Dusk quickly turned to dawn and a beautiful red glow came from the east, the sun coming in full view to signify a new day. The events of the night before left Willem with a feeling of inquisitiveness. He would need more samples and experience if he was going to master sexual arts. Though for now it remained a secondary point of interest, much like a hobby.
Kinsey had woken up an hour before Willem usually did and washed herself, as the sweat from yesterdays activities and last nights intercourse had given birth to a layer of sticky filth that needed to be cleansed. Once she was done bathing she cleaned Willem's clothes in a separate basin and laid them on the bedside table to be put on when her Master awoke. Her legs still felt a distinct lack of strength but she knew that soon enough it would return.
There was still another thirty minutes before her Master awoke, so she took the time to deconstruct the 'pain suppression' elixir Willem had given her last night. It had proven extremely effective during their time last night and she thought about the possible uses it had in terms of fighting. If soldiers could continue to fight even with mortal wounds because of the elixir then they had a much higher chance of repelling the magical beings.
Her understanding of pills and elixirs had become the subject of many conversations between herself and her Master. Willem noticed how she diligently watched and took mental notes when he first began his experimentation. Even though she had no idea what he was making, after some time she was able to make informed guesses that were fairly accurate. After a month of watching Willem fusing materials into elixirs, she began to create some herself carefully. Anything to do with magical force, she asked Willem's permission to use the string that bonded her to him.
The string was the very same kind that connected his magical force to his body, and gave Kinsey access to minor darkness magic as long as she got enough power. It was incredibly rudimentary, and Willem stressed the dangers of overuse of darkness magic, so she never used more than the minimum amount for her experiments. She always told Willem without fail if she intended to use the magic, so that if something went wrong he could sever the magic to her and she would be in no immediate danger. After the first few unsuccessful attempts, she began to better understand the flow of magic and was able to use it as adhesive for fusing medicinal herbs.
in the exact same way, even without magic she was able to diffuse medicinal herbs to their crass form and take notes on what amount had what effect. The papyrus she had used became increasingly cluttered the more she studied. When she approached Willem asking for more paper for studying alchemy, he did not understand what she had meant. He realized quickly that his own incredulous memory came from the manipulation of magic to increase his brain activity, the way it did with his eyesight and reflexes. From that he understood that a normal human would never have the ability to do things the same way a mage could.
Although he knew the way to remedy her problem, when he tried to put more magic into her body and rotate it to her brain there were adverse reactions. She openly admitted to having negative emotions the more magic was inside her. Even when he tried to connect more than one string to her she showed signs of incredible resistance and the string would snap. He took note of what happened to her and got her more papyrus from the alchemy labs.
From then on, whenever she had the chance, she began to study. Constructing and deconstructing to see how each ingredient mixed with others. Most experiments she deconstructed were the ones Willem had succeeded in but did not need to keep. She became proficient in her studies once her Master gave her permission to use the beginner alchemy labs in the magic academy.
The skills she had shown made others envious and she was even invited by the senior alchemy masters to become a pupil. She politely declined, as she did not do anything without the permission of her Master.
Once the senior alchemy masters found out who her Master was, they became disdainful. Even though Kinsey was incredibly good at splicing and deconstruction of pre-existing elixirs, she could not compare to the young master who came out of nowhere and began to create elixirs with fervor.
Willem had become both a huge pride and eyesore for the members of the alchemist part of the magic academy. On one hand they had not seen such peerless talent in a hundred years, but on the other he showed no face to his teachers or the older students and had even gone above their heads without issue in the name of rare ingredients. He had already surpassed the level of even the advanced alchemists that had been studying for twenty years. Even more so, the Grand Mages who dabbled in Alchemy all treated him respectfully and would bow slightly when he greeted them. This in itself was a huge form of respect, as they are the ultimate strength in the magic academy.
Willem's abilities in herbal composition and alchemy stemmed from both a flexible mind that craved knowledge and a talent for gauging and calculating without needing a direct test. When he was not in class or with Grand Mage Archus, he could be found in the alchemy labs or the grand library with Kinsey, pouring through obscure books that others could not even decipher. Of course when he was with Archus, this gave Kinsey some alone time to do her own studying. She did not attend the classes for magical study that Willem did, as she was just a mages attendant. So in the morning she seemed to always find herself picking herbs in the gardens or going to the nearby mountains that were being well guarded against monsters. She would sometimes find herbs she did not recognize, and carefully collect them to be studied later or given to Master.
Now she had a very good understanding towards decomposition, and had thoroughly studied the break down of the 'pain suppression' elixir. From what she could see, it was three parts crane grass, one part elder moss bark and two parts zoysia filament. The crane grass and elder moss bark were not easy or hard to come by, at most they could be considered intermediate ingredients. However the zoysia filament was the most shocking, because it was an extremely common grass and had no practical uses. Among all the books she had read, and all the deconstruction she had done, she never came across zoysia filament being used to create an elixir or medicinal pill. If the alchemists knew how it was being used, how shocked would they be?
She understood how important this could potentially be and would wait to confirm what her Master wanted to do with the information. She now understood why they allowed him full access to the herbal composition room and advanced alchemy labs, her Master was clearly head and shoulders above every other alchemist in the academy.
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Almost half an hour had passed and he should be waking up soon.
Willem was currently engulfed in a pool of darkness. His eyes were closed, and he was just inside his mind swimming. The slow methodical pace and sounds of rippling darkness soothed Willem's mind as he consolidated the information he had gotten so far. Every night when he 'went to sleep' he would instead go into this meditative state and focus everything on deciphering all the information he had gathered. Sometimes he would luck out and connect one thing he had previously not noticed with another, other times his efforts would bear no fruit. This night, he did not come to any solid conclusions about anything. This did not perturb him, he had many successes recently and that alone off set the other days.
Willem rejoined the world of the living quietly and watched as Kinsey frantically paced back and forth. Normally she was shy and quiet, and would already have tea prepared for him when he woke up. He saw the tea had not been made, the basin was not filled with water and her notes had been scattered around with ink spilling over them. He sent magic along the thread and saw her heart thumping faster than normal, but did not know why.
He sat up and Kinsey immediately saw him preparing to go to the basin, she had been in such a stupor about the zoysia filament that she had forgotten to draw a bath for him. She cursed herself inside and greeted Willem with a smile.
"Good morning Master, please forgive me as I have not properly prepared everything for you today. I was distracted deconstructing the pain suppression elixir you gave to me last night. I beg your forgiveness for having failed you."
Willem waved his hand noncommittally, and casted waterball into the empty basin. He then used a small spark of fire to heat up the bath and placed himself into it. Kinsey walked beside him, grabbed a linen, got on her knees and began scrubbing his body. She continued to apologize to the point where Willem felt his ears were going to fall off.
"What has you so distracted that you did not prepare anything this morning Kinsey? Are you unwell?" Willem could tell her body was fine, but he could not feel for the stresses of the mind. He placed his wet hand on her head as if to feel her temperature. If she did not have a fever before, she might now considering the special attention she was getting from him this morning.
"I am fine, I was just thinking about the zoysia filament you used in the pain suppression elixir. If we were able to mass produce the elixir, soldiers could fight even with serious wounds. I wanted to know Master's opinion on this thought." She had no intention on hiding the matter from Willem as she washed his arms.
"To be honest, this elixir was just a by-product of another elixir's fusion I was testing. The residual elixir had some dulling properties, and I have a few more so I thought I would put it to use. Since I have no interest in it, you can treat it as your own formula and do with it what you will. If you want to give it to the senior alchemists or the Grand Mages to reproduce and think you need my permission, then you may."
Willem had no intention of even keeping this pain suppression elixir. He knew that there was an adverse effect of the elixir, and it was that those who over consume it become addicted to it like a drug. He was just going to have Kinsey splice them and return the parts to the herbal composition room anyway.
Willem explained the adverse effect of the elixir to Kinsey and made sure she understood the consequences of revealing the process. When he saw that she still wanted to tell them, he no longer stopped her. She finished cleaning every part of his body and dressed him in his scholar robes.
Hand in hand they both entered the teleportation array and reappeared at the magic academy entrance. From there, Willem went toward the academy classrooms and Kinsey went off the beaten path into the mountains for herb collection.
Word had gotten around that Willem had become a Grand Mage of Darkness, the first of the kind, and also the first of the generation to receive the title. An assembly was called by the Grand Mages as they informed the teachers and other staff of the magic academy that Willem was officially a Grand Mage and was to be treated as someone of that position. Though many expressed doubts, they kept it to themselves for fear of incurring the wrath of the other Grand Mages.
Willem's first class was advanced fire composition, and the previous days had been spent studying the delicate relationship with the wind element. The teacher was an Advanced Fire Mage with a minor in wind magic. His magic and aptitude were well suited for teaching, and with some guidance from the Grand Mages of Fire he was able to hone his skill to cast chantless fire. This was not an easy feat, and was only made possible by the mages ability to understand the basics of fire.
During the previous three months that Willem attended this particular course, he was able to understand after a while the secret behind chantless magic. Thanks to the Advanced Fire Mage's explanation, the idea to understanding it was simple. The actual element of fire was a by-product, in much the same way combining herbs made an elixir. By combining certain parts of unseen primary ingredients, one could fuse them and provide a minimal amount of magic as fuel for intermixture.
The unseen primary ingredients were incredibly hard to understand, but as long as someone understood that there was an unknown ingredient that cannot be seen, but still had such obvious effects, it seemed less necessary to understand it entirely.
One did not need to know every little detail about the unseen ingredients, as long as one knew the necessary steps to gather them, one could make chantless fire, water, earth and wind.
Once Willem unlocked the ability to use chantless magic, the fire mage showed a keen interest and would often ask Willem to stay behind in class multiple times in order to confer further about chantless magic.
The fire mage was sure chantless magic was just a gateway to further abilities, such as instantaneous element or array creation. While Willem entertained the idea, the topic had become stale and they were not making any progress among themselves.
Many in the class looked to Willem with either disdain and reverence. Many believed that even if Willem was talented, he was still too young and did not have the capabilities to speak with the teacher on such a personal level. There must have been extenuating circumstances or the teacher would not even put this simpleton within his sights.
Once the first class had ended, Willem got up from his seat only to quickly be surrounded by the others attending the lecture. Some had sneers filled with reckless abandon, and others shyly followed behind them.