Chapter 170

The respectful request for a spar was like a signal for most of the people who were now mingling around Ajax. All of the people that were part of Benedict Steelblade’s entourage almost entirely lost any hostility towards him.

“Great, but I suggest we all get moving.” Lexi broke the silence that had been established. “ Professor Vilethorn has a habit of making all who are late take potions of necrotic resistance.”

The statement had two very distinct reactions from the people who were here and split them into two groups. The first looked at her questioningly, not understanding why that would be a punishment, the second had already started walking towards the door while doing their best to repress their gagging at the memory of how the potion tasted.

“Don’t think you’re getting off without a duel today, commoner.” one of the boys without a uniform hadn't left the class when the prince did, whispered to Ajax as the class collectively moved towards their alchemy lab. “We’re just going to let the archduke get what he wants first.”

Ajax quickly threw a [Judge Threat] over on reflex when he heard the threat but he stumbled into the same limitation he had when he went into the dungeon a few days ago, the person was so much weaker than him that getting a clear read on his level and power was becoming more difficult as he got stronger and stronger and the point of reference moved further and further away.

“I’ve got to get myself another more specific inspection skill.” Ajax muttered to himself.

Arriving into the new classroom Ajax saw multiple workbenches  set up to house two students. Each workstation had multiple small glass shelves as well as a medieval immigration of the Bunsen burners he had seen in his own science classes back on Earth.

“Ah, you must be the teaching assistant the headmaster spoke to us about yesterday.” professor Vilethorn said once she saw Ajax enter class. “ I am Deborah Vilethorn but please address me as professor or professor Vilethorn.”

“Ajax.” he responded with a bow in greeting. “ a pleasure to meet you, professor.”

“Good to meet you as well Ajax, now if you would go and help my own assistant with distributing the ingredients for this class so we can get everything underway.” the professor replied.

Ajax looked towards the teaching assistant section of the lab and saw a middle aged man pouring different measurements into multiple vials. With but a nod to the professor he headed over to help as instructed.

“Ajax you said?” the man asked without taking his eyes off the beakers he was pouring into. “I’m Edward Goldenstalk, go ahead and start sharing these, leave one of each here for yourself.”

Ajax did as he was told and quickly got all of the ingredients to each of the workstations before taking a seat at the one he shared with Edward. He was happily surprised to see that he recognised most of the ingredients he saw being given out for today's class from his short time apprenticing to the village alchemist all those years ago.

“All twenty-five of you are here already?” The professor sounded surprised as she looked over the class once the last of the ingredients was handed out. “Lexi dear, did you warn them all?”

“I might have mentioned something.” Lexi slightly fidgeted in her seat next to Annabeth.

“Well that’s no fun.” She let out a theatrical sign and exaggerated the motion of storing a big flask from her desk in one of the cabinets.

“Welcome to your first Alchemy class.” She began once again all jokiness gone from her tone. “Alchemy is somewhat of a niche subject, and one where without talent you won’t find yourselves making much progress.”

“Despite that there is a reason why all of you are attending this class in your first year.” she said. “Even in a class as big as yours, if we were to look at best we’d find four of you having had previous training in Alchemy and half of that having actually gotten the skill.”

“For those few of you I’m sorry to say that you will not find yourselves very engaged this coming year. Our entire curriculum for this year will consist of me trying in every way I can imagine to make sure all of you have a basic capability of creating acceptable brews of some of the most fundamental potions.” she paused at that to let the information sink in.

“You’ll find that the most basic potion not only scales decently well with levels as long as the ingredients are of matching quality, but that they also allow for quite the leeway in terms of ingredient substitution. By the end of the year I aim for all of you to know how to make some basic antivenoms, resistance and healing potions. Any questions?” she asked.

There were none. Even those who had a particular disinterest in Alchemy understood how important knowing this information could be one day in the future. With that class started as the professor walked them through creating a base healing potion.

“You’re doing very well.” Edward said as he watched Ajax easily follow along with professor Vilethorn’s verbal instruction.

“I spent a few weeks as an apprentice to the village alchemist before I moved on to try something else.” Ajax shared, though he kept quiet that he already had [Alchemy] at level ten.

Class passed by very quickly for Ajax, only three of the twelve pairs had done badly enough that they had to start the process all over again. The clear star of the show was a girl in uniform that had a station all to herself and was carefully brewing the potion exactly as instructed, showing that she had inherited her family's calling for Alchemy by finishing well ahead of the allotted time.

“Well done, all of you.” the professor said. “ It may have taken some of you an extra try but all of you managed to brew an acceptable potion by the end of the class, now can anyone guess what type of potion we will be doing next class?”

“Antitoxin.” someone shouted out.

“No, a resistance potion.”  someone else disagreed.

“I think it’s a mana or stamina regeneration potion.” A third person chimed in.

“It's going to be the same potion as today.” the girl who finished by herself said cutting off the guesses.

“Yes, very good, that’s exactly right.” the professor nodded, “ Will you be so kind as to explain your reasoning to your classmates.”

“All we had to do today was brew the potion.” the girl said, despite managing to keep the boredom out of her face and posture some seeped in in her tone. “Next class we’ll most likely have to prepare some if not all the ingredients from their raw stages before brewing.”

“Exactly so, though you’ll have to prepare half of them.” the profession confirmed. “Like I said at the beginning this class will be focused on emergency alchemy, using what’s on hand appropriately is more than 70% of this class so you’ll be doing a lot of ingredient preparation this year. With that said you are all dismissed.”

As almost all of the students quickly gathered their things and made their way out of the classroom as they headed towards the practice fields where they will be split into physical and magical for their training the professor approached Ajax.

“You did rather well.” Professor Vilethorn congratulated.

“Thank you, I’ve had a few weeks of practice with our village alchemist.” Ajax responded.

“So I see.” She nodded a little dispirited, likely coming to the wrong conclusion that he didn’t have much talent for the craft. “Well if you find yourself doing any research and in need of Alchemy do feel free to stop by and ask, Edward of myself may very well be able to help you out.”

“Thanks for the offer.” Ajax said as he finished tidying up his station. “Right now I’m focused on just keeping up with the class but I’ll keep it in mind.”

With that conversation ending Ajax made his own way towards his office where he got changed into his combat gear. He could have joined the rest of the boys in the locker room equivalent but he had seen enough shows focused on high school and knew better than to do that this early in the year and risk having a confrontation in there.

As the class split itself into two based on if they focused on physical stats or mental ones Ajax was surprised to see that for the first time in his life the mental focused group had a three to one ratio compared to the physical one. ‘I guess talent in mana is somewhat hereditary in humans and nobles tend to marry in order to provide that advantage to the next generation’.

“You must be Ajax, which one of us will you be joining today?” the physical instructor asked while nodding between himself and the magical instructor.

“I’ll be joining you today, sir.” Ajax said as he looked towards Benedict Steelblade, he had agreed to a spar after all. He hadn’t realized it until now but he did miss his spars with Cadmael from way back when.