Seeing the looks of excitement on the faces of all the students, Zilan couldn’t help but smile to himself.
“Of course, if you want to achieve great things, the basics and fundamentals are a must.”
The class immediately became silent.
“The basics? Those are things we learnt years ago.” They thought.
Not caring in the least for their reaction, Zilan suddenly took out two voidless sacks. He handed one to Hendrek and the other to Misty before giving his instructions.
“Inside you’ll find hundreds of different ingredients. There are two of each ingredient and you’re job will be to not only commit each and every one of them as well as their characteristics to memory but also after, you must destroy each and every one of them using your flames. In your own time distribute them evenly around the class.”
It took a while for the students to understand Zilan’s words however, soon they were able to come to a realisation and that was that there was nothing to realise. Was this new teacher so rich that he wanted to destroy hundreds of ingredients just to make a point?
Even the group of Misty, Hendrek and Lorn were confused.
Seeing this Zilan continued with his explanation. He calmly took out two different ingredients, the stalk from a sheep’s curtain herb and the abdomen of an illusionary mantis, from his sack and then put down a fire stone.
“There is a lot that can be learned from destruction.”
Lighting the fire stone, Zilan used it extremely efficiently, sometimes changing its position before increasing or decreasing the temperature and other times he’d just slowly leave the herb to burn gloriously in the fire. When all was said and done, the herb finally couldn’t endure, combusting into a cloud of white snow like substance.
“Always remember these are treasures from the earth, destroying them is much more difficult and fundamentally
different from ‘wasting’ them. For example, I destroyed this sheep’s curtain herb however in the process I’ve discovered/created a new powder with unknown properties. To achieve this effect can also be termed as another way of refining but if I were to simply use power to burn this herb to ash then that would be called ‘wasting’ or as I prefer, murder. All of you will attempt to destroy each and every one of the ingredients in your hands after carefully examining them and after, I will administer a test with questions on all the properties of the ingredients and the new discoveries you made. Depending on your scores, I will recommend a second field of focus for each of you.”
Finished speaking, Zilan demonstrated once again using the illusionary mantis abdomen. However, this time the class was not focused on his actions instead they were stuck in a stupor, slowly internalising the ‘new’ Alchemy he was introducing them to. Strangely though, once they ran back his words in their minds, they all stopped at one particular place before turning to one another and whispering questions.
Soon Zilan was done with this second example but before he could open his mouth, Hendrek the young Hippo swiftly put up his hand.
“What is it?”
“Didn’t Teacher make a mistake?” asked Hendrek staring right at him.
“What mistake would that be?” wondered Zilan.
“This one doesn’t entirely understand how Teacher is going to use our scores to recommend us fields of study however, I’m still willing to accept your methods since there are no faults in your explanation.”
“And so where does the problem come in?” Interrupted Zilan.
“You said that you’d use this information to pick a second field, not the first. What exactly do you mean by that?”
“Isn’t it obvious? In order to broaden your horizons your first field will always be refinement!”
Class: “………………”
Once again they were lost for words but a lone Eagle’s eyes burned with anticipation, awaiting the explanation.
“Looks like I made the right decision coming out here.” Thought Lorn.
“According to traditional Alchemy, refinement is classed as the essence of Alchemy and thus cannot be considered as a field of study but if that is the case, then why is it that one’s skill in refinement is able to continuously improve? Why is it that refinement is constantly practiced? In fact, we practice refinement without thinking about it most of the time, usually, we’re too preoccupied trying to concoct some amazing wonder dan (pill) that we don’t even realise that our skills in refinement are increasing. However, because the improvement happens in the background without it being the primary focus, is the main reason many, many, many Alchemist will never even dream of seeing the pinnacle let alone reaching it. Only those who make it a priority will be able to go far to the point that refining entire worlds becomes a possibility. Refining the laws themselves will eventually be as simple as waving ones hands, but the road to reaching there is wider and more treacherous than any of the other fields and that is why it’s the number one field. Don’t make the mistake of thinking of it as just the essence, forgetting that it is a field of study itself.”
For the smart ones in the class, their eyes widened in enlightenment while the slow ones made sure to commit everything to writing. In the future, they would praise their past selves on how wise their decision to pen down Teacher Zilan’s lectures was.
After explaining everything Zilan was getting ready to end the class when a sudden question from the ever quiet Lorn suddenly made the class’s actions freeze.
“Does Teacher mind sharing his field of study with us?”
The class all turned towards him, starving for an answer.
“My field? Hahaha, that’s a secret! But maybe one day, far into the future, you’ll get your answer. At that time, I wonder if you’ll still call me Teacher.” And just like that, with a smile on his face, Zilan’s first class came to a close.
…………………
Walking out of the classroom, he couldn’t help but feel exhaustion creeping in. Looking up at the sky, the sun had turned bright orange, its brightness slowly dimming as it dipped down into the horizon.
“I might have gotten carried away.” Chuckled Zilan. “Might as well head back.”
A few minutes later,
Walking into his home Zilan sighed in admiration. Ever since the conclusion of the entrance tests, Fujo had gone to great lengths to make him feel comfortable. Even when he told Fujo that he preferred the old stone house, Fujo apparently took his words and interpreted them as he liked the location thus Fujo went ahead and built a much more luxurious stone building in its place.
Tiles of unknown value covered the entire building, some vague protective inscriptions could also be seen around the walls of the three story house. Rooms of various sizes as well as interesting functions initially shocked Zilan. Some he was impressed with such as the Alchemy room, star gazing room, cultivation chambers and even a spirit tool laboratory. However, in classic Fujo fashion there existed some rooms that were meant specifically for ‘entertaining’ members of the other sex, each room having its own particular ‘environment’ or as he liked to call it ‘charm’.
Bitterly smiling as he made sure to not accidentally enter one of those rooms, Zilan quickly headed towards his private bathroom. He intended to soak away the wear and tear.
Climbing up to the second floor, he slid the door to the bathroom open before coming face to face with a large almost enchanting pool of steaming hot water, whose fragrance alone served to clear his mind. Naturally, everything within this room, including the water itself had been modified with Alchemy to the point that the entire room actually possessed healing properties.
Unable to hold out any longer under the temptation, Zilan quickly made a seal with his hands, after which clanking and creaking sounds coming from none other than his robe suddenly filled the room.
“Pshha”
The suit fell to the floor much to his delight, he even unintentionally released a rather muffled moan.
If one were to look at his current naked body, no matter who it is, even if it was Little Red or Old Blue, they would all tremble in shock.
Starting from his hair which was now completely cyan in colour as well as reached all the way down to his shoulders.
The surprises did not stop there though since all over his body, Zilan was now covered in various ancient runes as well as tattoos, most of them with hidden meanings as well as obscure appearances however, there were two that stood out above the rest.
Covering almost his entire back was a gigantic tattoo of two pitch black wings that although resembled simple ink actually, if one looked closely enough, they’d notice the feathers on the wings lightly fluttering in non-existent wind, almost like they were alive but for some reason had been confined to stillness.
The other tattoo was much clearer and was also something that sent Hihi into a brief moment of madness the first time he laid eyes on it.
On his chest was something circular, not really a tattoo and more like a painting however, the most striking feature of this mural was the fact that the figures inside it were actually moving. Of course, it did not take long for Zilan to figure out what the tattoo represented.
It was a record! The figures on his chest namely two dragons one blue and the other white fought in the skies a bloody battle. On a certain day of their fight, they both fell into a gigantic spring that seemed to pass through the entire Heavens and no matter how much they struggled it was impossible for them to escape. Finally after an unknown amount of time passed by, the two Dragons gradually fell in love while stuck in their eternal prison, and soon under the waters of the giant spring, the first ever Spring Dragon was born.
The movements within the mural seemed to be on repeat as well as on fast forward, since each telling of the story took about thirty seconds, ending at the exact time the Spring Dragon is born.
When Zilan asked Hihi about it, he was clearly hesitant to talk but after some ‘persuasion’ he finally opened his mouth saying very few words though.
“That is the mark of the Clan bloodline. Until now only the Mistress and the First Young Master had it, you are now the third.”
After that Hihi went to sleep again, not saying a word since.
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Important announcement ;
I will continue to release a chapter a day for a while as we get back into the groove of things. If you would like to read chapters in advance without having to wait days, then please feel free to check out my patreon page. Regardless of the amount you will get access up to chapter 100 however, after that only those who’ve pledged $3 or more will get to see the chapters in advance. (https://www.patreon.com/emeraldragon)
Finally, I would like to announce the launching of my twitter account. I’ve been using social media for a while for personal use but I’ve always shied away from using it as a platform to communicate with my readers…(don’t really know why) However, that has now changed! I will be using twitter to interact with my followers on a daily basis and not just have the usual, “chapter updates and then silence”. No! Through memes, gifs and well tweets I will strive to not only entertain but actually interact and converse…but as you know, one can’t talk to themselves at least not without having a mental problem so please follow me as we move on with our journey.
Your humble author,
emeraldragon.
