The Martial God: Demonic Cultivator in a World of Magic [Isekai LitRPG]

"Knowledge is the sharpest blade in the hands of a man, but often it would cut both ways. Be wary, for the more you wield it, the deeper it scars your soul." – Maldric Othrandar, the Scholar with Three Brains.

****

The Forsaken Alchemist’s hut wasn’t the grand and mysterious lair I had expected it to be. Rather, it was as humble as it looked from the outside. 

A cluttered place filled with usual alchemy-related stuff. Shelves crammed with bottles and vials, most filled with strange liquids and some with powders, with some glowing faintly in the dim light of some luminous mushrooms. Herbs hung from the ceiling, while the air smelled funny with the scent of burning incense.

Papers were strewn about, covered in half-finished notes and sketches of bizarre symbols. Probably some alchemy formulas I could barely understand. And then, there were books. A lot of them. But not the kind I’d expected from a mad alchemist... 

Sure, there were plenty of alchemy and magic, but there were also tomes on history, politics, and philosophy—topics that seemed too wide-ranging for an isolated alchemist obsessed with immortality. 

I supposed geniuses often had broad interests.

More than any of these, the thing that caught my attention the most was the large cauldron in the center of the room. “Whoa,” it was bubbling ominously with a strange liquid swirling inside it with a deep, unnatural color—like a mix between molten gold and something far more toxic. 

While I looked around cautiously, half-expecting some trap or strange creature to leap out at me, the alchemist himself seemed oblivious to my presence. He was yawning loudly as he closed the door behind me, stretching as if this were just another night for him.

I decided to break the silence. “I am Iskandaar Romani, son of the Romani Household. I came here to, well, make sure I’ll live. What do you see with those eyes of yours?” I asked, looking at him from the cauldron warily as the liquid inside started to bubble more aggressively.

“Hm?” The alchemist blinked at me, yawning again. “What do I see? Same as you, I suppose. I’m not blind, I think.” He shrugged nonchalantly.

“...Uh, I meant the thing above my head,” I clarified, trying to keep my frustration from showing. Was he making fun of me?

“Oh, you mean the ceiling?” he asked, glancing up with an exaggerated gesture. “Yeah, it’s a wooden ceiling. You can’t see it? Poor guy.”

Not funny. I kept my expression neutral. This guy’s messing with me. I held back a sigh and said, “I was asking about my lifespan. You know, the ‘funny numbers’?”

“Ah, right,” he said, his tone brightening as if he’d suddenly remembered. But before I could get a straight answer, his attention darted back to the cauldron. “Oh man, my potion’s almost ready!” he exclaimed, rushing over and fanning it with his hands like an amateur trying to cool down a campfire. “Crap, crap, crap—too hot!”

“....”

He grabbed the cauldron off the flame with his bare hands, yelping in pain as he placed it aside, then clapped his burnt hands together as if that would make it better. I just stared, dumbfounded at the scene. 

This was the man everyone feared? The Forsaken Alchemist?

“Right, you were asking about your lifespan,” he muttered, distractedly rubbing his hands together. “Those funny numbers… Yeah, I’ll tell you about them.”

I raised an eyebrow, trying not to sound too eager. “Really?”

“Sure,” he said, waving a hand dismissively. “But only if you bring me the core of the king of this forest—the Mistwraith Titan. I need its heart for a project. And as I’m sure you can see above my head, I am not very strong.”

I blinked. 

What?

Above his head…

[Level 45]

He knew I could see the level above his head. How?!

Even if he had keen senses, despite looking aloof, and therefore noticed me looking above his head, how could he know I was seeing his levels?!

This man’s dangerous. I nodded. “No idea what you’re talking about, but I am quite weak myself. I can’t defeat something like the Mistwraith Titan.”

He scoffed, “What? Useless. Leave me alone, then.”

No, I was not useless just because I couldn’t defeat a city-level monster. Was this guy serious? That thing was a powerful monster, something that would take half a dozen Sir Carlos-level knights to bring down. I stayed silent, holding back the insults in my throat.

The alchemist didn’t seem to care about me anymore, though. He was back to fiddling with his cauldron, mumbling to himself about ingredients and whatnot. Eventually, I sighed and sat down on a chair that had seen better days.

It’s just a few words, and yet… I sighed. No point arguing with a madman, I had to find another way to get what I needed from him. Deciding so, I crossed my arms and waited.

Minutes turned into hours, and the only sound in the room was the soft bubbling of the cauldron with the crackle of the fire underneath it. My mind wandered as I watched the process in silence. Maybe I could find a way to convince him without hunting down some city-eater creature… But what?

“...Have a talk with me instead, will you?” the alchemist’s voice broke the silence. I looked up to find him still hovering over the cauldron, his back turned to me. “If the quality of the conversation is good, I’ll overlook that very important quest and tell you what you want to know.”

“That easy?” I asked, a little suspicious.

He chuckled, not turning to face me. “A loaf of bread is more valuable than gold to a child starving for days. Uh, assuming the child doesn’t have a way to sell the gold. You know, like if he’s stranded on an island or something. As in-”

“I get the gist,” I quickly cut him off before he could ramble further. “So you’re lonely?”

“Oh no, not loneliness. I just miss talking.” So… he was lonely. I watched as he dropped something into the cauldron. It let off a small puff of smoke. “It’s been ages since I’ve had a decent conversation, last time it ended wildly.”

I leaned back in my chair, easing into it. “Why not return to civilization then? Even if you’re crazy, I think you have skills if people talk about you after so long since you left civilization.”

The alchemist fell silent. It was an odd type of silence from a man with weird humor. He let out a long sigh, stirring the bubbling concoction with a long wooden spoon. “It’s… painful. Frustrating. To see those cursed numbers above everyone’s head. Civilization is not for me, not anymore.”

“A different man might consider it a gift,” I remarked, watching his movements closely.

“I thought that too,” he said, shaking his head slightly. “Do you know who I was before all this? I was the advisor to the Emperor back in the day.”

I raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t know that.”

“Not many do. Alchemy’s always been my passion, but I was known for my scholarship back in the day. I wasn’t just some back-alley potion maker,” he explained, throwing a pinch of powder into the cauldron that caused the liquid to shimmer. “Before I became ‘The Forsaken Alchemist,’ I was renowned as one of the greatest scholars of my time.”

“You’re smart?” I asked, half-joking. I didn’t mean to diminish the emotion in his words, but I felt that he’d appreciate a light humor.

“Depends on your definition of smart,” he mused with a chuckle. “I tend to over-explain things, so you might find that dumb. Is a person truly smart if he can’t explain something with minimal words? Regardless, have you ever heard of the Cursed Scholar?”

I frowned. “Surprisingly, yes. You can’t be him if that’s what you’re going to say. He lives in the sewer system of my city.”

The alchemist chuckled. “That’s funny. Do you know why he went mad and earned that stupid title ‘cursed scholar’? The rumors, I mean.”

I nodded. “He was a famous academic who was driven insane by forbidden knowledge and now lives in the shadows. From what I know, anyway.”

The alchemist gave me a sly grin. “I was the one who gave him that forbidden knowledge. He used to come to me for advice when I was still active, but after I retreated to this forest, we lost contact. One day, he came to visit me in the forest with a problem he was facing, and by the time he left, he was a madman.”

I stared at him in silence. So… if I had gone to the sewers looking for answers, I’d have ended up back here anyway? Wonderful.

“They called me the Scholar With Three Brains,” he said suddenly, a note of pride in his voice, as he tapped his skull. As I had noted before, his head was taller than normal.

I stayed silent for a moment, and slowly my eyebrows floated. Something just clicked in my head, and the room suddenly seemed quieter. I leaned forward, my eyes sharp. “...You can’t be serious.”

Scholar With Three Brains. I recognized that name. It took me a second, but I knew it. This man was mentioned multiple times in the game, so many times that I had remarked that when the game was launched, all the players would hate him. 

“Oh, you’ve heard the title?” he said, smiling wider. “I was quite the genius, you know. People still quote me without realizing I’m still alive.”

He was if Albert Einstein had a child with Aristotle—a genius in multiple fields, a philosopher who unveiled the purpose of life, and a scientist who discovered and invented some insane stuff.

“Who wouldn’t recognize your name, man?” I asked, “You invented the Chrono-Lattice Device. The agricultural world is forever indebted to you.”

It was a highly advanced magical device capable of slightly altering the flow of time within a small, localized area. Initially designed to help farmers by extending the growing season, it was later adapted for military purposes. It allowed soldiers to speed up their reflexes or slow down enemy movements during battle, which was an insane boost on a battlefield. Eventually, it was banned from the military due to its destabilizing effects on a body’s mana fields, but farmers still use it to this day.

If that sounded crazy, this one would surprise you even more. “...Forgive my lack of knowledge, but you also invented the Neuralweave Network, right? It’d be a crime if I didn’t recognize your name.” I said.

I was talking about a groundbreaking magic-tech interface designed to enhance the cognitive abilities of scholars and intellectuals. There weren’t many people using it, but those who had it could tap into the collective knowledge stored in magically encrypted libraries across the continent. Once hailed as a way to bridge the knowledge gap across nations, the Neuralweave Network was later found to cause mental breakdowns in unprepared users—so it’s classified as forbidden unless given proper authority to use.

 Those who mastered it, however, were able to rapidly expand their intellectual capacity. The greatest user of it was, of course, the man right before me. Earning him the "Three Brains" title.

In case the point wasn’t clear… Yes, this guy invented the internet, no matter how limited, in this magical world.

“How does someone like you end up… well, here?” I gestured around the tiny, cluttered hut. I didn’t doubt his identity, no, I had once seen a picture of him in the game—he looked similar. That head was hard to forget. Additionally, the game had an easter egg that revealed the Level of the scholar once, it was Level 45.

He shrugged, his tone more somber. “I wanna talk about philosophy and stuff instead, but fine. I wouldn’t want you to go mad like that Cursed Scholar. So let me return to the beginning…” he took a second. “I was saying that as the ‘Three Brained Scholar,’ I appreciated these eyes of mine. As the Emperor’s advisor, they helped me plan assassinations, political moves—things that could shake entire empires.”

“I can see the value in that,” I said. If some powerful Duke was sick and I could see that this sickness would claim his life, I too could plan insane political stuff with that knowledge.

“Until one day,” the Scholar said. “I fell in love.”

“Ah.”

“With a woman fated to die in seventy-six days.”

“....”

“A perfectly healthy woman, mind you. But her body… it was counting down. That was very odd for me.”

I remained silent, letting him continue.

“The thing is, I could see both her physical death day and her fated death day. She was destined to live for years, but her body was telling me she’d die soon. It was the first time I’d seen something like that.”

“That so? What about people who coincidentally catch sickness then? Aren’t they the same? Destined to live longer, but now their body is counting down.” I murmured.

“That’s the thing, that doesn’t happen,” he looked at me, sleepless eyes locking onto mine. “Because everything… every coincidence… is a part of fate’s plan. Sick patients are fated to die from that sickness, so their fated death and bodily death showed the same number in my eyes. Although there are people whose fated death is earlier than their bodily death—as it is natural. You may be perfectly healthy, and then get bitten by a venomous snake. If that was your fate.”

“That makes sense.”

“That’s why the peculiarity of her numbers made me obsessed with her. Some had the same date in their bodily death and fated death, some had their fated death earlier than their bodily death. Nobody had their bodily death before their fated death. Nobody but her.”

I saw where this was going, as the sad man played with his cauldron.

“At one point, I fell in love with her. It was odd, that wasn’t my intention, I had never been a romantic, but she made me feel that way. She was that kind of woman. Love stories are silly, but it just happened. So I tried to figure out what was wrong, why the numbers were like that, why she was dying. Later, I tried to change it, because the days were shortening, and I couldn’t bear to see her die.”

“You didn’t find an answer.”

He nodded, “I didn’t. I met dying patients. People who were sick. But no leads. She was an anomaly…”

The alchemist’s voice grew quiet, and he stared into the bubbling cauldron as if lost in thought. I didn’t say anything, listening carefully.

“In the end, she died in my arms. One evening, she just… collapsed. And I’ve been searching for the secrets of life and immortality ever since.”

I sat there, absorbing his story. I wasn’t sure whether to feel pity for him or to be wary of where his obsession had led him. While it was a sad story, what was the point in making an immortal pill now that she had died? If the point was not to lose the other people important to him, he had already lost them by retreating into this forest.

“Damn,” I muttered, not sure what else to say.

“Yeah,” he replied with a chuckle. “Damn indeed.”