Ruvian drifted down the corridor, the noise of the academy fading into a low, indistinct hum. His thoughts were already ahead of him, turning toward the next elective on his schedule.
Herbology. ɴᴇᴡ ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀʀᴇ ᴘᴜʙʟɪsʜᴇᴅ ᴏɴ 𝔫𝔬𝔳𝔢𝔩~𝔣𝔦𝔯𝔢~𝔫𝔢𝔱
He wasn’t particularly fond of plants, and there was no sentimental reason behind his choice, but the subject held a kind of practical utility he couldn’t ignore. Poisons, antidotes, field salves, ingredients for alchemical mixtures—it was the kind of knowledge that could easily be repurposed into something far more interesting. Before the idea could unfold any further in his mind, a voice called out from behind.
“Where are you heading?” Corwin caught up and fell into step beside him. Ruvian didn’t look over and gave a shrug, loose and almost careless. “Just a leisurely walk.”
Corwin gave him a sideways glance, already suspicious. “Leisurely… to where?”
“Herbology.” Ruvian said. Corwin made a strangled noise, bringing a hand to his face. “I-I keep forgetting you have a completely twisted definition of what’s ‘leisurely.’”
He walked a little while in silence, clearly weighing something. Then, with a sigh, Corwin added, “You know what? Maybe I’ll try it. Herbology and Alchemy aren’t bad electives.”
“Yeah, a smart choice,” Ruvian replied without inflection.
Corwin continued, undeterred. “I picked Enchantment too. Not bad, really. Definitely not as painful as I thought it’d be.”
Corwin hesitated, then asked, “What about you? How was yours?”
At first, it seemed like Ruvian wasn’t going to answer. His expression didn’t shift, his eyes stayed forward, and his pace didn’t slow. ‘Hmm, what should I say…’ Then, as though he was recounting something mildly inconvenient, he said, “I fought with Professor Marthias and survived.” (+20PP)
“I see, you fought with… You—what?” Corwin nearly tripped over his own feet. Ruvian kept walking.
“You fought with—I’m sorry, you what?” Corwin blinked rapidly, as though trying to physically reset his brain. “That’s… that’s not something you just throw out and then ignore me. Are you serious? Are you seriously telling me you fought with Professor Marthias?”
“Yes, I’m not joking.”
Corwin stared at him, desperate for clarification. “You’re messing with me. You have to be. Right?”
A smirk crept onto Ruvian’s face, slow, and entirely unjustified. Corwin let out a strangled groan. “Oh, come on! Ruvian… Say something.”
“That's something I’ll explain to you another time.” (+20PP)
But Ruvian had already turned his gaze forward again, as calm and composed as if nothing had happened. By the time they reached the Herbology classroom, Corwin looked like he was on the verge of grabbing him by the collar and shaking the truth out.
Ruvian, of course, didn’t say a word. He simply met his friend’s stare with that same quiet, infuriating look before stepping through the door.
The Herbology lecture hall smelled like a garden left out too long in the sun, faintly bitter. Beneath it all was the sharper scent of crushed bark and freshly ground stems. Rows of wooden desks curved around a central platform in a half-circle, giving every student a clear view of the man standing at the front. Professor Howard, draped in robes the color of pine needles, blended into the towering wall of hand-painted botanical charts behind him.
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Ruvian sat somewhere in the middle, posture relaxed, arms sprawled across the desk. Corwin, by contrast, was sitting up perfectly straight, both hands poised to scribble notes, his eyes sharp and fixed on the professor as if this were some kind of entrance exam. It was a bit ridiculous. But also oddly admirable.
‘Good, if you want to change your life, you should at least do this much.’ Ruvian glanced at him and allowed himself the faintest smirk, then turned his attention back to the front as Professor Howard reached for the display table.
Several glass containers sat neatly arranged, each one housing a different herb—some brittle and gray, others floating.
“The classification of medicinal flora follows three fundamental categories,” the professor began, his voice smooth but clipped.
“Restorative. Neutral. Reactive.”
He plucked a sprig of silver-green leaves from the first jar and held it up for everyone to see. “This is Lirenthia. It is used as a base ingredient in most low-grade healing elixirs. When boiled at moderate temperature in distilled water, it accelerates clotting and promotes cellular regeneration.”
Then he picked up a second vial. Same herb and same leaves. But these had a faint rust hue curling at the edges like dried blood. “However, when Lirenthia is oversteeped, or introduced to a sulfur-rich environment, it undergoes a volatile transformation. The regenerative enzymes degrade, and the plant begins producing hemotoxic agents instead. What once healed can now kill.”
There was a quiet hum of interest as the room absorbed his words. Most scholars knew some herbs had poisonous variants but the clarity and precision with which he laid out the shift made even the inattentive ones sit a little straighter. Ruvian’s eyes drifted down to his notebook. His fingers tapped the page once before he resumed writing, this time not just copying but reworking the information, stitching it together with fragments of older alchemical theory.
He leaned back slightly, eyes narrowing in thought. ‘The boundary between remedy and toxin was thinner than people liked to admit. Sometimes, all it took was a shift in temperature. Sometimes, the wrong timing.’
They were the interplay between natural compounds and external catalysts.
Surprisingly, Corwin raised his hand. (+30PP)
“Professor, if the same herb can both heal and harm depending on exposure, then wouldn’t it be possible to manipulate its properties intentionally? Say, if someone ingested an unaltered dose of Lirenthia… could a second substance be introduced after consumption to change its effect mid-process?” The question hung in the air like something too sharp to touch. Even the quietest scribblers froze mid-sentence.
Professor Howard turned to Corwin, his sharp eyes glinting with interest. “A compelling question,” he said, slowly setting down the vials with care. “You propose a post-ingestion reversal. An internal shift of effect. A living, responsive transformation. What advanced alchemical theorists refer to as In Vivo Reversal.” The term echoed faintly across the room, unfamiliar to most, but strong enough to pull everyone’s focus into place.
He stepped down from the platform and approached the semicircle, his steps quiet but measured. “Tell me, Mr. Corwin,” he continued, his voice lower now. “Are you asking purely out of curiosity… or do you intend to try it yourself?”
“Curiosity,” he replied with an unshaken expression.
A thin smile crept onto Professor Howard’s face. The professor returned to the table, fingers brushing once again across the line of vials until they found the oxidized Lirenthia. “A fascinating proposition,” he said, lifting it gently into the light. “Your logic holds. Theoretically, yes—an herb’s reactive transformation can be delayed and then redirected, if you understand both the primary compound and its catalysts.”
“But intention alone is not enough. What you suggest requires mastery over timing, internal conditions, and chemical layering, all within the closed system of the human body.” He reached for another container, this one filled with a viscous blue liquid that shimmered faintly beneath the glow of the mana lamps, like oil suspended in water. “Most antidotes function passively. They bind to toxins, they neutralize gradually, they do not act with precision but persistence.”
“What you are describing, Mr. Corwin, is an immediate response. A trigger. Something that rewrites the active effect in real time, not over hours but seconds.” Without turning, he extended his hand toward the manaboard.
In the next moment, threads of blue and gold drew themselves into the air and began forming lines of reaction pathways, formulas, and symbol-laced diagrams. “This is where theory begins to crack under the pressure of application,” he said finally, gesturing toward the shifting web of alchemical notes. The diagrams spun slowly, a dizzying maze of transmutation lines and reactive triggers.
“And this is where it becomes difficult.”