"Little ancestor, don't explode, don't explode. Please behave. This is the last batch of ingredients I have."
In a workshop at Birmingham University's Alchemy Academy, a young man stood beside an alchemy table, carefully dropping a few still-moist Water Flower petals into a pungent, yellow-brown base solution. Small bubbles rose as the orange-red outer flame of an alcohol lamp heated the liquid.
As he swirled the test tube and watched the liquid slowly turn deep blue, sweat beaded on Horn's forehead, and his hand trembled slightly.
With each swirl, a faint shimmer rose from the potion and reflected on Horn's face, smiling as if to tell him—
—You swirled it once too few times. Now I'm going to die.
At the bottom of the test tube, the liquid had turned emerald green. It tipped past the delicate balance, and a glaring dark red rapidly spread through the tube, heralding a dire omen that struck fear into every Alchemy Apprentice.
—A bottle explosion.
"You don't know when to quit, do you? You asked for this—"
Rather than toss away the test tube, which was already trembling and emitting a piercing shriek, Horn gritted his teeth. Ignoring the heat searing his flesh, he clamped the tube in his palm and called out from the depths of his consciousness.
[—Fire]
And so, the flame came as promised.
A nearly transparent wisp of flame flowed from Horn's fingertips into the test tube. It greedily sucked in water, gnawed at earth, and swallowed wind, growing ever stronger.
As the flame spread, countless streams of information rushed into Horn's mind through some unseen connection. His brain processed them into words he could understand, which appeared on the light screen before him.
[Analyzing...]
[You are performing a Flame of Destiny alchemy. Target: Sedative Potion. Knowledge required: Alchemy]
[Extracting spirituality. Beginning transmutation—]
Inside the test tube, the out-of-control elements of creation turned around.
Everything was renewed.
The unstable components were effortlessly restored, the impurities burned away, and the long process of catalysis skipped altogether. The flame brutally trampled the potion's ordained future, then imposed a new fate upon it that could not be resisted.
As if time were flowing backward, the dark red receded and faded. Gray-blue swirled out of the flames, returning to a stable state. A soothing fragrance spread through the room.
[—Transmutation complete]
[You have completed a Flame of Destiny alchemy. Alchemy experience slightly increased. Awakening Level: 49%]
A line of warped text appeared on the light screen, announcing the end of the process.
It also made Horn's vision go black. He nearly passed out.
Wave after wave of weakness rolled through his limbs. The exhaustion of running five kilometers and the gnawing hunger of not having eaten for three days tore at his nerves.
"Ughhhh—"
Groaning like a zombie, Horn let the flame—whose color seemed to have deepened slightly—disappear. He managed to set the still-warm [Sedative Potion—Type IV] in the test tube rack, then ignored the safety rules of the alchemy room and wiped the sweat from his forehead with the clean inside of his sleeve. He dropped into a chair and gasped for breath.
He picked up a prepared nutrient drink from beside him and downed the pale yellow liquid, which somehow tasted like motor oil, in a few gulps. Once he had caught his breath, Horn stared blankly at the mirror.
A Victorian-style high-collared shirt under a self-made lab coat, black hair and red eyes, a youthful, handsome face, and distinctly Western features... Horn had been in this world for a month, and he no longer felt like a stranger when he looked in the mirror.
His original body had belonged to Hohenheim Lancaster, one of the countless minor branches of the Avalon Plantagenet Royal Family's Lancaster clan.
His only real connection to the nobility was his surname, but thanks to his ancestors' accumulated wealth, his family had remained well-off, above the middle class. That was what had enabled him to attend Birmingham University, notorious for its exorbitant tuition fees, and its most expensive department of all: the Alchemy Academy.
But it had all been ruined by an utterly ordinary accident when he was eight. The Hebe Stanton, sailing for the Twilight Archipelago, lost its way in the moonlight and struck a reef in a storm. The sea swallowed many lives, and Hohenheim's parents were among them.
The whole affair had seemed suspicious, but Hohenheim had been too young to investigate.
With no source of income, he was left struggling under the weight of daily expenses. After the failed recovery of the bodies and a perfunctory funeral, he had managed to grow up and finish his studies thanks to token support from distant relatives and an inheritance whose amount seemed a little off.
Using the connections his parents had left behind, he secured admission to the Alchemy Academy. He pinned all his hopes on alchemy, dreaming of making something of himself.
But too much hope was poisonous.
After inheriting the scattered memories of an Apprentice named Hohenheim, who had died suddenly while practicing alchemy, it was now the transmigrated Horn's turn to get a headache from his alchemy textbooks.
Fortunately, it seemed he had awakened the cheat ability common to transmigrators. He called the power he had just summoned from within himself the [Flame of Destiny].
Its visible effects were the ability to analyze ingredients and perform alchemy without equipment—something every alchemist dreamed of. It let him skip the tedious, most time-consuming process of accumulating experience and take on difficult alchemy recipes directly, building up precious experience by leaps and bounds.
The price for such a useful ability was his own "spirituality." It was roughly like a mana bar, but a little more esoteric, closely tied to his physical condition, mental impulses, and other factors.
The first time he tried using the [Flame of Destiny], he let it burn for only eight seconds before his body felt drained. Dizzy and seeing black, he nearly passed out, let alone managed to use it to precisely brew a potion.
Fortunately, there was always a way forward. Each time he used it near his limit, his spiritual capacity seemed to expand little by little, edging closer to the limit this body could hold.
Through intense practice at any cost, Horn had already learned to control the [Flame of Destiny] to some degree. He could even perform difficult, delicate operations and use it to salvage potions that were about to be ruined.
Like the bottle of gray-blue liquid on the rack, still giving off wisps of heat.
Small words the same color as the liquid appeared on the light screen.
[Sedative Potion—Type IV: Soothes the eyes and calms the mind.]
[Aspect—Promotes Recovery: Beneficial to rest and recuperation.]
[Aspect—Silence 1: Mourn it, remember it, but never speak of it.]
The light screen also seemed to be one of Horn's cheat abilities. The words it displayed were invariably cryptic. Based on his observations over the past few days, the so-called "Aspect" represented one facet of the potion in his hand.
"Promotes Recovery," for instance, meant exactly what it said. When used appropriately, it could aid mental recovery and ease fatigue and restlessness.
He didn't know what "Silence" meant, but one thing was certain: this potion could calm an agitated patient—depending on the dosage, it might even calm them permanently.
Horn shook his aching wrist and sighed.
"Ugh, this is the last batch. Why does Birmingham City Hospital suddenly need so much Sedative Potion? Are they operating on an elephant?"
But whether the patient in need of sedation was an elephant or a whale, an order was always good news. No alchemist ever complained about having too many customers.
Skillfully, he padded the bottoms of the five freshly brewed [Sedative Potion—Type IV] bottles with cotton strips, then set them upright in a special case. After changing into a clean shirt, Horn opened the door and headed out to deliver the order.
The Alchemy Academy's administrative hall was always bustling. Apprentices and merchants haggled endlessly over their respective interests. Unlike the lofty, mysterious occult studies of his previous life, alchemy in this world was a subject closely tied to daily life, and it had always been practical.
Horn skirted around two young Apprentices arguing over the price of Pearl Blood-Activating Ointment, then went to the service window. He curled his index finger and rapped firmly on the bell.
"Ding, ding~"
The sharp ringing woke the woman behind the window, who was in charge of receiving visitors, from her daydream. Mumbling incoherently, she slowly lifted her head from her arm. Her brown hair hung in a disheveled mess, and she looked bleary-eyed.
"Wake up, Ms. Wilma. I have a purchase order to submit."
Frowning, Horn glanced at the nameplate on her chest, which read "Madonna Wilma," and reminded her.
"Oh, right. Sorry, sorry. I went out drinking with a friend yesterday and had too much, haha."
Her eyes were bloodshot from staying up late, and Wilma gave a dry laugh to ease the awkwardness. She scratched her nest of hair and looked at the young man in an Alchemy Apprentice's uniform, puzzled.
"Uh, sir, what kind of work do you do?"
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