Chapter 129 Alchemy Club [1]

Filling out the form, Arvell handed it back to the girl before him.

Taking the paper, she scanned through the contents and nodded to herself.

"Thank you for joining our club! Would you be interested in touring the alchemy building?"

Arvell paused for a minute.

'I have the time to spare. Plus, I'm sure those lovebirds are keeping themselves busy.'

Making up his decision, Arvell nodded his head.

"I think I'll take a look then."

The girl standing at the front of the booth smiled at Arvell.

"Would you like directions as to where it's located?"

"It's the building next to the onsite school hospital, right?"

"Yup, that's the one!"

"Thank you for your help."

"No problem!"

Turning away from the girl, Arvell started off to the school's alchemy building, arriving only minutes later.

Arvell looked between the hospital and the alchemy building, even noticing a walkway built between the facilities to make travel between them less hassle.

Since most of the health potions and other medicinal elixirs were brewed in the alchemy building, the two buildings were built close to each other.

Many doctors in the hospital also worked as alchemists, so this worked out well for them.

Walking to the entrance, Arvell noted that quite a few people, primarily students bustling around the building entrance.

A sizeable portion of them even brought their alchemy pots with them.

Since most students had to share their room with others, it was far easier for them to refine their elixirs in the secluded cubicles of the alchemy building.

After all, concentration is one of the primary factors determining how well the refining process goes.

Since booking a room was a cheap and accessible option, most of the student alchemists went with this option.

Even if each of the cubicles didn't offer much space to work with, they were still quiet, offering the students inside a decent level of privacy.

Arvell, having his own bedroom, didn't care much about this offer.

Sure, it was easier to refine elixirs in the same place where he could buy the ingredients and sell the freshly concocted elixirs, but he would maintain his privacy in his room.

He couldn't risk anyone seeing his elixir refining process because Arvell couldn't produce traditional fire from fire magic...

All he could do was produce a purple hue, which was Arvell's equivalent of Alchemy flames.

When compared to fire magic, Arvell's deep purple hue looked far too different. Not only was it too unnatural to be passed off as regular Alchemy, the time it takes Arvell to craft an elixir was significantly less than what it would take others, even if they were using the same recipe.

Not only did Arvell possess a higher level of understanding of alchemical ingredients, even compared to the professors at the academy, his Aether/Nether combination far out surpassed fire magic in refining capabilities.

Not only were his elixirs much faster to make, but they were also more effective.

Most alchemists were fire mages since a heat source was one of the essential components in alchemy.

While it is still possible to become an alchemist without being a fire mage, the alchemist needed access to an alchemical pot enchanted with fire magic.

By infusing mana into it, they would be able to create the heat to refine their chosen elixirs.

Unfortunately, this method often yielded lacklustre results compared to traditionally using fire magic for refining.

The level of control that fire mages had over their fires far eclipsed that of those that relied on enchanted tools to create the refining fires for them.

Since the enchanted alchemy pots also cost quite the sum, many weren't too keen on becoming alchemists.

Due to this discrepancy, fire-mages were widely regarded as the best alchemists.

Arvell procured a decent amount of stolen goods during his escapades with various bandit groups.

Everything from money to pieces of jewelry and expensive paintings could be found in the stash he kept in his inventory.

Items that had all probably been robbed from travelling merchants.

Arvell had even procured one of the enchanted alchemist pots among his collection of goods.

Having this was one of the main reasons why Arvell decided to be upfront on his ability to perform Alchemy.

Arvell walked through the wooden double doors, entering what appeared to be an expansive hall.

In one corner of the building, there appeared to be countless people waiting in line in front of a counter, buying elixir ingredients from the people behind the counter.

'That must be the school's alchemy market. There's even a sign saying [Alchemy Club Members get 20% off!] written on a board near the front.'

Arvell walked up to the line and joined near the end, using the time he was in line to look around the rest of the building.

There was another desk where students could purchase or rent Alchemical pots and book their cubicles to work.

Right next to it was a counter where the alchemists could sell any elixirs they may have concocted.

While the students were not obligated to give the school any money from any elixirs they sold, this only applied when selling them outside the academy.

However, most students opted to sell them through the school to save time.

Since the elixirs were sold using the academy's shops, the academy would charge 5% of the sales from each potion.

'This was something they conveniently 'forgot' to mention when handing out the flyers at the clubfest. Not like I didn't already know of this, though,' Arvell sighed.

Truth be told, the 5% didn't matter all that much to Arvell either way.

Sure, he would lose money, but most of the elixirs he would craft were for personal use.

He wasn't desperately strapped for money, so as long as he could make enough from selling elixirs to pay off the ingredients he used to craft his personal elixirs, Arvell didn't care too much.

Plus, with his skill level, he wouldn't need to worry about accidentally failing the alchemical process and wasting the ingredients without having anything to show.

He'd long passed that phase while training under Lykos.

Patiently waiting for the line to move, Arvell noticed the building doors open again, revealing a familiar red-haired girl.

'Is that Kaera?'

Feeling someone's gaze, Kaera turned towards Arvell and scowled.

'Yup, no mistaking it... It's her.'

***

[IMPORTANT]

Author's Note:

I will be going on break for about a week, since I'm going on a trip with my family.

To be honest I planned on bringing my laptop with me to keep writing, even during the trip, but my family refused to hear it (sorry, I tried).

Since my flight is only in a few hours, I planned on writing my last chapter yesterday, and using today to pack, but we just so happened to hit 200 golden tickets.

As a man of my word, I delivered the extra chapter.

I hope you enjoyed it (Even if it was a boring info dump chapter).

Thank you all for your continued support, and I'll see you all in one week!

-Sleepy Slime