“You’re not my disciple.” My master grumbled the words as she pulled open the door to her cottage. It was made of solid stone, and despite how easily she swung it to the side, I knew that I could never do the same. There’d been more than one incident where I’d gotten stuck inside the cottage. In fact, it happened so often during the first month that my master had torn down a piece of the walls and created a window that could be opened from the inside.

I blushed when those memories entered my mind and my eyes clouded over as nostalgia hit me for things I hadn’t experienced in this lifetime. She was wrong. She had been my master, once upon a time.

And she had taught me alchemy.

No matter how well she tried to hide it, I could see the signs of her true profession everywhere. It was in the placement of the trees, and the wildness of the flowers around us. Even the vines wrapping around her cottage were special, with each bulb being a rare ingredient. She adjusted her robe as she looked at me, and ran her stone fingers through her frazzled hair. The moment she did so, the scent of herbs tickled at my nostrils, familiar and tranquil.

“What are you looking at?” She snapped her fingers sharply. “Are you there, lad?”

I shook my head and forced the memories away. It was getting easier to do so, but five years of memories cramming themselves into a single brain was a slow process. If I didn’t focus on the moment, they quickly struck and overwhelmed me.

“Sorry, master,” I replied.

She grunted, “I’m not your master.”

I stepped past her, causing her to shake her head in exasperation, and into the cottage, finding it much as it had been in my previous life, even if I had arrived here four years early. Pressed against the back wall was a pot which was constantly filled with ingredients, and underneath it lay a flame that never died. There were no windows, but a constant wind sucked up all the smoke and flung it threw the chimney hole jutting down from the roof. Every time the wind picked up I saw a faint spark along the back wall as a ward activated. The two were connected, with the ward providing the wind and its direction.

Behind the pot was a door that led to the only two other rooms in the cottage. One was a makeshift alchemy lab, filled with boxes of ingredients and empty potion vials. The other room I’d never been inside, but I suspected it was a storage room where my master kept her most precious ingredients. She'd always gone inside and come out with whatever she needed.

There was a wooden table in the middle of the room, with a single stone chair pressed up against it. My master leaned back against the wall as I walked up to the chair. I didn’t try to pull the seat out, it was heavier than it looked, and I’d failed at that enough times to know it wasn’t possible for me, so instead, I pushed the wooden table back and took a seat.

“Hmph,” my master crossed her arms.

Her opal eyes bored into me with suspicion. There were probably dozens of questions crossing her mind, but before she could ask anything, she needed to know I was telling her the truth.

I had to prove I had unlocked [Potion Creation].

She couldn’t ask me to read my skill description out loud. Not because she would be punished, but because the social taboo was simply that strong, even among other races.

“I’m going to read my skill description out loud now, and of my own free will,” I said. “To confirm it matches what you know.”

My master tilted her head to the side. “Do what you will.”

“Status screen,” I said.

Name: Aldwyn.

Class: N/A.

Tier: 0.

Mana: 1

Vitality: 5

Intelligence: 15

Wisdom: 11

Stamina: 14

Dexterity: 13

Available stats to assign: 0

Skill list:

I Want To Go Back (Legendary): Tier 0.

Mark of the Alchemist (Locked): Tier 0.

Foraging (Uncommon): Tier 0.

Potion Creation (Uncommon): Tier 0.

Recipes: Four available. (Expand? Y/N)

I opened up my status screen and flicked over to my newest skill.

Potion Creation (common): Potion mastery is within your grasp. Well, no. It isn’t. But the basics are there, and that’s the most important step.

Tiers:

Tier 0: Unlocked. Creating potions in the future will quickly become an instinctive process for you.

Tier 1: Locked. Create four different types of tonics or potions to unlock. Requirements completed: 1/4.

Passives:

Tier 0 Passive: Locked. Create two usable tonics or potions to unlock. Requirements completed: 1/2.

Tier 1 Passive: Locked. Rank skill up to tier 1 to unlock requirements.

My status screen had changed a lot in the last few days. In fact, it was even looking a little respectable. if all went well, it would look even better tomorrow. After all, I still had a few skills to unlock.

I read out the information to her, and my master nodded. She tucked her chin downward, allowing gray hairs to spill over her stone face, and I fell quiet as I recognized the gesture. She always did that when she was deep in thought.

As I waited, I toyed around with the skill description until it was more manageable.

Potion Creation:

Rarity: Uncommon.

Tier 0: Unlocked.

Tier 1: Locked (1/4 requirements met. expand requirements? Y/N).

Passives: Tier 0 Passive: Locked (1/2 requirements met).

The sight of the skill gave me pause. I’d unlocked two skills in two days.

That was insanity.

If a person had claimed to have done the same, then I would have called them a madman or a liar. Possibly both. That was the logical response to hearing about this kind of thing.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Master,” I began to speak.

“Give me more time,” she replied.

I fell quiet, and as the awkwardness of the wait grew, I pretended to examine the room, even if I knew it inside out thanks to my memories.

Even though there were no windows, several sections of the stone walls were see-through. That was thanks to the glowing lines etched into the surface, each of which was a ward that my master had created and tuned for this specific purpose. I examined the wards with interest. These particular wards acted as replacement for windows, allowing my master to view the area without being seen herself, but as far as I knew, the uses of wards were endless.

I’d asked my master about them once in my past life. She’d told me that there were three different crafting professions. Enchanters, artificers, and warders. Enchanters imbued pure magic into items and most craftspeople on this continent of Destra were enchanters. Artificers were the rarest crafting profession, using runes and symbols to create artifacts, and they were something distinctly separate from magic, though I didn’t know how or why, and I’d heard they went by different titles in other continents.

As I thought over those memories, one in particular stood out to me. My master and I had been standing in this very room, only one week after meeting each other for the first time.

“But how are warders and warding different from them?” I asked.

“Wards are created when magic flows through objects with the help of a runic script.” My master replied. “They use both magic and runes.”

“So it’s the best of both worlds?” I hummed thoughtfully. “Sounds smart.”

My master stopped stirring her pot, and sighed. “Enchanters and artificers were professions created by those with talent and a love of studying. Warders were born from failure, merging two professions into one because they couldn’t find their own path.”

“Then it sounds perfect for me,” I replied. “Besides, someone had to have succeeded. Wards are everywhere.”

“Perhaps. All anyone knows is that at some point someone tried to copy the runes used by artificers and failed, and then they tried to do magic like an enchanter, and failed again. Their dual failures somehow led to success when they created a runic script, a pale copy of a true rune, and their magic flowed through it. That person was the first warder.”

The memory faded away, and I shook my head. Right now, I was feeling on top of the world, and I was already far more successful than I’d been in my past life.

Maybe I would even give warding a try.

My master hadn’t had time to teach me how to make wards, but it was something I’d always been curious about. Growing vegetables, creating one-way windows, and deterring others with pain, all of the wards I’d seen would be helpful to me.

“You’re staring off into space, lad. Are you daft in the head?” My master asked.

I glanced at my master and shook my head, dispelling the memories of my past life and bringing me back to the present. Her hands were fidgeting in excitement and uncertainty, and she leaned forward, unable to hide her curiosity.

She was done thinking, which meant she had decided whether or not to throw me out again. My fingers tapped nervously against the wood of the table. I knew that once my master made up her mind, there would be no changing it. That was why she had taken me under her wing in the first place and never kicked me out despite all the annoyance I caused.

“I’ll give you a bronze plate for your thoughts,” I said. “Though I haven’t got one to pay you with.”

“Two things,” my master cut off my words. “First, you are here for my mana dust. Though you do not know where I keep it. Second, you can see the future, but only one version of it.”

I shot up from the chair, slamming my hands down in surprise on the table.

My master stared at me.

I gasped, and my heartbeat quickened.

My master continued to stare at me.

Finally, I gave in.

A bead of sweat ran down my forehead. “What if I’m just a genius?” I spluttered with surprise, barely able to get the words out. And once I spoke, they wouldn’t stop. “And how do you know about the mana dust? I didn’t even know. No, wait, that might not be it. All I know is that I need [Potion Creation].”

“Stop your ramblings, child,” my master held her hand up and I froze. “The mana dust was obvious. Only two potions can save children from the Death March. Both use mana dust as an ingredient, and both require [Potion Creation] to have even a hope of being made successfully.”

“Oh,” I replied.

That explained why the Patriarch from my memories had been trying to have us unlock [Potion Creation] so quickly.

She paused, and her gaze fell onto me, calculating and pensive. Then she smiled.

“As for you being a genius, or even a person who travels through time, I considered both possibilities, but neither makes much sense. I could tell you weren’t a genius by looking at you. Also, you would not be in rags if you were highly valued in the Mou household.” She said each word slowly, as though hesitant to admit her thoughts, but her gravitas was no less strong. “And yet, you knew the way through my forest, and you call yourself my disciple despite the fact that I have never laid eyes on you. You also claim your reason for being here is the death of the Mou Patriarch’s children. If you wish to change their fate, it means you believe the future to be changeable. Perhaps it is. But you are uncertain, which means you can see a future, but that which you see is not changing despite taking different actions.”

I tried to figure out a way to object to her logic. But she had me over a barrel.

“Okay, I can see how you don't think I'm a genius., but how do you know I didn’t time travel?” I asked weakly.

“Time magic is the realm of the divines. No human can wield that power,” she said simply. “Which means you do not.”

“Huh,” I grunted, not quite elegantly. “Crap.”

“That’s one way to put it,” she snorted.

I stared at her. My master didn’t snort. Not once in my past life did she snort. I hadn’t processed all my memories, but I was certain of that. But now she had, and for a moment she looked less like a mysterious existence and more like an ordinary person.

“Am I that obvious?” I asked.

“You are.” She nodded.

I collapsed back into the stone chair. All of the energy I’d built up in anticipation of trying to convince my master to take me under her wing had drained away at her words, and now all that was left was a deep fatigue. I hadn’t realized how strange it felt to have everyone around me move and chat as though life was normal, while all I could do was watch them and compare them to my memories.

“It was so lonely,” I said. The moment I spoke the words, I knew them to be true. I just hadn’t realized that until now. “Four days. That’s all I've lived. And I was asleep for two of them. But it was still so lonely.”

The floor creaked as my master strode forward, and the light touch of her hand fell onto my shoulder as she gave me a comforting pat. It felt like a boulder had dropped onto my side, but I laid my cheek against it, seeking comfort from the one person that had shown me kindness.

“What do you wish to tell me?” She asked.

“I don’t remember much,” I admitted. “Not yet. But I’ll tell you what I know.”

“You should not tell me everything,” my master shot me down and ignored my surprise. “It is dangerously foolish and you should never have revealed so much in the first place. You do not know what I will do. Or what others are capable of. What I’ve already heard is enough to have you locked away and interrogated for years on end. And now you want to tell me more? It’s madness, and I will not allow it.”

“I only remember the last four days of my life, but I’ve already had enough of hearing what others will allow or not allow,” I took a deep breath, and calmed my nerves. “It is my decision to trust you, and I will tell you my story because I trust you.”

“Why?” She asked. In her voice was a hint of helplessness, an admittance that for all her wisdom, she couldn’t understand my actions.

“I have been seeing memories of the next five years, as though I lived them by my own hand,” I replied. “And all of them have been terrible. you would think that I would be a wise man with knowledge of the world and its powers, and yet, I lack even the basics. The Patriarch trained us to be alchemists. and that was all. He didn't want us to know the world. He didn't want us to know kindness. All he wanted us to know was that we were his, and so he turned empty children into children who knew nothing but work. Perhaps that is why I still pursue alchemy today despite having a new lease on life.

Nobody was nice to me at that time. The cook might count, or Eman, but even they weren't true friends. But when I gazed upon the forest I knew that somebody had been kind to me, and that feeling led me to you.”

My master fell silent. It was hard to read her features at the best of times, and even my memories were failing me, but I had a feeling that she was troubled. She paced from one end of the table to the other, stopping when she was directly opposite to me.

Finally, she sighed, placing her palms against the table and looked at me square in the eye. “Tell me.”

And so, I did.

I explained all that I knew, followed by all that I remembered. Which wasn’t much, but what I did remember was important.

The Alchemist had taken away our memories. But I had regained part of mine from a past life. In that life I had been an alchemist, they're not one that was free to carve his own path. When I revealed the existence of the mark of the Alchemist, I witnessed my master truly furious for the first time.

“That bastard!” My master’s voice rang out across the cottage. “Stealing the memories and lives of fifty thousand children?! It’s inconceivable. It’s abhorrent. Show me the mark. Show me!”

I had her check my back, and she recoiled at what she saw there. A tear escaped her eyes, and to my surprise it clattered and bounced when it hit the floor. She’d shed a crystal tear.

48,545.

That was the number on my back. When I first arrived, it was 50,000.

“This cannot be,” my master clasped her head in her hands. “When did he fall so low? How could the nomadic clans allow it? Even the blasted false emperor should have done something!”

I kept silent because I didn’t know what to say. In my past life I hadn’t noticed any connection between the Alchemist and my master, but what I’d known and what I now knew were quickly diverging.

“No, no, let us focus on what can be changed. You’re not receiving all of your memories at once. Just the important ones, and only flashes of them, such as voices or sights, not the full memory,” my master murmured. “Your skill is likely doing that on purpose, or else you would grow mad.”

“I already feel like I am,” I replied. “I get headaches every time I receive a new memory.”

“No, you are not mad,” my master said. “True madness is a terrible thing. I would know. But life has been tough for you, child, whether that is this life, the life of your new memories, or even the life you’ve forgotten,” my master said. “No more chit chat. I will make you some soup, and before the sun falls you must return to the household.” She stopped any objections with a stare. “The Patriarch is no fool. He will be monitoring you even if he has kicked you out. If you keep coming here, he will figure out what you are doing. But I won’t kick you out yet. I need to teach you a few things first.”

I perked up at her words. “You’ll teach me?”

“I am your master, am I not? And no disciple of mine is allowed to slack off,” she said. “Come. It’s time I taught you how to make a potion.”

A grating shriek interrupted my reply as my master strode to the door in the back of the cottage and pushed it open, revealing her alchemy lab. I spotted familiar vials and baubles inside, and a large cauldron in the middle of the room was emitting steam. My master turned back to me, and for the first time since I’d met her she had a smile on her lips.

“But first, tell me.”

The joy in her expression slipped away, and the atmosphere in the cottage grew tense.

“What do you know about the Death March?”