Chapter 5 - - I read a book and learn what the cauldron is for (2/2)
The academy was known by one name; The Ascending Mountain Institute, but it was divided into five schools. The first was the school of martial arts, specialising in all forms of fighting, armed and unarmed. The second was the school of beast-taming, those who attended there had great knowledge about the beasts of this world, their fighting capabilities, how to kill them, how to tame them, how to train them. The third school was the school of magic, naturally specialising in the using the elements and bending them to their will. The fourth school was the scholars school, for students with a insatiable thirst for knowledge, divination, cultivation methods. The fifth school was the school of alchemy, who focused on flora, creating pills and potions.
As the writer was not physically strong, lacked strong spiritual roots and whose knowledge and writing skills were still very lacking, he ended up in the school of alchemy almost by default. In fact, he was fortunate that he was accepted at all, but rumour had it that those willing to focus on alchemy were few these days, people more obsessed with learning to cultivate and fight.
The boy had not minded, he was just pleased to have a place at the academy. He had moved into a single room hut on the forested mountain the school was located and given a cauldron to use to produce pills and potions. He was also given herb seeds to practice growing common herbs. Despite his lack of talent, he had strong ethics towards learning; he placed every word told to him by his seniors in his diaries, filling them up with the most detailed knowledge of herbs and the best methods to produce basic pills and potions as he was taught them. Slowly, his hard work began to pay off and he became reliable in reproducing pills and potions and identifying herbs. His pills and potions were of average quality, he never produced poor products, but when asked to create something specific, he always came through.
Naturally, he became noticed by his seniors. Unfortunately, he also became noticed by a handful of classmates, who envied him this attention. When rumours began to develop that he might be moved to the inner school(for higher learning and better teachers), a person known as Caprian came to find him.
Caprian was different to the other students, he was from a wealthy background. Not only that, he was from an alchemy family. The trouble was, the boy lacked talent and was lazy. The family purchased his place into the academy, hoping for him to learn and work. But Caprian saw no reason to change, he was spoiled, used to having everything he wanted. He was disgusted by the poor conditions of the outer school, but didn't like the conditions required to move into the inner school (aka work). So he bullied other students into giving him their pills.
The writer didn't want to give him his pills, he had worked hard producing them and had begun to experiment secretly with the recipes, so he needed his pills to fill school quotas. There was no real fixed amount for the quotas, he needed to prove his value by exchanging created pills for more herbs, but the seniors kept records of how successful students were in making their pills. His success was just over 70% for basic level one pills and potions and 50% for basic level two. Half of what he produced was given to the school and half he could keep. It was this half that he had hoarded so he could waste herbs when experimenting.
One of Caprian's lackeys caught wind of the boy's stock, for it wasn't exactly hidden from site and his hoard was raided when he was busy in the library. Such actions were frowned on and of course the seniors promised to search for the culprit, but the boy was unaware until later that they had been paid off. The seniors also recommended that the writer move to a new room as the lock on his door had been damaged and who knew when it might be fixed. They had move him to a hut that was far away from the central compound and isolated from the other accommodation, as instructed by Caprian. But the boy did not argue, thinking it was better to experiment here, however he was more cautious to hide his books, cauldron and successful experiments and other pills and potions.
The diary ended there, leaving Leon to fill in the gaps. Caprian must have come looking for more pills and clearly found them in this hut, but beat the boy to death in order to get what he wanted. Leon, for whatever reason, had taken over the boy's body not long after!
Leon placed the diary back into the chest and looked thoughtful as he finished combing his black hair. Though he was not clear on the age of the lad, clearly he had not been old enough to silver if he was a student for the time that seemed to be no more than two years, so perhaps it was the shock that caused the pale locks that striped his black hair. Leon sighed. He was in a different world and in a school with seniors paid to forget about him, but without knowledge to survive, he was little more that waiting for a second death.
Therefore he ought to just begin where the boy left off. The problem was, how was he to get the herbs needed to make the pills and potions?