After the classroom ended, Alex came to his teacher just like he usually did.
Today was the day he promised Alex to finish the cauldron.
"Teacher," Alex greeted him.
"I have finished your cauldron and I've put it in my workshop," said the dean while pointing at the door behind him.
"Thank you, Teacher."
"I want to see Alchemy too, can I?"
"Sure, it's fine," Alex smiled.
They came inside the spacious workshop with a big rusty anvil in the corner. It must be his teacher's anvil. He then turned to the red cauldron beside the anvil.
Alex inspected the cauldron and carried it to the other side of the room. He recalled the ingredients used for the grade 1 pill which was a regeneration pill. According to the Pill Manual, this pill was the perfect pill for a newbie to practice. He put the ingredients inside the cauldron.
He tried to channel his Mana out of his body, the Mana started forming a palm-size flame. The flame then went inside the cauldron and gently burned the ingredients, Alex tried to slowly increase his Mana output to raise the flame's temperature. But suddenly, he stopped.
The dean was confused about what he did, "Why do you stop?"
"I forgot something, I need to burn them at different temperatures. If I use my flame like this, some of them will be burnt completely."
"..." the dean was speechless because he didn't know about any of this. He tried to ask, "Can you separate your flame instead? I thought you could separate them in the arena yesterday?"
Alex shook his head, "I can't. Yesterday, I could split the flame ball because I only programmed them with a single command, which is to split and fly according to the trajectory I have imagined. But for this, I need to control my flame continuously."
"How about you burn them one by one?" the dean advised.
"I will try," Alex nodded since he was also thinking about this, he put the ingredients one by one according to their specification.
This time, he burned the first ingredient, Mea Leaf. He carefully burned the ingredient at a specific temperature. After Mea Leaf was done, he moved to the second ingredient, then the third, and finally the fourth.
"I have prepared them, and now I will mix them all together."
The dean nodded. Alex continued to burn the ingredients at high temperatures, melt them into a liquid. Then, he mixed all the ingredients and let them form into a pill. This time, it was a success.
The pill had formed successfully. Alex and the dean inspected the blue-colored pill. There were many black spots on this blue-colored pill, Alex assumed the black spots must be the impurities.
"Is this the pill?" the dean was curious.
Alex nodded, "But according to the manual, the pill should only have a blue color. But this pill has many black spots on it," he then looked at the dean.
"Then, does it mean it fails?" Alex thought for a while, then shook his head, "It should be a success. How about Teacher try it too?"
"Sure, I want to try it too."
The dean repeated the same process as what Alex had done just now until the pill formed. The pill was similar to Alex's, but the black spot was fewer than Alex's pill.
"This pill has fewer black spots than your pill."
Looking at the pill, Alex speculated, "It seems my control of flame is the current problem. How about the Teacher make another one, but this time Teacher will prepare all of the ingredients at the same time? Will Teacher able to do this?"
"Of course I can do this. Hey brat, you underestimate me too much. With my control, preparing them together is easy and not challenging at all for me," he snorted and made another one.
After the pill formed, they checked it again, and it was true that the black spots became fewer than before.
"Now, it doesn't have many black spots left."
"It seems, the ingredients must be prepared at the same time for a better result," Alex nodded.
"Let us sum up the information, for now. In short, we need to prepare the ingredients at the same time. This would require great control of our flame. That means, we need to improve our control in magic," the dean concluded.
"The process must consider each ingredient's characteristics," Alex added.
"That means you brat must learn to control your fire. Well, it's only a few weeks after you have awakened your element. To tell the truth, I envied your talent," the dean sighed.
Alex was looking at his teacher silently.
"But, is Alchemy in the legend this easy?" the dean was curious.
"Of course not. According to the manual, the pill just now is the easiest pill to make. Its purpose is to heal a minor wound by amplifying the body's metabolism. But even the effect is not that significant. That's why this pill is generally for newbie practice. If you can make the pill without a black spot, it means you are qualified to become an Alchemist without impurities," Alex explained.
"Impurities?"
"Yes, the black spot is the impurities. Impurities in the pill consist of techniques, ingredients, and control. For alchemy, the most difficult thing that you need to do isn't making a pill but making it without impurities. For pills that have 40% purity or above are called low-grade pills, for pills above 60% purity are called mid-grade, for those above 90% are called top grade pills, and for no impurities are called peak grade pills. As for the ones below 40% purity, it's just trash, it can also be considered a failure."
"Hoho, this alchemy is very intriguing," the dean was getting excited over Alex's explanation.
"But, I need to improve my Mana to control first," Alex said, a bit downcast.
"Haha. Don't worry, how about you learn Mana control first? I will search for the ingredients. You need to learn step by step, as long as you work hard, the result will follow. You have the talent and all you need to do is have faith in yourself," the dean suggested.
After thinking for a while, Alex nodded, "I will write a few recipes, and I will send them to Teacher tomorrow."
"Good. With my fortune, there should be no problem to buy in massive quantities."
"Then, I will excuse myself."
"Sure, don't forget to practice!"
Alex nodded and left. As usual, he bought many food ingredients, he went back and practiced a bit, then he went to bed.
The week went by like that. Practice, classes, practice, and sleep. Alex's Mana control improved greatly, and now he can even cook with only his Mana control.
After a week, the day for class ranking had arrived. Every student from class E to S stood in the arena. The dean gave his speech in front of the students.
"For these three days, we will hold a class ranking tournament. The rules were simple, each class will have a one-on-one to choose the number one to number ten from each respective class. The selected ten students can challenge the higher class. That means, if you are from the selected ten, you can challenge those from the top ten from other classes."
"If you manage to defeat other classes, you can move to that class. Please remember, the class you are in after this tournament will determine the resources you will get this year. Naturally, those from S-class have the best resources from the academy, while those from the E-class get limited resources. If any of you ever think something like 'My talent should be placed in a better class and you, teachers have wrongfully placed me in this class' or if you are not satisfied with your current classes, please let us know that we have mistakenly placed you in your current class. Show your talent, show your might. My students."
After the dean gave his speech, cheers erupted from the students. The students feel their blood boiling after hearing the dean's speech. They were very determined to get to the higher class.
Another teacher announced, "With this, this year's challenge ranking tournament officially starts!"
The cheers erupted once more and the students were very eager to show their prowess now.
The academy's huge stage this time was replaced with ten mini stages to conduct the battle faster. The battle started from E-class to S-class. In the E-class, no student had reached rank 1 yet. In the D-class, there was one student who managed to reach rank 1 while C and B classes had many ranks 1 in their class.
The surprise came from the battle of A-class. Surprisingly, this class had one rank 3. This made many people flabbergasted.
When the person in question came to the stage.
"Munta, Rank 1 Warrior, please to meet you."
"Hmm, a commoner with a power of rank 1 warrior. You are not my match, just scram from here."
Munta was angered, "Match Starts!"
As soon as the match started, Munta charged at him. But that person blew him away with his greatsword easily, leaving Munta seriously injured.
"What? Is he a rank 3?" many teachers were surprised by the student's strength.
Even the dean asked about it, "Why is he not in S-class?"
"His name is Garu Tekuis, the son of Count Tekuis. He is a rank 3 warrior...barely, but he is almost 20 years old. He still hasn't awakened his element to boot, so we decide to put him in A-class."
The dean nodded after hearing the report. The current class was distributed from their potential. So Garu's potential was not extraordinary since he was almost 20 years old.
The battle continued, with Garu becoming number one in A-class. Now the battles for S-class started.
"Igu Vs Joshua," Igu is a 17 years-old rank 1 warrior, and he had awakened his element, though he still couldn't use it. While Joshua was a rank 2 earth mage.
"You better surrender," Joshua looked down on Igu.
"I will try my best, please guide me," Igu shook his head.
"Don't say I didn't warn you," Joshua was enraged, this Igu was also a commoner like him. On the contrary, Alex, who was also a commoner, became Igu's inspiration. So he at least wanted to stand up against the nobles too like Alex.
"Earth below me, hear my command. Awaken and bite my enemy. EARTH SNAKE!" four snake golems charged at Igu.
Igu tried to dodge and parried the snake's attack. But Igu didn't have many experiences in a fight. So Igu could barely fight the golems. Suddenly, one of the snakes succeeded in attacking his hand, Igu flesh was splattered because of the bite.
"Aaargh..." Igu Screamed.
The other golems used this chance to attack Igu again. Igu's blood and flesh were splattered on the arena. Igu finally fainted.
Looking at this, the referee immediately stopped the match with Joshua as the winner.
"I already give you a chance to surrender, but sadly you didn't take it, fools" Joshua snorted coldly.
Alex furrowed his eyebrows. It seems after losing to him, Joshua became more ruthless. He looked at Alicia's pale face,
"Princess," He worried.
"Ah...Alex" She gasped, her face was pale while her lips trembled, and her body shivered. Though she often followed Alex to kill monsters. She used to see blood and flesh. But the one she saw now was human flesh and blood. Though when the other class was fighting, there would be wounds and blood on their bodies. But what Joshua did was different, he was cruel and merciless.
"Alex..." she turned to Alex and grabbed his hand, not wanting to see the arena. She buried her face in Alex's hand, trembling.
Looking at Alicia, Alex wanted to console her but didn't know what to say. So he just maintained his silence.
Firia was looking at Alicia and Alex. She was wondering if she should copy what Alicia did. Eventually, she rejected the idea.
Not long after, Firia's turn came and she said goodbye to Alex.
"Firia Vs Lina!"
Lina Elrifa, the first daughter of Baron Elrifa. She was one year older than Firia, who was currently 17 years old. Both of them had awakened the same element, which was a fire element.
"The fire in my body, hear my command. Manifest yourself as a ball to burn my enemy!" as soon as the match started, both of them chanted the same spell.
"FIREBALL!" soon the two fireballs crashed, but Firia's fireball was stronger. Lina was caught off guard when she saw Firia's fireball, still charging at her. She underestimated Firia and she pushed herself to the side, barely dodging the fireball.
"The fire in my body, hear my command. Manifest yourself as my spear and strike my enemy. FIRE SPEAR!" not giving her opponent a chance, Firia immediately chanted another magic.
Before the fire spear hit Lina, the referee got in front of her and erected a shield with his Mana. He then announced, "Firia wins!"
Firia got in front of Lina, she helped her up.
"Nice match," she smiled.
"Thank you," Lina took her hand and the cheers erupted. Firia, as one of the capital goddesses, obviously had many fans. Most of her fans started cheering 'My goddess' 'Beautiful' and so on.
After Firia's match, now it was Alicia's turn.
"Alex, it is my turn."
"Please be careful, Princess."
"Yes!" Hearing Alex's response, she left while grinning happily.