Chapter 46 (Patreon)

Smoke drifted low under the beams, and out the clerestory as Harold paced the length of the great hall, he accidentally kicked a rock someone had tracked in. Someone had dragged the long tables closer together to make space for more braziers and caldrons, and the stone floor between them held dark rings where cauldrons had boiled too hot the night before. He set his coffee down near the front bench and watched the students file in with their kits hugged tight to their ribs.

They were both more and less hesitant now. Now, some of them realized that if they messed something up. There were consequences. Others realized that if they messed up, there would be no consequences. They would come back. Harold needed them to realize both sides of it. It was why he was making them gather most of their ingredients themselves.

Two men argued in hushed tones over who had claimed a patch of light near the narrow window. A row of newly planted herb trays sat along the far wall, leaves pale from smoke and stubborn survival.

The door at the rear opened with a scrape that drew everyone's eye.

Adeline crossed the hall at a quick, efficient pace, her long skirt gathered clear of the floor. She did not wait to be acknowledged. A thick packet of folded pages landed against Harold’s palm with the soft slap of paper.

"I thought you might want to reply to this immediately. It’s from Veridia." Adeline handed him the packet. "Field expansion estimates you asked for."

He unfolded the first sheet while she stepped aside to let a pair of apprentices drag another brazier past. Ink crowded the page in tight columns, numbers packed so closely they almost blurred.

Two thousand acres. It was impressive work for a couple of months with just Tatanka, though Mana helped too.

He felt his jaw set in thought. A charcoal sketch filled the next page — rough contour lines marking cleared strips of land radiating out from the existing farmsteads like spokes. Someone had drawn Tatanka teams along the margins, tiny stick figures bent over plows, dotted lines marking planned irrigation ditches that snaked toward a wide canal route.

Adeline lowered her voice. "They found another herd. To the north, so far all the herds have been found up there."

Harold turned the page.

Yield projections came next, then a short chart showing harvest times for different crew sizes. A section in another hand followed — larger, hopeful strokes pressed too hard into the paper.

Proposal: release of ground birds to improve the yield of crops.

Adeline gave a small smile. "They’re calling them rock chickens. Apparently, they run more than they fly."

He read on.

A description of bird-thick hills. Notes on trapping. A plan to scatter grain piles across new fields to draw flocks from the slopes. Someone sketched crude hill-like coops along the field margins, circling areas where droppings might enrich the soil and pests might be driven out. A line notes using alchemical attractants to draw rock chickens into the fields and keep them there.

Next was the irrigation section, but that part was a mess.

A canal spur was proposed for the lowest ridge. Labor estimates doubled in the margins, and a plea for more surveyors appeared. Adeline’s notes cut through the optimism in tight, slanted writing.

Flow insufficient if the full planned acreage is planted in a couple of years. Secondary reservoirs will be required.

Harold looked up. "Where did you get the information about how much water was needed to feed 10,000 acres of farmland?"

“It’s a rough estimate. I had to talk to Elia about how much they water the herb garden every day.” Adeline replied.

Across the hall, a student swore as his alchemy kit opened and his mortar and pestle spilled out. Harold tucked the report into his belt.

Harold frowned. "They’re building faster than we planned; they must be using the soldiers to help."

Adeline shrugged. "You did order him to accelerate the planting; he figured it out."

He picked up his coffee again and drank while the bitterness settled behind his teeth. For a time, he watched a couple of students argue about mana width vs mana flow speed before replying to Adeline.

"Alright, thank you for this, Adeline. I’ll have a reply for him after this. I think I have an idea on how to attract those rock chickens," Harold said, nodding to her, then turning back to his class and clapping once.

Sound cracked across the hall.

“All right,” Harold said. “Today we test control.”

Boots scraped and shifted over soot-streaked stone as he stepped aside from the long front table and gestured to the first two waiting students.

“You’re up.”

They came forward, carrying their kits like offerings. Leather straps creaked as they knelt and unpacked: mortar in cloth, bundles of bark, vials in straw. Neither reached for ingredients yet. Both crouched low, starting their fires first, moving in the deliberate order Harold had drilled for months.

Harold folded his arms and watched.

At least they remember the process, he thought. Let’s see if they remember why.

"Get your fire going. Then choose what you need for a simple healing draught," Harold instructed.

The boy bent close, shoulders hunched, cupping the newborn flame he created while smoke crawled into his eyes. Across from him, the girl worked more slowly, feeding breath and bark until her ember glowed a steady red. She added splinters in a careful sequence, building heat rather than chasing it.

Harold moved in and crouched beside the nearer cauldron. He pressed his palm flat to the iron and felt warmth begin its slow climb. Mana flickered along the student’s wrist in narrow, uncertain threads.

Around them, the rest of the hall stilled. A bench leg grated over stone. Somewhere, a pestle tapped twice against a bowl and then stopped.

Harold prompted, "Ingredients."

They let the fires build another count before rising.

A rough table nearby held sorted piles — willow bark shaved thin, blueleaf bundled in damp cloth, lesser roots and stabilizers laid out in uneven rows. The girl pinched a strip of bark between thumb and forefinger, testing its dryness before dropping it into warming water. The boy followed a heartbeat later, adding his with visible hesitation as steam began to curl upward.

Harold closed his eyes.

Mana had sounded louder to him since returning. He guessed it was his perfect mana body, though he hadn’t found all its benefits yet.

He let his senses stretch outward and brush against the currents moving through both students — the uneven circulation in the boy’s shoulders, the steadier spiral the girl pushed through her forearms and into the pot.

Better than he expected.

The girl reached for blueleaf next, crushing it in slow, deliberate circles. The boy chose another base component instead, a fibrous root that would thicken the brew if he empowered it correctly. Harold watched without comment. Either path could work if empowered correctly.

They leaned in together.

Mana slid into the liquid in measured pulses. Color gathered along the edges. Froth threatened and then receded as both corrected their flow. Heat rose, and the surface trembled under the pressure of active binding as they worked to draw out the properties locked within each ingredient.

They did good work, as expected. They’d brewed this potion so many times that their hands knew the motion even when they hesitated.

At the back of the hall, someone whispered a count. Another apprentice edged forward for a better view and nearly stepped into a brazier before Elia snapped a quiet warning and shoved him back with her elbow.

Harold let the distraction pass like wind as he caught Elia’s eye, but she quickly looked away. She had to pay weirguild to her victims' families and repay the cost of the building. Until that was paid off, she wouldn't receive any royalties from her potions.

"Final stage," he prompted after a while watching them flow their mana.

They reached for the honey.

The girl waited until the surface smoothed before she poured. The boy waited too long and had to force his hand forward before the brew could slip out of balance. Both bent close as they sealed the binding, mana tightening through the potion like a knot drawn hard.

Time stretched. Then the sheen came.

A pale glow spread across both cauldrons and held. Harold exhaled through his nose and straightened.

Harold assessed, "Decent. Call it ten to twelve percent improved potency. You both carry minor stability perks already, which saved you from wasting more of the active properties. You must smooth your flow while striking harder pulses through the ingredients. Draw the strength out instead of warming it politely."

He gestured toward the rear tables.

“Good work. You’re ready to move on to more difficult brews.”

The next pair had already started on two setups as the previous students cleaned up.

He looked over with approval and shrugged. Exhaustion gnawed at him after a sleepless night, expecting another report from Hale. He tried to refocus, but his mind wandered from his students’ actions.

The first two performed better than expected, and he couldn’t see why. The improved potency didn’t come from perks, which were rare; the only explanation was improved mana control.

As he watched the two begin building their fires, he figured it out. “Dam, maybe I should thank Elia instead of making her pay for that building.” They had been controlling their own caldrons on braziers and fires instead of the controlled fires they had before in the potion hall. To compensate, they had to control their mana more in order to get it to brew correctly. That led to them improving more.

“Well, guess I found the new training method. The hardest paths make the strongest people,” he thought to himself.

He glanced back at Elia and found she was looking at him again, though she quickly looked away when he caught her looking.

She was looking rougher after her mishap; her good news follows the bad, and she had gained a perk for explosive yield within potions after the mishap for killing multiple people with one potion. It was a bad way to earn a perk like that, and the debt of it weighed on her.

He focused again on the two in front of him and reached for his coffee, only to find it empty. He stared into the cup like it had betrayed him. Frustrated, he sat down and tried to focus on his meditation as his mana senses extended into the potions in front of him.

Mana spread outward from him in slow, widening currents.

He let it brush the cauldrons first. He felt the heat gradients. The uneven pulse of nervous students forcing power into places it did not yet want to go.

Still. His mind drifted.

The stink of charred bark turned into salt and wet stone. He saw the cliff paths again — narrow cuts carved into rock that dropped away into gray surf far below. Wind that never stopped. Gull cries sharp enough to split thought.

Master Balfiel had originally lived there, within the hidden elven city of Ism Thalor. His first master, the one who taught him how to be an alchemist.

He was an old, bitter exile from his home and had found a quiet, secluded valley within the Blackjaws to make his home.

Harold had never learned why the old elf had been cast out of the hidden city, though he had asked enough times. The settlement clung to the cliffside like a secret the world had forgotten. Vine terraces cut into the stone. Small white buildings bleached by salt and sun. The entire city hung on the side of a cliff, with entire sections hidden within it, winding in and out again. The city concealed the magical tree the elves were famed for, though this one was special because it hid within a rock.

He had visited it once; it was a beautiful place, ageless in its beauty, and even now, within his memories, he could feel himself mesmerized by it.

The old elf’s house was built into the valley walls by a large waterfall and lake to remind him of home.

“You will grind until your hands understand what your mind refuses,” Balfiel had said once, watching him work. “Skill comes before comfort. Always.”

He had taught Harold grudgingly and only because Sarah had earned the right.

She had come back from the Blackjaws streaked with mud and triumph, dropping the proof of her completed task onto the elf’s table like she owned the world. Harold had stood behind her then — thinner, angrier, burning with the need to become something more useful than a burden she carried between quests.

Balfiel had not liked him. Harold had always suspected he had given her an impossible task, but in those days, Sarah had made the impossible possible. Always seeing opportunity where others saw obstacles.

The old elf had made that clear from the first day.

Lessons came slowly. Knowledge released like a coin from a clenched fist. Every correction had been sharp. Every success met with another demand. Harold had learned to swallow his temper and keep working, because every scrap of technique mattered. Almost three long years passed like that — him bent over tables carved from stone while Sarah came and went in flashes of movement and laughter. Those had been the only happy times, but he was desperate to be useful to her.

She would arrive needing supplies. Healing draughts. Sometimes poison, sometimes explosive. Concealing agents, other times, a temporary enchantment he could place on weapons with specific potions.

Something experimental he barely understood then. Then she would vanish again into danger he could only imagine.

Wine had been the elf’s indulgence.

Mana-rich grapes cultivated on narrow terraces that drank fog and sunlight in equal measure. Master Balfiel had controlled fermentation like a ritual. Alcohol strong enough to stir the senses of high-tier mana users, and Harold had learned that craft too — patience, temperature, the quiet listening required to guide transformation rather than force it. He had preferred beer, though, and had always felt there was something more honest in it. Wine had a way of hiding flavors he had never been a fan of.

He had learned to endure, and he still didnt think he had the control the older elf exhibited when he was creating his most powerful objects.

A ladle clanged back in the present. Harold opened his eyes.

Two students stood waiting with stoppered bottles held out like offerings. A pale glow shimmered through the glass.

He took one, tilted it toward the brazier light, and watched the mana swirl inside.

“Stability acceptable,” he said. “Potency around nine to eleven percent. You lingered too long on your stabilizers, and that quelled the potency. Correct it next time, but you both possess enough control to move on.”

They nodded too fast.

He handed the bottle back and reached for his empty cup again before remembering. With a faint shake of his head, he set it aside and let his senses stretch once more across the hall.

For a moment, he could almost hear Balfiel’s voice riding the smoke.

Again Harold.