The Alchemist, still holding the bizarrely effective knife with a delicate grip, slowly turned his gaze across the courtyard. His eyes landed on Nolan—disheveled, tense, and trying his best to shrink into the background despite being the accidental star of the mont.
"You made this knife?" the Alchemist asked, his tone not accusing, but genuinely curious.
Nolan blinked. His first instinct was to deny it. But what was the point? He just gave a student a mystery weapon that solved a problem none of the Mana Knights could. Pretending would be worse.
He gave a short nod.
The Alchemist tilted his head, examining Nolan more carefully now. "Huh. It feels sloppy—but it works. Maybe you could beco a Mana Alchemist too."
Nolan twitched. His eye twitched. His lip twitched. His soul twitched.
In his mind, he uppercut the man so hard he bounced off a cloud.
Sloppy? Internet-made weapon? You think that’s sloppy!? You donkey-livered parchnt sniffer! That’s a high-tier survival blade with twelve user reviews and five upvotes on the Underworld Forge subreddit!
But none of that made it past his clenched teeth. On the outside, Nolan simply gave another curt nod, looking as indifferent as ever. Keep it together. You’re still alive. That’s what matters.
The Alchemist shrugged, clearly unfazed. "It’s a pity," he said. "You might have sothing there. Unorthodox, yes. But promising."
He returned the knife to Calien, who took it with a slightly stunned look, as if only now realizing how odd—and powerful—it was. The glow had faded, but the weight of the mont hadn’t.
The courtyard began to murmur again, voices rising in waves of speculation and awe.
Then the Chief’s voice cut through the air like a blade. "Can you replicate it?"
The question wasn’t aid at Nolan, but at the Alchemist.
The scholarly man nodded. "The ingredients are mostly common. The core effect ca from the calming agent—Lilliflare Petal. Crude, but it worked. We don’t even need the exact recipe. What matters is replicating the psycho-reactive dampening."
"Do it now," the Chief commanded, his voice firm, commanding. "We’ll verify the results in front of everyone."
Without hesitation, the Alchemist turned and snapped his fingers. A few assistants erged from behind the viewing platform, all dressed in apprentice robes of Black Vale. He rattled off a rapid list of ingredients—spore sap, low-grade bone resin, dewstone tincture, crushed mollusk ash, and a fresh sprig of Lilliflare.
The apprentices scattered.
While they were gone, the Alchemist turned to the Black Vale Mana Knights stationed nearby. "A sword."
One of them, tall and lean with a sapphire trim on his armor, stepped forward and unsheathed his blade. He handed it over with both hands.
The Alchemist took it with surprising ease, placing it on a conjured stone table. The assistants returned monts later, panting slightly, each clutching vials, pouches, and glowing containers.
He didn’t waste ti.
One by one, he began dumping the ingredients onto the blade.
No ritual circles. No incantations. Just cold, chaotic layering.
He crushed a bit of ash onto the steel, sared the sap, rubbed in the mollusk powder with a cloth, drizzled the dewstone tincture along the edge, and finally, with almost casual grace, pressed the Lilliflare petal into the mix and let it rest.
The sword hissed faintly, the colors bleeding across its surface. Not elegant. Not beautiful. Just raw.
After a minute of silence, the Alchemist lifted the weapon and handed it back to the Knight.
The Chief, who had been watching every move, nodded once.
"Release more."
The words struck the arena like thunder.
Gates opened.
From the sides of the arena, three more unkillable creatures—each sealed in enchanted cages—were released. They didn’t need coaxing. The mont the seals dropped, they surged forward like rabid beasts.
People scread. Not in panic, but in anticipation.
Mana Knights stepped forward to contain them, but the Chief raised a hand.
"Let the demonstration continue."
The Knight who held the Alchemist’s experint stepped into the arena. His grip tightened around the strangely treated sword, and for a mont, he looked almost nervous.
Then one of the creatures lunged.
The Knight moved—swift, precise—and slashed diagonally across its face.
The result was imdiate.
The creature didn’t phase through the blade or deflect it. It simply shuddered, blinked... and collapsed, as though it had fallen asleep mid-roar.
Dead. Cleanly. Instantly.
The arena went utterly silent.
One by one, the other creatures lunged, but the Knight was ready. He spun and moved, striking only once each ti—each blow aid at the skull, each result the sa.
Three creatures. Three kills. No struggle. No showy spells. No mana flares.
Just that strange, smothering calm.
Gasps filled the air.
"I saw it. I saw it!" soone from the crowd shouted. "He didn’t even use Mana!"
"Just one strike each!"
"Is it really just the effect of the ingredients?"
"This changes everything!"
Students, scholars, and soldiers alike leaned forward. The atmosphere bristled with revelation.
The Knight returned, sheathing the sword with slow, reverent hands.
Everyone turned to the Chief, who remained silent for a long mont.
Then, with a tone sowhere between amusent and disbelief, he spoke aloud:
"How unexpected. You didn’t even use Mana to coat your sword."
Suddenly, he clapped his hands slowly, deliberately, and the sharp, rhythmic sound echoed through the hushed crowd like a drum of authority calling for attention.
His voice followed, rich and deep, rolling like thunder softened by distance. "Today," he began, pausing to scan the gathered students, knights, instructors, and onlookers alike, "was not what we expected. Not at all."
Another pause. A asured breath. And then the floodgates opened.
"We ca here not for discovery but for assessnt," he said. "Our intention was simple. We brought a dangerous entity—a creature forged in the chaos of our broken regions—to evaluate your students’ capacity to resist and react to the unknown. Resistance. That was the word. Not conquest. Not solution. Just resistance.
"We believed that with a bit of luck, we’d find a few exceptional students that would help us discover these hidden threats. We ca with full awareness that even your best would likely only endure the encounter, not overco it."
The chief’s arms swept outward as though embracing the very air of the courtyard. "But to our surprise—no, to our complete and utter disbelief—here in this humble city, in this respected but often overlooked institution, the Silver Blade Academy, we not only witnessed resistance... we witnessed revelation. Discovery. A hidden truth that eluded our greatest alchemists, enchanters, and combat scientists."
He gestured toward the lifeless remains of the creature, now limp and still under guard. "That thing, that monstrosity—we’ve tried everything. Every elental bombardnt, every blessing, every curse, every mana-bound scripture known to our territory’s archives. Nothing worked. And yet... here, in a single swing from a blade laced with unrefined components and guided by a student who just wanted to return to class, it fell."
Murmurs swept through the crowd. Even the stiff-backed Mana Knights couldn’t keep their composure.
The Chief smiled faintly and continued. "I say this not lightly, and certainly not with political embellishnt: today, the Silver Blade Academy has achieved what the Black Vale Territory could not. You uncovered the weakness of the unkillable."
His eyes turned to the instructors and city officials standing near the observation platforms. "To the educators of this institution, your patience and instruction forged the discipline and instincts we witnessed today. To the city of Silver Blade, your environnt nurtured such a mind. You may not realize it, but today, you have not only passed our assessnt—you have accelerated years of research in a single breath."
He clasped his hands behind his back. "Therefore, as acting authority of the Black Vale Territory, I promise compensation—generous and imdiate. Funding for the academy. Trade rights for the city. Materials, arcane scrolls, research access, and recruitnt recomndations for your students. Your achievent has saved us more than ti—it has spared lives and changed outcos."
There was no applause. No one dared interrupt him.
The Chief’s expression darkened slightly. "But now... a private matter remains." His gaze turned, like a lion recognizing a familiar scent. "You. Nolan."
Nolan felt the bottom drop from his stomach. His na ca like a blade aid straight at the heart.
Sweat trickled behind his ear. He didn’t care if the Academy had taken his rit. He had hoped, prayed even, that his role would end with a passing nod. But fate had a crueler sense of humor. So he couldn’t help but tremble.
"Walk with ," the Chief said, turning his back. "We have sothing to discuss."
Nolan glanced left and right, but no one would et his eyes. He swallowed, adjusted his coat, and followed.
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