As expected, the Pre-casting class was a downright humiliating experience for Percy. Even worse, unlike the hard time he’d suffered unjustly in Alchemy 10 thanks to Dugris’s pettiness, he knew he fully deserved Mr. Lonan’s cold treatment.
Against the man’s advice, he had insisted on staying in a course he was entirely unqualified for. He’d also missed the very first lesson, showing up a week late. The final nail in the coffin was that he’d actually promised the guy to catch up, yet here he was, still stuck on the most basic exercises.
‘Geez, everyone but Lyn is looking at me like I’ve insulted their mother. Mind your own business, will you?’
The other students were already tackling much more challenging stuff. Most notable was another boy with a Yellow core and an air affinity, no different from Leo. He looked like he was around the same age too. He was currently working on rotating the mana in his core in a direction perpendicular to the spell he intended to form. If done correctly, the released wind blade would spin in two axes rather than one, meaning that it wouldn’t just slice through an opponent – it would shred them into ribbons.
The toughest part about this exercise was that he had to maintain the rotation as the mana travelled through his channels. He couldn’t allow its intensity to drop or its angle to be twisted by the journey. This was already several times harder than what Percy was doing – still working on splitting the mana up into a few portions and slowing down its movement.
At this point, he’d already accepted that whatever spell he came up with by the end of the term – if any – wouldn’t be anything to write home about.
‘Oh well… if you guys have an issue with me, take it up with Dugris. I would have studied for this if he’d given me the chance.’ he shrugged.
Either way, the teacher’s opinion of him was the last thing on his mind right now.
More importantly, achieving all his goals during his stay on Felmara was looking less and less likely with every passing day. Especially now that he’d added a competition to his plate. And then, there was Lyn. Her latest action only served to further his guilt.
‘I’m pretty sure she has feelings for Leo.’ he grimaced. ‘She’ll be heartbroken when she finds out he’s dead.’
The day was barely halfway through, and it was already shaping up into one of those. Yet, just when everything looked like it was going to shit, Percy found some unexpected hope in the library.
‘Holy crap! This is an absolute game-changer! I really need to win the competition!’
Diving into the books, it hadn’t taken him long to figure out what the Wiseman’s Chamber was. He’d already guessed it had to be a valuable reward based on everyone’s reactions, but the specifics still surprised him.
Apparently, it was a specialized facility that the academy had invested countless resources to construct. To put into perspective how expensive it was, it had already been over three hundred years since the school built it, yet they had no intention of creating a second anytime soon.
As for what made it so special? It wasn’t any one thing by itself, but lots of minor boosts that added up to a pretty powerful overall effect, making it one of the best places for students to practice their magic and overcome their bottlenecks.
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For instance, the academy had employed Blue runecrafters with a time affinity to enchant it, so that time inside the chamber passed faster than outside. Naturally, the effect was orders of magnitude weaker than the Thirsty Valley they had on Remior, but that was only to be expected, since it was created by mortals rather than a titan. The scope of the enchantment was countless times smaller too, as it only spanned a room large enough for a single student rather than an entire region.
Still, the 50% boost it provided meant that 3 days outside amounted to 4.5 inside. Not that huge by itself, but that was just the start. The air in the chamber was constantly pumped full of inhalables of various types, making studying in there much more effective.
Among the listed potions, Percy had recognized a few, as they were similar to the ones he’d encountered in the Guild. Namely, they used healing potions to keep one’s body in perfect condition and maintain their stamina, as well as enlightenment potions to clear one’s mind and accelerate their learning speed. They even used rejuvenation potions to help students relax and avoid the need to rest, as well as magic potions – rich in pure mana – boosting one’s mana regeneration.
‘Well, I guess the life mana won’t be of any help to me, unless the room can provide enough for my second core… Still, the rest should be useful…’
Finally, there was another resource called Wiseman’s Dust. In fact, it was the most valuable thing in the entire school, as well as the origin of the room’s name. According to the book, there was only one known way to produce it, and the conditions for that were extremely rare.
Wiseman’s Dust was nothing more than the impurities expelled from a demigod’s body as they ascended to godhood, rebuilding themselves into a more perfect existence.
Suffice to say, this wasn’t very useful for the gods themselves – it was no different from a snake’s shed skin or the fragments of a bird’s eggshell. However, it was downright priceless for mortals, as merely sitting in its vicinity supposedly enhanced their ability to comprehend new things.
‘It’s amazing that Rhaziel d such a precious thing to the academy.’ Percy realized.
Wiseman’s Dust was ultimately a consumable resource, even though each grain lasted for countless years. Granted, Rhaziel had only gifted the academy with less than a handful – plenty to fuel the chamber for a long time to come. Still, Percy would have expected him to reserve every last trace solely for their Green-borns. In fact, he guessed this was probably what the Divine Order did back home with theirs.
‘I suppose it has to do with Felmara’s limited population.’
The natives didn’t have any bloodlines to mutate, nor the means to turn their Yellow-borns into gods, but that didn’t mean their mortals were entirely useless. They could still work to develop the local branches of alchemy and runecrafting, which would benefit everyone. A small world probably had to do everything in their power to survive. And the fact that their technological prowess seemed to exceed that of Remior’s despite Felmara’s smaller size was proof that this had been the right move.
‘Either way, this is quite the opportunity for me.’
Whether it was the time acceleration, the inhalables, or the Wiseman’s Dust, each individual component only contributed in a small way, but it all compounded into quite a powerful effect. Percy estimated that a few days in the chamber would probably amount to months of practice outside.
This way, he could forget about pre-casting for now and devote the entire term to mastering the restructuring principle, winning the competition in the process. Then, he could take advantage of the chamber to make up for the lost time, blitzing through the pre-casting exercises during his stay in the room.
It was still a bit of a gamble, of course. He wasn’t as worried about his classmates beating him, but he had no idea if meeting Dugris’s demands was even possible in the first place. However, if this worked, he’d get so much more value out of this trip.
‘And if I’m lucky, the room might help Leo recover too…’
Many of the inhalables used in the chamber were rich in mind mana. Spending several days breathing them in was his best shot at mending the kid’s mind. Once again, he wasn’t sure it would work – there was no guarantee that Leo’s mind was even salvageable – but it wasn’t like he had a better plan. And he owed Lyn and Klatz to at least try, given how warmly they’d treated him over the past few weeks.
Returning the book to its shelf, Percy then grabbed the ones on alchemy again, ready to resume his studies. Now that he no longer had to worry about being allowed into the class, he could focus exclusively on the chapters related to his goal.
Like a sponge, he absorbed everything the library contained on pill creation, cross-referencing the theory with his past experiences – both in the lab yesterday, but also his time with Enki.
‘There’s only 13 weeks left this term, and the pills are among the easiest brews… Whatever happens, I need to get that done in the next two classes, to leave myself enough time for the rest.’