Help me with something

"That I believe.", Irena said. "Still you could have surely helped her with something."

"I am, I'm inviting you guys as well as some others.", Ivan said righteously. In response, he only earned a shake of the head.

"Whatever, I have to go to the next class. Miss. Klein is gonna be angry if we are late.", he hurriedly evaded any further questioning and grabbed Serge to pull him along to the pill refining classroom.

When they entered Miss. Klein was already there, sitting relaxedly in a chair and reading a book without a cover.

When Ivan opened the door she looked up and greeted them. "You are already here.", she then looked at the clock, "There are still some minutes until class starts. What made you come early?"

Before Serge could say anything, Ivan hurriedly brought up a topic he had to talk about anyway. "Master, this Saturday, my wife will come back from a dungeon exploration and we have planned to throw a party, so I would like to invite you to come as well."

"You are inviting me?", the teacher seemed to be surprised.

"Of course, after all, you are my master. So wouldn't it be just right to invite you?"

She gave him a sharp look. "I'd rather believe that you got some other motive for inviting me."

Ivan acted innocent, "How could that be?"

"Stop fooling around. Tell me why you truly want to invite me."

"Well, one reason is certainly that you are my master. Another is that everyone will be happy to meet you, especially that one guy, he is a huge fan of you."

"Oh, so you invited me to boast with it?"

"Well, maybe."

Miss. Klein chuckled. Ivan's behavior had really changed since she had met him the first time. He was much more fun now, although he usually hid this side of him.

"Alright, I'll come. And I'll even bring a gift for your wife. After all, she is the first wife of my student.", she agreed.

"Great.", Ivan happily exclaimed.

"But,", Miss. Klein continued before he could really cheer, "In exchange, you will have to help me with something."

"Of course. It will be my honor to help my master."

"Even though you don't even know what I need your help with? What if I want you to test some dangerous new pills?"

He shook his head, "I don't believe that you would risk the health of your best student."

"Oh, but I think my best student is not you but Serge."

"Second best then.", he readily agreed. In many ways, Serge was better than him at pill refining. "But if I'm only the second-best, then why don't you ask him for help?"

"Easy, this has nothing to do with pill refining, so skill doesn't matter. What is important is that you look better."

Ivan pretended to try to shrink away, "I'll just warn you that there are already enough women around me, I really couldn't stand it if that number increases further. Besides to be honest you are a bit small for my taste."

Hearing his words Miss. Klein stared at him angrily, "What are you thinking about. Who would want to enter your crazy harem? By the way, how did you even get so many women to surround you?"

"I really don't know, but we are drifting away from the main topic.", he hastily brought back the conversation to the main topic. He didn't want to dwell on the topic of him and the women around him too much.

"I have to go to a pill refiner meeting in the upper realms. It is organized by the sect I'm a member of. And there is that stupid woman who always loves rubbing the fact that I never had a good looking disciple into my face."

"Huh? You never had a good looking disciple? Oh, and you think that I'm good looking?"

She looked at him with mock disgust. "Well looking at your harem you should have something going for you and looking at how the girls around you look at you, your look should passable, what do I know. I have never cared about the look of men."

"That's why you always had bad looking disciples.", he couldn't help but interject.

"Whatever. I have always selected my disciples for their talent and not their looks. That's why that woman has lost every contest against me."

"If she has always lost, then why do you even care about it?"

"You don't have to care about that.", she stared at him, warning him not to continue asking.

"Alright. Of course, I will help you. But did you say that it is in the upper realm? How can I go there? Wouldn't I need to increase my level first?"

"I can take you there for some time. A month or two should be fine. After that, you will have to leave again. But I don't think this will take so long.", she paused as if thinking about something, "It should be ok if I teach you some things there."

"You will teach me something there? Why can't you do it here?"

"Because it is impossible here. The rules of the System don't allow us to use these things I will teach you."

"Then what can I do with it?"

"I can further your understanding, so it will still be useful."

"Then what about Serge here? Wouldn't it be more useful for him then?"

Miss. Klein looked at Serge who had just listened to them, "No, it won't be that useful for him. His future is different from yours. I don't think he will ever leave this realm."

"How can you say that? Isn't he more talented than me?", Ivan protested.

This time it was Serge who spoke, "No, the master is right. I don't think I will ever leave this realm. While doing our dungeon runs I have realized, that life which is filled with dangers and fighting isn't anything for me. I'm also unwilling to spend much energy on increasing my level. I would rather improve my pill refining skills to the maximum possible in this realm. Although I'm not sure if there is even a limit."

Miss. Klein nodded at his words, it was just as she had expected. Ivan, on the other hand, looked perplexed. He had thought that Serge was the same as himself and wanted to go to the higher realms. Only now did he realize that others were different. They enjoyed life in this realm which was safe and stable but still filled with challenges and the possibilities of adventures.

"Well if you are alright with it, then I would love to accompany you, master." Now that it was clear that Serge didn't want the opportunity, he saw no reason not to agree.

"Great. I will tell you the exact time we will leave but it should be at the start of the next summer break."

After that was out of the way, they started with class. Today Miss. Klein first had them do a test about the effects of different kinds of herbs, before continuing with having them try to design pills refined with them.

Creating pill designs was the most difficult thing for pill refiners. They could only work with their understanding of the herbs, the reaction of the herbs with each other as well as a multitude of recipes using the herbs. These things then had to be used to make a completely new pill design.

Just about every design they came up with would then be ripped into shreds by Miss. Klein, who would find faults in all of them. These faults could lead to a multitude of effects. From harmless ones such as a slightly wrong but harmless effect or no effect at all. To really bad ones such as extremely negative effects or even explosions during the refining process or after it.

Each time she found a defect, she would tell them about it and tell them the reasons as well. They could then try to fix it or if they weren't able to do so, throw it away and start anew. With each round, they would get a deeper understanding of the herbs and their interactions as well as pill refining general

It was an interesting and effective way of learning, that gave them the motivation to press on until finally, they arrived at a working recipe. Of course, the likelihood of them finding a truly new recipe was slim, but even finding an existing one was still exhilarating. Not to mention that developing a recipe by themselves would drastically increase their success rate as well as the quality.

When they finally used their self-developed recipe to refine a furnace of pills, the feeling was truly great, even overshadowing the extreme mental exhaustion.