A couple of days ter, Emily and Juliana walk through the cafeteria hand in hand to join their friends for breakfast. They find Tom and Ivor sitting together in awkward silend sit down to both of their relief.

  “Where’s your sister?” Emily asks Tom as Juliana orders them food.

  “I think the b for your css,” he answers unsurely. “She left a note on my door this m saying that she grabbed one of the b assistant missions st night and she won’t be joining us for breakfast.”

  “That’s a shame,” Juliana says disappointedly. “At least she’s earning points though. What about you, Tom? You pnning on taking a mission any time soon?”

  “Maybe. It’s hard to find anything easy on the mission boards without them being taken the moment they’re put up.”

  “What about joining herb gardening with me? It’d be o see a familiar face there, and Miss Hawthorold us the other day t a friend if we wanted since she needs more helpers.”

  Tom goes silent, sidering the offer for a bit.

  “I ’t believe you’re asking him to join you and not me,” Emily puts her hand on her heart and feigns offence as Tom thinks.

  “You know you’d be my first choice if you weren’t so busy already,” Juliana teases, stig out her tongue.

  Emily chuckles and focuses ooast as it arrives in front of her.

  “Sure, I’ll garden with you,” Tom finally answers, to Juliana’s delight.

  “Great! My slot is tomorrow before dinner, meet me in the herb garden at 6.”

  With their pns for point earning decided, the group eat their breakfast ht versation. Finishing her food, Emily checks the time and realises it’s time to leave for her css.

  She stands up and gives Juliana a goodbye hug and a kiss before leaving the cafeteria with Ivor for her first alchemy lesson.

  “What are we going to be doing today?” Emily asks Ivor excitedly as they walk through the hallway towards the practical bs, happy to finally join the css after memorising so mabooks os in preparation.

  “We were meant to be learning to brew basic healing potions, but it may ge with you joining,” he signs bacertainly.

  “I hope not, I’m excited to see how potion-making works.”

  “You may still, but I’m not sure. When other people have joined, we normally cover the basi their first lesson.”

  His response kills her excitement. They soon approach a door with ‘Intermediate Alchemy’ written in the tre. As Ivor pushes it open, Emily sees the b behind it as out a small gasp of admiration.

  The room is rge, with dozens of worktables set up. Each table is identical, with a setup of pots, gssware, and a rge cauldron to the side. Several mages are already standing behind their table, casting gowards the door as they hear it open.

  I wonder if Hester helped set these desks up.

  Emily follows Ivor in, and they both make their way to two of the tables he front of the room. Ivor picks a table o a girl with messy hair, gsses, and rge eyebags. Emily instantly reises her as the clerk from her nighttime trip to the hub.

  “Hey, o meet you again. I’m Emily Coldstone of house Mandrago,” Emily greets her with a smile.

  “Ah, the one who ’t order everything at ohe girl says with a tired nod. “Anka Zaluzian.”

  Emily blushes slightly at her ent.

  “Sorry about that.”

  “It’s fine, you aren’t the worst I’ve dealt with,” Anka dismisses while slowly lookiween Ivor and Emily. “You two know each other?”

  “Yes,” Ivns with a nod. “She’s J’s girlfriend.”

  Emily is slightly caught off guard by him answering for them and says nothing before Anka responds.

  “I see,” she says without much rea before turning back to face the front without another word.

  I guess they get along.

  Emily joins them, standing in silence for a few minutes as a few more cssmates e in. At the exaent the clocks strike 9 am, the door opens again and a tall, thin woman with long flowing crimson hair steps into the room wearing familiar silver robes. Silence falls as she walks to the workstation fag the css.

  “Good m css, today we are joined by a new member, so we shall be doing a quick overview of the basics before we attempt any brewing,” she says to the css with a stern tone, setting off several displeased groans across the room. “No pints, or else I’ll give you a pop quiz o herbs.”

  The sounds of dissent from the students are instantly cut off by her threat.

  “Good,” the teacher says before turning to Emily. “Wele to my css Miss Coldstone. I’m Aileen Myrtle. You should address me as Mrs Myrtle. Now, Mr Eleocharis has told me good things about you, so I trust you should have no issues with me only giving you a brief overview and some extra reading for after css.”

  Emily silently nods in firmation, causing the er of Mrs Myrtle’s lips to curl slightly. Satisfied with Emily’s response, Mrs Myrtle looks at the bckboard on the wall behind her and flicks her wrist towards the chalk at the base. As if following silent orders, the chalk jumps up into the air, h at the tre of the board awaiting further instrus. Mrs Myrtle turns back to face the css and begins her expnation, her hand lowered to her waist and dang a fine, calcuted performance as she speaks.

  “Alchemy is the art of experimentation,” her words are apanied by the rhythmic scraping of chalk on stone. “For every potion, co, or transmutation that you see, hundreds of hours of work have goo fiuning the processes, tents, and quantities required for the perfed result. Through alchemy, we seek to fully uand and realise the potential of magic. Many of you here will never go beyond the bounds of simply recreating known recipes, yet you shall still be called alchemists. Why is this?”

  She casts her judgemental gaze around the room, with every student whose eyes she meets shrinking back. Uhis temosphere, Anka raises her hand.

  “Miss Zaluzian?”

  “We’ll still be called alchemists because even without creating new recipes, brewiing recipes takes vast amounts of knowledge, fine mana trol, and a precise eye for detail that most ages ck.”

  “Exactly!” Mrs Myrtle says with a proud smile. “Even those of you g talent in this field, are leagues above those who have never set foot into a co b. Never fet that!”

  Gng around, Emily sees most of the students in the css rising with their backs straight and their chests pushed out proudly.

  I think I’ve just found a group with a rger sense of infted pride than average nobles.

  Silently ughing to herself, Emily turns back to fors Myrtle as she tinues.

  “Now, who tell me the first step of brewing any known potion?”

  The room quickly fills with raised hands, and Mrs Myrtle picks o random.

  “Gathering ingredients,” the boy from the middle of the room answers.

  “Correct! The first stage for brewing a potion is gathering the ingredients. Most of the pos making up a potion are magical materials, from metals and crystals to herbs a ans. When gathering materials, be that through purchasing them oing out and finding them yourself, always strive to use the best quality ingredients you . Beast ans should be ly cut from the corpse and stored without ination, herbs should be harvested carefully to not damage their roots. Never accept subpar ingredients unless you want your potions to be of low quality, an affront to the title of Alchemist.” She pauses to look around the room, making sure her point has nded.

  I guess their sense of pride is useful if it leads to better potions being sold…

  “Now, what es after you’ve gathered all yredients?”

  This time a small girl at the back of the room is selected to answer.

  “Preparing your catalysts?”

  “Wrong, anyone else?” Mrs Myrtle says with a hint of disdain.

  Several hands fall at her admonishment, and she selects a girl on the front row to answer anew.

  “Preparing your b.”

  “Quite obviously. How you expect to brew anything if you don’t have the appropriate tools?”

  Emily ’t help but silently agree with Mrs Myrtle’s statement.

  “When preparing your b for a co of any type, look through your recipe at all the inteages and ply which tools and tainers you will hen gather all of them ahem up in an orderly manner. Never clutter your workspace with unneeded objects to maintain a fortable workflow, and aln your as in advance,” she says befesturing towards the worktables set up before each member of the css. “Look towards our setup for csses as the gold standard. Each time we have brewing practice, your tables shall be set up in a mahat I approve. Now, once you have your b set up appropriately, you then move on to preparing your catalysts and ingredients. The exact preparations to be performed vary depending on the recipe and ingredients you are using, but the general rule is to prepare all catalysts to their final stage before you touch your primary ingredients or your separating agent. After your materials are ready, what is the step?”

  This time, only a couple of hands are raised, including Ivor who gets chosen to answer.

  “Set up any needed arrays,” he signs to Mrs Myrtle, who nods in agreement.

  “Yes, setting up any needed arrays. This once again varies vastly from potion to potion, but most brews will require some form of stabilisation or trol array. The tter be ignored if you have fine enough mana trol. The es the most important part of your entire process, the brewing itself! The general rule is as follows: bine your primary ingredients in a fluid of some form, be that simple water or anical ingredient itself, and apply heat or cold for a certain amount of time. Then mix in your catalysts and mahe reas that follow, never allowing a catalyst to be fully bined, hence ruining your potion. Finally, add in your separating agent and fully remove both it and the catalyst, leaving you with a finished brew.” Finishing her expnation, Mrs Myrtle turns to look at Emily. “Did you follow all of that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good, in that case, I shall now return to my pnned css, brewing a basic healing potion.”

  The scratg chalk pauses, a full breakdown of Mrs Myrtle’s brewing instrus written out on the rge bckboard. The chalk flies up to the first line, ‘gathering ingredients’.

  “You should all have done your homework, so who tell me the ingredients required for a basic healing potion?”

  Emily joins the rest of the css in raising her hand, having taken the liberty of reading several alchemy textbooks in advance. Mrs Myrtle sees and raises a brow slightly while pointing towards her.

  “Go ahead, Miss Coldstone.”

  “Two stalks of wyrmroot, the blood of a nymph, and powdered light crystals.”

  “Good.” The chalk springs to motion, writing Emily’s answer. “Now anyone else tell me what’s special about this recipe?”

  She picks a random student from the middle of the room again.

  “There is no separating agent.”

  “Yes, and anybody tell me why?”

  This time only Anka and Ivor raise their hands. Emily looks at them curiously, not knowing the answer herself.

  “Miss Zaluzian?”

  “Crystals are often an outlier to the catalyst rules. When light crystals are used as a catalyst, they boost the effects of healing potions without inating them, so they be left in.”

  “Good, five points to Anka Zaluzian,” Mrs Myrtle says with a hand on the base of the bckboard, revealing a set of runes carved beh, as the whole board momentarily lights up with the glow of mana. “The sed step has already been pleted for you. Please take a moment now to familiarise yourself with the equipment on your tables, I expect you all to use the correct tool for each step without me having to tell you. Now, to process our catalyst you will eaeed to take the light crystal provided and powder it using your preferred method. I will give you five minutes, start!”

  The room quickly fills with the sound of rustling robes and ceramics king against each other as the students hurry to grind up the light crystals. Emily looks over her worktable and finds a single small glistening white crystal o two jars filled with blood and six thin brown roots with ruby-red veins trag their bodies.

  Taking the crystal in hand, she picks out a small ceramic ramekin and holds the crystal in the air above it, between both palms. Carefully, she creates a small yer of pure mana across her palms, before slowly moving her hands apart, holding the bubble of mana ih her will and focus. The small crystal floats freely within the bubble as Emily uses her sed core to send a small burst of light attribute mana into the crystal.

  Instantly, the crystal starts to glhter and vibrate. She pours mana into the supportive bubble, careful not to add too much at oil the crystal es to a halt. Then, uhe curious gazes of a few other students who are distracted by the bright light, the crystal breaks itself apart into a fine powder. The powdered crystal falls, in a thin glittering stream, directly into the ramekin below.

  To finish off her preparation, Emily grabs a small set of bang scales and carefully divides the crystal powder into three equal portions before looking around and seeing a few students looking at her strangely. fused, she looks to Ivor and sees him standing with his crystal in a mortar and one of his hands holding the side, iing mana into it, lighting up the array carved around its outside. His other hand holds a pestle that he uses to delicately crush up the crystal.

  I see, the array on the mortar stabilises the crystal in the same way as my mana bubble, but without as rge a mana cost. I wonder if I could create an unattributed spell to perform the same fun, or does it o be in the form of an array to work?

  Emily turns back to the front and waits patiently for Mrs Myrtle to tinue guiding the css, ign the murmured versations around her about her strange preparation teiques.