Alchemists do not need self-cultivation

"Truth, I..."

"You're here again, I know."

The white-clad figure, Truth, simply agreed, since Isaac coming here was already a regular occurrence for him.

“I have a question: why did I suddenly appear in another world this time?” Isaac asked. “My fake Gate of Truth was never activated.”

Truth raised his head slightly and pointed behind Isaac.

"Behind me?"

Isaac turned around to look.

Inside the white space, there are three Gates of Truth behind Isaac.

One is Isaac's own Door of Truth, another is a fake Door of Truth created by the little man in the bottle, and the last one is the Door of Truth that has always been open, extracted from Historia's body.

“You’re being a bit greedy, alchemist,” Truth said. “No alchemist has ever possessed three Gates of Truth before; you’ve set a precedent.”

"What does this have to do with me suddenly appearing in another world?"

"The Gate of Truth connects to another world, and gates only fight against each other. Have you forgotten how 'that guy' tried to devour me?"

The truth continues.

"That's just one point. Another point is that you shouldn't include so much knowledge in your textbooks, especially taboo knowledge."

Chapter 959: The Lost Textbook

"What does this have to do with the taboos I wrote about? It was just to remind students not to touch those things."

“Whatever your purpose in writing about forbidden knowledge, it is an extremely dangerous thing,” Truth said. “Some things, once they appear in a book, will cause a series of disasters.”

"...Then I'll have to burn the second chapter I wrote."

Although it's a bit of a shame that something I spent a whole day writing was deleted, there's no better way to deal with it now.

After paying a small portion of the Philosopher's Stone, Isaac opened the fake Gate of Truth and returned to his own world.

……

"Lieutenant General Isaac! Miss Angel!"

Violet watched helplessly as the two energies emanating from Isaac and Angelina collided, until the two of them disappeared into thin air at the same time.

Just as Violet was worrying, the air in the study twisted once more, crimson lightning filled the room, and Isaac was forged from the distorted air.

"Lieutenant General, what just happened..."

Seeing that Isaac was alright, Violet breathed a slight sigh of relief, but she was still shaken by what had just happened.

“I don’t know, it seems like there was a dimensional jump once,” Isaac said.

He turned his head and looked around, only to find that Anjie was not there.

"Where's Anjie? Has she already gone back?"

"Huh? Isn't Miss Ange with the lieutenant general?"

"what?"

“Because I saw Miss Angel and you, Lieutenant General, disappear together,” Violet said. “Wasn’t she with you, Lieutenant General?”

"..."

Isaac lowered his head and began to ponder.

Ange picked up the textbook he had written, and then the transmutation reaction began to trigger. She tried to stop it by using reverse transmutation, but ended up being sent to another world.

It's quite reasonable that Ange, as the one who initiated the alchemy, went with Isaac when he was sent to another world, but since she wasn't by Isaac's side, she must have been in her own body in that other world.

"So, the problem really is with the textbook I wrote?"

Isaac muttered to himself, turning to look at the ground.

There was nothing else besides a pile of blank manuscript papers scattered on the floor.

"Violet, have you seen the textbook I wrote?"

"A textbook written by a lieutenant general?" Violet recalled the scene just now and said, "It's gone."

"what?"

"Just the moment you disappeared, those manuscript papers with teaching materials written on them were also dismantled."

"...This is troublesome."

If Isaac's guess is correct, then these teaching materials were most likely transported to the world they just visited.

If this troublesome manuscript were to fall into the hands of people in that world, it would be a disaster, especially if they knew that the textbook had the ability to allow people to travel between worlds.

"I'll be leaving for a little while, Violet, please wait for me."

“Okay.” Violet nodded obediently. “Where is the lieutenant general going?”

“Go to the world I just visited and retrieve those textbooks,” Isaac said. “It won’t take long.”

"Go early and return early."

"Ah."

Isaac agreed and began the alchemy once more.

Crimson lightning enveloped his entire body, and he once again arrived in that white space.

……

The truth has always been in this space; Isaac had barely left when he returned.

"Is everything settled?"

"Truth, help me compress time in my world for a while."

Isaac offered no further explanation, simply tossing a Philosopher's Stone into the hands of Truth.

Truth seemed unsurprised, as if everything was within his expectations.

"can."

"I'm leaving now."

After saying this, Isaac pushed open the door to the forged truth and stepped inside.

The door closed once more, leaving only Truth holding the Philosopher's Stone in the white space.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

A red flash of electricity appeared, and Isaac reappeared in the room he had just been in.

Upon returning to the area, he immediately crouched down and began searching.

"It should be here... well, no."

The textbooks were not in Isaac's room; apart from some of his personal belongings from this world, there was nothing else there.

knock knock knock.

Just then, there was a knock on the door.

Isaac stepped forward and opened the door, revealing a man with short blond hair.

"Isaac, how are you feeling now?"

"Ah, it's almost done," Isaac said casually.

He felt that the man in front of him looked familiar, as if he had seen him somewhere before.

"That's good, you seem to be alright now." The man seemed relieved. "You had already fainted when we arrived at Miss Gracia's shop yesterday."

“…Grecia?” Isaac tilted his head.

He did recognize the name; it seemed to be Hughes's wife's name.

“Yes, Miss Gracia’s is your fourth job. If she hadn’t rushed over to our house to tell me and Edward, you might have been sleeping there to death.”

"I see..."

How pathetic am I in this world?

"Seriously, do you really not need Edward and me to help you out a little?" the man suddenly asked. "I know you've always been very proud, Isaac, but it's not a wise decision to ruin your health."

"I understand, thank you for your concern."

"Hey, Al."

Just then, Edward's voice rang out from outside the door. He went to Isaac's room and found the man from earlier.

"Al, you're here."

"Yes, I came back to see Isaac."

The man was addressed as 'Al' by Edward, and he responded with a smile.

"It seems there's nothing to worry about."

"That's good."

Edward laughed when he heard this, and turned to Isaac, saying, "By the way, would you like to come with us to the carnival?"

"what?"

“That’s right, my partners at Al and the Research Institute have agreed to test-fly our research results at Carnival,” Edward said. “We’ve been researching for so long, it’s time to go out and give it a try. Maybe we’ll get lucky and someone will be willing to invest.”

What do you want to test fly?

"Huh? Have you forgotten?" Edward asked, somewhat surprised. "We should have told you, we're going to test-fly the rocket."

"...That thing can even be test-flown?"

"It's just a half-person-tall experimental subject. Isaac, do you want to come with us? Anyway, your current physical condition prevents you from continuing to work."

“…Okay.” Isaac nodded in agreement.

He had been thinking about two things since the beginning. The first was his lost textbook, which was probably gone somewhere, just like Anjie's.

The second thing was that he finally remembered who the man Edward called Al was.

Alphonse Elric, Edward's younger brother in his own world, has always been wearing an empty shell of armor, which is why Isaac didn't immediately recognize him.