**Chapter 16: The Alchemist's Awakening**
The dormitory door groaned shut behind Ethan as he stumbled into his room, every muscle shrieking from Professor Dain's brutal training. Moonlight streamed through the narrow window, illuminating dust motes dancing in the air like tiny fireflies. He collapsed onto his cot, his armor's leather straps leaving angry red welts across his shoulders. The stench of sweat and steel clung to him as he reached beneath his pillow - and froze.
The leather-bound tome felt alive under his fingertips.
*Principia Alchemica Regalis.*
The royal alchemy text Headmaster Kaelthorne had personally confiscated after the library incident. The book that should have been locked behind seven wards in the restricted archives now lay in his trembling hands, its embossed gold lettering gleaming with unnatural brightness.
A slip of parchment fluttered to the floor.
*"Some doors, once opened, cannot be closed."*
Ethan's breath hitched. No signature. No explanation. Just the forbidden knowledge returned like a whispered challenge.
---
### **The Forbidden Text**
The book fell open to a page that smelled of lightning and bitter herbs. Ethan's eyes burned as they tried to follow the twisting sigils:
- **Molecular deconstruction diagrams** that hurt to look at
- **Qi channeling techniques** that violated known energy laws
- **Transmutation circles** that seemed to shift when not observed directly
Blood trickled from his nose as the System flashed a warning:
**[Current Alchemy Level: 2 (Novice)]**
**[Comprehension Threshold: 19%]**
**[Cognitive Strain: Dangerous Levels]**
Ethan wiped his nose with the back of his hand, leaving a crimson streak across his wrist. The Veynes wouldn't wait for him to learn through trial and error. He needed this power now.
"System," he whispered, tasting copper. "Upgrade alchemy skill to maximum level."
The world exploded into white fire.
---
### **The Pain of Enlightenment**
Agony unlike anything Ethan had ever experienced tore through his skull. Not the clean pain of broken bones, but the exquisite torment of his mind being unraveled and rewoven. Visions detonated behind his eyes:
- **A thousand cauldrons boiling under different colored moons**
- **The scream of mandrake roots being harvested at midnight**
- **The taste of time itself distilled into an emerald tincture**
When consciousness returned, Ethan found himself on all fours, sweat pooling beneath him, fingers dug deep into the wooden floor. The System's message burned in his vision:
**[Alchemy Skill: Level 9 Achieved]**
**[Status: Master Alchemist]**
**[Known Practitioners at This Level: 3 (Kingdom-Wide)]**
**[You Are Now the Fourth]**
His hands - his ordinary, calloused hands - now understood motions that had taken masters decades to perfect. The once-cryptic text lay open before him, its secrets laid bare like a gutted fish.
---
### **First Test of Mastery**
Ethan reached for the chipped clay cup on his desk. The water within had been sitting for days, stale and lifeless. With a gesture his body remembered before his mind understood:
1. He **twisted** his Qi into a corkscrew pattern
2. **Hummed** the note of the west wind
3. **Breathed** across the surface
The water shimmered, transforming into a swirling violet solution that glowed with its own inner light.
**[Skyforged Elixir]**
*(Enhances neural conductivity by 40% for six hours)*
*(Side Effects: Mild synesthesia)*
Yesterday, this would have required:
- Seven rare ingredients
- Three hours of precise brewing
- A coin flip chance of catastrophic failure
Now? Three seconds and stale water.
Ethan drank deeply. The world exploded into color - he could *taste* the moonlight streaming through his window, *smell* the musical notes of distant owls hooting.
---
### **Predawn Preparation**
Two hours before dawn, Ethan stood before the Central Alchemy Pavilion's massive oak doors. The wards etched into the wood - complex enough to deter most master alchemists - now looked like child's scribbles. He pressed his palm against the lock and:
1. **Pulsed** his Qi at precisely 317 hertz
2. **Whispered** the true name of copper
3. **Twisted** counterclockwise
The wards unraveled like rotten thread.
---
### **The Sanctum of Secrets**
The vaulted chamber smelled of old smoke and ambition. Moonlight through high windows illuminated the Master's Brazier - a three-ton relic carved from a single meteorite, its surface covered in runes older than the kingdom itself.
Most students needed three assistants and a faculty member to ignite it.
Ethan snapped his fingers.
Blue flames roared to life, dancing to a rhythm only he could hear.
---
### **Ingredients of Power**
His shadow stretched long as he moved through the silent hall, gathering components with a thief's precision:
1. **True Dragon's Blood Resin**
- Not the diluted academy stock
- The volcanic variant from the Headmaster's private stash
- Stolen with five precise gestures
2. **Eclipse-Harvested Moonpetal**
- Plucked during last year's total eclipse
- The vial hummed at precisely the right frequency
3. **Living Frostbear Whisker**
- Single strand still vibrating with residual Qi
- "Borrowed" from Professor Thalric's personal collection
The System analyzed each component:
**[Purity: 99.8%]**
**[Qi Resonance: Optimal]**
**[Theft Detection Risk: 0%]**
---
### **The Titanbone Elixir**
The process unfolded with ritual precision:
1. **The Grinding**
- Mortar carved from a fallen star
- 47 counterclockwise rotations
- Exactly 3.2 seconds between turns
2. **The Infusion**
- Qi pulsed in fibonacci sequence
- The mixture glowed like captured sunlight
3. **The Binding**
- Frostbear whisker braided into a quantum lattice
- The air itself crystallized around the cauldron
As dawn's first light struck the brazier, Ethan poured the finished elixir - a molten gold substance that spiraled upward against gravity's pull.
**[Titanbone Elixir - Grade IX]**
*(Effects:)*
- **300% increase in bone density**
- **Muscle regeneration at cellular level**
- **Duration: 42 hours**
*(Warning: Fatal to non-enhanced humans)**
Ethan drained the entire vial in one gulp.
Fire raced through his veins. His bones sang like struck crystal. When he flexed his hand, the air itself fractured with a sound like breaking glass.
---
### **The Perfect Crime**
By the time the first apprentices arrived, the hall stood pristine:
1. Every tool returned to its exact position
2. The Master's Brazier cold and silent
3. A single drop of gold evaporating from the cauldron's rim
Ethan moved through the waking academy like a ghost, his body thrumming with contained power. The morning sun painted the practice yards in gold, but no hidden watchers lurked in the shadows. No mysterious figures observed from high windows.
For the first time in his life, Ethan Gale had performed true magic.
And absolutely no one had seen it.