บท 76: Chapter Seventy Six - My perfectly average pills
Teacher Volun was not like what Leon might have imagined. Being surrounded by handsome and cute faces upon people mostly taller, broader or stronger will eventually warp a person's senses after all. Teacher Volun was none of those things, in fact, it was more like looking into the mirror of someone who could be his own future self. Not that he thought they might be blood related or anything, just that Teacher Volun was short, slender and wore round glasses upon his nose.
Otherwise, the Teacher's silver hair was cut short and his dark blue eyes sparkled with a wisdom and age that his smooth skin did not. His glasses were not so thick either and simply made his eyes look larger.
"Teacher," Cetus greeted the man, who was currently hovering over a thick book, brush dripping with ink in hand. "These students are from the alchemist school. They have fulfilled pill requests."
Teacher Volun placed his brush aside immediately and scuttled around his large desk in order to receive the pills. "Oh good!" He said glancing at Leon and Maimai and up at Tor with an air of expectation.
Tor did not hesitate and withdrew three jade bottles and the request note. The teacher glanced over them and nodded. "A good job as usual, Tor," the Teacher told him and indicated that Cetus should take him to the warehouse for his reward once they were all finished here. Tor's reward was one he had requested, as he was on good terms with Teacher Volun and other beast taming school teachers; a pair of winter riding boots.
The Teacher then turned to Leon, who handed first the request notice. He then removed the jade bottles from his interspacial bag, two containing the beast calming pills, one for the hidden mist pills and two for the clear spiritual pills. The Teacher picked up the first bottle of beast calming pills and opened the bottle to glance at the five pills inside. He did the same for the second bottle as well. A faint look of disappointment fell over his face, but he retained his amicable smile.
"Thank you very much, young man," he said. He glanced over at Maimai, who blushed and apologised that she had no pills to give him, she had just wanted to take her Piku out for a ride and some exercise. As a beast tamer, the Teacher did not chastise her for wishing to care for her mount, so let it slide. "Okay, Tor....Er..."
"Leo," Leon replied, remembering to use the original's name. It was a wonder no one had asked him why Jin Li called him Leon yet!
"Leo... please follow Cetus to collect your rewards." The three youths bowed and followed the senior out.
Teacher Volun sighed. He had way too many beast calming pills in stock now and still they had not found the creator of the beast calming pill that they had once thought come from the deceitful student known as Caprian. The boy had insisted that he had made it even after he had been expelled, even though his reputation for buying and stealing other students pills had by then come to light. Perhaps it had been created by accident?
The Teacher shook his head. Well learned alchemists from the Core school had already confirmed that the pill contained an extra ingredient, they had even discovered, after much testing, which herb that was. But still, although the pills they had created with this new knowledge were slightly better than the standard pills, they were still nowhere as good as that unusual pill.
The Teacher lifted Leo's jade bottle and glanced over the five perfectly average quality pills... and then frowned and picked up another bottle. Again, they were five perfectly average beast calming pills. The hidden mist pills had four average looking pills and one slightly better quality pill. And the one heart pills were all again perfectly average, not a discrepancy between them. The quality of a pill had to do with not so much about the amount of impurities, though that was a factor, but with how efficient they were. For example, a pill that did not work well, but had few impurities was still a poor quality pill, but a pill that the consumer could wring maximum benefits from but had high impurities could only be considered a good quality pill. The best pills had high efficiency and few impurities, but impurities often seemed to come down to mostly luck and a little knowledge. With the exception of just one pill, Leon's pills would perform as expected and the levels of impurities within were neither bad nor good.
"How strange," the Teacher thought, comparing the pills with Tor's which ranged from average to good quality, not one was like the next. His curiosity got the better of him and he decided to write an enquiry to Teacher Sagi about the boy.
In the meantime, Tor received his fur lined riding boots and Leon was given a beautiful, white pelt with specks of black scattered over it. The pelt was by far larger than he expected and he hoped to be able to take it down the mountain and ask the tailoress to make it into a coat or cloak for him. With both rewards in hand, the alchemist students went back to the stables and to their mounts so they might return to their own school. Piku was not happy about this!
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