“Well…there we have it,” the mouse girl TA announced. “The five bottom contenders for the Low Bracket.”

  Wulf held up his bracer. Something was scrawling across it, and he looked down.

  [Mark unlocked: Shatterfist.]

  That wasn’t good. Wulf swallowed, half expecting the Field to tell him he’d broken his own hand from punching someone too hard. He thought he had better punching technique than that.

  [Shatterfist] You struck an enemy with the same Tier as you hard enough to break their bone like glass. Your ability to see how glass wants to be shaped has improved.

  He tilted his head. How glass wanted to be shaped? The Field spoke like the glass had a will of its own. At first, it didn’t seem too useful, but the more he thought about it…

  Well, he’d need to make his own potion vials eventually. You couldn’t make a perfect potion if you stored it in an imperfect container. The flask you held it in mattered. If he could see glass’s shape like he could see how a potion wanted to be stirred…he could start developing better equipment of his own.

  He left the arena as soon as the TA dismissed them. Only now did he realize how sweaty his gym shirt had gotten in the past few minutes of fighting, and he needed to wash up before his next event. Plus, he didn’t want to show up to his next bout of Academy combat training with a blood-stained shirt.

  On the way back to the dorms, he stopped by the academy baths and cleaned himself up—including shaving the short beard that’d started to grow on his chin.

  When he returned to the dorms, he headed to his room. It was evening, and it was dark out, but Ján hadn’t gotten back yet. Whatever he was doing.

  Wulf made a potion, bringing his advancement progress up to eighty-two percent (drawing mana from the constructs had given him a large boost to his main core, too), then used his new potion to fuel the constructs Kalee had given him. As far as he knew, someone who wasn’t actually an artificer—as in, they didn’t have an Artificer class—couldn’t make a construct more powerful than Bronze-Tier. These were a good investment, and probably better than anything he could buy in Arotelk.

  He filled them and drew the mana out, but this time…he restricted it. He concentrated on the pathways to his storage core instead, stopping the mana from entering his main core, and directing it to his storage core.

  With this method, he could’ve brought himself up to Low-Coal, if he’d let the mana into his main core. But there was no point in doing that until he’d expanded his storage core. The higher his Tier, the more robust the cores were, and the harder they’d be to expand.

  And yeah, already, he wasn’t supposed to have a second core at this Tier, but that was why he needed to capitalize on it.

  Since he'd need a much bigger well of free available mana than any other Ascendant—his skills weren't exactly efficient—there was no better time than now. He could grow his storage core to an insane size without compromising its integrity. Already, it was about half the size of his normal core, but if he kept this up, he could feasibly bring it to ten times the size before the wisps of mana that still flowed into his regular core became too much and he advanced to Low-Coal.

  Plus, at Low-Coal, he could keep expanding it, too.

  He’d considered [Arm of the Alchemist] a lot. The ability worked almost like a Spell, in that it didn’t recover mana from use. He’d need to refill his well often, which he’d put the constructs to good use for.

  While he fuelled the constructs, he opened his alchemy book and flipped to the next section of transmutation tables—a set of charts outlining how certain materials shifted under certain conditions and with what Skills.

  Though he didn't have a controllable transmuting ability yet, he was curious. He wanted a weapon of his own, and most were made of some kind of arcane material. If he could plan ahead...

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  The tables gave instructions to alter all metals. As it stated at the start of the chapter: The Great Alchemist Panne devised a method of transmuting metals to produce weapons during the first demon wars. Initially with the goal of creating more gold to fund the war effort, he developed numerous techniques to transmute arcane substances. The majority of these techniques have been forgotten over the millenia, and numerous false manuscripts have surfaced, claiming to hold his research, though his complete writings are still lost. This book only contains the known, functional transmutation tables.

  "Huh..." Wulf said.

  So there were good alchemists in the past. And...seemingly, with really useful abilities. Sure, it'd been many thousands of years, but for most of their practices to be forgotten, and for the practice of alchemy to be considered useless, if not scorned, seemed odd.

  But then again...if becoming a good alchemist was rare, if awakening an alchemist Class was rare, and advancing it enough to be powerful was even more difficult, he could see how knowledge would fade given time. But maybe, he’d need to start hunting for the writings of this Panne.

  A quest for later, though.

  Once he’d absorbed the mana from all three constructs, he tucked them away into their box and used his mana to fuel his storage pendant. Then, he stuffed them into the pendant’s void and sealed it up.

  As he tried to fall asleep, he laid on the bed with an empty glass vial in-hand. He hadn’t considered that glass-working would be a part of alchemy before, but it made enough sense. Making a potion bottle would be an important part of making a high-tier potion, and the best part was…the bottles were reusable.

  He’d seen fancy glass art before in his previous life, and it was truly art…but he could also make cool-looking things with it. Really…was there a point to making a fancy flask for your potions if it didn’t look cool?

  And he didn’t just have to limit himself to flasks. An Alchemist was a crafter, and he didn’t just have to make potion-related equipment. What if he transmuted a wooden sword into some sort of enchanted metal?

  But that meant he was going to need more equipment. Perhaps he needed another storage pendant for yet another part of his alchemy lab: his glass workshop.

  He could get the pendant easily, but the equipment?

  He was going to need more money, and he wasn’t going to get that from selling herbs to Chef Kennet.

  ~ ~ ~

  “I can’t believe you’re actually going to be in the tournament!” Irmond exclaimed as they walked up to the main arena at the center of the butte. “Like, actually fighting in a bracket! That’s already one in a hundred students in the Low Bracket! Like, I know I said I wasn’t going to bet against you, but…”

  Wulf chuckled. “Hopefully, I can keep surprising you.”

  “I swear on the Field, I’m never going to figure you out.”

  “Just keep working on yourself, too, though.” Wulf smiled. “Remember, if I become an Oronith Pilot, I’ll need a team.”

  “Hey, hey, I made it to Middle-Wood,” Irmond said, turning to Wulf. “And I’m working on my bow—saving up my lordly allowance for a good one. I think you just have a weird-working mind. The vast majority of the first years are still Low-Woods.”

  Wulf paused for a second as they walked toward the arena. It was late evening the day after his qualifying match, and though he was a little stiff, he was ready as could be.

  “Perhaps…” He scratched the back of his head and adjusted his ponytail. “I’m sorry. You’re doing phenomenally, too.”

  “Thanks. Though, sometimes, compared to you, it doesn’t feel like it.”

  Wulf shrugged, then said, “My old, uh, friend, she…” Master Arnau. “...the one who taught me to fight, she used to hate what the intellectuals at the academy tended to say: the whole just be yourself thing. She said, ‘It’s not quite there.’ It implies that you don’t have to do anything to improve yourself, that you don’t have to change. But sometimes, you need to reach inside, find the little slice of who you are and refine it to its utmost degree. I…I didn’t get there, but I’m still working on it.”

  “Didn’t get there?” Irmond asked. “What does that mean?”

  They were approaching the arena—a round sandstone stadium in the very center of the butte—but there were so many students and faculty members around that no one would hear them talking. Hells, there were probably some early members of the central academy branch that Kalee was talking about. Tonight, the first rounds of the inter-faculty tournament were just a precursor to the demonstrations the advanced crews would be putting on later in the week.

  “Yeah. Uh, before I left Carolaign.”

  “She must’ve been a good teacher.”

  “The very best.”

  “You’ll make her proud tonight.”

  Wulf patted the pouch of ashes hanging at his hip. “I sure hope so.” He reached into his haversack, then handed Irmond a potion. Earlier that day, he’d crafted a weak sight-enhancing potion for both Irmond and Kalee, and given it to each of them. “When my fight begins, would you do me a favour, and drink this?”

  “I…uh, sure? You know what, not even gonna question it. You’ll explain it after. It’s not poisonous?”

  “Not one bit.” Wulf offered a smile. “See you in a bit.”