**Chapter 12: Class**
Ten days passed in a flash, and the day for Mentor Clark’s class arrived.
Jie Ming woke early, ate breakfast, and followed the enrollment guide’s directions to the Alchemy Workshop.
The Alchemy Workshop of Noren Academy sat in a relatively secluded corner of the campus. Unlike the eye-catching towers, it was low and sturdy, like a fortress rooted in the earth.
Its outer walls were made of dark stone, etched with basic runes.
Stepping through the workshop’s gates, Jie Ming found a spacious interior filled with the mingled scents of metal, minerals, plants, and peculiar chemical reactions. The smell was odd but not unpleasant.
With time to spare before class, he wandered around.
The workshop’s interior was complex, like a giant honeycomb of countless rooms and corridors of varying sizes.
There were warehouses stacked with raw materials, high-temperature furnace areas, potion-making zones filled with distillation equipment and test tubes, and numerous basic and advanced experimental areas.
The lab’s walls were silver-white metal, lined with dozens of sturdy worktables, each equipped with an adjustable magical light, fixed metal clamps, and an exhaust chimney.
Entering the lab, Jie Ming was surprised to see quite a few people inside.
But judging by their robe badges, only he, Amy, and a haughty-looking male apprentice were true Alchemy apprentices.
The others, marked by different badges, were from other disciplines. Jie Ming even spotted the genius with level-nine soul purity from the aptitude test, already claimed by a Soul Magic mentor.
The other apprentices seemed equally shocked by this genius’s presence, clustering around them.
Jie Ming had no interest in joining the crowd and found a quiet spot near the wall.
To his surprise, Amy was there too.
“You’re not mingling with them?” he asked, a hint of surprise in his tone.
Over the past few days, their occasional cafeteria meetings confirmed Amy’s knack for socializing. She could connect with anyone, regardless of personality, making Jie Ming briefly wonder if she had some supernatural charm.
Amy greeted him and shrugged casually at his question. “Quite the opposite. Now’s not the time for networking. If I went over, I’d just be background noise.”
Jie Ming nodded noncommittally. She was the expert here, and he had no place to comment.
“Speaking of, our Alchemy batch only has three newbies. What are these others doing here?”
“They’re learning Alchemy too, but for them, it’s an elective. From what I know, besides that Soul Magic genius, the level-nine Augusta heiress and the level-eight Horn heir have also picked other Logistics disciplines as electives.”
“You can take electives?” Jie Ming glanced at the soul-purity genius, recalling Jack’s words.
It seemed Logistics truly was the Noren Workshop’s orthodoxy. Even Combat Division geniuses were sent to study Logistics.
He understood why these top talents got special treatment. Though Jack said aptitude wasn’t crucial, Jie Ming, having tackled the meditation method, knew a high aptitude gave a head start.
In cultivation, one step ahead meant staying ahead. True comebacks were rare.
“I’m jealous. If only I could take electives too,” Jie Ming sighed.
Alchemy suited his needs, but adding Potioncraft or Runecrafting would be even better.
“You can, if you want,” Amy said, looking at him. “Alchemy classes are once every five days, with the rest of the time free. As long as you complete assigned tasks, you can spend credits to study other disciplines.”
“Oh? The guide didn’t mention that.” Jie Ming’s eyes lit up. “How much for elective courses?”
“Not much. I heard basic knowledge for any Logistics discipline is five credits, but you’d need to buy extra tools…”
Their chat was cut short as Mentor Clark appeared at the podium.
Still balding, monocle in place, he wore a worn but spotless alchemy robe.
At his arrival, the apprentices crowding the soul-purity genius fell silent, scurrying like quail to the nearest worktables.
“Welcome to Alchemy, one of Noren Academy’s most stable and foundational disciplines,” Clark said, unfazed by the apprentices’ reactions, his tone calm and measured.
“Here, you’ll learn the core of Alchemy—understanding, decomposition, and reconstruction.”
“Understanding is grasping a material’s essence, analyzing its elemental makeup and energy properties. Decomposition breaks it down to its fundamental units. Reconstruction uses your mental strength to guide energy and matter, reshaping it into new forms or imbuing it with new properties.”
His gaze swept over each apprentice, turning stern. “Alchemy demands immense mental strength. Your precision in controlling it determines your ceiling in this art.”
He stepped to a small operation table by the podium, where a heavy, irregular golden lump sat.
“You should’ve previewed basic Alchemy, so I won’t waste time. Today’s first lesson is basic shaping,” Clark said calmly. “This is one of Alchemy’s foundational practices, using mental strength to control an object’s form. We’ll practice with gold.”
At the word “gold,” some apprentices showed surprise or excitement.
In the mortal world, gold was a precious currency.
Clark seemed to read their thoughts, explaining coolly, “In the wizard world, gold isn’t rare. Controlling multiple planes, we have countless ways to obtain it. At a certain Alchemy level, you can even transmute other materials into gold.”
“Compared to other metals, gold is stable and uniform, making it easier to analyze with Alchemy. Though it resists mental strength, making control harder, this resistance ensures that even if you fail, it won’t trigger violent energy reactions, explosions, or toxic gases—just damaged or distorted material. It’s the safest and most suitable practice material for beginners.”