“So that was what it was,” Roland lamented in his heart,
Such a coincidence, to meet again after crossing many rivers and walking along windy mountain roads… Now that they had already such a close relationship, wasn’t it possible to get an even bigger discount for buying and selling? He coughed twice, “Ms. Margaret since we can be counted as acquaintances, about that deal.”
“Your Highness, that just won’t do,” Margaret laughed. “A deal is a deal. This is the businessman’s eternal principle.”
Kyle Sichi walked into the Alchemy Workshop.
“Head Instructor,” when the apprentices saw him enter they immediately bowed.
He waved his hand, “You may carry on.”
The apprentice squatted down again, once again busying themselves with their work.
The outermost part of the workshop was the cleaning and sorting room; it was here that all of the gathered materials from all over the Kingdom of Graycastle was cleaned, sorted, filtered and ground down. The design of the cleaning and sorting room was very ingenious, laid within the stone floor were two rills with water flowing in them which were also parallel to each other. The area in the middle was the path, while the outermost sides of the room were used as cleansing area, and were accessible by wooden bridges.
At first glance, the long and narrow washroom was divided by the two streams into three sections. The light would fall into the room through windows on both sides, shining on the stone floor and streams, sending strips of lights through the long room. The overlap between light and dark resembled the strip of a snake.
Nearly one hundred apprentices leaned against the walls, dealing with the materials assigned to them. If the impurities could be easily cleaned and were lighter than the water, it could be directly thrown into the stream. If it was heavier than water, they would be put into a basket, to be brought out of the washing room and then discarded. The effect of cleaning with running water was several times more effective than cleaning in a cask of stagnant water.
The apprentice had to study here for three to five years. Only when their proficiency in the sorting and cleaning of all kinds of materials were good enough and the corresponding knowledge was known by them, did they get the opportunity to be selected as a disciple under an instructor, and in so doing moving on to the next room.
Kyle marched through the washing room, stepping into the core area of the Alchemy Workshop, the refining room.
When he opened the door, his line of sight suddenly opened to a wide panorama, twelve giant wooden pillars, all of which came out of the Concealing Forest and were delivered by ship, propping up this extremely spacious room. Within the surrounding stone walls, there were many windows, and even the roof was included in the construction and had many windows connected to the patio, making the room very bright.
In the center of the refining room, there were arranged six wide wooden tables. The tables were filled with all kinds of alchemical utensils: round bottomed flasks, glasses, scales, mortars, furnaces, crucibles… Each instructor was responsible for the management and use of one table, and Kyle, as Redwater City’s Head Instructor, naturally had the longest and widest table to himself, with most of the utensils placed on it.
The room was always full of clutter and in disorder, just like the alchemy process in general. Mixing all kinds of raw materials together then heating, carbonizing, watering or burning them. The results were ever changing, and simply fascinating.
In case you were able to find a clear path to follow within all these changes and disorders, it would become written down, turning it into one of the extremely rare alchemy formulas. As long as you were able to create a unique formula, you could be called an alchemist. So far, Kyle has had written down more than a dozen alchemy formulas, and he believed that each of them had been directly sent to him by God and that alchemy could be developing to such a level, that it would even be possible to separate the origin, making it possible to transmute everything.
“Chavez, how far are you with your Snow Powder imitation?” He asked.
