The magical antidote had worked and the orphanage could continue existing for another few months. We only needed to focus our efforts on crafting enough potions to save as many plants as possible so I left the farm plot and followed Elincia back into the manor.

Zaon caught up to me before I could reach the entrance.

“Sir? Can we talk for a moment?” The elven boy asked with a worried expression.

“Sure, Zaon. Anytime you want.” I replied, taking the boy to the side, far from prying ears.

During the training session Zaon and the rest had had a positive attitude facing the challenge. Even if their first blows were full of doubt, slowly but surely they had started to get the hang of it. And even after, when I put him in charge of the development of the farm plot, he seemed to accept the role of leader in the end.

“What’s the matter?” I said, as Zaon seemed hesitant to speak up.

“I think it’s a better idea to leave Wolf as the leader of the farm project. He knows a lot more about farming than me and he came up with better solutions too.” Zaon stuttered with the eyes fixed on the tips of his feet.

Zaon’s words took me by surprise at first, but then I remember that confidence could be lost even easier than it was obtained. I should’ve realized that the boy was still full of self doubt, but despite his petition, I couldn’t just let him resign. I had to find a way to support him.

“It is scary, isn't it? To make a mistake I mean.” I smiled reassuringly and put my hand on Zaon’s shoulder.

“If I make the wrong decision we are going to starve this winter… I don’t think I am the right person for this job.” Zaon sighed.

I sat with the back against the wall and patted the ground for him to do the same.

“I do believe you are the right person for the job. You care about the orphanage just as much as Miss Elincia so I know you will try your best.” I said. “Sometimes life puts challenges in our way that we are not prepared to fight. War, illness, injustice… but it is the duty of good men and women to stand tall in front of adversity, even if odds are slim.”

Zaon looked at me and nodded.

“Mister Holst…” He stopped mid sentence.

“I do believe you can make it.” I replied. “It’s just a farm, Zaon. Even if you get something wrong I will be there to guide you, and so will Miss Elincia, Ilya, and Wolf. You are a smart kid, Zaon.”

Zaon jumped up with his eyes filled with determination once again.

“I’ll do my best, Mister Clarke. I’ll use Wolf’s and Ilya’s advice and we will work hard. I won’t let you down.” The elven kid repeatedly slapped his face with both hands until his cheeks turned red.

“Would you look over the young ones while Miss Elincia and I craft more potions?”

Zaon nodded energetically and zoomed around the manor towards the farm.

I smiled, the talk had worked wonders on Zaon but also on me. Things were improving in the orphanage. Even with the Marquis’s ominous shadow lingering over us and Holst’s betrayal dragging us down, the orphans were in good spirits and even Elincia seemed more optimistic.

Our situation was still precarious but I saw a glimpse of hope.

But first potions.

I passed outside the kitchen, where the snakefolk twins were stealing potatoes. One in each hand and another one inside the mouth. I softly scolded them, holding back a laugh. The pair was so cute that I could barely frown towards them without feeling guilty. Virdian and Nokti begrudgingly returned the potatoes to the sack and scurried away.

I made a mental note to ask Elincia about the twins’ obsession with potatoes but for the time being we were against the clock. Even if we had an antidote for poison, it couldn’t resurrect the plants once they were dead.

I knocked on Elincia’s door.

“Come in!” Elincia yelled from the other side with a much more calm voice. She was acting suspiciously but my [Awareness] refused to form any hypothesis about it.

“Are you okay?” I ventured inside the room. Elincia was already sitting at her desk precisely cutting the ingredients with the scalpel. There was no trace of the giddiness she had shown minutes before.

“I leveled up. Twice in fact. I had to retreat from the farm plot before I could start trashing Holst to the four winds.” Elincia said with an embarrassed tone. From my position I could only see a slice of her face but I noticed her cheeks were red.

Leveling up made one feel like shouting out loud after all.

“By the time we finish crafting the potions you will be ready to evolve to the next class.” I tried to lighten the atmosphere with a joke as I sat across the desk.

“Can you imagine? The only Transmuter in Farcrest being the local orphanage caretaker? Imperial Scholars and even the Alchemist Guild would be quite mad, as far as I know there is just one Transmuter in the kingdom.” Elincia glanced at me across the table as if she was really entertaining the possibility.

My Scholar’s mind instantly archived the new knowledge. If the information Elincia was feeding me was reliable, then classes could evolve at least two times. Herbalist, a basic class, turned into Alchemist, an advanced class, and then into Transmuter. However, advanced classes seemed to be common enough to not raise an eyebrow. After all, both Elincia and I had started with advanced classes from the get go.

Even if Elincia had been an Alchemist since her teenage years, she didn’t seem to expect evolving any time soon. Maybe the headstart wasn’t meaningful in the long run. The third class had to be something unusually rare for only a single Transmuter to exist in the whole kingdom.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

“I wish I could become a Transmuter but it takes more than a few levels to reach a Prestige class. Becoming a Transmuter is a long journey that requires finding the rarest ingredients and crafting the most difficult potions. It’s not something you can do at home.” Elincia shrugged her shoulders and continued preparing the ingredients.

Leaving the orphanage wasn’t a possibility for either of us.

I sat back and watched Elincia’s hands as she masterfully cut, mashed, and peeled the alchemical ingredients. I have always been fascinated by women who could make things with their hands, be it drawing, playing an instrument, or any other creative endeavor. No, more than fascination it was admiration.

“Come to think I know very little about you. I mean, I know you are a ‘natural’ Scholar from a faraway land that had a mad crush on his teacher.” Elincia said after a moment of comfortable silence. “Okay, that was mean. It sounded funnier in my mind.”

“You are generally mean.” I replied.

After my last breakup, I knew the moment of talking about myself with someone of the opposite sex would eventually come. Aslan, Iluvatar, and the System knew I wasn’t prepared for this. I had abandoned most of my hobbies over the years and the most exciting thing that ever happened in my life was coming to this world. And that wasn’t something I could tell Elincia.

Music? Elincia wouldn’t be familiar with modern Earth music genres. Movies? Sure, pictures that move would sound like magic. Books? Elincia probably hadn’t read any of my favorites. Sports? Elincia would make fun of me for watching twenty-two dudes chasing a ball.

“I’m sure Scholars aren’t known for being interesting people. Before arriving here, I hadn't left my city for a long time. Not even to go to the outskirts.” I said, hoping to deflect the question.

Elincia just laughed.

“Don’t even get me started, I have been sitting here in Farcrest since the day I was born. Unless you count the Farlands.” Elincia sighed, still focused on the Dire Cress.

“I’d count the Farlands as your vacation spot of choice.” I replied.

Elincia rolled her eyes without looking at me.

“Very funny, Robert.” She said.

“What about you? I barely know anything about you except for the fact you run an orphanage and you are a very sassy person.”

Elincia stopped cutting and for a moment I feared I would have triggered some painful memories. Ebros Kingdom was at war, and she probably had sent more than a few orphans to feed the King’s war machine.

“What about me, I wonder.” Elincia said, resuming her task. “Mister Lowell died when I was sixteen and I was one of the older kids here so I had to take care of the orphanage. The first two years were peaceful but then war broke out and since then I could count with the fingers of both hands how many times I’ve left Farcrest.”

[Awareness]: Ebros Kingdom War of Expansion has been going on for seven years now.

I quickly did the mental math. “Nine years since you became the governess.”

“Soon to be ten. We could organize a celebration or something for the anniversary.” Elincia laughed but I knew she was hiding part of the story. I could see an old wound still not fully cicatrized in the depths of her emerald eyes. “Don’t run away from my question. I already told you how I got here, now it’s your turn.”

I blamed the Dire Cress for being so slow to process.

“What can I say, I studied for most of my youth then I taught for the rest of it.” I replied. That was a good summary of my life if I added to the mix a sprinkle of the romantic breakup that also got rid of all my friendships. “Then I ended up as a… surveyor for a law firm which led me to the teleportation device that brought me here.”

Elincia frowned at me, clearly unhappy with how sparse my story had been.

“The ingredients are ready. I don’t know what Scholar trick you did back there but you better do it again. That was my first High Grade potion ever.” Elincia said.

I nodded.

We worked mostly in silence with a few comments from Elincia between potion after potion. Alchemists improved their control over the crafting process as they leveled up their class and their skills. At first, with the meager mana pool of their initial levels, they could only process small quantities of ingredients with subpar purity. As their class progressed, they were able to brew greater quantities with multiple ingredients and several more middle steps without compromising the effectiveness of the potion.

There was a catch, though. Mana Corruption. Magic potions were the way to go to treat most illnesses and injuries but it came with a cost. In great quantities, potions could cause Mana Corruption, an untreatable ailment that corrupted the mana pool and weakened the skills of the person.

Usually, ingredients with high magic concentration yielded potions with great effects and high toxicity. Only a high level Alchemist could craft a potion with powerful effects and low toxicity.

Luckily for adventurers, mana toxicity faded with time as long as it didn’t pass the critical threshold.

By mid afternoon, a group of orphans had appeared under the window. Their eyes reflected the mana colors cast by the alchemical process. Green during the extraction process and gold during the mixing. Potion crafting was repetitive and tedious so after half an hour, the orphans returned to their usual activities, leaving us alone once more.

The mild autumn weather worsened during the afternoon. Dark clouds started brewing all over the Farlands heralding the first storm of the year. The weakened sun was about to hide beneath the mountains by the west when we ran out of ingredients.

Elincia was a bit paler than usual and I could feel her mana pool dangerously depleted.

“I leveled up two more times.” Elincia said as she stretched her back with feline elegance. The euphoria from leveling up and the exhaustion from the prolonged crafting seemed to be canceling each other out.

Not wanting to spend a single second idle, we returned to the farm plot. A strong wind picked up as we abandoned the safety of the manor and a few stray raindrops fell over my face and my hands. Elincia grabbed the hem of her dress as the wind rushed and led the way to the withering plants.

We soon realized the stack of potions wasn’t going to be enough for the whole farm.

Elincia and I kneeled before a potato plant and poured a few drops on the leaves.

Potato Plant. [Identify] The tasty part is underground. Recovering. Lv.1 Vigor (temporary).

“It worked!” I grabbed her hand before she could waste a single drop.

About half of the vial was already empty, but more importantly, the other half was still full. With a smile on our faces, we tended the next plant. We worked shoulder by shoulder until the last potion was spent.

In the end, the real MVP had been [Identify]. The skill allowed me both to detect the plants that were beyond recovery and to know the minimum antidote dose each sick plant needed.

About a third of the plot was already [Withered].

Now we could only wait for the crop and hope the yield was enough.

We returned inside the orphanage after nightfall, only after tending each plant. The kitchen was empty but the leftovers of a pot of gruel revealed the orphans fended themselves against hunger before going to bed. I silently thanked the older kids. Without Ilya, Zaon, and Wolf’s help everything would be twice as hard.

My stomach grumbled. Mana work was exhausting for body and mind.

Elincia fed the stove and put the kettle on. We sat near the fire as it was the only source of light in the room. It was too late for something more elaborate so Elincia brought an old piece of bread, roasted seeds, cheese, and the ham I had bought from the market.

The meal tasted like no other. Maybe it was the company, or the fact we had made great advances toward the long term survival of the orphanage, but I wouldn’t change the old bread and smelly cheese for anything.

There was still something bothering me however.

Firana hadn’t reappeared since the morning session.