Over the next year I continued my studies. Magically, I tried to increase the power of my spells, finally getting up to level five a week before my birthday. Shortly after that I was practicing to increase the number of level five spells I could throw when Persy walked up. “Master?” she asked, and I stopped firing spells.
“Yes?” I asked.
“Can you… Can you teach me magic?”
I was a bit surprised at the question, having assumed that she already knew how to use it. Foxes, after all, tended to have a talent for fire and life magic, and most slaves were taught the basic utility spells at a young age to make them more valuable. “Can you use any magic already?” She nodded and held up her hand, palm up. She scrunched her face in concentration for a few seconds, and a tiny flame appeared above her palm. “Yeah, that is a level one fire bolt. Can you throw it towards that target, please?” I asked, pointing to a target ten meters away. She threw it and it disappeared after about three meters. “Ok, it seems we need to work on your Sustaining and Power. I probably shouldn’t teach you combat magic, though. Slaves don’t learn that style unless they are combat slaves. How about I teach you healing magic instead, and some more utility spells? No one will complain about a slave learning those.”
“That would be fine, master.”
After that I spent an hour every night teaching her to heal minor injuries or use buff spells. I gave her and old Core necklace that I used when I was four or five. Cores were from something called a Dungeon Worm the ate manacite ore, the material mithril and orichalcum were refined from. After it ate the ore its digestive system would partially refine that material into a round object in its stomach which would constantly produce small amounts of mana. This allowed them to leave mana rich areas, unlike other monsters. The Core in this necklace was from a relatively young one, no more than three years old, so it only put out enough mana pressure to cast a level two spell with. As she wore the necklace her body would naturally absorb the mana it produced, allowing her to rapidly regenerate her mana up to a pressure of two. This would let her cast low level spells almost indefinitely, and thus train her casting.
A few days later I had my ninth birthday party and was given permission to go into town without a servant, as long as I stuck to the nicer parts of town. I used that to start visiting the Healer’s Union and sell them the various essences I managed to extract. As the only ingredients I extracted them from were cheap, none of the essences were above level four, but they were worth a few coppers to a few silvers per vial. I also bought some new ingredients and, once I had sold enough to afford it, a book on advanced alchemy formulas.
Using the book as a guide at about nine and a half years old I finally managed to separate a single essence from a magical herb with three essences. As that was the final requirement I needed to perform to get my alchemist’s certification I spent all of my money purchasing more of the ingredient and spent the next week practicing the essence extraction. By the end of the week I could keep two of the three essences intact, while destroying the third.
Persy had been practicing a lot lately, and had managed to sustain a healing spell for a few minutes to heal a cut she got while slicing vegetables in the kitchen. As a reward, I took her with me the next time I went to the Healer’s union. When I entered the receptionist looked up from her desk. “Oh, hello Lord Cameron. What brings you here today? Selling more essences?”
“Hello, Glenda. Yes, I managed to extract two of the three from those herbs I bought, Essence of Light and Essence of Physical Enhancement.”
“Oh, that’s pretty good. Many of our alchemists would struggle to do that.” She took the Essences, measured and assessed them, and paid me. I got almost two gold, 38 silver in total, for all of them, earning a decent profit. “Is there anything else I can help you with?”
“Yes, actually there are two things. First, I would like a copy of the basic training manual you give to initiates to earn their certification.”
“You want to learn healing too? Sure, I can get it for you.” She reached under the counter to grab one from the stack.
“Actually, can I have two?”
She nodded and grabbed a second one. “That will be four silvers, please.”
I paid her and handed the one of the books to Persy. It took her a few seconds to realize what I had done. “Wait, for me?”
“You are doing really well in your magical studies. If you promise to practice every day, then you can have it.”
She hugged the book. “Yes, of course, thank you master.”
Glenda looked surprised for a minute, then shrugged. “It is a bit unusual to train your slave in healing magic, but I can see why it would be useful.”
I nodded. “And the last thing I want to do is register for the Alchemist Certification test.”
“Makes sense. If you can extract essences that well you will likely pass the test. I can get the paperwork for you.” She reached under the desk and pulled out a sign in form. “Just fill this out and I can register you for the exam. You can either pay one silver to take the test on the last day of the month with everyone else, or five silver to register a private testing session.”
I took the paperwork and started filling it out. “I’ll test with everyone else.” I filled out the rest of the form and handed it back to her. “I don’t mind testing with other people.”
“Most nobles opt for the private testing. You do know that all of the other people that are registered to test that day are commoners, yes?”
“I know. But I deal with commoners all the time, so it’s fine. I doubt I’ll embarrass myself.”
“Very well.” she said, and signed me up. I had nine days to get ready, so I bought more of the herbs and left.
Back at the palace, Persy returned to her duties and I went back to my study to extract more Essences. That night, however, we both pulled out our Healing Manuals and studied together. That became our ritual for the next eight nights. During that time we both mastered the basic Healing spell as well as Reinvigorate, which let you regenerate stamina. Persy also learned the basic Physical Enhancement spell, that slightly improved a person’s strength, dexterity, and stamina, but I couldn’t quite manage to cast it. You had to focus on the entire muscular system to cast it, which was a bit outside what I was used to. She, however, had been working in the kitchen as a butcher so she was used to dealing with the muscular system of animals, which helped her picture it.
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Just before noon I arrived at the Healer’s Union building and went inside. The lobby was full of people that looked like they were there for the test. Most were human but I did see a stressed out elf that was feverishly reading his handbook and a dwarf that was meditating while casting buffs on himself. I didn’t know exactly which one, though, as I hadn’t gotten that far in the book.
“Lord Cameron?” asked a man beside me. I looked over to see that it was the sixteen year old son of the owner of the local book store. I had been in there a few times with Reginald when he bought more teaching materials. “I’m surprised to see you here, sir.”
“Uh, Thomas, wasn’t it? What are you here for?”
“Oh, I’m hoping to get my healer certification so I can start adventuring. Working in Father’s shop is boring.”
“Don’t you have all the time you could hope for to read?”
“You’d think so, but Father doesn’t like me reading the merchandise. He’s afraid I’ll spill something on a several-gold book and force him to replace it. So, I’ve been mostly just reading my Healer’s Manual. And you? Are you going to be a combat healer like Lady Starshine?”
“No I’m not following in mother’s path. Not yet, at least. I’m here to get my Alchemist certification.”
He nodded. “I have heard that you like to sell Essence Extracts to earn money, so it makes sense that you want to be an alchemist. I only wish I had the talent, but every time I tried it I ruined even the basic salves and poultices. So I went the casting route. I’m much better with a good spell, and my knowledge of anatomy really helps.”
“Makes since. I might need to read up on that as well. I bought a Healer’s Manual a little over a week ago, but can’t seem to cast even a basic Physical Enhancement.”
“Oh, that one’s easy. All you need to do is...” An instructor came out of the back and he stopped mid sentence.”
“Ok, everyone, listen up.” The instructor said, amplifying his voice slightly with magic to make sure we could hear. “You will all enter the testing room and find your seat. They are in alphabetical order. Your test booklet is already on your desk, but don’t open it. If you open your book before I say to begin, you will automatically fail. When you are done with your written test, bring it to me at the front of the classroom and I will put it away. We use a double-blind method in scoring the tests, so discrimination and showing you favor is impossible. Once you are done, I will inform you of the location for the practical portion of your exam, and you will go there, where another tester will administer that test. Are there any questions?” No one spoke up for five seconds, so he continued. “In that case, follow me.”
The group followed him into a large classroom they use to teach initiates whenever they get a group of them, usually when the military or a Lord recruits enough to make teaching a class viable. I found my seat in the second row. The letter C was also near the beginning of the local alphabet, though not as early as it was in English. On my desk sat a paper book with the cover wrapped all the way around it, so that it would have to be torn to open the book. I had seen this style before, in individual spells you could buy. There were two pencils beside it. I was glad this world had invented those, though they were the size of carpenter’s pencils instead of the number twos I was familiar with.
Once everyone was seated the instructor told us to begin. I tore open my book and started reading. The first page simply told me to tear it out and keep it until the end of the exam, so I tore it out and placed it in my pocket. I heard others doing the same thing. Most of the exam questions were on common herbs, fungi, and monster parts. Some covered problems that might arise during the extraction process, and a few were customer service oriented, or were about certain patient conditions that might complicate things, like why it was bad to give pregnant women Regeneration potions. The child tended to absorb more of it than her, which could lead to malformed growth.
I finished in about half the time that was allotted and walked to the front, where I handed in my test. “Very well,” said the instructor. “Room 3a. Turn left outside the door and you’ll see it about twenty meters on the right.” He pointed towards a second door to the classroom, one which didn’t lead towards the lobby, and I left.
In the room sat an elderly half-elf woman in a rocking chair. In front of her was an alchemist set and a selection of herbs. The woman appeared to be asleep, so I walked over to her and gently shook her. Her eyes opened slowly. “Yes, how can I help you, young man?”
“I’m hear to take my Alchemist certification exam.” I said, and a look of understanding crossed her face.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Of course you are. I’m here to administer that test. Follow me.” She picked up her cane and slowly walked over to the alchemy table. When she finally got there, she pointed towards the tray. “These are the herbs you are allowed to use for your examination. You need to extract Essences from at least four of them, and use those Essences to create an anti-aging potion for me. Now, I’ve been an Alchemist for over four hundred years, so don’t think about trying to use a placebo. I’ll know if you try. Anyway, you’ll pass if you can at least neutralize half my aging symptoms. You’ll pass with merits if you can brew an actual Age Reversal potion. One of the ingredients has the needed essence, but I won’t tell you which. You can take as long as you want, I’ll just be over there napping while you work. Come and wake me when you are ready.” With that, she walked back over to the chair and sat back down, and in less than a minute she was asleep once again.
I looked over the ingredients. Some of them were common. Anyone with a decent knowledge of alchemy could mix the anti-inflammatory properties of that one with the pain relief properties of that one, add in a dash of the glaucoma-reversing effects of that one and deal with most of her symptoms. I didn’t want to take the easy route, though. I activated my Essence Detection over all of the ingredients. I couldn’t identify some of the effects of a few ingredients, but I kept testing different, less common effects that I was aware of. Eventually I had identified all but one effect. It was a powerful effect, and was linked to a Regeneration effect, but I couldn’t tell exactly what it was. Knowing what the effect I wanted was, though, I sent a detection thread into the sleeping woman. There I searched the spots of her body where the aging seemed to have the most effect, and detected an effect that was greater there than in the spots where she seemed to have the least effects of aging.
Now for the tricky part. I tried reversing the effect, doing the opposite of what I felt the effect would do. I checked my own body for the effect and found that it was much weaker in me, so I knew it had to be a difference between us. That gave me hope that I was on the right track. After reversing everything I could think of with the effect, I focused on that concept and placed it in a thread of mana, telling the mana thread to respond if it detected that manufactured effect. I ran this thread through the ingredients and the one with the unidentified effect responded strongly, a silver flower petal. That had to be the anti-aging one.
I carefully extracted the rare linked effect from it, taking an entire hour to do so out of fear of rushing things and messing up the process. At the end of the hour, however, I had successfully extracted the mysterious effect. After that I extracted complimentary effects from some of the others. One was nutritious, so I extracted that essence and added it, to synergize with the regeneration. Another had healing properties, which worked well with the regeneration as well. The last essence I extracted was Essence of Stamina, which filled the body with energy and gave you plentiful energy. I mixed the four essences and knew that after three and a half hours I was finished. After waiting for the mixture to settle, putting mana into it to improve the synergistic effects as much as possible, I carried it over to the woman and woke her up.
“I’m finished.” I said.
She took the vial from my hand and stared at it for a few minutes. Just when I started wondering if she had went to sleep again, she started chuckling. “Yes, it looks like you created a proper potion. Now to test it.” She uncorked the potion and, before I could stop her, drank the entire thing.
Her body started glowing slightly and, as I watched, her wrinkles started to firm up. The liver spots on her skin disappeared and her hair started to turn brown at the roots. After a minute or so, she stood up. The woman in front of me looked to be in her sixties, instead of her early hundreds like before. “You did a great job, son.” she said, then a look of sadness covered her face. “Unfortunately, there is no known way to permanently reverse aging. Even the best anti-aging potions will wear off in a month. This one will probably only last a few days. But for those few days, I’ll feel over three hundred years younger. Thank you.” She patted my shoulder. “Now, if you don’t mind following me to the front desk, where we can get the results of your written examination.”
I followed her back to the front, bypassing the classroom, and upon seeing me Glenda pulled out a test list. “Hello, sir. I am here to pull up your results. Can you give me the page you tore out at the beginning?” I reached in my pocket and pulled out the page, then handed it to her. She verified that the tear marks matched the only Alchemist exam book, then sprayed something from a bottle on the page. An invisible mark appeared which matched up. “Yes, this is definitely your book.” she said, then turned to the back. On the back page was written “99”. “Well, it seems you missed one question, thus failing to get a perfect score, but I can tell by the way Lady Cedar is looking that you did get a perfect score on the second half.”
She reached behind the desk and brought out a silver card. “If you don’t mind, can you please send some of your mana into the card?” I did so and it started to glow blue. A long number appeared in one corner of the card. She took the card and placed it in a slot on her desk for a few seconds, then, when it glowed green, she handed it to me. “There, now you are registered as an official Alchemist with the Healer’s Union. You don’t need to join, but as you passed with distinction we would love to have you join.”
“I’m not sure if I want to join any Union or Guild.” I responded and she nodded. “If you don’t mind answering a question, though, what does this number in the corner of the card mean? It even has a few letters in it.”
“Oh, that is your identifier code. Everyone’s is different, so once we share the code with them we can verify your identity at any Healer’s Union office by simply sending a bit of your mana into the Identifier crystal on the desk. No two people has an identical mana signature, so no two people will have the same number. And to pretend to be you by faking the proper signature a person would have to both personally know you and your mana signature and be a master at mana programming, and there are only seven of those on the whole continent as far as I know.”
“Sounds amazingly secure.” I said.
“Yes, it is. Unfortunately, the device to perform the test is quite expensive, so only the branch offices have them. For the rest of the world, you will need to show your card as an ID if they ask to verify who you are. Just put a bit of your mana into it and it will glow blue if your mana signature matches the one that activated it. That isn’t as important for nobles, as there are so few of you and you are well known, but for commoners it is quite handy.”
I nodded and thanked her, then said goodbye to Lady Cedar and left. Once home I showed it to my parents and they ordered Tanya to make me a pie to celebrate.