The day, Emily heads to the training hall slightly early, hoping to run into Agnes before the css starts. Luckily, Agnes is there when Emily walks in, doing some warm-up before csses.

  “Emily! I hear you’ve bee stronger?” Agnes calls the moment she sees her enter, forcefully halting her heavy sword mid swing.

  Emily pauses for a sed, fused by her words.

  “What have you heard?” she questions.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Agnes says with aed grin. “Just that you basically fought an expedition into The Gde alone, and used double casting while doing so.”

  Huh. I guess some information has spread from the expedition. She didn’t say anything about my passive cultivation, so it seems Enzo didn’t give me away.

  Emily’s lips part into a matg grin as she drops her robes to the floor and starts warming up.

  “You could say I’ve learned a few tricks. Wanhem out?” she taunts.

  “Of course. You have five minutes.”

  Emily takes five mio get her joints loosened, an a she does more out of habit than y. She found during the expedition that she never had issues bursting into high oe bat from a pletely rexed state, but she still follows the habitual motions ingrained from months of sparring in lessons.

  As her five minutes e to an end, Emily faces Agnes, waiting for the tall woman t into a the momeime’s up. Agnes doesn’t disappoint, drawing her oversized greatsword and levelling it at Emily. She quickly approaches before driving her foot into the floor, a glowing brown magic circle appearing at her feet.

  Her sword falls towards Emily with oppressive force. Emily predicts her attack, l herself and springing sideways to avoid the bde, knowier than to try blog it.

  The sword sms into the ground with a thunderous impact, leaving a small crater where Emily just stood. Emily smirks as a green magic circle appears at her ow, juring a swirling gale around her legs. She bursts forwards, thrusting a Cw towards Agnes’ right shoulder.

  Agnes mao get the hilt of her sword between Emily’s fast extending hidden-bde a fra of a sed before it bites her, knog it aside. She leaps back a few steps, appraising the spell on Emily’s legs.

  “Speed enha. How iing.”

  She spins her sword in her hands, taking the hilt in both and driving the bde into the ground. Unwilling to give her time to prepare, Emily speeds forward, quickly closing the gap between them. As her bde approaches Agnes again, she suddenly feels heavy weight pushing down on her shoulders, slowing her approach back to normal.

  Agnes pulls her sword out of the new magic circle on the floor and sshes it wide at Emily. She’s forced to back off, abandoniab to escape the wide swipe.

  She quickly chooses another spell and starts weaving her hands together in a plicated twisting pattern while sidestepping another vertical ssh. A blistering sword of fire appears from a bright e and white magic circle, and Emily grabs the handle instantly.

  I hope she’s only using a practice sword.

  As Agnes’ sword approaches again, Emily raises the fming sword to csh with it. The swords collide, the metal one sliding through the fire aing only a little resistance. Agnes frowns at the pact, watg Emily herself sliding uhe ssh. She draws back, fused by Emily’s new spell until she g her sword.

  She sees the e fme ging to it still, eating away at the metal until the edge starts to lose shape.

  “Ha,” Agnes ughs, tossing her sword aside and raising her fists. “Nice spell. What else have you got?”

  Emily follows her lead, retrag the Cws and celling her fming bde. Agnes cels the spell increasing Emily’s weight, a dark silver circle f behind her, p out a silver light that s her closely. Emily flies forward, weaving more hand signs and f a crag blue magic circle around her fists.

  She drops low as she approaches, sliding closely under a punch from Agnes and driving her fist into her stomach. However, the oute is not what she expects

  Emily’s spell, lightning punch, an uninspiringly named sed circle spell she bought, crackles across Agnes’ skin, failing to disable her. Agakes a siep back from the impad closes her arm around Emily’s, trapping her in a close-quarters e aroying her speed advantage.

  Emily drops her speed enhang spell, wind rush, and quickly casts rock body, ah spell for increasing sturdiness. Her body is enveloped in a brown glow as Agnes’ free fist drives into her side. Emily lets out a grunt and lifts both her feet, ing them around Aghroat and pullio the ground.

  She tries to strict her legs around Agnes’ windpipe, but finds her neck as hard as steel.

  Shit, it’s a metal version of rock body. Let’s see if my fire works on it.

  Emily ignores another fist nding against her liver like a steel hammer, sending shooting pain through her enhanced body. She silent casts burning hands, quickly lighting her hands up in a bze.

  Agnes flinches as Emily’s fming palms press into her skin, burning through her enha. She taps Emily’s side, calling for a break.

  Emily relents, releasing her grip around Aghroat and bag off to stand up. She offers a hand to Agnes, who happily takes it and pulls herself up before patting Emily on the shoulder.

  “Good spar! You have too many different spells. It’s getting hard to beat you without using my third circle spells.”

  Emily smiles at the pliment, before freezing as an idea occurs to her.

  “Why don’t you use any speed enhang spells?”

  “I ’t,” Agnes responds with a shrug. “Unlike you, I only use two elements. I’ve looked into clothes and items with speed enhas, and I use them when I’m taking a fight seriously, but they aren’t that strong, and no one here does good speed Tattoo engravings.”

  “I see,” Emily says, scratg her exaggeratedly.

  “What is it?” Agnes asks with a sigh.

  “Nothing. I was just thinking. Your metal enha spell made you resistant to lightning, right?”

  “Yeah. It makes it harder fhtning mages like you to fry me.”

  “Then couldn’t you get lightning tattoos s they’d usually harm you, if you aren’t a lightning mage, and use that spell to protect yourself?” Emily asks.

  “Ha, if I could, I would. The only lightning mages I know in here at the moment are you and Jenny. You’re only sed circle, and I asked Jenny about it, but she’s no good at engraving. Doesn’t have a steady enough hand.”

  Emily smiles widely at her answer.

  “Why don’t I give you tattoos when I reach third circle?”

  Agnes scoffs at her and raises an eyebrow.

  “You that fident you’ll reach third circle?”

  “Yep,” Emily says with a nod. “I reached sed circle in three months, and I’m fident I reach third in a couple of years, and I’ve already looked into tattoo engraving! Also, I have a very steady hand, as I’m sure you tell from my creations. I just haven’t done any on myself because I don’t think I’ll stay sed circle for long enough to make it worth the pain I’ll gh when removing them.”

  Agnes hears her out and ’t help but nod thoughtfully by the end.

  “Sure, if you reach third circle I’ll happily pay you for some tattoos then.”

  “How about we make a different deal?” Emily asks with an i smile.

  “What do you want?” Agnes asks, narrowing her eyes and not believing Emily’s smile for a sed.

  “Nothing much. Just set aside some time every week to spar with me, and when I reach third circle, I’ll only charge you for the materials to do the tattoo.”

  Agnes ughs at her offer, suspi vanishing from her gaze.

  “Sure, I’m happy to spar with you. I’ll set a three year limit on it though. If you don’t reach third circle within three years, I’ll stop setting aside time for you,” she says, her hand.

  What’s with people tellio reach third circle within three years?

  Emily grasps her hand and shakes it.

  “Deal.”

  ***

  A few days ter, Emily and Ivor have an alchemy lesson, which sparks an idea in Emily’s mind about their current analysis of the shadow boa.

  I o create a new potion to plete Alchemical Aspirations. The shadow boa is a creature never seen before on this p. Surely if I make a potion using it, it will be a new recipe.

  She spends the rest of the lesson ign Mrs Myrtle’s lecture and filling her notes with ideas and calcutions to form new potions. After the lesson has e to an end, Ivor starts to make his way towards the b that they’ve paid fether, a small room with all the utilities they need for potion preparations, just down the corridor from the lesson bs, but Emily parts ways with him to grab materials.

  She rushes back to her room, aed skip iep, and collects all the beast materials from the expedition into a small spatial ste item she’s made. It’s a simple drawstring pouch with a unique spatial array woven into the fabric, allowing only Emily to open it. It isn’t quite the same as summoning the items to her hand, but she has to be satisfied for now since she couldn’t glean the full ws of holder-locked ste.

  Emily smiles warmly at the woven runes pleted after Juliana’s tutege. It had been a fun evening learning to wind thread through the fabri secure, visually pleasing patterns. It only took a little instru for her dexterous fio take over and dance a nimble rhythm of creation.

  I think I see why you like sewing, Anna.

  She grabs her market token and opens to browse the beast materials se. She scrolls through, searg for a few materials she theorised have high patibility with the shadow boa and wi the prices.

  Seventy points for a single dawn moth wing? Fifty for amerax livers? Ouo wo takes normal alchemists so long to work out a single recipe.

  She buys up as many materials as her points will allow before heading for the hub to collect them. Finally, she joins Ivor in the b, her spatial pouch heavy with materials.

  “Hey,” she calls as she steps in. “I’m gonna try creating a new recipe from the snake.”

  Ivor looks at her with surprise, befng at the harvested jars of bones, flesh, and ans in the tre of their workstation with .

  “Are you sure we have enough materials on this corpse to succeed? There’s a high ce we waste all of it,” he signs at her, a serious expression on his face.

  Emily smiles at his caution.

  He’s less timid when alchemy is involved.

  “Don’t worry. I’m fident we’ll succeed,” she reassures him with a fident smirk. “Besides. Even if we don’t, we’ll gather a lot of useful data from the failed experiments.”

  Ivor relents under her reasoning and agrees to help her. She unloads her ste pouch across ay work surfa the small b and Ivor starts in surprise. Emily simply begins dividing them into different colles for different recipe attempts, mixing elements, creatures, and pnts in different quantities.

  She assigns some of the colles to Ivor to prepare while taking over the rest, cutting, pulverising, and p magic crystals to add to the mix. Various tainers quickly fill the surfaces of the room, and by the end of the day, they have almost everything they prepared in advance.

  Ign the te hour, they both tio the day with their first experiment. They stand oher side of a cauldron, several measuring instruments id out within arm’s reach for keeping track of the material within ohe lid is closed. Emily starts by p in a jug of water and bringing it to a boil. The moment the calm of the water’s surface is shattered, she adds in a few drops of the snake’s venom and a small measure of nymph’s blood. Ivor quickly closes the lid, and Emily raises a small handheld magical instrument for deteg unstable mana fluctuations close to the cauldron.

  The golden crystal at the end of the instrument stays silent for forty seds before sparking to life. At forty-two seds, the cauldron starts to shake and the glow from the instrument bees blinding. Half a sed ter, the cauldron spews dark, foul-smelling gas from the top, and Emily pces down the sing instrument.

  “Add catalyst between forty and forty-two seds,” Emily states clearly for Ivor, making a note for herself in her system notebook.

  They wait for the unpleasant gas to dissipate before p out the cauldron and starting again. This time, exactly forty-one seds after adding the venom and blood to the mix, Ivor lifts the lid and Emily tosses in two untouched dawn moth wings and a sprinkling of light crystal powder. They shut the lid again, and Emily pces her hands on top of the cauldron, sending two strands of mana down into the mixture and slowly stirring it.

  She starts to sense impurities f as the rea within kicks into motion, but they spread so quickly that she doesn’t have time to eliminate more than a few before the co fails. A burst of foul mana spews from the lid again, marking another failure.

  “The rea failed too fast. We need a strht to teract the votility of the venom.”

  Failure after failure, they work through the day, tirelessly w towards a goal that feels hopeless the more their stocks of shadoarts dwindle. As they approach twenty four hours from the end of their alchemy lesson, they run out of materials.

  “At least we got some data,” Ivns, his shoulders slumping in exhaustion and disappoi. “If only we had enough to keep going for a few more days. Some of those looked promising.”

  Emily nods, reviewing their results with a calm smile.

  “You’re right. We should succeed soon.”

  She activates The Clock, so they try again.