“When are you going to come and ask me to arrange your apprenticeship?”

“What?” I said, confused.

“When are you going to come and ask me to arrange your apprenticeship?” Professor Alco repeated.

“Ah… I wasn’t going to,” I said hesitantly.

“Why not? Don’t tell me you are going to waste your life as an adventurer when you could help so many more people as an Industrial Alchemist.”

“But I don’t have any alchemy-focused essences,” I said.

“Bah, few alchemists have the alchemy confluence. I don’t. You have the plant essence and three skills in producing alchemy ingredients. Added to that, you are a competent alchemist.”

“Three? Resin and …” I was puzzled as nobody here should know about the Tranquil Garden.

“Resin, those webs and the wood shields. Maybe you are not that bright.”

“Um… Thank you for the opportunity, but I believe I cannot take an apprenticeship at this point in time,” I said. “I might keep it in mind for the future, though.”

“Humph, what a waste,” he muttered and moved on.

I haven't used my webs or the wood from my shield in alchemy. Alchemy is about refining and distilling the magic in items and using it to change other items. I mostly used my resin as the object to change when I created my armour. It was the same when I added poisons to it to create a sticky poison trap or when I was trying to use it as a medium to hold alchemical explosives. I still have to work on the last one as it is very complicated.

I use my Cutting web in pieces of my armour by fixing strands of the web to it, but if I could distil the cutting magic out of the web, every piece of my armour could have a cutting aspect. Then I could mix in the poison, and every cut my armour makes adds poison. This is getting exciting.

I have only just cracked the fire resistance. The difficult part was keeping the transparency, and I not only managed that but increased it. The professor recommended that I try sand quintessence, which is used in glass products, and I have had good results.

I am going to try using the cutting webs as well, although I will need to wait for the bronze rank to merge them all together. There is always more to do. Step one is to distil the magic from the Cutting Webs. My Cutting Webs gave me cutting as well as web magic is various proportions. That made sense it was the sharpened essence combined with the Web awakening stone.

I expected the cutting magic, but the web magic has promise. I already use the webs in nets, and that may increase as it ranks to bronze. For now, if I can incorporate the web magic into my armour, particularly the chain link parts, that might strengthen those aspects. I am probably not good enough to do both Web and Fire Resistance. I am definitely not good enough to do Cutting, Web and Fire Resistance. Yet.

My shields have been used for wood before, and again, they are objects for alchemy to be used on, but I can use them for alchemy themselves. Distilling the magic from chips of wood gave me wood-aspected magic.

Wood is used in construction, and Wood Quintessence is used in construction to impart the strength and flexibility of wood… but it also burns. Adding the wood magic to my fire and air may help my explosives to have a longer-lasting impact. All I get at the moment in a flash and a bang of noise. What I need is something else for the magic to interact with, and Wood might just do that.

Next issue. Analysing the magic in my Resin. It could be more than an object for receiving alchemy. It could also be an item in alchemy. I ran the tests and distilled the magic in the resin. Wood and sap were the most abundant, and then there were the glue and hard magic aspects, which was interesting.

Instead of just using the resin as an object, I could extract the glue and sap aspects and incorporate that directly into the Fire, Air, and Wood alchemical mixture, and all I need is a trigger. to set it off so I don’t blow myself up. That sounds a lot easier than it will be.

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This is the basis of alchemy from which I can build. Mastering the distillation of magic from ingredients is the basis of all alchemy. Then, there is combining the ingredients and magic into new combinations. That is more difficult.

Weapon Construction and Maintenance are fascinating. I made a knife from chitin, bone, iron, and Coldsteel as our one blade made from non-mundane metal at iron rank. Working with magically enhanced materials was quite different from normal and required magically enhanced flames. Tempering it was in an alchemical solution that I kept a sample of to work out what was in it. It was way above my alchemical expertise at the moment.

I coaxed the formulae for strengthening bone from Professor Alco and made a batch. Unsurprisingly, it used bone quintessence as a key ingredient. I used it to soak my bone knife, and it seeped into the pours, enhancing its durability. I was already thinking of ways to adjust the formulae to give it other properties as well.

Serrated edges are better at sawing than straight edges. My experience at the logging mill exposed me to more sawblade types than we covered here, as we were focused on fighting weapons. We sharpened and maintained swords, spears, axes and maces. We didn’t cover tools, but most people who are into crafting spend most of their time on normal tools.

Based on this background knowledge, I went looking for skill books to add to my knowledge. I had plenty of coins now, so I could afford more information. Skill books were also more plentiful in Vitesse. Intermediate Tool Making was cheap as it was not popular, but machetes, spades, pickaxes, and saws were all tools I used in the past and would use again.

Iron Rank Alchemy filled in some gaps and would give me a good basis for the course Medicinal Alchemy next Semester. I brought the Bronze Rank one while I was there and stored it for when I got to Bronze. While I was there, I got Herbs for Alchemy, from Iron to Silver. That was the most expensive Skill book I bought. It was also the largest, and I was glad of my spirit-enhancing abilities when I read that. It was a lot of information.

Forging Weapons added to the metal knowledge I had from making an iron knife and my previous Armouring Skill book. Spearheads, swords, maces, and some more esoteric weapons were added. Halberds was one of them. I was interested in making a Poleaxe and seeing how that would work for me as a step beyond the spear. Weapons like that were definitely two-handed, though, and I like working with a shield.

I also liked working with claws and teeth, but I could not find an advanced skill book for that. I will have to develop my own style, which I have already begun to do. Skill books can broaden the range of options in your own fighting style, and you tend to enhance what you know and reject the knowledge that does not work for you.

Monster-crafted Weapons filled in gaps from the Chitin and bone to add claws and teeth, including those designed for injecting venom and monster material with inherent properties, like Lightning Antlers, Fire Feathers, Ice Teeth, etc. It was not comprehensive, but I had some Fire Feathers from the Firetail birds we defeated.

What I was looking for was a more comprehensive fighting system that would work for me. I was not going to have a couple of years to specialise under a trainer, so the right skill book will give me the start I need based on the foundation that has been laid at the academy.

The Way of the Dragon was an advanced attack style based on hitting hard and fast. The Hidden Blade was an ambush-type fighting style but more toward the assassin stealth user. The Way of the Hunter had a lot going for it but was too focused on animals and monsters. I had fought too many sapients to think that was going to stop.

There were styles based on utilising different elements and essence combinations. Phoenix's Flame, Earthshaker Fist, and Frostbite Technique are some examples. This is another reason people stuck to known combinations. Plant-based techniques like the Thornweave Dance, Rootbound Defense, and the Fernblade Form were too narrow, although the Vine Whip Technique certainly had some benefits.

There was nothing I could see that fit me. I wanted to stay versatile and adaptable to what I was facing. Dousing the bronze-rank attacker in acid gave us the edge we needed to defeat him. I know that was all my thinking, and no fighting style would replace that, but I wanted something very versatile. I was not someone limited to a single type of weapon.

I might have to create my own fighting style. I don’t specialise. I am not like Val with a particular weapon essence. There were lots of different unarmed fighting styles and specialised and multiple weapon styles, but none seemed to fit.

I was hunting the city for weeks, finding the above skill books. All the major shop owners now knew I was looking for a versatile fighting style and were spreading queries back through their suppliers and contacts.

I was called in to look at different options: Death by a Thousand Cuts was more a speedster style, and Shieldmaiden’s Grace was only with shields, but it did look good. Shadowsteel Dance was a hit-and-run style but also used traps.

The Thorned Hunter’s Wrath came very close, and I almost bought it. Its style drew inspiration from the natural world, blending cutting techniques with the ferocity of Hunting and the entanglements of thorns. It was also very expensive, and I couldn’t afford it just yet. The violence and wrath also grated a bit. My mission was to bring peace to those around me.

What I wanted was to combine several of these, but that was beyond me for now. I would have more coins after the trip into the Astral space