AK - The Alchemy Kingdom

Chapter 136: The Alchemy badge

Year 3, Winter, Third Month, Third Week.

Warn your friends and family to forget about you for the next two weeks The Alchemy Badge will be the most difficult, important and revolutionary work we have done since the protection barrier Different from our previous projects, every single one of you will participate in this project. Its also a one-in-a-time opportunity to stand out and get a better position. If any of you is not up to late nights, overworking and handling pressure, you might leave right now.

Karl was pleased that nobody moved. He searched through the crowd another time, trying to memorize their faces, before continuing.

The Alchemy Badge project has three stages, and has to be completed before Spring, so we have two weeks. Stage one is production, all level three disciples should start mass-producing the Alchemy badges. The badges will be provided by the Crafting Department, Ill give you the details after the overview. Initially, two thousand badges must be produced during the next ten days, which leaves roughly four badges a day for each of you.

The level two disciples will focus on drawing one of the three tools used in our financial system, the crystal exchanger. By the end of the two weeks, we need 15 operational tools, so you have to draw at least two a day. The level one disciples will be responsible for another tool, the updater, which must have the same numbers as the crystal exchanger. Finally, Wein and Anya will help me draw ten recorders and offer support to anyone who needs it.

Stage two is registration, this stage will start tomorrow as soon as recorders and badges are available. The Assistants will be responsible for the registration of everybody inside the city. Later, Ill train you to execute the process correctly.

Stage three is training operators, this stage will start as soon as we finish registering everyone. Exceptionally, this stage doesnt need to be completed before Spring, but the sooner the better. For now, we only need to train the 15 users of the exchanger and updater Ill now talk with the groups separately, starting with the level three disciples.

Fortunately, the Alchemists were organized enough to separate themselves into the right groups and approach Karl in less than five minutes.

Before you start to panic, your only job is to imprint a unique Alchemy mark on each badge and in a spare kept for recording purposes. The badges mark isnt complicated, but its more complex than our usual mark used for positioning. First, lets talk about the importance and possibilities given by the mark. You already know that different from the Arrays and Runes, the marks physical form doesnt matter, only its concept. Until now, we only explored the superficial potential of the marks, by given a random unique concept to them just to use it as a reference. However, if we think about it from another perspective, the marks can be used as a blank canvas, with endless possibilities. We could use it to represent a name, a number, or anything we can put in the form of a concept, which brings us to the limitation of the marks

Uniqueness What might mean one for me, can be two for you, or another thing completely. Of course, we could set a standard and train everyone until they get it, similar to understanding the concept of an Array, but it could take a lot of time and waste too much energy. I struggled to find a solution to overcome this for almost a week until I finally remembered something. Theres something that goes beyond concept, something that makes us unique although we could all be described by the concept of Human Characteristics, or better saying, properties. A single concept can have dozens or even hundreds of properties. Even if my concept of something is different from yours, they might share the same properties

Besides saving on drawing space, representing many properties in a single concept, might not look revolutionary. But, what if I told you theres an Array capable of changing the property of a concept? One mark could now be used to store dozens of properties that could be modified by an Array. Basically, the Alchemy marks would be used as an object to store properties. For example, this mark could have the name, job, money, and age properties. While this other mark, which has a different concept, could also have the same properties

The Alchemists could barely contain their excitement, the ability to give properties to the marks and modifying it later, solved many of their problems.

However, we cant just modify an unexisting property. Though, is possible to alter the property, like changing a name property to an age property. So, the challenge youll face is drawing a mark with enough properties for our needs. For now, we only need concepts with two properties. Later, well need to update the badges if we want to store more information.

Then, Karl spent the next three hours teaching them how to give properties to their concepts. The fact that any property could work, saved a lot of effort.

The Array he was talking about was the Property Modification Array, which Master AI taught him as soon as he discovered how to use properties in the Alchemy marks. Fortunately, the Arrays concept wasnt too difficult so he only took a week to grasp it. As expected, its modifying effect was limited to the marks, so it couldnt be used to mess with the properties of elements.

The Array was an adaptation of both the Direction A. (triangle) and the Absorption A. (hexagon), and it was drawn as a hexagram, similar to the Signature Absorption A. (six-pointed star). It has the concept of adaptation and the aspect of change, like when people adapt to face a challenge, changing something on them, or acquiring a new ability.

Next, Karl moved to explain the crystal exchanger to the level two disciples. Before diving into the design, he repeated the explanation about the Alchemy mark and talked briefly about the new Array. Since he would be the one drawing it, he avoided talking about it too deeply, the disciples attention should be focused on drawing the tool.

The exchanger can be divided into three parts, the amount creation, the transfer, and the authorization parts. The Alchemy badge will have two properties, one identifier, which should hold the unique signature of the person, and the amount. Lets start with the authorization part, we already talked about adding other Arrays to the Activation A. (rectangle) to transform it into a condition. Using a Spiritual Gate we can make the condition only allow a specific person to activate an effect. So, we can use the Activation, Signature Extraction and Spiritual Gate to create the authorization part. We can put the Auth Array at any main part of the design to prevent payments with another persons badge.

Before moving on, we need to discuss how the operator will transfer the conceptual amount of crystals from or to the badge. To avoid scams, the operator can only transfer the amount from one badge to another. So, when a department is paying their employees they will have to transfer the wage from the departments badge, which should only have the right amount to pay everyone. The same goes for trading, the amount is transferred from the buyer to the seller. To select the amount, the operator must use the removable reference marks, which will be sold with the tool.

The reference marks will work by dividing the units, tens and hundreds to form a number from 0 to 999. Take the number 254 as an example, which would be formed by two in the hundreds mark, five in tens mark, and four in the units mark. However, the hundreds reference mark with the number two drawn on it will actually represent the 200s concept. So, when combining the concepts of the drawings of two, five and four, the concepts combined are actually, 200, 50 and 4. Just remember, the drawing doesnt need to match the concept, so two is actually 200. In the end, we just have to draw 30 numbers, three 0-9 marks. Also, most shops would only use the units' reference as their prices shouldnt go higher than nine crystals.

The amount creation is the first part to be executed so it has to be placed in the external part of the Array. The person operating the tool has to select an amount by placing three reference marks in the Array, representing the hundreds, tens and units, which should be visible to the customer. To prevent scams, the tens and hundreds marks got to have one dot and two dots drawn on them, respectively. Just by placing the references inside Signature Extraction A. and combining them (Combination A.), a concept for the total amount should be formed.

The transfer is the last part. The tool needs an Addition A. to group two independent effects, one effect to subtract the amount of the paying badge, and another to add the amount to the receiver badge. Again, to avoid mistakes, we have to draw a minus and plus sign, just to mark the two parts. Both effects are achieved by using the Property Modification A. (hexagram) with the badges placed inside, one Array tuned to add and the other to subtract. The amount for adding and subtracting is the same and already given by the previous part, the amount creation. Fortunately, the numbers concept can easily interact with the adding and subtracting, after all, when we think about a number of objects, we can imagine it decreasing or increasing.

To complete the design, we join the parts and place the auth A. in the center, just for a matter of convenience.

Karl took the time to answer their questions, and after a couple of hours, finally moved on to the last group. Anya and Wein, were anxiously waiting for their Master, a moment of surprisingly awkward peace.

Good to see you guys understand the importance of this project Anyway, lets get this over with and start working already. The last tool, the recorder, is gonna take care of the registration process. Basically, it just needs to imprint the two properties into the badge. Since the wages should be given by the departments at the right time, we just need to add a symbolic number of crystals in the amount property, and focus on the spiritual properties.

To offer the symbolic amount, we can use a fixed unit reference mark inside of a Signature Extraction A. (pentagram), just to get the number property. Similarly, we can use a Spiritual Gate inside of a Signature E. A. to get the persons spiritual signature. Since both properties should be imprinted independently inside of the badge, we can use an Addition A. to group them. In the center, we can add the badge, and thats it.

Our work is relatively easier because the other groups would probably need our help And we still have to craft hundreds of reference marks

And so, the Alchemy Department started to move in a speed and coordination never before seen. Many Alchemists didnt even come back home for the following week, but nobody dared to complain, after all, they were paving the road for AKs success.