The moment he entered the Alchemy Academy, he discovered that it seemed like a completely different world from the previous academies, the contrast immense. This was not about the quality of the buildings; the architecture and landscaping throughout the Royal Academy were held to the same exacting standards, with no favoritism shown.
Yet it was precisely this uniform design and construction that made the contrast seem even more obvious.
And that contrast was the academy's popularity. At this time of day, the other academies were packed with people along every path, while here, one might walk a long distance before seeing one or two people. Sometimes, not even those one or two could be found.
Though the Alchemy Academy was not as large as the other two academies, its scarcity of students made it feel vast and empty, creating the illusion that this Alchemy Academy was actually the largest place in the entire Royal Academy.
The Royal Academy's alchemy students basically amounted to just two classes, fewer than a hundred people. This was only natural. Those who could enter the Royal Academy were all descendants of prominent families—why would they choose such an overlooked discipline?
But the Alchemy Academy had one distinctive trait: it had more teachers than students, and far more at that. This was easy enough to understand. Most of those teachers wanted to use the Royal Academy's resources to verify their own alchemy. Alchemical materials were not something ordinary people could afford to burn through.
The Royal Academy also liked hiring such alchemy teachers. Those who achieved results would be absorbed into the Royal Alchemists. This applied not only to teachers, but to some students as well.
For this reason, the Alchemy Academy had the oldest students in its history, as well as students who had remained enrolled the longest—and that record kept being broken.
Of course, freshmen like Thirteenth Young Master would not encounter those students. They were all holed up in laboratories working on their craft. Thirteenth Young Master's class was the Alchemy Academy's only freshman class, with twenty-one students, nine of them girls—the greatest number of female students in its history.
Within the Royal Academy, the Magic Academy had the highest proportion of girls, followed by the Martial Arts Academy, while the Alchemy Academy had the lowest proportion and the fewest girls. Altogether, the entire Alchemy Academy had fewer girls than a single class in the Magic Academy.
As for quality, Thirteenth Young Master's nine female classmates came in all shapes and sizes, plump and slender alike. Do not misunderstand—this plump was not the plumpness of Yang Guifei, but genuine obesity. The female classmate called Zhen Xiaoyan had enough bulk to occupy half the girls' territory all by herself.
Naturally, there were beautiful girls among them as well. The blonde, blue-eyed Shalan was a representative example. In the words of certain professional lechers—no, female connoisseurs—once Shalan grew up, she would become a ravishingly beautiful, irresistibly sexy stunner.
As for the other girls in the class, to borrow their words again, they were all girls with temperament. With a little dressing up, they would be quite lovely—apart from unparalleled specimens like Zhen Xiaoyan.
Yet Thirteenth Young Master rather liked Zhen Xiaoyan, because she had never chased him down. What he did not know was that it was not because she did not want to chase him down, but because she knew she could not catch up to him.
When Thirteenth Young Master and Tiger Girl stepped into the spacious, brightly lit classroom, the voices that had been discussing things inside immediately fell silent. Everyone stared at Thirteenth Young Master as he slowly entered the classroom and sat down in an empty seat.
"Pfft..."
Almost everyone near that area immediately stood up and moved to the other half of the classroom, putting as much distance as possible between themselves and Thirteenth Young Master. Then they resumed discussing their own thoughts, as though nothing had happened just now.
Thirteenth Young Master did not think much of it. He merely took out his alchemy book and began reading. Seeing him holding a book, everyone seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. They still kept an eye on what he might take out; if it was one of those strange things, they would have to stay on guard.
Since it was a book, they could ignore him for the time being. Everyone knew that when he was reading, he was at his quietest and would not make any other movements, so they could discuss things at ease.
As for Thirteenth Young Master? He never discussed things with others. First, his ability to discuss was limited. Second, his ideas would drive people mad; no one would acknowledge them, so there was no way to discuss them.
Before long, class began. As usual, their homeroom instructor arrived and began teaching as usual. Alchemy Academy students could choose any alchemy teacher as their mentor, but there would still be a homeroom instructor to teach them, since not every student would seek out a mentor.
Or rather, some students could not find a mentor willing to take them on. These mentors were all proud and arrogant people; they would not teach just anyone. If someone were blessed with extraordinary intelligence, that would be one thing, but for someone like Thirteenth Young Master, they absolutely would not take him.
If Thirteenth Young Master had merely been dull-witted, they would have been willing to teach him. That way, they could build ties with the Ye Clan and obtain plenty of free materials besides. Was that not why they stayed at the academy?
The problem was that the Ye Clan's Thirteenth Young Master's alchemy was simply impossible to explain. No one could point him down a path. To be his mentor, Lu Ban would have to be reborn.
"In alchemy, the two most important things are Alchemy Formulas and Alchemy Arrays. They are precious legacies left behind by our predecessors through countless painstaking efforts, so we must become thoroughly familiar with them." This was the homeroom instructor's opening speech.
"Alchemy Formulas are an exceedingly complex field of knowledge, and also the hardest part of alchemy to master. Their effects can change in a myriad ways, and that requires you to experiment for yourselves. Alchemy Arrays, comparatively speaking, are much simpler. They are all composed of basic Alchemy Arrays. By nature, they can be divided into Conversion Arrays and Synthesis Arrays; by effect, they can also be divided into attack, defense, recovery, and so on."
"A Conversion Array refers to the transformation of one substance, whether in shape or state. It is a relatively simple kind of array. A Synthesis Array, meanwhile, combines and transforms two or more different substances into another substance. Different combinations of Alchemy Arrays produce different effects, and that too requires your experimentation."
While the homeroom instructor spoke above, some of the students below mouthed along with him, almost word for word. It seemed these were lines they knew by heart, so familiar that they could recite them backward.
"I say these things once every day. The point is to make you understand that alchemy requires foundations. It is a discipline that requires you to repeatedly memorize these fundamentals every day. Only with solid foundations can you make more attempts and have a chance to reach the pinnacle of alchemy. Perhaps one day, you will discover that the foundational knowledge you now consider useless is what you have been pursuing all along—the key to solving your difficulties."
The homeroom instructor spoke with deep feeling. He seemed to have noticed the students' reactions as well, yet he still persisted with this habit, delivering an opening speech every day—the exact same opening speech.
Now that was truly decades as if one day!