Becoming an Alchemist
“You awake?”
When I opened my eyes, it was morning. After drinking the elixir and passing out following dinner, the next morning was only natural, yet somehow I couldn’t register that a whole day had passed.
“Um...” My voice wouldn’t come out properly. I’d screamed so much that my throat was completely hoarse.
“Ahem, ahem... ahem... How long did I sleep?”
“Five days.”
So he’d been by my side the whole time? The odds of him happening to be right next to me the moment I woke up felt suspicious. I glanced sideways at Aaron. He was sitting leisurely as before, reading a book. I narrowed my eyes and stared, trying to make out the title, but it was no use. Soon the book closed, and his gaze landed on me.
“No need to drink any more.”
“Thank you.” The words of gratitude came out on their own. If he’d told me to drink more, I might have actually wet myself. What kind of adult thinks like that? I’d already wet myself while drinking the elixir. About six times. It hurt that much. Too, too, too much.
“Potions will do from now on.”
“Please spare me.”
“It just tastes bad. It won’t hurt. Drink.”
Even as he said it, Aaron forced the mouth of the potion bottle between my lips. I had no choice but to gulp it down while fighting the urge to retch.
“...No matter how much I drink, I can’t get used to this taste. When will I adapt?”
Aaron shrugged and stood up.
“Potions still taste terrible even to me. I doubt the day will ever come.”
“Then I’ll make delicious potions. Fake strawberry-medicine flavor.”
“Strawberry is strawberry, and medicine is medicine. What’s this fake strawberry-medicine flavor?”
“You’ll know when you try it.”
The moment I felt strength returning to my body, I tried to stand. At the same time, I was startled. My body felt light. It moved exactly as I thought. Beneath the flexibility of my bones, there was also a strange, springy elasticity I couldn’t quite describe. With this kind of flexibility, I could probably do an I-shaped split challenge with my legs straight up. And the muscles—well, it was still a young girl’s body, so everything was soft, but beneath that softness I could feel small, clearly defined, elastic muscles. At this rate, I could probably beat up Evan, who used to tease me every day at the orphanage about not having a certain part. Of course, I’m an adult, so I don’t actually do things like that. It just means I’ve become that healthy.
After poking and bending my body this way and that, I bowed my head to Aaron once more.
“Thank you. Truly.”
When I looked up, Aaron’s expression remained as stiff as ever.
“Anything else to say?”
“Am I now an orphan worth several gold coins?”
The answer didn’t come right away. Aaron’s eyebrows twitched a few times before he let out a strange snort.
“About a hundred platinum coins.”
One platinum coin equals a hundred gold coins. One gold coin equals a hundred silver coins. And one silver coin equals a hundred copper coins. Good heavens. How much is that?
“The most expensive orphan in the world.”
“You could say that.”
“Thank you very much.”
Aaron nodded and snapped his fingers. The entire room rotated clockwise, and a new desk slid in front of me.
“You’ve absorbed the elixir better than expected. You’re past the point of needing to practice first-rank alchemy.”
“Then that knife earlier is useless now.”
“Junk. Don’t worry about it.”
On the desk now in front of me were books. Thick, heavy-looking tomes. Ten of them, by my count. Stacked together, they might be taller than me.
“Can you read?”
“Yes. Though I still get confused by difficult words.”
Thud— Another book was added. A very thick one titled Dictionary.
“Look up difficult words in this. Memorize everything by morning in three days.”
“Yes.”
I nodded first, then something felt off, so I looked up at Aaron.
“Yes?”
“Memorize everything by morning in three days.”
“The dictionary?”
Aaron’s gaze shifted to the books. Then he looked back at me.
“All of them.”
I blinked blankly. I couldn’t even answer. I couldn’t memorize one dictionary, let alone all those books. Even if I’m the most expensive orphan in the world, this doesn’t make sense.
“Teacher, can’t you take out just a few?”
“Memorize. All of them.”
Aaron left the room without mercy.
“...This doesn’t make sense.”
Listening to the cold sound of the door closing behind me, I picked up one of the books.
[Alchemy Basics Even Children Can Easily Learn!]
The title was ridiculously cute, complete with an exclamation mark, but its thickness was merciless enough to be considered a weapon. And this was the thinnest one. The others were even thicker.
“This really doesn’t make sense...”
How am I supposed to memorize ten books like this? No, this is really, really—
“...possible?”
I didn’t even need three days.
“Why is this working?”
I memorized all ten books in half a day. With time left over, I memorized the dictionary too. It took less than a single day to memorize eleven books in total.
*****
After memorizing all the books, I focused solely on training. Whenever Aaron made something, I would disassemble it, disassemble it, disassemble it, and disassemble it again. His instructions were simple.
- If you just want to hole up in the workshop making potions and elixirs, do whatever you want. But if you plan to go outside, speed in alchemy matters.
- Especially with my alchemy.
- Focus on speed. Precision down to the last speck can come later.
Sorting six or more materials in one second. But actually trying it was no easy task. In the blink of an eye, I had to disassemble something six times and sort each piece neatly. It felt like drawing a square with my left hand while drawing a triangle with my right, an octagon with my left foot and a star with my right, all while reading a novel with my eyes and singing with my mouth. It was incredibly, incredibly difficult. It wasn’t the object being disassembled—it felt like my brain was being taken apart. Yet it wasn’t impossible, so I did it. As I kept going, it seemed like I could even do it with my rear end, so I tried. It seemed like I could do it in my head too, so I tried. For fifteen days, I continued disassembling while handling eight tasks at once.
Suddenly, my thoughts drifted elsewhere. Doing it only in one direction felt a little predictable. Not that it wasn’t fun—alchemy is fun. Fun enough to lose track of time. If Aaron didn’t call me for meals, I’d skip dinner, skip breakfast the next day, skip lunch, pass out at dinner, and wake up the next morning. It actually happened several times. After that, Aaron started calling me at every meal. If he didn’t, I’d forget to eat again. That’s how fun it was. So when I say it felt predictable, it just means I’d found a direction that might be even more fun.
What if I do it in reverse?
I wondered what would happen if I reversed the familiar flow. You know that urge you get sometimes while petting a puppy, wanting to stroke its fur the wrong way? That was exactly how I felt now. So I tried it. Imagining the sensation of finding the exit from the maze’s entrance, I moved the third hand that only appears during alchemy. It wasn’t difficult. I’d already grown used to handling eight tasks at once—doing it backward was easy.
Clack-clack-clack— The sound of metal meeting metal rang out. Along with the ticklish feeling in my lower abdomen and tongue as mana drained away, the grayish light at my fingertips grew stronger. Then, a flash. A light brighter than any before illuminated the entire inside of the workshop Aaron had given me.
“Oh.”
When the light faded, a sword rested in my hand. It was a bit cruder than the one Aaron had made for me to disassemble, but still similar enough to pass as a cousin. Gripping it tightly, I looked at Aaron. He’d already been watching me, book forgotten.
“You’ve reached the second rank.”
“Yahoo.”
It had been about a month since I started living with Aaron. I’d now reached the second rank, where I could proudly call myself an alchemist anywhere.
“What do I do from now on? What can I do?”
“You can use the workshop.”
Aaron rose and walked over. It seemed like he was looking at my tongue, so I opened my mouth. My action was correct. Without hesitation, Aaron stuck two fingers into my mouth.
“Don’t forget this sensation.”
“Eeh.”
Then—sluurp. Something indescribable felt like it was being pulled out through my tongue from deep within my soul. It was a strange, pleasant sensation, like a loose tooth finally coming free. I stared at Aaron with wide eyes. Something pitch-black rested in his hand.
“Huh?”
“Do you remember what this is?”
“Yes.”
It was the thing I’d called a soul fragment—or mana remnant—before. The one that had been stuck to the black mage’s carriage, the one Aaron had peeled off.
“That was still attached to my tongue? It felt like it was being pulled out from my tongue.”
“Not entirely wrong. More precisely, it had taken root in your soul.”
“Tongue? Soul? Is this the workshop?”
“Correct. The one engraved on your tongue is a workshop that lets you easily draw out and use these mana remnants.”
“Oh... So what can I do with it?”
Aaron handed me the dark smoke he held.
“Try adding it to the sword you made.”
I received the mana remnant. The texture was surprisingly strange.
“It’s softer and fluffier than I expected.”
“It changed because that’s the form you desired. Mine is nothing more than smoke.”
Before I knew it, a mana remnant had appeared in Aaron’s right hand as well. His was definitely lighter in color and more transparent than mine. Maybe he’d wanted marshmallows back then. After examining the remnant from various angles, I immediately pressed it against the sword. Then I transmuted. The gray light flowing from my hand made the mana remnant in my grasp vanish cleanly. When the light faded, I inspected the sword now imbued with the remnant.
“It doesn’t look any different.”
“It grants properties to the transmuted object... No. You’ll understand once you swing it.”
Stepping a few paces away from Aaron, I swung the sword with all my might. At the same time—
Shhhhaaaak—!!
A pitch-black shadow shot out from the blade. The shadow sliced cleanly through what I’d been looking at before scattering into the air.
“Whoa.”
Does this thing have homing too? Is alchemy truly divine authority? I swung the sword again. Shhhhaak! Shhhhaak! Shhhhak! Shhhak!
“Planning to destroy the entire mansion?”
“Gasp. Sorry.”
Stopping mid-swing, I immediately asked what I’d been curious about.
“Teacher, Teacher. Can I disassemble this mana remnant and put it back into my workshop? It would be such a waste if something this good was single-use.”
The moment Aaron nodded, I immediately attempted disassembly and transmutation. I remembered the taste of the mana remnant. If I could just extract that exact taste—
With a sluurp sensation, the dark mana remnant was pulled out.
“Can I eat it again?”
“...It’s not eating. It’s storing.”
“Can I store it again?”
Aaron stared at me with an odd look before reluctantly answering.
“Yes.”
There was no need to put it in my mouth. The moment I thought to store it in the workshop, the mana remnant slipped right into my mouth. It felt like it had settled somewhere in my soul. Like a loose tooth again. I poked at it a few times before pulling it out. Sluuurp— The mana remnant that came out of my mouth rested in my hand once more. I added it to the sword and swung again. Shhhhaaaak! Then I disassembled and stored it again. It slipped inside and settled in my soul. Exactly the same. It could be recycled endlessly.
“Wooow...”
But wait—does this work with any workshop? Then does Aaron’s alchemy come from this workshop too? When I looked at him with that thought, he somehow read my mind and shook his head.
“Without talent, you can’t digest it. The moment the workshop is engraved, your body would burst.”
How does he always know what I’m thinking? He really is a mysterious teacher in many ways.
“And these mana remnants aren’t materials you can use without limit.”
“Ah.”
“As you use them... in your case, you’ll feel the taste growing fainter.”
I quickly understood. It made sense that something this good couldn’t be enjoyed without limits.
“How many times can I use them?”
“Depends on how intensely you use them. You’ll pick up that part through sensation faster than most.”
“Okay. But, you know... Using mana remnants through the workshop is still alchemy you created from start to finish, right?”
Aaron didn’t answer and simply reached into his sub-space. That itself was the answer—that he had made everything from beginning to end.
“I’ll give you some decent remnants. Get used to the sensation. Research how and where to use them too.”
“Wow! Thank you!”
Aaron gifted me over ten mana remnants. I was already itching with anticipation about what properties they might have. I wouldn’t be sleeping tonight.