They arrived at dean's office and knocked on the door.
Knock
knock
"Alex? Please, come in."
"Teacher, I'm sorry for not coming yesterday," Alex didn't come to see him yesterday because of Alicia. He felt regretful for not prioritizing his duty as the dean's students.
"Hehe...The girl is more important than me, after all," the dean gave a teasing gaze at Alicia.
"Uncle!" Alicia blushed red. The dean's relationship with the king and grand duke was close. That was why Alicia could casually call him 'uncle' and it was normal for her to call him that way.
"Haha..." the dean laughed, then he turned to Firia, "And who's this pretty girl?"
"She is Firia, Firia Merona. Umm...My friend," Alex introduced Firia.
"I...I'm...Firia Merona," she was so nervous since this was the first time she met and interacted with her idol this close.
"Well, as you might already know, I am Marco Glither. The dean of this academy and also Alex's teacher. You don't have to be that nervous, please relax Firia," seeing her so nervous, he tried to make her more comfortable.
"Ye...yes," responded Firia.
Alicia giggled, looking at Firia's flustered expression, this was the first time for this seductress acting like this.
"Then what do you come for?" he was surprised that Alex came with Alicia and Firia today.
"I want to borrow Teacher's courtyard to practice. Is that okay?"
The dean was astonished by this sudden request, he gave a teasing glance at the three.
"Sure," then he recalled something, "Oh.. in the competition, I remembered Alicia was using new magic?"
"Ah... Alex is the one to come up with the magic."
"Hoo…Really?" he turned to Alex, "It seems you have many secrets aren't you, lad?" the dean looked like he was planning something in his head.
"I...only gave her a bit of knowledge and advice. Princess was the one who created the magic," Alex said, being humble.
"Let's leave it at that. I will join too. Let's go," the dean led them to his courtyard.
"There are three factors to make a fire. First is fire source, second is fuel, and the last is oxygen," Alex explained.
"Oxygen?" the dean and Firia were dumbfounded. Alicia knew a bit about oxygen because Alex had explained it to her before.
"Mmm...How do I explain this? You can say it's like a super small substance in the air," Alex was confused about how to explain oxygen to them. Science in this world was not that advanced.
"We can use fire chants as the source, and Mana as our fuel to use fire magic. The fuel takes in oxygen and burns them with the chant," Alex explained with all of his might, albeit it was still out of place and vague for the dean and Firia.
"Oh... I remembered when you were using a new chant for the first time back then. You said, 'Take in Oxygen and burn'. Sister and I were surprised because of that. You even used a new magic chant in your first-day training, right?" Alicia added.
Firia and the dean were astounded. They looked at Alex like he was a monster and Alex just scratched his head.
"How about Miss Firia try it once?"
"I..." she calmed down a bit, then nodded.
She tried using Alex's chant just now, "Take in Oxygen and burn". A fireball as big as a human head appeared in front of her. She was dumbfounded.
"A...Alex, I really can use it!" she became too happy and hugged Alex. The guy froze, he felt two big mountains were pressing against his body. Even with his ex-girlfriend, he never held her hands, let alone hugged her like how Firia hugged him. So this was his first experience.
Seeing Firia were hugging Alex, Alicia's jealousy soared. She immediately got in between them and separated them. She glared angrily at Firia.
"Ah..." Firia realized what she did a moment ago, she blushed.
The dean maintained his silence, he didn't care about the youth's relationship. Instead, he was processing what happened just now.
"Ah... this is interesting indeed. Maybe I will research this, what do you think, Alex?"
"I will leave it to Teacher," Alex didn't care about it.
"Haha..." the dean laughed happily. He wanted to leave, but he remembered something, "Alex, yesterday, the minister of agriculture gave me a letter praising you. He said your idea was brilliant and he wanted to try it. If the result were good, you would be rewarded."
"Thank you, Teacher," Alex didn't really care about that too since the one who invented the four-rotation crop was not him, he only used his knowledge on Earth and shared it here. He also realized that his knowledge was too shallow for him to be proud of it. He didn't even know how to make electricity that had helped the world so much because he never studied about it, so his knowledge was limited.
"I want to make 'that' again later, I think my control is sufficient now," Alex continued.
"Sure, just come as usual. Though I already succeeded two days ago," the dean smugly said and left.
'Comparing a few decades mage with a few weeks mage,' Alex sighed. The childish personality that should have disappeared long ago.
He tutored Firia for an hour and came to the dean's workshop, he didn't see the dean anywhere. So he thought maybe the dean was researching 'magic'.
He grabbed a set of the herb for the regeneration pill. He put them in the cauldron and he burnt them one by one. After practicing magic control, he now could prepare them together.
The herbs had been prepared, then he turned them into liquid and mixed them together. The last step was to solidify them.
'Success.'
A blue-colored pill was formed, and luckily this pill didn't have any black spot.
"Now, I can try to make other pills."
He turned around and he saw a few papers with a few pill names on it, like body tempering pill, rank 1 restoration pill, skin-refining pill, and muscle refining pill as well as a few sets of herbs beneath each paper.
Alex gave the dean a few recipes. Of course, the recipes he gave were the one the dean needed for now. He only gave the recipes that were beneficial to the dean.
He considered for a while looking at those pill names. Ultimately, he chose the body tempering pill.
He grabbed a set of medicine for the body tempering pill. He tried to make the pill according to the manual. He failed at his first try and the pill failed to form, he summarized the experience and tried again.
Second time...Failed.
Third time...Failed.
Fourth time...Failed.
Alex was confused why he failed all the time. He didn't have any teacher to teach him about alchemism, so he can only try it step by step. Each time he failed, he summarized his experience and speculated what the problem was.
Fifth time...Failed.
Sixth time...Failed.
Seventh time...Success.
Seeing the pill successfully formed, Alex was happy. He examined the pill, 'mid-grade body tempering pill'. The pill had purity above 75%.
He tried to examine it using the System.
[Mid-Grade Body Tempering Pill (75%)
Use: STR+3
Limit: 7]
There's a new term called 'limit'. Alex asked, "System, what is this limit all about?"
[It is the limit concerning how many times someone can take the pill. After the number reaches zero, even if he/she take it again, it won't have any effect]
"..." Alex thought of something 'if mid-grade can add strength by 3 points, what if I make a top-grade or peak grade?'
Alex was very eager to try again. But before he tried again, he summarized his experience for a while.
Eighth time success.
Ninth time failed.
Tenth time success.
Eleventh time failed.
'...'
Fifteenth time success.
He stopped at the fifteenth time because he had finished refining all of the ingredients.
Alex had six body tempering pills, one of them was low grade, three mid-grade, one top-grade, and one peak-grade. He successfully made a peak-grade pill by luck.
[Low-Grade Body Tempering Pill (50%)
Use: STR+1
Limit: 7]
[Top-Grade Body Tempering Pill (92%)
Use: STR+7
Limit: 7]
[Peak-Grade Body Tempering Pill (100%)
Use: STR+10
Limit: 7]
He was shocked by the effect, with seven top-grade body tempering pills. He can get 70 points of strength. He could have a rank 4 warrior strength if he had these pills now.
"Alchemist is really overpowered."
Pill effect was overpowered, but the higher the grade of the pill, the higher the rarity of ingredients. So many couldn't use them to the limit.
The process of making body tempering pills was not that long. Alex still had an hour before he usually came back to his room. He decided to make the restoration pill.
The ingredients used in the restoration pill didn't have much difference with the regeneration pill, he only needed to change one herb and add another herb.
First time...Failed.
Second time...Failed.
Third time...Success.
Fourth time...Failed.
Eleventh time...Failed.
The process of refining the restoration pill didn't have much difference with the regeneration pill. He succeeded in making six pills from eleven set herbs. There were one low-grade, three mid-grade, and two top-grade.
This time he didn't manage to make a peak-grade pill.
[Low-Grade Restoration Pill (54%)
Use: healing a minor wound
Limit: -]
[Mid-Grade Restoration Pill (70%)
Use: healing a minor wound
Limit: -]
[Top-Grade Restoration Pill (94%)
Use: healing a minor wound
Limit: -]
He noticed something odd, "System, why do they have the same effect?"
[Restoration pill is used to heal a minor wound. The different of grade will differ the healing speed]
"And they have no limit?"
[Yes Host]
He pondered something, he didn't notice that the dean had come back, "You're still here, Alex?" the dean asked when he saw Alex there.
"Ah... Teacher. I was making pills, and I have used all the herbs for body tempering pill and restoration pill," he scratched his cheek.
"Oh.. I will resupply them tomorrow. How many pills did you manage to make?"
"I made six body tempering pills from fifteen sets of ingredients and six restoration pills from eleven sets of ingredients."
"..." the dean was astonished by Alex's result. He had made them for two days, but he only had a twenty percent chance of succeeding in making a body tempering pill and forty percent for a restoration pill. While Alex had surpassed him on his first day. He was ashamed.
"Then...what grade those pills are?" he didn't want to admit his loss, so he tried to rechallenge him with pill grade. He successfully made two top-grade body tempering pills yesterday.
"One low grade, three mid-grade, one top-grade, and one peak-grade for body tempering pills. And one low, three mid-grade, and two top-grade for restoration pills. Unfortunately, I didn't succeed in making a peak-grade restoration pill," Alex sighed.
'What do you mean you didn't succeed to make a peak-grade restoration pill? I even failed to make them with so many tries, and you succeeded in making them with only twenty-one tries,' the dean can't help but curse secretly. 'Ah..forget it, if you compare yourself with this monster...' he sighed.
"Has Teacher eaten the body tempering pill?"
"Yes, I have eaten them. The low-grade adds your strength by one point, mid-grade is five points, and top-grade is seven points," the dean answered.
"The peak-grade is ten-points," Alex added and he continued, "And the limit in using this pill is seven, using it more than that number will make the pill to not have any effect."
"Really? How do you know about this?" the dean asked.
"I..." he couldn't say that he found out about this from the System, "I got it from the manual."
"Oh..." the dean nodded, he never read the manual, so he trusted what Alex said. Although he was pondering something.