward the Academy."
Dean Oswald Wlywin stood in the center of the room, silver hair and even silverer patience. He let his gaze pass over the empty benches, the chalk dust, and the way Thomas's "taller" frame sat a fraction wrong at the shoulders. Oswald knew disguise potions; Jihoo had written him once, back when letters had different endings. Pity had a half-life. His had decayed.
His aide stroked his mind. Dean: I sense residual mana at the far door.
Yes, I can sense it too. Dean Oswald said through his mental link.
Oswald looked. "Professor," he said, almost courteous, "I'll need to inspect your personal chambers."
"My privacy—" Thomas began.
"That rule applies when there is no warrant," Oswald said. "You forget that I may issue one at will."
"That is unfair and an absolute abuse of power, I won't stand for this!" Thomas said, teeth tight. "You can't simply—"
"Then sue me." Oswald did not raise his voice.
". . . .Krk!" Thomas knew who would win in a suit between someone like Oswald, and someone with his reputation. This is why he hated social circles, and it's inklings.
"Will you open the door, or shall I?"
For a heartbeat Thomas imagined throwing every bottle he owned, along with the one he was fiddling inside his pocket, and dealing with the consequences later. The heartbeat passed. Oswald the Wise had faced worse than glass.
You could, if you had power, something suggested—not quite a sound, not quite a thought. Borrow mine; see how quickly they listen.
Thomas pushed it away. He was insane yes, but he wasn't so insane as to do anything stupid as of right now. Sure, he was an elf who was known for his sensitivity to mana, even amongst other elves, but his secret lab hadn't been hidden with mana or magic. Yes, he had used runes of stealth, doused in alchemic equations that would hide his secret lab, even from the likes of Oswald.
Not now. So with an expression of frustration, he opened the door. Oswald walked through.
The laboratory was not at its best. Cracked vials. Stains he had stopped classifying. Half-finished brews that had been half-finished for months. Thomas watched the elf see everything, and hated how calm he stayed.
Out of instinct though, he fiddled again with the vial of potion inside his pocket. If found out, he should have enough time to break the glass, and escape.
Oswald paused at a section of wall and laid his fingers on the stone. Mana went out; the stone told him what stone tells. Thomas held his breath.
"Nothing of note," Oswald said, drawing back.
"Really?" Thomas blinked. "I-I mean, you see?" he said too quickly. "Nothing out of the ordinary."
"Please, I must remind you, Dean, to not judge someone by their cover, and to thoroughly investigate allegations before. . .forcing oneself into the privacy of professors," Thomas said. "Something that is granted to all professors, might I add."
Oswald turned, the corners of his mouth not quite a smile. He didn't say anything except a, "Do mind yourself, Professor."
He turned to leave. "Sometimes, you seem to forget that I may be blind to some matters, but the walls surely aren't."
He left, robes whispering, door shutting.
Thomas stood until his knees remembered how to bend. "Fuck, fuck!" Then laughter came up, thin and sharp. "Blind old swan," he said to the empty room.
He pressed his own mana to the same blank section of wall. The stone softened, ran like wax, and a seam appeared where none had been.
"Let's see how my child fares," he said, and stepped through.
The pod was broken. Shards glittered on the floor; the fluid had long since found new levels. The restraints hung useless. The cradle was empty.
On the rim, a scrap of paper waited under a sliver of crystal. Thomas snatched it up and read.
Instructions—clean, concise, infuriatingly competent. A better method, a safer set of reagents, a way around the uglier parts of his design. Lines he wished he had written. Lines he would pretend he had.
At the bottom, an untidy scrawl: I'm out. Kudos to you for thinking you could keep me trapped here.
Thomas stared at the last three letters as if they were a rune cluster he did not recognize. ". . .Kudos?" he said aloud, to no one.
The paper creased in his fist. "Damn you," he said—quietly first, then louder, until the word struck the tiles and came back twice.
"DAMN YOU!"
Then, he heard it.
The whisper returned, warmer now. How pitiful, little alchemist. To have even your creation pull the wool over your eyes. Hahaha. . .A jest even I would be proud of!
So, are you ready to make a deal?
Thomas closed his eyes. The old rooms in the mountains felt very far away. The Alchemy Department was still small, and suddenly the walls seemed closer than they had that morning.
He whispered tiredly, "That contract. . .Tell me more about it."