Master Vasilisa stirred from slumber to the unwelcome rhythm of pounding, each knock hammering its way into her dream of transmutation. Her feathered wings twitched, and a vein of indignation threatened to burst. It wasn’t the soothing hum of bubbling cauldrons or the crackle of alchemical flames lulling her just moments ago—it was persistent knocking on her chamber door.

Who, in all the damned realms, dared disturb her precious little sleep? A quick glance outside confirmed it was still very dark. Whoever it was, oh, they were royally screwed.

“What ungodly hour is this?” she growled, throwing off her blanket with dramatic flair. She shuffled into worn slippers and tugged on a threadbare robe that once boasted luxury but now resembled a relic of her busier priorities. Grumbling about the indignities of a master alchemist's life, she shuffled toward the door like a storm cloud on legs.

“This better be important,” she barked, yanking the door open to reveal a sweating servant, who looked as if he'd been run through several rounds of panic.

“Apologies, Master Vasilisa,” the servant stammered, bowing his head. “But there’s been… something in the laboratory. I didn’t know what to—”

“Spit it out, you dimwit!” she snapped, her crown of feathers bristling.

“It’s just… there were noises—hisses and clinks—and someone was caught sneaking around in there.”

Her brow furrowed. Caught? The vein of anger twitched again, and she let out an exasperated sigh. “What in all seven shades of hell are the guards for? Catch the bastard, chain them up, and toss them to the enforcers! Why am I being woken for this nonsense?”

She made to shut the door on the quivering servant, muttering curses about the complete ineptitude of everyone under her command, when the servant blurted out, “It was one of your new apprentices! I thought you might want to see her before... something happens. The noises are... escalating.”

Vasilisa froze mid-door slam, her irritation replaced by a budding scandal. One of the new apprentices? Oh yes, there were two fresh-faced fools sent her way on recommendation from the Bloodtide Sect. Had one of them truly dared to tamper with her precious reagents—or worse, swipe a few potions for personal gain?

Absolutely. Appalling.

Her reputation as chief alchemist could not afford even the whiff of apprentice treachery, especially with the Spirit Hunt Festival approaching. If word got out? She might as well faint on the spot. No, this needed handling—now.

“Stand aside,” she barked, slamming the door in the servant’s face before emerging moments later, dressed in her usual blue robes. They were still somewhat regal, if one ignored the telltale red stain of yesterday’s alchemical overenthusiasm. She hadn’t the time to tidy her feathers, let alone fix her wild hair, but she could hope her presence at least hinted at authority.

Good enough.

Her boots clapped a thunderous rhythm on the marble floor as she stormed outside. The servant trailing her let out a breath of what could only be described as a relieved sigh—undoubtedly grateful that Varkaigrad’s most renowned chief alchemist had found someone else to bear the brunt of her wrath today.

Moments later, Vasilisa descended the spiraling stone staircase leading to her labyrinthine, multi-tiered workshop. The cold nipped at her joints with gleeful malice, the snowstorm outside mocking her with every gust. It made her miss the warmth of her chambers, which in turn worsened her already sour mood, dragging an irritable curse past her lips. By the time she reached the third-floor main laboratory, her simmering temper had reached a rolling boil. Another icy draft greeted her as she entered, biting harder than an unpaid apprentice.

Oh, someone was definitely getting their head bashed in today.

A small crowd had formed near one of the junior workstations, drawing her sharp, narrowed gaze. Four guards stood there, mumbling to one another instead of, oh, she didn’t know, guarding. She mentally added them to her ever-growing “bash and fire” list. But the main attraction was unmistakable: a pale, ghostly figure hunched over a distillation apparatus at the heart of the commotion.

It was a young Drakarri. Jade, yes, she remembered now—a wisp of a girl with phantom-white hair, bright crimson eyes, and all the telltale marks of the Bloodtide Sect. Jade’s slender hands moved with unnerving steadiness, adjusting the apparatus even as it hissed and sputtered in a way that should’ve sent anyone sane bolting for cover. Yet, there was a confidence in her movements that made the chaos seem almost intentional. Almost.

“What in the name of every cursed ancestor is going on here?!” Vasilisa bellowed.

Mrs. Petrov, the ever-flustered lab assistant, spun around, startled like a mouse caught nibbling cheese. “Master Vasilisa! Wh-what are you doing here?!”

“I’m here to deal with this insubordinate apprentice personally—then feed her to the damn Clawtails!” she snapped, jabbing an accusatory finger at Jade. The girl, annoyingly unruffled, didn’t even glance up from her apparatus.

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Mrs. Petrov threw her hands up, flailing like a pigeon caught in a windstorm. “Rogue apprentice? Oh no, no! Jade’s working! I—I told her to wait until morning, but she wouldn’t listen. Said it couldn’t wait. And then, well, the reaction got a bit... spirited. Spooked the guards. They panicked, and—oh, you know guards—they thought they needed an alchemist, especially after the, er, noxious gas... incident last time.” She shrank under Vasilisa’s glare. “I was right here! Just... just not... immediately aware.”

Vasilisa’s feathers fluffed, her temper simmering into something more molten. The guards panicked. While Petrov was here. Oh, she’d deal with those imbeciles later—fired, flayed, and exiled to the tundra to shovel snow for Clawtails—but her current target was brighter, sharper.

Vasilisa’s sharp gaze snapped back to Jade. “And you, girl,” she barked, “what in all the frozen hells do you think you’re doing, stirring up this gods-damned circus?”

Beneath her recently preened feathers—still holding an air of smug vanity—and slitted green eyes, the master unleashed a glare that could strip paint from walls. Vaeriths were famous for those laser-beam stares, and Vasilisa was no exception, weaponizing hers.

Jade, still cool, casually turned another dial on the apparatus before her. It hissed softly once again. “Master Vasilisa, I’m completing the refinement process for the quintessence extract you requested. The original method didn’t yield sufficient purity, so I recalibrated the ratios and extended the distillation time.”

Vasilisa’s eyes widened—just a flicker—before narrowing again into suspicious slits. “You’re telling me you’ve been tampering with my recipe? The one I gave you earlier …today?”

“I wasn’t tampering. I was optimizing,” Jade replied, finally meeting her master’s glare with her own piercing red eyes, fiery enough to thaw the chill in the room. “The mixture is stable, and I stayed within the safety parameters outlined in your lecture.”

Vasilisa strode forward, her presence scattering onlookers like startled birds. She inspected Jade’s workstation with the scrutiny of someone convinced disaster was imminent. The apparatus, however, betrayed no chaos—pristine, orderly, and gleaming with care. Each component was in its rightful place, each transmutation script drawn with such precision it almost begged applause. The flask at the heart of the operation shimmered faintly silver—a telltale sign of a near-perfect extract.

Her frown deepened. “Your reagent ratios are off,” she muttered. “The solution will precipitate impurities as it cools.”

Jade nodded. “I thought so too, which is why I accounted for it.” She adjusted another component, drawing a sharp breath from Vasilisa.

“What are you doing now, girl?”

“Introducing a secondary filtration step with a controlled cooling gradient.”

Vasilisa blinked. “A what now?”

Jade didn’t bother explaining further. Instead, she carefully poured the shimmering solution through a fine mesh filter layered with activated charcoal. As the liquid emerged, crystal-clear and faintly luminescent, even Vasilisa’s hawk-like gaze softened—just a fraction.

Vasilisa’s lips twitched, trapped between a frown and the ghost of a grudging smirk. “Adequate,” she finally muttered.

Mrs. Petrov, who had been watching from the sidelines, threw up her hands in disbelief. “Adequate? The girl’s been slaving away all night, and you call that ‘adequate’? Admit it, Vasilisa—sometimes you could manage a better compliment than ‘adequate.’”

Ignoring the interruption, Vasilisa turned back to Jade. “Why, pray tell, didn’t you wait until morning like a sane person?”

Jade shrugged nonchalantly. “Why would I? It’s not like us apprentices are needed for anything else right now. Didn’t you say in class today that the sooner I master maintaining the apparatus and perfect this extract, the sooner I could tackle something more… interesting?”

The gall of this girl! Vasilisa’s lips pressed into a tight, disapproving line, a scolding simmering just behind her teeth. Yet, instead of unleashing the torrent, she frowned, biting it back. These tasks weren’t child’s play—they were nightmares on purpose, designed to weed out the faint-hearted, the unimaginative, and the flat-out incompetent. Alchemy, in her ever-so-humble opinion, was no place for the fragile. She’d die on that hill, gladly. Most apprentices didn’t even make it past their first experiment without shattering like overbaked porcelain.

But this one? Oh, this one. She had tackled Mana Ink’s core solution—the Mana Ink. Theoretical puzzles she’d left intentionally riddled with holes. Calculations deliberately designed to drive novices to tears. A project meant to take months of blood, sweat, and existential crises.

Yet, here it was. Done. And not just “slapdash, hold-it-up-to-the-light-and-squint” done. The girl had patched every gap in the theory with almost offensive precision—in a single night.

Granted, it wasn’t perfect. Her method left room for refinement—steps that wasted time, materials stretched thinner than they needed to be—but the final product was as pure as a full moon over a calm lake. Unthinkable.

Vasilisa’s sharp eyes scanned the mixture one last time, her mind wandering uninvited to her younger self: crouched over cauldrons in the dead of night, defying expectations, carving out her place in the vicious alchemical circles of Vraal’kor. Now, her brand was a household name, the kind whispered among the most prestigious sects. Sweat, sleepless nights, and a stubbornness bordering on lunacy had been the bricks she built her empire with.

“I just enjoy the challenge,” Jade said, her tone maddeningly breezy as she reached for a fresh batch of ingredients.

Vasilisa grunted, the sound laced with reluctant approval. “Challenging… yes. An admirable quality.” Her voice was calm, but her feathers quivered faintly atop her head.

Then, with a sudden turn, she fixed Jade with a pointed glare. “But that doesn’t mean you’ve earned a free pass to raze a circus in the middle of the night! Next time, submit a formal application to me before you launch any late-night experiments.”

She wheeled toward the guards and Mrs. Petrov. “From now on, check everyone—yes, including her—for proper authorization. No approval? Drag them back to their dormitory and lock them in if you must!”

The guards stiffened to attention, though one looked particularly relieved to have clear instructions after the previous fiasco. Mrs. Petrov gave a solemn nod, meeting Vasilisa’s gaze with an understanding.

Satisfied, the master alchemist turned on her heel and stalked off toward her chambers, muttering under her breath.

“A challenge,” she repeated, a rare chuckle slipping past her lips. The feathers on her head fluttered as mirth coursed through her. “A bloody challenge.”

Her mood hadn’t been this light in months.