A week and a half later, I was sitting in the room, counting up my coppers. "forty-seven, forty-eight, forty-nine, and fifty!" I looked over at Tim, who was doing pushups in the corner of the room. "Hey, Tim!" The man stopped doing his workout and looked back at me.
"What's up, Todd?" I picked up my bag of copper and showed it to him.
"I have enough for my Master and then some!" Tim got out of the plank position he'd been listening to me in and came to sit beside me. "Ew, you're all sweaty!" I laughed out loud; Tim gave me a playful push.
"That's the price you have to pay if you wanna look this good." He smiled back at me. I rolled my eyes jokingly and called him a dumbass. "So when are you going to see her?"
"Today, probably." We had been going pretty hard hunting goblins since we had discovered the Guild. We still didn't have a lot of money, but we did have enough that we were eating at least twice a day. We all started to try to make the house a little more liveable as well. The group took turns cleaning the rooms, and we even replaced some of the floorboards so it would be harder for the mice to get around.
The six of us decided that it was time for us to take a break, and that was today. I was the only one in the group that had been heavily saving up to pay my teacher, though, so I decided since we weren't hunting today, I'd go see her and get another lesson. My friends and I ate breakfast together when I told them that I'd be going to see my Master again today. The news was greeted with cheers because they all knew that I'd wanted to learn a skill other than one that let me dig holes quickly.
After breakfast, I put on my cloak and stuck my spade in my belt. 'Hopefully, my new skill has nothing to do with this tool, though.' I then headed out to Masters cottage. It didn't take me long to get to my location. The house still looked like it was in utter disarray, but I figured I shouldn't judge. 'She's probably just too busy to do the repairs or something.' I came up to the door and knocked.
There was no answer except silence, so I knocked again. This time I heard a shout from inside the house, but still, no one had come to the door. I knocked one more time before the door was thrown open.
"What de ye want ye, mangy little git?" She yelled. Her hair was a mess, and her clothes were disheveled; it was clear that I'd just woken her up. She noticed it was me standing there, and her tone changed ever so slightly. "Ye got mah payment?" I nodded, and she jerked her head, telling me to head inside. She had me wait in the first room I had gotten my clothes from the last time while she put herself together.
When she walked back in, she was in a knee-length black dress with a denim jacket and cowboy boots. She also had her hair tied back into a neat bun.
"Well, cough it up." She said, reaching out her hand. We walked to the kitchen area so that we could sit down at a table while she counted up her payment. My Master counted every single copper piece I'd given to her before she looked at me again. "Ye've given meh twenty-five too many." I nodded at her.
"Yeah, to pay for this lesson too." The woman across the table sighed and rolled her eyes at me.
"Consider this a free life lesson. Don't pay for somethin before ye've learned the price." I was silent surprised at her words. I figured she'd be happy to make the extra money ahead of schedule. She handed me back fifteen copper coins. "The only reason ye had to pay so much the first time is to pay meh back fer the clothes the tools and savin yer life. Those herbs I used costs money out meh own pocket ye know." I took the coins from her.
"I'll keep five for the lesson then you can pay me after for the tattoo." I blinked at her a puzzled expression spreading across my face.
"Tattoo?" Master responded by shrugging her shoulders.
"Yeh I figure ye did well enough on mah first test I can give ye yer first alchemic tattoo." I was still confused.
"Test?" I asked. She gave me a sigh then went onto explain.
"Not everybody is cut out to be an alchemist. It takes creativity and grit. We don't have access to a large mana pool like the others most of the time. It's one of the prerequisites to actually being able to take the job in the first place, otherwise it won't even show up on the list." I listened to her explanation intently.
"An alchemist is often left to defend themselves with what nature provides us. We don't have the ability to call fire or ice out of thin air. We must have the ingredients and know the processes to allow us to do those things. Ye might think that that gives us a disadvantage to our caster type counter parts but that isn't true." She took a pause and moved across the kitchen to lean against the counter.
"We are able to do things that they can't. Such as imbue power to items, create technologies, our abilities make us more flexible than casters. That is why I always start my students off with 'Displace Dirt.' If ye aren't creative enough to use that to help ye than you won't be a very good alchemist, and should consider becoming a pack mule for a stronger team. But ye passed obviously. Seeing as yer back at mah door." I understood now but I still had another question.
"Ok and the tattoo?" She smiled at me then turned around and reached into her cabinate. My master pulled out a jar that had a transparent cream in it. The woman took about a finger tip of it and rubbed it all over her arms. In an instant I could see black marks starting to cover each arm. They were each alchemic circles, some were larger than others, and some were so small that they could fit on the tips of her fingers.
"Ye don have te hide yers if ye don want but I like to keep my work hidden from the prying eyes of less talented alchemists that would use it to make money for themselves." I looked at them dumbfounded, to think that she'd have so many of them.
"What do they all do?" I asked. Master scowled at me before answering.
"If I got into that we'd be here all day. Ye only need to focus on yer first one I already have it picked out don worry, it will be much more useful to ye than the last skill I taught ye." My excitement grew, I'd always wanted a tattoo but never got one in my own world because they were too expensive.
"So what's the skill?" I asked excitedly. She looked me dead in the eye.
"Grow." She said. 'Like make myself bigger?' I asked her the question that was on my mind. "No not like that ye dimwit, it helps accelerate plant growth. The process that I teach ye using the alchemic tattoo will help ye take in magic from water, and light then travel into a seed the magic will make it grow much faster than otherwise thought. Ye saw me use it the first day ye were here." I recalled the flower that she made grow on the floor of her laboratory.
"So where do ye want it? I recommend on the hand somewhere so ye can get the hang of usin it." I took her suggestion and pointed to the first knuckle on my palm. "Good choice. Leaves for a lot more room for others in the future." We picked up and moved to her laboratory where she got to work. The first thing she did was give me a leather notebook and a quill. "Make sure ye write down each ingrediant and it's measurement. One day ye'll want to take on yer own apprentices." I did as I was told while she bagan. Master went flying around the room mixing together this herb and that telling me what they are and what the ingredients were and what measurements of each to use.
She got done mixing the black substance in just a matter of minutes.
"Master?" I said to get her attention. "Why don't we just use regular ink?" The woman sighed exasperatedly.
"Have ye not paid any attention to my lessons? Ye need the right ingredients to make any alchemic process work remember? These are the ingredients to make that alchemic circle work properly and seeing as it will be imbedded in your skin ye can't just place the ingredients in the circle every time like ye would with a drawn circle." This made sense to me. "Now hold out yer hand this is gonna take a while and it will sting."
I did as I was told as my master took out a small wooden hammer and some type of chisel with a needle poking out. 'I guess they don't have tattoo guns in this world yet.' Master began the process, she dipped the needle into the ink and laid my hand down on the table palm up. The needle touche my skin and she lightly brought the hammer down on the top of her chisel needle.
'She was right when she said this would sting." I did my best to hold as still as I possibly could, Master explained that if I didn't she could mess up the design and then it would be a useless blotch of ink on my skin. The tattoo was small but even still it took an hour to get the finished design. Once my teacher was done she sat back into a chair that was close by and wiped the sweat from her brow.
"What de ye think?" She asked. I looked at the black circle on my hand and thought that it actually looked pretty cool. "The word to use this mark is 'Crescen' ye'll need to invest in whatever type of seeds ye want to use, and practice how to manipulate the growth of the plants to work to yer advantage but lets give it a go outside."
The two of us walked towards the door with Master taking the lead. We walked out into the yard and she handed me a seed.
"Do I need to bury it?" I asked. She shook her head.
"Ye can if ye want, it's useful fer gardening if ye plant it first, but in combat ye can toss the seed on the ground and it'll take root." I tossed the seed a couple feet in front of me as instructed then pointed my hand towards it.
"Crescen!" As soon as I said that a green light started coming from my hand and I watched in wonder as a small bush began to sprout up out of the ground. The bush grew berries all over it, and then I was told to stop the process.
"Very good. If ye practice hard enough ye can even manipulate the direction the plant grows as well as it's force and speed, so I highly recommend practicing a lot." She smiled at me.
"Master how many students have you had?" I asked.
"Ones with any talent? About two others out of the thirty that chose this as their profession. Most become laborers after being unable to pass the first test." 'I guess that means I have a little talent at least.' I thought which put a smile on my face. "Don be lettin that get te yer head though there are plenty of alchemists out in the world bein taught by other masters. Some are even better than me. So if ye want te get a big head one day I expect you to work hard at this craft."
I nodded my understanding to her and the smile came back to her face. I finished up by paying her for the tattoo, and the new journal to keep up with my lessons. They only cost the fifteen more copper so I was left with five. We said our goodbyes and with that I was on my way back to the house.