Becoming a Magic School Mage

Chapter 6

From the years of sword training he’d received from his family’s trusty knight Alarlong, coupled with his understanding of combat, Ehan could tell that Yonehr’s posture... meant she was gearing up to beat Guynando to a pulp!

“Hold on, hold on,” he said, stepping between them to try and prevent a fight. “Don’t look down on alchemy, Guynando.”

“But alchemy is a joke,” Guynando argued, completely oblivious to the rising tension. “Where’s the wisdom in it?”

Magic was an infinitely expansive field divided into dozens of disciplines: illusions, summoning, transfiguration, elemental... Elemental magic alone could also be split into finer categories, including fire, water, light, and darkness. A mage could devote their whole life to just one of those and still barely scratch the surface.

But within this diverse world of magic, alchemy didn’t garner much respect. To uninitiated mages who were just starting out, alchemy was... a little too mundane. While mages in other disciplines could summon angels of light or split the earth beneath them with a single gesture, alchemists were stuck in a lab mixing herbs to make potions.

“Well...” Ehan began.

“Hold on, Wardanaz. Step aside,” Yonehr said. “I’m not going to do anything to him.”

“Okay.” Ehan moved out of the way, allowing Yonehr to step closer to Guynando.

Guynando cocked his head and asked, “What is it?”

“I’d better not hear you begging for a healing potion from the infirmary after this, because those are made with alchemy!” Yonehr shouted.

And then with a dull thud, Guynando was sent staggering back.

Ehan judged it a very impressive punch.

* * *

“Is it really all right for you to hit him like that?” Ehan asked.

“It’s fine as long as I apologize after a day or so,” Yonehr replied.

It seemed this wasn’t the first time she’d hit him. It was hardly unusual for cousins to fight, but Ehan was surprised at how nonchalant she was about the whole thing. Guess I intervened for nothing. He decided that the next time they fought, he’d be a spectator rather than a mediator.

“Wait, I don’t want you to think I just go around punching people or anything. You get that, don’t you?” Yonehr quickly clarified, misunderstanding Ehan’s reaction.

Decorum and grace were important to noble families, especially the larger, more traditional ones, and throwing punches after a petty argument wasn’t exactly dignified.

“So what if you punch someone in the heat of the moment?” Ehan said. “What’s the big deal?”

Yonehr was even more disconcerted by his words. Is that how things are in House Wardanaz? While that wouldn’t be surprising coming from a family of knights, she couldn’t reconcile someone from one of the empire’s most elite houses defending fistfights.

This kid must be cut from a different cloth, she rationalized. Ehan did exude a gravitas that set him apart from the other noble students in their year. Although they all came from the aristocracy, they were also just taking their first steps into adulthood, but Ehan stood out among those greenhorns in every way from bearing to manner of speech, just as expected of a member of House Wardanaz.

Yonehr changed the subject. If Ehan had decided to overlook her faux pas, she didn’t want to dwell on it. “Anyway, are you sure you want to take alchemy? If you’re only going because of me, I really don’t mind being on my own.”

“No, I’m interested in alchemy too.”

“Oho... Was my business proposal that tempting?”

“I am considering that as well,” Ehan admitted.

That was surprising. She hadn’t expected him to come around so quickly. “What happened to change your mind?”

“Mm, well...”

Ehan weighed his words carefully. “It seems that I’m unexpectedly untalented in magic, so I might have to give serious thought to getting into the alchemy scene” didn’t seem like a statement befitting one of noble heritage.

“No, it’s fine. You don’t have to explain. You’ve come to appreciate alchemy’s true worth, haven’t you?”

“What?”

“It’s a fascinating discipline, isn’t it?” Yonehr said brightly.

“Uh... Well... Right.”

She seemed to be in high spirits, so Ehan decided not to burst her bubble.

“People assume alchemy means you’re just trapped in some underground workshop all the time, but the world of alchemy is so much broader and deeper than that.”

“Um... Mm-hmm.”

Ehan wasn’t caught off-guard. His time in grad school had him well-trained in the art of nodding along to talk of things he had no interest in whatsoever.

“Do you like hiking, young man?”

“Sorry? I, uh...”

“That’s right. Hiking is simply wonderful. Have I told you about the time I climbed Seoraksan last year? When the clouds broke through the early morning fog...”

“Mmm, I see.”

“I didn’t think you’d be this intrigued. You’re sure to enjoy hiking. Let’s go together sometime!”

What Yonehr was saying seemed pretty interesting in comparison.

“Did you get a head start on studying alchemy at home before coming here?” he asked.

Yonehr unconsciously scanned her surroundings before confessing, “Yes, but keep it hush-hush. My family didn’t let me practice spellcasting, but they were laxer on alchemy.”

“I don’t see any harm in getting a head start.”

She gave Ehan another baffled look. Not only was he fine with fistfights, but he was unruffled by the fact that she’d broken the rule forbidding learning magic before adulthood as well. What a strange guy.

Meanwhile, Ehan was thinking, It’s lucky that she studied ahead. He knew well how helpful it was to be friends with good students. If Yonehr was knowledgeable about alchemy, that meant he could probably enlist her help to get good grades.

“Would you maybe be willing to teach me too?”

“Of course!” Yonehr patted him on the shoulder, beaming at his enthusiasm.

* * *

Introduction to Basic Alchemy was their next class. After encountering a half-troll professor in Introduction to Basic Magic, Ehan doubted any professor could catch him off guard, and there were indeed no surprises here. This professor’s pretty run-of-the-mill.

Standing there was a short dwarf dressed in the sleek clothes of a hunter or a ranger, a crossbow strapped at the waist. “Is this everyone?”

“Ugh, great. There are Black Tortoises here too,” Yonehr muttered.

She didn’t look down on commoners, but she wasn’t exactly at ease around them either. It wasn’t an issue if there were only Blue Dragon Tower students in a class, because they’d all be on the same page, but taking a class with students from other towers unsettled her. To make matters worse, it looked like the Black Tortoises outnumbered the Blue Dragons.

The staring is a bit much. Commoners’ reactions to encountering nobles generally went one of two ways: fearful avoidance or downright hostility. While the latter was less common outside school grounds, this was Einrogard, which emphasized the ideal of equality. The commoner students already resented nobles for their haughty attitudes, and being sneered at even in the one place they were meant to be equal was really the last straw for many of them.

“Hey, stop staring. There’s a Wardanaz over there too.”

“So what? Not even a Wardanaz can lay a finger on me here.”

“You’re not going to live at school forever, are you? What if they retaliate when you’re outside?”
“I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.”

Ehan clicked his tongue. It wasn’t very pleasant to be disliked because of things he hadn’t done. I guess acting friendly would just make things worse. It was probably best to stick with his Blue Dragon Tower peers for now.

“Quiet down,” said the short dwarven professor, a surprisingly powerful voice emanating from that small frame. “My name is Uregorm Gumdar. You can call me Professor Uregorm. Now, I’m sure you’re all asking yourselves, ‘Why are we meeting out here in the grass when we have plenty of perfectly serviceable buildings full of classrooms?’”

It was true. Surprisingly enough, they were gathered on a hill outside for this class rather than in a classroom.

Princess Adenart raised her hand. Uregorm shrugged and said, “I wasn’t really expecting an answer, but all right, go ahead.”

“It’s so we can feel the mana of nature,” the princess answered.

Alchemy had an unjust reputation for being nothing but combining whatever herbs and reagents a recipe called for, but it also required magic. It was important for alchemists to be able to sense natural mana and gain awareness of the powers it had.

“What? No.” The dwarven professor looked at Adenart like she’d something ridiculous. She hung her head in embarrassment, her pale cheeks flushing red.

“Isn’t it just because this is a convenient place to collect ingredients?” Ehan suggested to Yonehr, not giving it much thought.

“There’s no way that’s the case…”

“Oho, correct!” Ehan and Yonehr stared at the professor in bewilderment, but Uregorm was eyeing Ehan with a distinctly impressed look. “It’s rare for metalheads to get that straight off the bat.”

“We’re first-years, not metalheads...”

“Yes yes, metalhead first-years. Anyway, good job. You have the makings of an excellent alchemist.”

Yonehr gave Ehan an envious look at the compliment, while Adenart glared at him a little as if she’d just decided he was her rival.

This isn’t even glare-worthy. He was incredulous. Was she really jealous over him receiving praise for such a simple answer?

“I gathered you metalheads here to teach you the types of skills you’ll need to do alchemy. You’re probably thinking that alchemy requires high intelligence and fine control over magic energy, right?” Professor Uregorm said.

Wait, you need fine control over magic energy for alchemy too? Ehan wondered, his confidence faltering.

“But that’s not true,” the dwarf went on. “The ability the alchemist needs most is the ability to collect ingredients.”

That threw the students off, as it was the last skill they’d expected the professor to emphasize.

Adenart raised her hand as if she couldn’t let the statement go unchallenged. “Professor. We can grow our own ingredients and reagents, or commission adventurers to find them. I think it’s misleading to say that alchemists must collect ingredients themselves.”

“You ignorant metalhead greenhorn! You clearly don’t know anything about the reality of alchemy!” As Adenart’s face turned even redder, Professor Uregorm tutted and said, “Do you know how many of the ingredients and reagents alchemists use can be grown yourself? Less than ten percent! The rest you have to buy. And do you really think everything you buy is going to be top-notch? Do you know why mages squeeze their way into the party when they hire adventurers to go on expeditions? It’s not because they have time to kill. It’s because adventurers are terrible at gathering herbs! They just rip it out root and all when they should be harvesting it delicately!”

The professor was shouting with fiery intensity, as if he’d been harboring this grievance for some time. “That’s why an alchemist has to know how to be self-sufficient when it comes to gathering ingredients and reagents. You can’t excel in this field if you only rely on others! Even if you whine about not having the right ingredients when you’re researching later, nobody’s going to go get them for you!”

The students nodded in tentative understanding, looking deflated.

“Well, that wraps up the explanation. Now go out there and forage.”

“Sorry?” the students asked.

“What don’t you get? Split up and start gathering,”

Uregorm’s staff swished through the air, conjuring up sheets of paper that began distributing themselves to each student. On each sheet was an illustration of a bluish herb.