We worked our butts off in the coming weeks, hunting low-level goblins everywhere we could find them on the outskirts of Goblins Reach. Each one of us was able to make enough money to go back to our teachers again, aside from Derek. This time, however, each of us was asked to come back every day for a week. Now that we had some combat and skills under our belt, our teachers thought it would be best to focus on the basics of our craft, knowledge, aim, control, swordsmanship, and power. So we each had to attend personal master classes throughout the week.
I went to my Master again, but this time there was no skill that she would teach me. Instead, we had lessons on the basics of alchemy. It was during this time that I started to get a real understanding of how alchemy worked, the science, and the magic part.
After my lessons, my Master would take me out into her garden and work on my control when it came to my growth skill. I learned during this time that magic relied heavily on intent. I needed to have a clear picture of what I wanted the plants to do. So soon, I was able to shape my vines more precisely. I could make walls, cages, I could spread them out into different directions and wrap around things as I willed them to grow.
Even Master seemed impressed with my progress as an alchemist. It was still a lot of work. But every time I felt like I was getting tired, my Master would come over and say what I recognized as a chant now over the clothes that she'd initially been given me soon after I'd be filled with more energy and be able to practice even longer. About four days into my training, Master asked me what other kinds of plants I'd been working on growing.
I told her about the swineberry bush, and about the flowers. She looked at me, dumbfounded for a second.
"Let meh see those flowers." She ordered. So I planted one of the seeds in her front yard and made it grow. Her eyes went wide in surprise. "Yeh don know what ye've stumbled on, do yeh? Those are moon lilies. A scarce ingredient." She sighed at me and then made me an offer. "If yeh, let meh keep some of those seeds, I'll give yeh yer money back for this week-long class." My mouth fell open.
"Are you serious?" She nodded, and I agreed, handing over twenty seeds.
"Yeh gotta travel halfway across the realm for these bad boys ye had some blind luck boy. I'll teach ye how to use em someday." I went home that day with an entire silver piece to my name. It reminded me though of the old man at the book shop that had that book on hold for me. 'Maybe I'll give him a visit. Master can't be mad at me for taking the initiative to learn more on my own.'
So I did just that. The older man was happy to see me again and told me that he still had my book. I showed him the money, and we parted ways happy with our respective ends the exchange. Holding the book in my hand, I almost ran home. In the time that I'd been here, my views on alchemy had changed some. In the beginning, I regretted not getting up and picking a better job.
Now was a different story, though, with each discovery I made, and the better my understanding of the craft became, I was starting to love being an alchemist. I got home rushing by Sarah and Laura, who were done with their lessons for the day. Sitting in the back yard, I began to read about electrical alchemy. It had descriptions of ingredients that I could use to strengthen the electrical power, different types of alchemic circles, and chants that allowed for electric alchemy to do things I didn't think were possible.
A lot of the book had to do with the combat potential of this particular type of alchemy. Still, the most exciting parts for me were the ones where the author had written about talented alchemists inventing items that made life easier for those around them. 'That's what I want to do.' I thought about all of the modern amenities that I missed from my world. I light bulb, microwave, air conditioning. There were so many ideas running through my head.
All I would have to do is begin figuring out how to engineer them. I already knew what my first project would be too, and I had the perfect person to ask about it. When Grace came home, I rushed to her, she looked exhausted, but I was too excited to care.
"Grace!" I yipped at her.
"Yes?" She said with tiredness in her voice.
"Could you teach me how to make a tattoo gun?" She blinked at me in surprise.
"Why?" I explained how my teacher had used a type of chisel needle and a hammer to do my tattoos; I wanted to create a gun that she could use to make it a more painless process. Grace started to become excited but then calmed down again. "How would you even get it to work without a power source?" I held up my book to her and showed her a diagram for an alchemic circle that, combined with the right ingredients, could, in theory, be used as a type of battery that holds electrical energy.
After that, she began explaining the necessary components that I would need, as well as how they fit together. We were a little stumped on how to build the motor, but that was ok. I would figure it out, and my Master might have some ideas to help me out. I decided I'd ask her about it the next day when I went in for lessons.
I got ready for my lessons the following morning and decided I would bring the book with me so that I could explain what my idea was to Master. The woman greeted me at the door like she normally would and invited me inside. I couldn't wait to discuss my ideas with her.
"Excuse me Master?" I said as we entered into the house. She looked back at me wondering what I could possibly need before the lesson had even started for the day.
"Yeh what is it?" I pulled out the book and told her that I'd gotten this yesterday. "Ok and what yeh want an electrical combat tattoo? Those things can be difficult te control yeh might wind up burnin yerself if yer not ready for it." I shook my head at her.
"No I want to make a tattoo gun using some of the practices in this book." All I recieved was a confused look.
"What's a gun?" She asked me. 'Oh I guess they don't have those here.' I thought about how best to describe it.
"It's something that fires projectiles."
"Like a slingshot?" Was her next question. "How would yeh turn a tattoo into a projectile?" My idea had her very confused but she was always willing to listen to an alchemists idea before shooting it down, even a very inexperienced one like me.
"So the tattoo itself wouldn't be a projectile, but the ink would be in a way. A tattoo gun still uses a needle like you're used to but the needle would moved back and forth at a speed that can't be matched with a hammer under normal circumstance." She nodded at me signalling for me to continue.
"The idea is you would dip the needle into the ink, then with the rapid movement of the needle the ink would be projected into the skin. It could save you a lot of time and labor on alchemic tattoos." She was leaning forward in a chair that she had pulled up listening intently.
"How are you considering making something like this?" I pulled out my notebook and read out what Grace had told me the night before, adding in my notes about what electrical alchemy I'd use to power the device.
"The only thing I'm missing is how I would make the individual components work together to make a functional device." Master had a wild smile on her face.
"I love this idea Todd let's do it." She swept me into the laboratory, and we stayed there for hours. She would use the necessary tools to build the components then we would discuss how we would make them work together. My Master was much more knowledgable than me at all of the alchemical processes but she still included me on the conversation, so that I could understand why we would do things a certain way.
I watched her intently while she built the parts, it was fascinating especially when she used metal working tools to carve intricate alchemic circles onto tiny parts. The hours went on but I didn't even notice, that is until we heard a knock on the cottage door.
"Who could that be? In the middle of the day." We went to the front door but I was surprised to find out that it was already dark out. It was Grace and Tim who had knocked.
"Hey guys what are you doing here?" There was a look of relief on both of their faces when they saw me.
"We were worried about you dummy." Said Tim. "You never came home so we have been out looking for you." My face went flush with embarrassment.
"I am so sorry! We've been working on the tattoo gun all day I guess I just lost track of time." Grace had already lost her worried look, and replaced it with one of genuine interest.
"Is it finished yet? Can I see?" I looked at my Master asking for her permission.
"Well we have one more part that needs to be put in, but after that it should be ready to test." I didn't even know we were that close to finishing but I was so excited to see how it turned out. It wasn't an original idea as a tattoo gun was something we already had in my world. But I was still proud of the work I had put into it figuring out how we could make and power one in a world that hadn't made those kinds of connections with electricity yet.
My two friends followed us into the to laboratory and watched as my master put the last part into place.
"Now it should be ready to test. Yeh want another tattoo?" I nodded my head and she went ahead putting different ingredients in a mixing bowl to make the ink. She then dipped the needle into it and went onto put the needle close to the skin on my palm close to the other tattoo.
"Wait!" It was Grace's voice making my Master jump and look at her.
"Why is that?" Master scowled. Grace stayed respectful but explained to her that using a gun was entirely different than the method that she had been doing before. "Without practice using the gun the ink could fade and become unusable, or the lines could be crooked and make the alchemy not work."
"Oh so yeh have a working knowledge of alchemy now do yeh?" Grace shook her head, but then continued on.
"No but it was my career to use a device similar to this before I traveled to this world. I don't know alchemy, but I know tattoos." My Master saw the logic in this and asked what she could do to practice, which Grace was happy to help with.
"Alright then for tonight yer friend here will do yer tattoo, and I will observe. The tool is already charged so she shouldn't have any problem using it." I nodded to my master who then drew the circle on a piece of paper so that Grace could reference it. My new ink took a matter of fifteen minutes to complete. Master was definitely impressed both with the new tool and with my artist friend.