Chapter 22: Purity, Extremely High Purity (Seeking for Follow-Up Reads)

After tidying up his clothes, Richard cautiously took out the red mercury he had refined a few months ago and placed it into a box stuffed with balls of paper and straw.

If this thing exploded, Richard could lose half his life.

Carrying the box, he made his way to the Central Black Tower, and while passing the Apprentice Self-Test Room, Richard decided to test his physique on the way.

[Spiritual Power? Physique 22, Magic Power 176, Rating: Novice Apprentice.]

"Huh? Why is the spiritual power a question mark? Is the crystal ball broken?" Richard tapped the crystal ball and, besides the spiritual power, his magic power also seemed off. However, since the bloodline in Bloodline Alchemy was from a Magic Beast, and the bloodline included some magic power, it wasn't a problem for the magic power to be a bit higher.

By the time he reached the fifty-sixth floor, Richard was already sweating profusely.

Carrying what was essentially a bomb, he would be lying if he said he wasn't nervous.

Knock, knock, knock!

Richard knocked on the nearest door.

Click.

"What do you want?"

An apprentice opened the door—a portly figure, seemingly middle-aged, with slit eyes, a hooked nose, and a glossy forehead that shone under the magic light.

"Senior, I'm here to submit a task."

Richard, holding the box, carefully handed it over to the middle-aged apprentice before him.

"Submitting a task? Which task?"

The middle-aged apprentice reached out to take it, but then, seeing Richard's sweat-drenched face and his cautious handling, a thought suddenly flashed through his mind.

It couldn't be red mercury.

There really was a brash youth who had refined it!

"Please come in, quickly. Be careful with that box, the power of red mercury is not insignificant."

The middle-aged apprentice kept retreating, then opened the door behind him as far as possible, making no move to take the box.

Only after Richard had securely placed the red mercury did he breathe a sigh of relief.

"Junior brother, you're quite bold. Carrying red mercury all by yourself up here."

The middle-aged apprentice sat down on a chair, wiping the sweat from his forehead.

"Senior, how may I address you?"

"Chax. And your name?"

"Richard."

After exchanging a few pleasantries, Chax walked over to the window and called out twice. In seconds, a regular-sized owl flew into the room.

"Sister, someone has brought the red mercury you asked for," Chax said to the owl.

Richard watched with curiosity, "Senior, what is this?"

Chax waved his hand dismissively, "It's just a small trick. I'm simply using animals to send messages."

After saying this, he let the owl fly away and returned to his chair.

"Senior Chax, you just mentioned a 'sister'. Isn't Master Jolod the one who wants the red mercury?" Richard remembered Chax's words, realizing that perhaps the task for the red mercury wasn't directly set by Jolod himself.

"Ah, the teacher researches Synthetic Beasts, he doesn't need this stuff." Chax wiped his forehead again, "The task for red mercury was posted in his name by Senior Sister Anna."

"So does this task count or...?"

"It counts. If you want to become a disciple of the teacher, this task definitely counts."

Seeing Richard's somewhat bewildered face, Chax had a ridiculous thought cross his mind.

He didn't refine red mercury without failing, did he?

How could the refining of red mercury be fail-proof?

"Um... Richard, how long did it take you to extract this stuff?" Chax ventured to ask.

"Uh, about three months. Refining red mercury is quite dangerous; I failed a few times, so it took me a little longer," Richard lied convincingly.

"That's good, that's good. Given your strength, you must be a rookie who has just started school. I almost thought I had encountered a legendary alchemy prodigy," Chax said with a relieved laugh, "Even the teacher sometimes fails when refining red mercury, the difficulty is off the charts."

After hearing this, Richard immediately felt that his decision to submit the task after three months was absolutely correct.

If a Wizard has problems refining red mercury, what about an apprentice?

The two chatted casually for a bit longer, and though Chax appeared greasy like a middle-aged man, his abilities were approaching an Advanced Apprentice, making him a formal student of Jolod.

After getting to know each other better, Richard began to ask about becoming Jolod's disciple.

"Senior brother, I heard that most of those who join Master Jolod's tutelage end up in the Alchemy Workshop," Richard probed.

Hearing this, Chax disdainfully waved his hand,

"Don't listen to the nonsense outside, that all the teacher's apprentices end up working in the Alchemy Workshop and don't learn anything real."

"I'm telling you, the treatment Wizard gives to his Apprentices is counted among the best in the entire Academy. As long as you join Wizard as a disciple, you'll get a subsidy of at least five Magic Stones every month."

"And that's on top of your workshop salary."

"If you work in the workshop, it's normal to make ten or twenty Magic Stones a month after you get skilled."

"For you newcomers, isn't that much better than doing Academy tasks?"

After speaking, Chax reached into the table beside him and pulled out a metal flask, taking a couple of sips.

"Besides, just look at how other Masters treat their Apprentices. Using them to test medicines, to experiment with Magic, I have personally seen all this."

"Our Mentor doesn't even talk about experimenting on you, and he even gives you Magic Stones, where else are you going to find such a good deal?"

The more Richard listened the more he felt something was off, as Chax's words sounded suspiciously like some kind of scam.

If Jolod was that good, Apprentices would be breaking down the doors to join him.

But before Richard could speak, the door to the room banged open.

"Chax, where's the stuff you brought?"

Richard looked up to see that the person who entered was Anna, the one who had lectured him the other day.

Seeing Anna, Chax immediately hid his flask, then jumped to his feet and scurried over to her, fawningly saying,

"Sister, Sister, the red mercury is over there. Don't make such a fuss, red mercury can't withstand you treating it that roughly."

Anna glanced at Chax and then turned to look at the box before looking over at Richard.

"Did you refine this?"

"I refined it."

After confirming it was the Apprentice's work, Anna walked briskly over to the box where the red mercury was kept and gently opened it.

"Hmm?"

Upon opening the box, she was greeted by the sight of a brown glass bottle.

Although many Apprentices knew red mercury needed to be kept away from light, using a brown glass bottle for its storage was a detail she had only thought of after her Mentor's guidance.

She had never seen anyone else use it before.

"A brown glass bottle, good attention to detail," Anna praised.

Chax overheard Anna's words and nearly popped his eyeballs out in excitement.

Sister Anna was praising someone!

Anna was Jolod's most prized disciple over the last thousand years. Normally, instead of praise, it was good enough if she didn't scold her fellow disciples and siblings.

As for praise, that was unheard of.

"They should be kept away from light, so I found a brown bottle," Richard muttered vaguely.

When he opened the bottle, a peculiar scent of evaporating red mercury instantly spread through the room.

Richard instinctively covered his mouth and nose, but saw Anna wave her hand, and a breeze cleared the smell from the room through the window.

"Chax, as a disciple of the Mentor, even an outsider knows to cover their nose and mouth, and you're still standing there dumbfounded," Anna said, her glance making Chax shiver.

After addressing Chax, Anna's fingertips sparked with a pale blue light, and a thread of Magic Power emanated from her fingertip, deftly entering the bottle. After a moment, a droplet of red mercury with a strange color was drawn out by her.

"This color…"

Anna looked at the color of the red mercury, her eyes flickering uncertainly.

This color… this shimmer… this was indeed red mercury, and it was red mercury of extremely high purity.

Unable to resist, Anna stimulated the red mercury, and with a bang, the red mercury exploded upon the stimulus of Magic, creating a gust of air in the room.

"Did you refine this?" Anna turned and asked.

"I refined it," Richard replied.

"What's your name, do you have a Mentor?"

"I am Richard, and I currently do not have a Mentor."

"That's good."

After listening, Anna capped the bottle and walked over to Richard.

Richard was somewhat confused. Had the Miracle Furnace not refined red mercury? Did this woman think he was a fraud? Her question about having a Mentor, was it asking if he had any backing?

Suddenly, Richard remembered that the fifty floors above in the Central Black Tower were the domains of Wizards, where there were no Academy Inspectors.

That is, if Anna killed him here, nobody would know.

For a moment, Richard's mind was in disarray, and he kept stepping back.

"Look, Sister Anna..." Corned with no escape, Richard, having no other choice, braced himself and said, "Just say what you want to do."

Anna, towering nearly six feet tall, was able to look down at Richard. She patted his shoulders with both hands, her voice firm as she said,

"If you don't have a Mentor yet, then join our Alchemy School."