An explosion echoed across the sunny valley. The source was a small cabin sitting peacefully on the valley floor. Nothing seemed unusual about it from the outside, but then the door creaked open and a gout of black smoke wafted out. Following the smoke, five Deva brothers stumbled through the doorway, hacking and coughing.

¡°Well,¡± Tristan said, ¡°I guess that didn¡¯t work.¡±

¡°What are you talking about?¡± Lacard said, ¡°That was great!¡±

Kayle sighed. ¡°Lacard, you¡¯re so immature. You just blew up all our Lak reserves!¡±

¡°Yeah,¡± Van sniffed, ¡°plus that Dragon you summoned two weeks ago ate all of our rupees! Fashion like mine doesn¡¯t come free, you know.¡±

Lacard eyed Van¡¯s flashy embroidered clothing. ¡°At least the Dragon disappeared, right? And we still have our research notes.¡±

¡°Stop arguing!¡± Chiu interjected. ¡°Lacard is right about one thing. We may have lost our fortune, but we still have our research notes. And this latest disaster has given me an idea.¡±

The brothers leaned in closer. ¡°The sun is shining and the birds are chirping ¨C I think it¡¯s time we went on a trip to the city! Each of us can go to a different city and trade our bombs and potions ¨C and even Lacard¡¯s voracious temporary monsters ¨C to adventurers in exchange for the Lak we need to continue our experiments. Then once we have enough, we can come home and start working again.¡±

The other four brothers nodded and grinned in agreement. ¡°Besides,¡± Tristan said, ¡°I¡¯m excited to finally be able to show off our work! We¡¯ve created so much with simple Lak, and I think spring is the perfect time to share our discoveries with the entire world!¡±

And with that, the brothers set off in five different directions, promising to meet up again in two weeks after spreading the magic of Alchemy to all of Rappelz.