"Have you fully assimilated the assigned literature?" Vigo's voice clipped the silence of the corridor as they approached his office.
"I have, Head Instructor." Arthur kept his grip tight—a glass vial of green liquid in his right hand, a bulging satchel anchored in his left.
Vigo slid his key into the lock. The tumblers clicked.
"Initiate the preparatory sequence."
Arthur stepped toward the sprawling bookshelf while Vigo dropped a heavy leather case of papers onto his desk.
"My title encompasses both alchemist and educator," Vigo said, his tone shifting into a cold, practiced cadence. "Preparation is to be entirely autonomous. Executed daily, strictly within a thirty-minute parameter. However, as this is your inaugural session, I shall provide a physical demonstration. Your paramount directive is the facilitation of my experiments. The methodology itself will serve as your pedagogy."
He pressed his palm against the narrow gap between two bookshelves. A familiar emerald luminescence bled from the wood.
Precisely as hypothesized. Head Instructor Vigo is a prodigy of Magic Engineering.
He is fracturing the mana current, micromanaging the exact frequency to bypass the complex permutation locks.
I must commit this sequence to memory.
"If I may inquire, Head Instructor," Arthur ventured, "what specific parameters of research will we be pursuing today?"
"Alchemical synthesis dictates our immediate schedule," Vigo replied, already resuming his march across the room. "We may entertain secondary disciplines should time permit."
He swept an arm toward a monolithic wall of cabinets.
"The catalyst repository is arranged alphabetically. Each bears a tag, though you will find several vacant."
Vigo paced the length of the wall, halting exactly three times. His hands darted out, extracting three distinct items and dropping them into a woven basket. Reaching the corner, he pivoted a sharp one-hundred-and-thirty-five degrees and strode to the dead center of the chamber.
"This central nexus is the crucible," Vigo announced. "Observe the preparatory phase."
He snatched two flasks of clear liquid from a side table, dumping them into a four-liter iron pot in a precise one-to-one ratio. The mixture sat inert, devoid of any violent reaction. Satisfied, Vigo submerged a pristine white rag into the fluid.
"Absolute sterilization is a mandatory prerequisite. I manually aerate this laboratory every dawn, but we must choke out every conceivable risk of contamination."
He yanked a thick rope dangling near the hearth. Above, gears ground together, and pure moonlight spilled down through the chimney's throat.
"Ensure the ventilation remains unsealed for precisely five minutes post-application to expel the toxic fumes. Do not inhale deeply. The hallucinogenic properties are severe."
"Do not fear chimney contamination. Layered barriers inside the flue incinerate dust and repel external intruders. Your primary vector for contamination is your own negligence."
"Submerge your hands into the solvent."
"Once the surfaces are purified, you will synthesize the exact compounds I instruct, pulling from those cabinets just as I have."
Vigo retrieved the three items from his basket.
"Observe carefully. These compounds synthesize Sivanamine, identical to the sample you brought here." He hovered a hand over two of the components, stirring them directly into a nearby pot of emerald liquid.
"However, this specific artifact," Vigo murmured, "will elude your prior knowledge."
He picked up a disk that looked entirely unnatural. Flawed in its circumference, yet impossibly, razor-thin throughout.
"This is a true alchemical catalyst. A far cry from the crude powders and medicinal weeds you know. Just as the philosopher's stone transmutes base lead into coveted gold, Gorium violently consumes standard compounds and forces an evolutionary transmutation."
Gorium? I never encountered a single mention of it in the texts he provided…
Vigo plunged the disk into the pot. The liquid erupted. Jade froth churned, darkening violently into a sludge-like brown. The caustic bubbles surged upward, kissing the very rim of the pot before receding—without spilling a single drop. As the froth dissolved, a murky, stagnant fluid remained.
"Fascinating... what exactly is the nature of this reaction?" Arthur breathed.
"Silence yourself."
Emerald light flooded the wall by the entryway. Vigo tapped a nondescript groove on the adjacent counter. Instantly, the alchemist's shadow stretched. He seemed to shoot upward—no, the floor beneath Arthur simply vanished. The ground plummeted, swallowing Arthur into pitch darkness.
A total absence of inertial dampening. The descent was instantaneous.
Complete optical deprivation.