Long beams of ruddy gold cut through the smoked glass windows of the Golden Mortar and illuminated the still air. Cal stepped inside, the pounding behind his eyes having faded slightly. The emptiness of the mahogany shelves made the shop feel like a temple to minimalism rather than the place of commerce it was.

  Aurelian and Selara stood behind the black granite counter, bent over a massive ledger spread between them. The alchemist held a quill poised above a column of numbers, while his sister pointed to a line item with one elegant finger.

  They looked up simultaneously as he arrived.

  Aurelian set down the quill and a smirk settled on his narrow face, the expression of a professor who'd caught a student returning to beg for a second chance at a failed exam.

  "Ah, Master Valorn." The alchemist's voice dripped with condescension. "Back so soon? I confess, I hadn't expected you to return quite this quickly, though perhaps I should have anticipated it. The grimoires can be rather overwhelming for the uninitiated mind, can they not? All that theory, those sophisticated runic schematics, the fundamental principles that require years of study to truly internalize..." He leaned forward slightly, his grey eyes gleaming. "I suppose you've come to admit that you overestimated your own capabilities and would like to request the texts be returned to your possession? A humble admission, to be sure, but I'm afraid it's far too late for second thoughts. The materials are—"

  "I need a Mana potion."

  The blunt statement interrupted Aurelian's monologue, leaving his mouth hanging open mid-word, his speech derailed.

  The nobleman’s face flushed. "You... you need a what?" Indignation pitched up his voice. "You waltz into my shop, interrupt me in the middle of—"

  Selara rolled her hand in the air beside her hip, materializing a small vial filled with shimmering blue liquid from her void ring. She tossed it underhand to Cal.

  The vial arced across the space before Cal snatched out, catching it cleanly.

  Aurelian spluttered. "Selara, what in the—"

  She waved him off, her eyes fixed on Cal with open amusement. "Hush. I want to see where this goes."

  Cal uncorked the vial and raised it to his face, activating his [Spiritual Perception].

  An aura unlike anything he'd encountered before radiated from the liquid. It resonated with a deep azure tone that peeled through his awareness like a struck bell, its texture flawlessly smooth like polished glass. The potency was a staggering reservoir of mental energy, orders of magnitude stronger than the F-tier elixirs he'd used.

  He lowered the vial and met Selara's gaze. "D-tier?"

  A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. "It is. Only take a small sip. Your mind lacks the fortitude to process a full dose of this potency. The mental backlash would be severe, and that's a problem you don't need."

  Cal brought the vial to his lips and tilted it back, allowing a small measure to flow across his tongue. The effect was instantaneous.

  A torrent of power inundated his system, a deluge of icy clarity that rushed into his depleted Mana font. Filling in a heartbeat, the empty reservoir then overflowed, its excess energy surging through his spiritual channels like meltwater through a cracked dam. He exhaled a wisp of blue-white vapor.

  A humming alertness flooded through him, washing away the throb behind his eyes.

  Cal corked the mostly full vial and walked over, setting it on the counter. He raised his left hand, palm out, and met Aurelian's still-annoyed stare.

  "You said I needed to prove my competence."

  He called his Mana. Energy flowed smoothly from his core, a cool rush traveling down his arm as he pushed it through the boundary of his skin and used his finger to inscribe the air.

  The [Control] rune formed first, followed quickly by the [Ignis] and [Ventus] runes. The construct locked into reality seconds after he started, the geometric union stabilizing in front of him.

  Cal pulsed his Intent into the [Control] rune.

  A tear-shaped flame materialized in front of his palm as he finished, burning with a steady red-orange glow.

  Aurelian flattened his smirk into a thin line while he stared at the flame. His lip curled as he drew a breath to speak. "A cantrip. You've wasted our time with a simple—"

  Cal raised his other hand.

  While the flame hovered in front of his left palm, completely stable, his right began to draw a second, far more elaborate schematic in the air. The ten-rune framework of the [Harmonize] Spell completed. He pulsed his Intent, and the schematic collapsed inward, igniting into a humming sphere of purple light beside the steady blaze of [Conjure Flame].

  Two separate, stable Spells, held simultaneously.

  [Your proficiency with Conjure Flame (F) has increased to Practiced]

  [Your proficiency with Harmonize (F) has increased to Practiced]

  Selara let out a surprised bark of laughter.

  The alchemist's face had drained of color, his mouth working soundlessly, opening and closing like a fish on dry land.

  Cal extinguished both Spells with a thought; the glowing constructs vanished.

  Then, he began the finale.

  Extending his arms, index fingers pointed, he began a slow pirouette. Twin trails of sapphire fire followed his fingertips, painting the air as he spun. He flowed through the motion, his body the axis of a luminous wheel as his hands moved in symmetry.

  As he turned, he etched the four [Control] anchors into the cardinal points, leaving them burning in his wake. Maintaining his rotation, he swept his arms wide, dragging lines of Mana to connect the anchors with the rectangular script of [Terra]. The glowing box materialized around him, a cage of solid light.

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  He continued the dance, his fingers spiraling inward to overlay the walls with the intricate cross-hatching of the [Gate] runes. The filigree shimmered, fusing with the structure.

  His hands moved near his chest to weave the complex engine of the [Ventus] and [Cycle] runes at the formation's heart. A final motion brought both hands above his head, drawing the [Null] rune to seal the apex.

  He triggered the ignition. The sapphire glyphs flared with brilliance and then vanished, replaced instantly by a transparent, shimmering barrier.

  [Your proficiency with Isolation Field (F) has increased to Practiced]

  The world went utterly silent.

  The ambient noises of the shop—the creak of timber, the sounds of commerce outside the walls—all vanished. The hermetic bubble engaged, a shimmering cube of distorted air that wrapped around Cal in a pocket of absolute stillness.

  He could see Selara's shoulders shaking, her mouth open wide in a soundless laugh. Aurelian moved his lips, forming words Cal couldn't hear, his face a mask of disbelief.

  She doubled over, clutching the counter for support. Her entire body convulsed with unrestrained mirth.

  Cal frowned.

  Silence.

  It mirrored the phenomenon from the alley behind Jakob's. The moment the seventeen runes engaged, the world turned mute. The Mana shell was dense, imposing restraints on the air currents that carried sound just as effectively as it stopped dust.

  Aurelian had trailed off, while Selara continued laughing without a sound.

  I need to hear them.

  To loosen the restrictions without breaking the seal, Cal scanned the shimmering barrier surrounding him. The glowing blue runes were gone, consumed by the casting, leaving only the active field of Mana. He had to rely on his memory of the structure and his connection to the energy.

  The filter.

  He pushed his Intent into the section of the wall where the [Gate] matrix had been, commanding the invisible current to open, to allow the waves to pass.

  The silence persisted.

  The foundation, then.

  His attention shifted to the cardinal points at eye level, sensing the rigid pillars of Mana where the [Control] runes had anchored the Spell. If he wanted the wall to allow vibrations through, perhaps this would work?

  He drove his will into the invisible anchor.

  The silence finally shattered.

  The first sound to rush back in was Selara's breathless laughter, now cascading loudly in the suddenly noisy shop. She was bent nearly double, one hand braced on the counter, the other clutching her ribs. Aurelian stood paralyzed, his face pale with shock, his jaw slack as he stared at the completed ward. Selara straightened, wiping a tear from the corner of her eye. Her laughter subsided into a victorious grin.

  "Aurelian," she said, her voice still shaking with amusement. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

  The alchemist's lips moved in a soundless struggle for a moment before he finally found his voice. "How?" The word came out as a croak. He swallowed, his eyes darting over the glowing framework. "That's... that's impossible."

  Selara turned to Cal, trying to stifle her mirth. "What my brother means… is that a caster's Intelligence is what allows them to bear the immense runic load of a complex Spell. The more runes you hold with your Intent, the greater the arcane force placed on your mind." She glanced at her brother, her grin returning. "My dear, arrogant sibling couldn't manage the seventeen runes of the [Isolation Field] until his own Intelligence attribute was at the peak of F-tier. And even then he could only manage one Mana stream… but you just dual-cast!" She started to dissolve into laughter again. "And he—he—he kept turning his nose up at you! It's too poetic!"

  Runic load? Dual-cast?

  Apparently [Savant of the Mind] wasn't just accelerating his learning. It was also giving him the cognitive bandwidth to handle more runes than he should be able to, and parallel processing without the requisite Intelligence. He was gaining passive power from his Impartment, bypassing a fundamental limitation of the magical system.

  How many runes can I hold before I hit my limit?

  Aurelian shook his head, finally snapping out of his stunned state. "That's impossible! I can feel your aura. Your mind is nowhere near Peak." His eyes narrowed, and he leaned forward across the counter. "There must be an external factor. A bloodline or legacy that bypasses the load." He straightened, his tone shifting into a demand. "Show it to me."

  The amusement Selara had been enjoying vanished in a heartbeat. Her expression hardened, and she turned on her brother with narrowed eyes.

  "Aurelian, that is rude and entirely unbecoming." Her voice was clipped. She turned to Cal, her tone softening. "Pardon my brother for his poor behavior. You may not know, but asking to see someone's bloodline is a deeply personal and extremely improper request among the powerful. It is a profound violation of trust and privacy, reserved only for the closest of allies or family."

  Color crept back onto the alchemist's cheeks. He opened his mouth, then closed it, his shoulders sagging. He took a deep breath and looked at the stable [Isolation Field], then at his stern sister, and finally at Cal. The arrogance was gone, replaced by grudging respect.

  "Fine," he said quietly. "I suppose there's nothing for it then." He stood up straighter. "Hail, apprentice."

  The glowing cage of the [Isolation Field] trembled violently, its low hum stuttering into a broken whine. Then the construct burst, the transparent walls dissolving into motes of light that winked out in the shop's air.

  An abrupt emptiness staggered Cal. His Mana pool, which had been so quickly flooded minutes before, was now utterly hollow. The world tilted sharply, and he pitched forward, his hand shooting out to brace himself on the counter.

  A warm trickle of blood ran from his nose.

  Selara moved quickly around the counter, catching Cal's arm before he could fall further. "Easy now," she said. Guiding him to a tall stool behind the counter, she steadied him as he sat, her expression turning concerned as her eyes tracked the blood running from his nostril to his lip.

  "You drained your soulspring completely just before you walked in here, didn't you?" Her tone was serious. "Then you flooded it with a D-tier potion and emptied it again in seconds? That is a textbook case of rapid cycling."

  She watched him dab at the blood.

  "Your meridians are safe. Mana flows without the friction that Stamina causes. But the mind bears the weight of the volume. Combat mages suffer this when they chain-drink potions to sustain a siege. It causes severe mental backlash—migraines, blackouts, and nosebleeds."

  She paused, then added, "To push yourself that hard, to maintain that level of control while your brain felt like it was splitting... that kind of fortitude is a desirable quality for an apprentice." She shot a pointed look at her brother.

  Cal swiped the blood from his lip with his thumb, eyes steady despite the lingering dizziness. He looked at Aurelian.

  "Before I accept, I have conditions." His voice was firm.

  Aurelian's eyebrows rose.

  "We've already agreed you won't be negligent with vital information again." Cal gestured with the blood-streaked thumb. "My second condition is that my first lesson will be the recipes I need to manage the costs of my own progression. The purification draught and the meridian liner elixir." He held Aurelian's stare. "I need them."

  A vein began pulsing on the alchemist's forehead. "My methods," he said stiffly, "are a standard, necessary vetting process to weed out the weak and unworthy. Every alchemist's apprentice must go through similar trials. It is a test, not negligence. You survived it. You passed. I have done nothing wrong, and you are overstepping your new station by suggesting otherwise. If—"

  Selara cut him off with a knife hand, then crossed her arms.

  "He's earned the right to set his first lesson, Aurelian. Especially since your methods nearly injured him." She turned to Cal, her tone softening. "The recipes will be yours."

  Aurelian opened his mouth as if to argue, then closed. He looked away, his jaw working.

  Selara continued, addressing Cal. "You're free to use any F-tier reagents currently in our archive for your practice. For anything rarer or more specialized, you'll have to forage for it yourself or post a contract on the Guild board."

  Cal nodded. "Understood. Thank you, Selara." He turned to face Aurelian. "And thank you too… Master."

  Aurelian gave Cal one final, long look. His expression was a layered mixture of scientific curiosity, bewilderment, and wounded pride. Then he sighed, and the fight seemed to go out of him.

  "None of that master business. If Selara doesn't have to put up with it, I certainly won't."

  The alchemist turned his back without another word and walked toward the door behind the counter. "Come along then," he said over his shoulder. "Let's get started, shall we?"

  anna_b... Cal is now washing his hands before kneading the dough in Chapter 74. <3

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