Meanwhile, somewhere within the third year dorms, Carlile and his friends (more like lackeys) were busy discussing their failure of a plan. Hugo was supposed to injure Ashton gravely.
So much so that he would need to be transported out of Contingent under the guise of a 'duel'. Where others would give Ashton relief from ever seeing the world again.
Carlile had called in a bunch of favours with Amaira to make it happen. She was supposed to ignore whatever happened inside the arena and since she was a purist as well, she agreed. However, their plan backfired badly when it was Hugo who had to be hospitalised after the duel.
"I told you trusting the first year on his first day was too much." The blonde-haired guy chimed in, "If we want it to get done, we should have done it ourselves."
"Yeah? And how does the great magus Nick recommends we go about it? There a reason why the seniors are not allowed around the junior wing, remember?" The frail-looking guy mocked the blonde guy who was referred to as Nick.
"Unlike a certain someone, I already proposed a plan!" Nick yelled back, "How the fck is it my fault if that bastard did not appear on the grounds like the other first years? We could have roughed him up a bit like we did those other kids. Micheal, you should have used your useless belly and forced him to come out!"
"Yeah, that would have been easy right? Unlike you morons, I'm not an S ranker. I have to be careful with what I do. This skinny bastard could have done so himself, couldn't you Sheamus?" The red-headed fatso yelled back at all of them.
While the three of them argued back and forth about what they could and could not have done, Carlile stayed silent. He was pretty confident in Hugo's skill. After all, despite being a first-year, he had a rare ability on him.
[Pounce] skill was more than just a simple jumping skill. Once activated, it would momentarily boost the user's agility by 1.5 times. This would have increased Hugo's agility to about 30 points, which would have been more than enough for him to strike Ashton first.
As long as he landed his first strike he would have won against Ashton without failing and Carlile would be free from the burden his brother had forced him to take on.
"Shut up." Carlile finally spoke up, "Let the bastard enjoy his life till he can. I'll get rid of him soon enough."
"How?" The lackeys asked him simultaneously.
"Accidents are common in dungeons and can happen to anyone." Carlile replied before stretching his neck, "Even in the lower rank dungeons. Just tell Amaira to make sure that mutt gets a place in the subjugation party. I'll handle the rest."
Saying so, Carlile left to attend his next class. Leaving his lackeys behind.
"Man, he sure is a crazy bastard." Nick shrugged his shoulders, "Should we also reserve a place in the graveyard for the mutt?"
"Nah, let the professors handle that as usual. But let's go and inform Amaira about his plan." Micheal said with a stupid grin.
***
At the same time, back in the potion's class...
"You call this a potion? Even amputated bastards can stir the pot better than you can." Kakaroff scolded yet another student, "What about you? The heck did you do to make a noise so loud? You had to add the root AFTER crushing it! It's a miracle this class is still in one piece because you idiots are no less than those human terrorists wanting to blow up the academy!"
The same thing had been going on for a long time. Actually, ever since they started preparing the Wolfsbane potion. Everyone was doing something wrong, even though they were strictly following the recipe as it was mentioned.
Ashton's luck was not any better either. Identifying ingredients and making a potion out of them were two entirely different things. On top of that, Kakaroff's constant gaze was not helping him either.
Even though so far Kakaroff had not scolded him, much to his surprise and the dismay of the rest, Ashton had a feeling if he could not make the potion perfectly, the mad professor was going to do a lot more than just scold him.
'Common there has to be something I can do right?'
[Potion Brewing proficiency: 89.69%]
[Continue brewing potions to increase your proficiency.]
'Yeah, yeah. What else do you think I am doing?'
Just like suffering pain gave him [Pain Resisatnce], and obtaining new information increased his intelligence. It seemed brewing potions also increased his proficiency in brewing potions. This was his only ray of hope, although there was a slight problem there as well.
The proficiency was taking a hell lot of time to go up by even a single per cent. On top of that, repeating the same process did not award him much increase in proficiency, if at all. For example, at first, when he was stirring the pot, for every circle he completed his proficiency increased by 1%.
But now, even after stirring the pot for like a minute straight, he only got a 0.01% increase.
"Half an hour remaining you dimwits! Pick up the pace! Does none of you wants the reward?" Kakaroff insinuated in a weird way, "Let's make this interesting. If you can't finish brewing the potion by the end of the class, you will be given some sort of punishment. So what's it gonna be suckers? A reward or a punishment?"
Upon hearing the word punishment, everyone panicked. While all of them wonder what kind of punishment the mad professor would give them, none of them wanted to be the ones to suffer just to know that.
'Judging by his personality, he would probably make us drink a shitload of potions created by him and treat us like lab rats.' Ashton shook his head and focused more on brewing the potion, 'Why the heck it isn't turning blue like it was supposed? What am I doing wrong?'