Jayde spent the next five days in her space practicing her pill refinement. Unfortunately, it was not at all as simple as Sor Dinia Nelius had made it look. Thankfully the furnace supplied by the artifact was sturdy so the explosions caused by Jayde's 'creations' hadn't destroyed it — those explosions had only dented Jayde's pride.
After the first couple of explosions, Yinxin, Isha, and Reiko had stopped running to Jayde's cottage to see if Jayde was okay. Now the occasional boom didn't even cause them to raise an eyebrow. Jayde wasn't quite sure if she should be proud of her accomplishment now that only one in ten of her batches blew up.
Returning to her cottage at the school exceptionally early, Jayde retrieved the talisman that she bought from her spatial ring. Takara who was lounging on Jayde's bed bounced over excitedly, he could smell something exciting inside the small chest that Jayde was holding. Laughing Jayde gently pushed away the curious kitten who was nosing around the box in her hands as she opened up the case and removed the bracelet and stone.
Takara let out a small gasp as he felt the magic contained within the bracelet. How on earth did this girl find something that contained such ancient magic, he wondered in amazement. His small face was intent as he watched Jayde slice her finger, dropping a bead of blood on each of the green stones.
As Jayde blood was absorbed by the green stones, she gathered her fire and earth magic and gently inserted a small stream of magic into each stone, as her magic infused into the stones both lit up brightly, before turning back to their original color. Jayde then placed the gold bracelet on her left wrist. As the bracelet made contact with her skin, Jayde eyes widened, and she could help her mouth from dropping as it slowly faded and disappeared.
What the hell? She thought before reaching out and tapping her wrist where the bracelet was supposed to be sitting. Jayde was shocked that she couldn't even feel the bracelet. Jayde then reached out with her magical senses to see if she could sense the bracelet. With her magic infused eyes Jayde could faintly make out a tiny glow on her wrist, if one didn't know what they were looking for, they would totally miss the little light.
Reaching out with her consciousness Jayde touched the glow, and immediately found herself in a spacious spatial space, just like her spatial ring. The area was empty except for multiple shelves. Exiting the spatial space, Jayde mouth curled into a satisfied smile. Picking up the loose stone Jayde then quietly walked outside with Takara hot on her heels. Using her earth magic, Jayde sent the small stone deep within the earth.
Contacting Isha, Jayde asked him if he could sense the small stone. Satisfied that he couldn't detect any magic around Jayde, she returned to her room to get ready for school, leaving a very confused Takara sniffing around the ground trying to figure out what the hell the young girl was up too. Ever since the loose stone had been buried all the ancient magic he had sensed had disappeared. Takara sat on the ground and contemplated contacting Fahmjir. After debating with himself, he decided he would bring up the matter of the ancient magically artifact when his lord contacted him for his monthly briefing.
***
Jayde's attended her classes as usual. Most of her classes were boring, the only three that she enjoyed was rune magic, formation magic, and potions and pills. She had long given up on healing as she found that the knowledge the people of Doha had of the human body was behind and the healers relied heavily on magic to cure mages.
Jayde had decided to drop healing the following year, as it was just a waste of her time, she was debating taking up blacksmithing as she was really interested in learning more creating weapons and armor.
Jayde had already brought up this matter with Master Citro, and he had agreed with Jayde even go so far as to lend her the first year blacksmithing textbooks so that she could studying them in the meantime. Unfortunately, students were not allowed to change subjects during the year, so Jayde was stuck with healing magic.
Thankfully next year she could also drop Magic Fundamentals, Magic History, and Government and Law the following year. These three subjects were the worst classes that Jayde had to attend, Jayde spent most of her time chatting to Yinxin, Reiko, and Isha during these classes. If not for them she most likely would have been forced into some sort of drastic action. Especially having to listen to Professor Chalinus Floren drone on and on about how great the Temple of the Light was.
Professor Chalinus Floren had managed to amass quite a loyal following and Jayde, and her group had quickly realized to keep their heads down, and their opinions to themselves after a couple of the more vocal students had been severely disciplined for speak out against the Temple of the Light.
Master Citro had informed Jayde that the school was under a tremendous amount of pressure by the Temple of the Light to drop Rune Magic, and this would be the last year that Damonia would offer this class. Sora Tadia Trifer seemed to know it as well, so she intensified her classes trying to teach her last batch of students as much as she could.
Jayde was debating whether to approach Sora Tadia Trifer later to offer to a safe harbor in Shaihshire, but she could only do that once she had assessed the town. Maianna had sent Jayde a note that everything had been arranged and Jayde would be meeting with Maianna in Aeris this coming Restday to travel to Shaihshire to view the village.
Jayde had just finished her Formation Magic class and was hurrying to meet Ash for their Pill and Potion Refinement class. Since today would be the first time she created a pill in front of Sor Dinia Nelius, Jayde was praying that her last five days of practicing would pay off and she would not cause an explosion like she had done in her own space.
***
Sor Dinia Nelius called his two disciples to the lab at the back of the class, as soon as he entered the classroom. After a quick review of yesterday's lesson, he then instructed Ash and Jayde to start their refinement. Sor Dinia Nelius had already set up a powerful ward to protect the surrounding area, it was common for young alchemists to fail in their creation and often this led to small explosions.
Anxiously Sor Dinia Nelius watched over his two disciples, he continuously scanned the two monitoring their progress. He didn't expect either of them to succeed—no young alchemist ever succeeded the first time they attempted to create a pill, so when he felt the small fluctuation from Ash's furnace indicating a backlash, he immediately weaved a powerful shield around the furnace to protect his precious disciples.
Jayde heard a slight popping sound as Ash's pills failed to fuse, but since Jayde was busy concentrating on her own fusion she barely took notice of it. Right now she was in the most delicate part of the whole process, and couldn't afford to be distracted.
Small beads of sweated dotted Jayde's forehead as she stared intently at her furnace, her consciousness was solely focussed on the happening within her furnace as she forced the powders to fuse, inject her magic she had to divide her attention between maintaining a constant temperature while compressing and forcing the powders to blend.
Sor Dinia Nelius stared anxiously at Jayde's furnace, his eyes darting between Jayde and her furnace. Just then a familiar fragrance filled the air. Sor Dinia Nelius mouth gapped open. Unbelievable he thought, by the gods, she succeeded in her first try.
Jayde's breathed out a sigh in relief, thank the gods her pills hadn't exploded again, she thought as she opened the door to her furnace and collected her pills. Looking down at the pills lying in the small bowl Jayde could not help feeling despondent. Out of the five pills she had managed to create, four were misshaped, and only one had come out nice and plump. Shaking her head, Jayde lamented on how difficult creating pills was. No wonder they so damn expensive, she thought.
"I'm so—"
"By the gods, you did it, girl!" Sor Dinia Nelius exclaimed interrupting Jayde's apology.
"Let me see," he demanded, reaching for Jayde's small bowl.
Jayde handed her bowl, embarrassed about her failure.
"Oh my!" Sor Dinia Nelius yelped.
"A perfect healing pill." Sor Dinia Nelius said as he reached out a shaky finger to touch the perfect round pill with a finger.
Jayde looked at the old man, confused why he was so excited.
"I can't believe it," Sor Dinia Nelius whispered as he picked up the small pill gently.
"Hey Jayde, I want this pill, here I will trade you," Sor Dinia Nelius said, reaching into his robes he withdrew a small porcelain bottle, handing it over to Jayde.
Jayde right eyebrow arched as she took the small porcelain bottle from Sor Dinia Nelius, what is hell is up with this teacher, she wondered.
Holding the small porcelain bottle, Jayde gazed down at the short teacher. "You don't have to trade for my pill, you can have it," she said. "I'm just sorry that I could only create one pill."
Sor Dinia Nelius stared up at Jayde in disbelief, he couldn't believe that his young disciple was apologizing for only creating one perfect pill. Didn't she understand how miraculous this was?
"Oh my dear girl, you are a genius, a natural prodigy," Sor Dinia Nelius gushed.
"I can't believe that my disciple created a perfect pill on her first try."
Ah, shit Jayde thought feeling guilty since this wasn't her first try, she had been practicing for five days, and this was the first time she had created a perfect pill.
Jayde could feel her cheeks heating up as Sor Dinia Nelius turned around and skipped out of the class.
"I can't wait to tell the rest of those losers about my genius disciple," he crowed in delight. "Oh, class dismissed," he threw over his shoulder as he exited the door.
"Well done Jayde," Ash said softly as Jayde packed up her stuff.
"Cough, um thank you," Jayde said tugging at her shirt collar, feeling very uncomfortable with Ash's compliment, but how could she explain that she had been practicing for five days without spilling her secret.
"Ah, let's go home," Jayde said quickly, trying to divert Ash's attention. While Ash was slightly confused with Jayde's reaction, he marked it down as her being humble about her achievement. She really is a remarkable person, Ash thought as he followed Jayde.
While Jayde and Ash were driving home. Sor Dinia Nelius had a special frame made to store the very first pill his disciple had created. That evening Sor Dinia Nelius visited every single teacher in their private rooms, giving them each a glass of his hundred-year-old honey wine in celebration of his disciple's achievement, showing off the small plump pill stored behind the most durable protection and preservation spells known in the lower realm.
While Sor Dinia Nelius was getting drunk boasting about his disciple, Jayde had teleported to her dimensional space. Pouring out the pills Sor Dinia Nelius had traded for her one pill Jayde stared down at the twenty advanced healing tablets lying in her hand. Shaking her head, she couldn't believe that Sor Dinia Nelius had traded these twenty rare pills for her one measly one.
Shrugging Jayde then handed the porcelain bottle to Isha to sell on the inter-dimensional market, and to use the points earned to purchase basic healing herbs for her. The last five days had used up most of her herbs and Jayde needed to replenish her supply if she was going to continue practicing.
For the next five days (twenty-five days in the artifact) Jayde practiced her pill refinement, only stopping to rest and eat. By the morning of Restday Jayde could now create up to ten perfect basic healing pills.
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📝 Notes
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