Alira returned to their shared room with Maria to rest for an hour or so before they had to head out again for lunch. After a quick lunch, it was already time for their first class.

  Any and all facilities related to alchemy were situated at the far west of the Academy compound, directly in opposition of the magic department—a reflection of the mage tower and alchemy society’s stance within the Empire.

  Alira turned her brain off as she followed Maria mindlessly and headed to their first class at Moonglade Auditorium. The lecture hall where theoretical lessons would take place was built like a theatre hall: a stage at the front between two front doors before the seating area, divided into three rows and two columns with walking paths in between. The seats in the further back had higher ground for an unobstructed view of the stage.

  For a moment, she felt like she was back on Earth to attend her university lectures. Only the red cushions and gold-painted wooden chair were much classier compared to the plastic chairs she’d seen during the university tour. There were also the long hardwood tables shared between every two students instead of the tiny foldable plate for a desk built into the chairs.

  Alira sat in the left-most seat around the middle of the hall, to which Maria might have protested had this been a magic class, but the girl didn’t really care too much about alchemy. Alira would have picked a seat all the way at the back if she wasn’t planning to listen to this class just so the professor would be more willing to listen to her later on.

  A rich-brown grandfather clock stood as tall as Alira next to the chalkboard on the stage. With about twenty minutes left before class time, most seats remained empty. Alira looked around and didn’t find a certain black-haired protagonist either.

  With nothing else to do, she turned towards Maria, who was looking over her shoulder out of the tall window beside her. Alira stood up, gesturing for her to take the window seat to gawk at the academy ground as much as she wanted.

  “Maria, can I have the book I gave to you this morning?” Alira asked.

  “Here, miss,” Maria took out an ancient-looking, leather-bound book from her sub-space which Alira had been using like it was hers whenever she was too lazy to carry things around.

  Alira took the book while fishing out a dip pen along with a small tube of ink from her uniform. “Thanks.”

  “What’re you writing, miss?” Maria said.

  Apparently, she was no longer interested in window-gazing. Alira noticed Maria taking not-so-sneaky peeps at her, seemingly hesitant to say something.

  Finally, she said, “I-I heard writing diary entries on what happened during the day tends to make the day more exciting... If you write down everything good that happened, maybe you’ll see that life is better than you think. And it’ll only get better!”

  What’s this girl going on about?

  Alira didn’t know where all this was coming from until she remembered her reputation in the duchy. Everyone there was now so sure that she was suicidal. Well, from their point of view, it did seem that way, but she wanted to die only to leave this place before she found her life and soul threatened with an actual end to the cultists and worse. She didn’t want to die at all, even if it wasn’t permanent with the Goddess’s promise to return her back to Earth. She’d had a glance at death, and it was the scariest thing she’d seen.

  Her attempts on her life were merely to save herself before anyone else.

  “Is that so? I’ll do that then,” Alira said, hoping it would stop Maria from taking peeks.

  Maria’s lips stretched in a wide, beaming smile when she heard Alira listening to her suggestion. Alira almost felt bad lying to her. She was actually planning to write down the novel in the book.

  The plan she came up with to help the protagonist before she left was to write down everything she knew about the future from the first three books, everything she remembered. Then, she would hide it somewhere to have it ‘accidentally discovered’ by Raine to make him think it was an artifact that foretold the future or something. Raine, a total artifact nerd, would definitely buy it if he ‘uncovered’ an ‘old’ book.

  Alira managed to finish up the first few chapters when the professor walked into the auditorium with all seats now fully occupied with lively students. The chattering died down as the middle-aged woman with her bun as tidy as the last time Alira had seen her walked up the stage.

  “Good afternoon, students. It’s a pleasant day, and may the Setting Sun grace you with restful rays to day’s end. I’m Professor Daw, as some of you may already be aware,” she said, her gaze skipping to meet some students among the crowd, including Alira. “I’m in charge of the ‘Introduction to Basic Alchemy’ module for those who didn’t bother to check. Pleasant to meet all of you,” she said, her voice loud and clear throughout the entire hall, no doubt, enhanced with alchemy.

  Alira had actually been looking forward to the class.

  The term and practice of alchemy in this world had been very vague and different from what she knew. The novel didn’t dive too deep into alchemy either since neither of its protagonists pursed the field. All her understanding of alchemy itself came from Fullmetal Alchemist; even that was incomplete since she had only finished a few episodes before getting busy with life.

  Stolen story; please report.

  Something about drawing circles and equivalent exchange?

  “Today's session will be relatively fast,” Professor Daw declared. “I’m sure you’d like to be dismissed earlier. So, I’ll let you off early for the first and last time,” she said, turning towards the chalkboard to write down a short sentence below the word ‘Alchemy’: “Practice of transforming the nature of matters as permissible by the Will.” Her chalk slid smoothly across the board as she circled the words ‘transforming’ and ‘Will’.

  Professor Daw faced the hundreds of curious eyes before her, standing still in silence for half a minute. The students stared back, perplexed. “What are you doing with gaping mouths and blinking eyes? I suggest you write down whatever I do.”

  A few, including Alira, quickly jotted down at that. Most students, however, hadn’t brought anything to write down on or write with. Paper and ink were too expensive for those who were attending through scholarship, while the noble kids didn’t care enough to take note, being here only for the honor of being an Academy graduate.

  “This is how I would explain Alchemy to any moron in the field. If you give this answer to any short questions about the definition of alchemy in your tests, I will give you full marks. You may answer your own personal definition and interpretation; I will grade you depending on how much I like your opinion personally.”

  She bumped her knuckles twice on the board to draw attention to the circled words. “The transformation part and the involvement of the Will is what distinguishes alchemy from other disciplines—magic, for one. I won’t get into them because I hold no passion for anything other than alchemy. So, allow me to pick out a few students who seem to do so.” Professor Daw looked around.

  Alira had no idea how she knew who liked magic, but she knew the professor was accurate in her telling when the woman locked onto Maria.

  “The young miss, over there next to the second window. Please, introduce yourself and tell me how magic differs.”

  Maria sprang up, her spine straight. Alira caught her daydreaming when she was called, shaken up until she heard the word magic.

  “Well, magic doesn’t transform one element into another. It shapes the energy within mana that could be manifested into one element and one element only before the energy is burnt out. Mana is present in all—”

  “All right, that’s enough. So eager to talk, you didn’t even bother to introduce yourself. Thank you and sit down, little sage.” Professor Daw interrupted her mid-sentence, shifting the topic back to alchemy. “Alchemy transforms the state of elements. The Will is to alchemists what mana is to mages. Everyone here is favored by the Will to some degree—those with null favorability aren’t accepted by the Academy even if they wanted to attend as a mage.”

  She drew two lines starting below the alchemy definition.

  “There are three kinds of alchemic manipulation techniques: cast, precast, and half-cast. Cast directly carries out the manipulation while precast holds it until release. Half-cast is where you’ve placed the cast on your first target and it’s held until the second target is finalized.”

  She opened her palm towards the crowd. The next moment, the chalkboard was wiped clean, and her palm, flawless just now, was smeared with white chalk dust.

  “First application of alchemy: Exchange,” she began, clapping once to shake the dust off her hand. “Step one: chalkboard dirty, hand clean. Step two: cast. Step three: chalkboard clean, hand dirty. Clear?”

  The class replied in a united ‘yes.’ No one would want to say otherwise when she explained like a caveman.

  “Good. Now my question is, why did none of you witness the second step? Let me ask someone who looks like they won’t give me a disappointing answer,” Professor Daw waved her hand at the young man in the first row. It was none other than Raine, definitely not to Alira’s surprise.

  Raine didn’t bother to stand up, directly spitting out his answer. “Because you’re more favored by the Will than us.”

  “Half a mark. Will, as many of you may already know, is the ruling Divinity and embodied concept of Alchemy. The more you’re favored by the Will, the faster your casts will be. That much is true. My base Will Favorability may be lower than a few of you, but my ranking as an alchemist is higher, which, in turn, determines the final favorability.”

  When a few students put up their hand at that, she only waved them off and continued as if she already knew what they’d ask.

  “The calculation and theory of this unseen favorability is not a concept for beginners, however. You will come across this only if you major in alchemy.”

  She nodded before pulling down her sleeve to reveal a jade bracelet.

  “Regardless of their favorability, no alchemist can cast without a medium that connects them to the targets. In this case, I would need to touch the board with my hand. That is, unless you have a relevant artifact like this one. Then, you may cast as if performing a superior magic trick. Not the mana-magic kind of magic. Don’t get too excited hearing magic, the little, brown-eyed sage over there.”

  Alira chuckled, seeing Maria’s face reddened like a strawberry upon being called out. Poor Maria was going to be known as a sage for being too eager to talk about magic in an alchemy class to an alchemist professor who clearly disliked mages. The divide between alchemists and mages had always been one of the weaknesses of the Empire throughout its long history.

  Professor Daw explained a bit more about Exchange and how it worked for half an hour. She finally concluded by claiming that to most alchemists, how their casts functioned mattered less than what they could do, and that only scholars and researchers needed to care about the details.

  “Alright, let’s stop here for today. I have to keep my word and let you go early. Each of you should have received your textbook; let me know if you haven’t gotten your copies yet. Read through from page one until page sixteen for everything I cover today. Keep in mind that you need fifty percent of both practical and theoretical tests and fifty percent overall to pass. Don’t worry, passing theoretical tests is easy—just memorize every single word in the textbook, and you will get a passing grade.”

  When the students exploded in groans and complaints at that, a slight smile crept onto her face as if she found it amusing.

  “Great. Any question before I dismiss you?”

  Alira raised her hand, having been waiting for this moment.

  “Ask away, Miss Ravon.”

  Alira sat up straight, hearing the professor say her name. Of course, she knew Alira. There was probably no one in the high society—which the professor was obviously a member of—who didn’t know about the duke’s adopted hybrid daughter.

  “I want to know about alchemic bind.”

  Professor Daw smiled a smile that wasn’t quite a smile. “Eager, are we. Too eager, in fact. That’s for the next lecture. Anyone else?” Seeing no one else raise their hand, she continued. “Alright, class dismissed. See you at the practical class in two days. Don’t be late unless you want to volunteer as the dummy.”

  Huh? Are you kidding me? She didn’t even give me a chance to add anything else.

  Alira dragged Maria to chase after Professor Daw, who was already leaving before she could blink, her figure disappearing beyond the door.

  No way, I’m not waiting for a day longer.

  She refused to play Staywes’s game to her disadvantage and remained trapped by the duke’s bind any longer.