“My money...” Alec muttered as he rested his head on his desk inside the dorm room. His face white from the pain of loss, he was gently stroking the bag of potion supplies he had bought.
“How long has he been like this?” Alexei asked with a frown on his face. Walking up to Evan, who was currently lying down on the upper bed of Alec’s bunker and reading a book, he asked him the question again, this time much quieter. The only answer he got from Evan was a shrug and a sigh.
Thomas, on the other hand, walked closer to them and leaned closer to Alexei’s ear.
“He has been like this since he got back from Alchemy 102,” he said. Alexei’s face lit up with understanding as his mouth formed into an o-shape.
“Alchemy 102? He definitely went to the alchemy store,” he guessed.
“Definitely,” Evan affirmed without averting his eyes from the book he was reading. “He did the exact same thing when he first went to buy stuff there. Now that it’s his amnesiac arc, he is doing it again.”
Not being able to bear the somber atmosphere of the dorm room, Alexei walked up to Alec and patted his back.
“Hey, money can be made again, you know? And knowing you, it will take you no time to make it back,” he said, trying to console Alec. As a deep sigh escaped Alec’s mouth, he got up from his seat and looked around.
“You are right. I’m going to go crazy if I keep doing this,” Alec said. “Where were the alchemy labs again?”
“You have to...-”
“Past the cafeteria. Right,” Alec cut Evan off and stormed out of the room with his newly gained supplies in hand.
“Huh...”
“Why did he ask you if he already knew the answer?”
“Don’t go too hard on him. He is still adapting,” Evan said before flipping a page. Although the somber atmosphere was now gone, an awkward silence had taken its place.
***
“Fucking swindlers. I have to make money in the academy, spend that money, again, in the academy to buy alchemical ingredients, pay a fee to enter the academy’s alchemy lab, and whatever potion I manage to make, I have to either use it myself or sell it back to the academy,” Alec grumbled to himself as he kept beating the Fluxroses in the mortar.
After his short but grueling trip to the alchemy shop under the guidance of the demonic shopkeeper and paying the fee for the alchemy lab, Alec’s initial 5000 credits were down to 2500. He would have to spend his entire remaining budget if he wanted to make another potion.
‘I should calm down. Strangely, I can’t find any ready-made potions for a lower price, but still, I only need one potion to compare it to the effectiveness of the potions made by The Author’s Pen,’ Alec calmed himself mentally before returning to the potion creation process.
Fluxrose was a rose native to this world, with a mixture of both blue and red petals. It was frequently used as a low-level inhibitor to stabilize low-level potions. It was supposedly easy to find and much cheaper than its alternatives, which made Alec shiver at the thought of how expensive the actual rare ones would be.
Looking at the pulverized remains of the fluxrose inside the pestle, Alec took a deep breath and added it to the boiling water inside the cauldron. With a sizzle, the fluxrose immediately mixed into the water, releasing a tantalizing smell similar to that of freshly cut grass.
The next stage was simple. He had already prepared the red crystal chrysanthemums and the bugflower extract. He first gave the mixture inside the cauldron a gentle spin with a metal ladle to form a little vortex inside. He then injected a bit of mana into the mixture and started pouring the two ingredients steadily.
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The color of the liquid inside the cauldron started turning into bright red. After stirring the concoction for 15 more minutes, Alec lowered the fire’s intensity. Compared to everything else, the fire magic in this world was much more developed. Spells were cheap and effective, fire magic tools were easy to utilize and could keep burning for a long time without any mana supply.
After repeating the stirring routine three more times, Alec finished the production process. Although none of the major failure indicators were there, such as black smog, wrong color, or weird odors, he couldn’t be sure before testing it with an ancient artifact called an Alchemist Crystal. Compared to the other pieces of magi-tech in this academy, this Alchemist Crystal was somewhat futuristic. The professors barely understood how it worked, as it was presumably left from an ancient time when magic was much more developed.
There were three such stones in the academy. Fortunately, it was free to use as the testing process was very simple. Leaving the private lab, Alec crossed the long and sterile corridor that had numerous alchemy labs that lay on its two sides. The number of alchemy labs in the school was intriguing, as it seemed to be way over the number actually needed. Alec was pretty sure at least fifty percent of these labs went unused for years.
As he arrived at the lounge where people ate and chatted amidst each other, he approached one of the Alchemist Crystals. There was a singular guard who stood next to them to make sure that nobody tried something out of pocket. Other than that, there didn’t seem to be any other security measures.
Obviously, this was only to Alec’s untrained eyes. There were probably countless defensive arrays protecting the devices from every kind of thief and miscreant.
There were three separate lines in front of those crystals. Occasionally, people would see the person ahead of them in their own line had a lot of things to get assessed and decide to abandon their rightful place in that particular line to switch to another in hopes of shortening their wait time.
Not particularly interested in the waiting line politics, Alec picked one and started waiting. He had managed to get three vials worth of health potions from his batch of ingredients, which was pretty good for his first try.
After waiting for approximately 5 minutes, the last person ahead of him finished his tests and departed.
Walking up to the crystal, Alec took out the vials from his bag and flipped its cap open. Then, he carefully lowered the vial’s mouth to pour a single drop of the concoction onto the Alchemy Crystal. When he did so, the Alchemy Crystal shone brightly before projecting a holographic screen on thin air. The screen showed a long list of different potions. Most of which Alec didn’t recognize. It was a touch-screen. Alec used his finger to navigate through the list—Which was weirdly solid—, occasionally long-pressing some potions to learn more about them. Although this action would bring up a brief description, it wasn’t much. Not to mention, there was still a growing line behind him, urging Alec to be faster.
Using the search bar of the crystal, he managed to find the health potion. After choosing it as the option, a loading screen appeared. Following the loading screen was a short analysis of the potion.
[Beginner-level Health potion]
[Quality: 95%]
[Toxicity: None]
‘Good,’ Alec mentally muttered. There was no need to test the rest of the vials, as they all came from the same cauldron. After he pressed the exit button on the upper right corner of the holographic screen, the Alchemy Crystal lost its luster and went dormant once again. ‘I should go somewhere I can test these vials comfortably.’
Just as Alec was about to leave the Alchemy building, he saw a familiar face from far away.
‘Ms. Rebecca... Oh shit!’ Alec panicked mentally before hiding behind a nearby column. He didn’t know what this crazy woman would try if she saw him, especially after the last fiasco of a seduction she had attempted. ‘Wait... Why am I the one hiding? She is the one who tried assaulting me in the infirma—’
‘Of course! The infirmary!’ Alec thought. ‘The infirmary is pretty much abandoned with very few personnel and almost no patients! I could choose a random room and hide in there!’
As Alec was caught in his thinking, he had lost his awareness of the outside world. He was shaken back to real life, as a firm hand grabbed his shoulder.
“Mr. Greenwood,” Ms. Rebecca said. Alec shivered in place and tried to free himself from her grasp, which he failed to do.
“Look, I’m sorry fo—”
“There is no need to talk Mr. Greenwood,” the woman said. She seemed to be much more calm and collected now than before. As if she was back to the way she had been when they first met each other back in the infirmary.
‘Multiple personalities..?’ Alec wondered.
“You need to take this. I think the headmaster would want the same,” Ms. Rebecca said as she grabbed his wrist and lifted his hand forcefully before placing a small, eye-shaped crystal inside his palm. “You have to reach the end, Alec. The final exams of this semest—”
However, before Ms. Rebecca could finish her sentence, the light in her eyes faded briefly. With an empty gaze, she looked around for a few seconds before departing the alchemy building.
Now left completely dumbfounded, Alec inspected the eye-shaped crystal in his hand before gripping it tightly.
“What the fuck..?”