Wulf and Irmond walked down the main street of Arotelk. It was one of the academy’s satellite cities, but directly to the south.

  Of the three surrounding cities, Arotelk was the largest. Its ten-storey buildings and thirty-storey towers still paled in comparison to the Confederacy's true metropolises, and wouldn’t even hold a candle to the larger cities near the main international branch of the Academy far across the ocean, but it was still the biggest city Wulf had seen in years.

  And better yet, a city in prime condition. Not destroyed by years of fighting.

  Here, most of the facades were stone, and had either been plastered over in a dull white, or covered in wood beams. Some of the older buildings still had ornate marble ground floors, covered in gargoyles, but almost anywhere he looked, there was a painted billboard. They advertised quills and ink, or carpentry services, blacksmithing unions, or just general guild banners. Even in the daylight, some of them needed torches and lanterns to keep them bright, because otherwise, the surrounding buildings’ shadows would blot them out.

  There had to be an alchemy shop here somewhere. Though alchemy wasn’t a profession that the Academy cared about, [Alchemist] was a Class Ascendants could obtain. Just…usually not very profitable or powerful, given that artificers snapped up the most powerful ingredients.

  A giant mammothtree stem that the Field registered as arcane? It’d be the haft of an Oronith’s spear before they could turn it into potions. Find a deposit of Purple Brass? Oronith armour, or again, weapons.

  But just the thought made Wulf excited to step out into the wider world again. Sure, the first years weren’t supposed to go off campus much, but for Solstice Break? What if they went on a little adventure?

  He grinned at the thought, but pushed it to the back of his mind.

  “Here. I’m warning you, though,” Irmond said. “You won’t find much useful. Like, at all.”

  He motioned to the side, where an alchemy shop waited at the corner of an alley. Its green paint was peeling, and one of its windows was boarded up. A faded sign hung above the door, but Wulf didn’t waste any time trying to decipher the letters—not for lack of reading ability, but because the sign was just so old.

  Inside was a dusty, dim store with shelves of potions, but when Wulf held his hand up to them…the best he could identify was a Low-Copper Tier potion. And, moreover, they were all healing potions, painkilling potions, or vitality potions. Nothing like he could make.

  There really…wasn’t anything good? Perhaps Wulf’s potions were more rare than he’d thought. As a warrior, and near the end of his days, he’d had access to plenty of pre-made potion powders for pain-killers, and they’d been Low-Iron, but he had been a somewhat well-known warrior and climbed the ranks, even up to the end.

  “Can I help you with anything?” asked the store clerk—an old woman with a cane, who wore a burgundy dress.

  “Do you have any alchemical equipment?” Wulf asked.

  “Why would I sell that?” the woman snapped. “Selling materials to the competition? Bah, foolish.”

  “Just the same,” Wulf muttered, “I doubt you’ve got very good equipment.” Louder, he said, “Thanks for your time,” then walked out the store with Irmond close behind.

  “You were right,” Wulf said. He raised a finger. “Just this time, though.”

  “Yeah, now will you listen to the second suggestion I made?” Irmond asked.

  “The antiques store?”

  “Yep.”

  “Alright, but again: what would I find there?”

  “You cut me off last time,” Irmond grumbled. “You might find some old alchemist’s equipment. Might not be up to modern standards, but you’re not exactly trying to make medical potions, are you?”

  “No.”

  “Then you don’t need modern equipment.”

  Wulf nodded slowly. Alchemy in the modern day, as confirmed in the potion store, was mainly for healing. Those were the easiest ingredients to get your hands on, and the most in-demand.

  They walked across the street, passed through a central plaza with orange-leaved autumn trees, and took a wooden walkway up the side of a building. Up a few storeys, and past a platform where vagabonds had made a fire, they arrived at a dusty, fingerprint-smudged door. A sign hung above it, simply reading: Antiques.

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  Before entering, Wulf turned around and surveyed the city. There had to be a couple hundred thousand people here, all going about their lives. Most were defenseless non-Ascendants. In the distance, all he could see of the academy was a couple columns of smoke. Then, farther away, the mountains.

  “A city this big to service the Academy?” Wulf asked.

  “Well, it’s also the administrative capital of the region,” Irmond replied. “Which should explain a few things.”

  “I’d say.” Wulf crossed his arms. Still, there were plenty of souls here.

  This time, he’d protect them—not avenge them.

  He pushed open the door to the antiques shop and stepped inside. Rows upon rows of disorganized junk rotted in the light of a few hanging lanterns, and the dusty air nearly choked him. He blinked quickly to stop himself from sneezing, then wrenched his breaths under control.

  The store was bigger on the inside than on the outside, but there was only one other middle-aged man perusing the shelves.

  Immediately, a store clerk jumped out from beside the door. He was a boy, barely twelve, but he wore an apron and a hat. “Mornin’, sirs,” he said. “What can I do for two fine academy gentlemen?”

  “We…” Wulf didn’t even know where to begin. There was so much mismatched junk on the shelves, so colourful, that identifying where to start seemed like his most daunting task yet. There were old leather-bound books, brass trinkets, some swords and spears, Ascendant bracers that were decades out of fashion…

  Thankfully, Irmond piped up, “We’re looking for old alchemy trinkets. It’s for my father’s collection, you see.”

  “Ah, right this way!” the boy chirped, then scampered off between a pair of shelves.

  As they followed him, Wulf whispered to Irmond, “You do a good guild asshole accent.”

  “I’ve had practice,” Irmond whispered back.

  Wulf had to constantly remind himself that Irmond was technically a lord-presumptive. The way he behaved, though, wasn’t really like any other lords Wulf had met.

  They reached the end of the row, and the boy motioned at the shelves. “Here’s our alchemy stuff.”

  Wulf scanned up and down the shelves. It was in the back corner of the store, poorly lit, but he could still make out most of the equipment. There was a wrought-iron potion rack, whose clamps would keep the potions more stable and could handle higher heats—not to mention hold more potions at once. Wulf blew the dust off it and tucked it under his shoulder.

  Beside it was a set of glass stir-sticks. Light, and with a faint enchantment on them. According to the Field:

  Stir-Stick (Low-Coal Quality)

  Will not break when dropped. Will not create excess air bubbles in fluids.

  Perfect. Wulf bundled them up in twine.

  Next, amongst a pile of illegible alchemy leaflets, Wulf uncovered a small mesh box with grey ashes and fluffy inside. A better burn-box. He tapped the side a few times, dislodging some of the ash, and revealing a pile of fluffy, glowing orange feathers. Phoenix down, not just dust. Not to mention, the box would directly touch the bottom of a flask in his new rack, conducting heat to the potions better. It wasn’t enchanted, but it didn’t need to be.

  He shifted the ashes to cover the phoenix down once more, hiding it from sight.

  “Do you have any transmutation catalysts?” Wulf asked.

  Those, he’d read about in his textbook, and it gave him an idea. Normal alchemists would use a skill to transmute regular materials into something more arcane, but usually, they had a catalyst-slip to speed up the process.

  But the textbook had been very specific: he wasn’t to use the catalyst-slips backward, or they’d completely stall the process.

  He could use that to his advantage in certain circumstances.

  “I…think,” the clerk boy said. He scrambled around the side of the shelf, then disappeared out of sight. A moment later, he returned with a wooden box. “Here.” He hoisted it open, revealing a box full of tiny parchment slips. Instead of Common Tongue, they had runes scrawled all across them.

  Wulf picked up the box. They looked exactly like the book had described. Regularly, he’d pin them to whatever he wanted to transmute, and funnel a Skill through them, and it’d speed up the process. But he had other plans for them.

  “Thanks,” he said. “Where do we pay?”

  The boy led them to a desk near the doorway, where a middle aged man sat in a chair, leaning back, snoring softly.

  “Da,” the boy said. “We’ve got customers.”

  “Hrk—hm?” The man said up and rubbed his nose, then rubbed his eyes and took in the sight. “Two Academy kids, hm?”

  Wulf placed his new equipment down on the counter. “How much for this? In silver, preferably.”

  “This junk?” The man scratched his beard. “Four—fifty. Fifty silver.”

  “Forty-three?” Wulf tried. He could go a little higher if he had to, but he only had forty nine silver, and didn’t want to look like he was ripping the guy off by starting with his final price.

  “Yeah, sure, sold.”

  “Oh.” Wulf blinked. “You’re the owner, right?”

  “Yessir.”

  “Do you know much about this stuff?”

  “Alchemy equipment from ages ago, kid,” the man said. “Alchemy went out of fashion when the last descendant of Panne, the great ‘chemist disappeared. Called him Jor…or something like that. People stopped trying for alchemy Classes, ‘cause really, it was hard to advance the class. Why? You thinking of becoming an alchemist and throwing away your future?”

  Wulf laughed softly. “Just a collector, sir. He fished around his pocket and counted out forty-three silver pieces. “You can count it.”

  “I believe you.”

  “Thanks, then.” He dipped his head, hoisted up his equipment, and carried it out of the shop.

  With this, he could finally control his abilities. If he wanted to make a specific potion, if he had the right ingredients, he could. If he wanted to randomize his results, he could too.

  It was time to fulfill his side of the bargain with Kalee.