The next day I woke up before the sun rose and began my exercises. My body was already sore from the day prior, and I was exhausted, but I knew that this was something important to do in order to prepare myself for the future. I would continue to do my exercises every day, and afterward, the group would go out and hunt Imps. We were making good money, so I could afford my alchemy classes pretty easily. We were even able to start saving up for our new roof. But most of the money went to classes and food.
I wasn't the only one preparing myself, the whole city had found out about what had happened at the royal palace, and every job master was starting to train their students more intensely. It was the same for everyone in my group. After hunting for half the day, we would go sell our monster items and then immediately head to our separate classes. It was beginning to feel like we barely saw each other anymore.
Today was just like the others; after the hunt, I separated from the group and started to run to Masters place. So far, we had only really done physical training, but it was good. I could feel myself getting stronger slowly. I arrived at Masters slightly out of breath having run the entire distance to her place, and when I got there, I expected my Master to be warming up in the front yard ready to work on more exercises, but instead, when I found her in the front yard it was with a stack of books, sacks of ingredients, and our new portable potion maker, which had just been over the last few days.
Master smiled at me as I approached and greeted me. She then pointed at the stack of books and told me to pick one. I did as I was asked and began looking through the pile; they were all about different types of battle alchemy; each book was based on something different. There were the standard element books, then you had medical alchemy types, and some that had interesting titles like "Magnetic," or "Venomous." I decided to pick up one of the medical books and handed it to the alchemy teacher.
"Alright, then we'll begin with the basics of usin medical alchemy in battle." She motioned for me to sit down in the grass next to her. "So medical alchemy is not what you might think it is, yes you can use it for healin but that's not the focus here." I nodded along while I took in as much information as I could.
"With medical alchemy, ye infuse the different types of magic in the world around ye and use yer own body as a catalyst that the process works upon. So far, we have only covered alchemy that affects other creatures or other items. What ah'm goin te teach ye is how te change the effects alchemy has on yerself." She had lost me at this point, and it was clear in my face apparently because she decided that she would demonstrate.
"Touch mah hand." The woman reached out her hand, and I felt the soft skin on top of it, then she pulled it back. "Now watch." The next thing that she did was lift the hand up to eye level with me and started the process. One of her tattoos glowed green as she said the words to allow magic to pass through her tattoo. Once it was finished, she held her hand back out to me. I observed it for a moment, it didn't look like anything had really changed about it, but when I went to touch it again, I felt the difference.
The softness was gone now; instead, it felt like there was a layer of stone on top of the skin.
"This is what I am goin te teach ye today; it's a type of flesh manipulation. Something that no wizard or witch can do. Some alchemists specialize in medical alchemy such as this, and they are called stitchers." This was the first time that my Master had talked about specializations in alchemy. I remembered the day I had learned about them from Tim, and I had begun to worry that alchemists didn't have things like that.
"What's your specialization?" I asked wanting to learn more about what kind of things you could specialize in when it came to alchemy. The alchemy teacher sighed and told me.
"I'm a Mixer; my talents primarily lie in the realm of potion-making." She neglected to mention that her potions had single-handedly won battles in the past by poisoning her enemies across the battlefield.
"What about me?" I asked. Hopefully, she just laughed at the question, though.
"Ye are still learnin the basics of alchemy yer, not ready te pick a specialization." She saw the disappointment in my face and decided to give me a break. "But-" She continued, and I looked up hopefully. "If I had te guess ye'd probably be a Coiner." I immediately tried to ask her what that would mean, but she just shook her head and told me to focus on the lesson at hand.
She explained that in order to use Stone Skin, there were three processes. The first was "Decorticate" in this process; you would use the technique to heat your skin until the dead cells on the first layer were gone. I worried that this might be painful, but Master told me not to worry about it.
"With the correct chant and sigil, it will be highly concentrated on dead skin that is not connected to any nerves, so ye shouldn't feel a thing except a little warmer, perhaps."
The second step would be "Temper" during this step; you would replace the dead skin cells with a thin layer of stone by using a process that was similar to Displace dirt except it would act more as a magnet for it rather than expelling it from the area. The last step would be "Habituate," where you would have your body recognize the stone as skin cells and have them cling to you while still allowing you to move.
I would have to practice each process individually before I could learn how to combine them into one skill. But after a couple of hours of intense practice, Master finally told me that she thought that I was ready for it. She got out the tattoo gun and began preparing the ingredients that were needed to mix for the ink. I think this was the most ingredients I'd ever seen go into a process before there were more than fifty steps involved in the creation of the ink. Once it was finished, my Master asked me where I would like it. I thought for a second before responding.
"On my hand again, I think." My Master shook her head.
"Ahm, sorry, ah should explain. The only reason ah have this figure on mah arm is because ah got it when ah was young. Ahm only able te use this skill on this arm because of it. Ye should have it be in a more centralized position so that ye can spread it across yer body when ye need it." That made sense; after all, most alchemy that I've practiced so far had a limited area of effect. My stun gun could only be used when touching it to something else, displace dirt was limited to space where the circle encompassed.
Even my growth skill was restricted to how big a plant could naturally get, I cant make a six-inch flower grow into a beanstalk. So I thought about it once more and decided that I would get it at my spine between my shoulder blades. The needles began piercing my skin, and I had to grit my teether a few times, but the pain wasn't extreme, and the thought of being able to use this in battle helped a lot.
After the tattoo was finished, Master explained that this wasn't impenetrable armor and warned me to be careful. But it could help reduce the damage that is taken, and I was still happy about that. I paid Master and thanked her one more time before beginning the long run home. When I got there, I was greeted by the tired expressions of all of my friends. I wasn't the only one being put through the wringer after all.
Despite being tired though we all worked together to build a fire and make dinner, I got to show off my new tattoo as well.
"Can we test it?" Derek asked with a mischievous smile. I didn't care for how he asked that, but I was also curious about what my new skill could handle, so I gave him the go-ahead. Derek pulled out his sword and angled it to where the flat side would hit me. I took off my shirt and activated the new skill. Then I held my hands behind my back so that I wouldn't put them in front of me and wind up messing his swing up.
Derek hauled back and swung as hard as he could while keeping his sword in control. The flat of the blade smacked against my stomach and bounced right off. I let out a nervous laugh.
"Ha, I didn't even feel it!"