NOVEL NEXT Chapter 196: A "Complete Accident"
When Wulf woke up the next morning, the Academy was in a panic. He pretended to not know why.
When he visited the common room, the word of the codex's destruction had already spread. Terrence stood on a table, arms crossed, looking out over a crowd of students. "There is nothing to fear, fellow students. Tremors from all the recent demon-sphere impacts and moon chunks caused a destabilization, which eventually caused a chain reaction in the codex room." He looked down at a set of note cards, then said, "There is no sign of sabotage or tampering at this time."
"Terrence, you know that's not the reason!" Wulf shouted, rising up on his tip-toes.
"What are you doing?" Kalee hissed, and tugged on his arm.
"You will address me as Wingmaster, Hrothen!"
"We'll see. I'm not sure how much longer you have with the title," Wulf snapped. "But you're telling me that faint tremors did it, and not the Five Orichalcum Guilds tampering with the information storage? You've all seen it. Books just disappearing from the search, history changed slightly, or how about sections of books becoming outright redacted. They've tampered more with the codex in these past few months than they have in the past decade, and you don't think that would damage it?"
Technically, that wasn't why it broke either. But he'd rather them turn against the Orichalcums at the moment, instead of an inevitable natural consequence of the demon invasions.
The crowd began murmuring. A few of them turned to leave.
"No, wait!" Terrence shouted. "There is no evidence of those claims—"
"There's no evidence of the official story either!" Irmond shouted. "But which one makes more sense?"
"Regardless," Terrence stressed, clearly trying to shift the conversation, "the Faculty of Artificing will be taking any and all tips, if anyone has any idea of what might have happened, and any suggestions. Thank you, and that will be all."
As people pestered him, he jumped down from the table and marched away. Wulf hung back, arms crossed, and sighed.
Terrence and the academy—and the Orichalcums—were going to get desperate. It was only a matter of time before he'd have to fight for his life against humans, and he needed to start preparing.
~ ~ ~
Wulf spent every evening in the coming days working on potions. Most were coming out at Low-Gold now, but with extra time and effort, and the best ingredients, he could reach Low-Ruby consistently.
His potted grass, having been fed pure mana-water for what was the equivalent time of probably decade, with all the time manipulation that he put his storage pendant through, was now Middle-Silver as a base.
He continued practice, refining his skills, forcing himself to never let his stirring get lazy or his mind to wander while making potions. After a few weeks, his average potion came out at Middle-Gold.
Of course, he had to use the potions, too. Every evening, he spent about an hour in Dr. Tallari's workshop. They replaced some of the damaged crystals in the codex with the backups the professor had made, and Wulf used his potions to create an aura with his Class ability, allowing them to temporarily test the codex when he fuelled the crystals.
All in all, it pushed him closer to Middle-Gold with every day that passed.
When Ninthmonth ended, one evening, when he was practicing alchemy in his dorm while Irmond studied and finished his readings, he reached one hundred percent advancement progress.
His core had compressed, visibly shrinking in size, until it was about a third of the size it'd been when he'd advanced to Gold.
His bracer read:
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
[By compressing your core, your tier has increased. Advancement progress: 101.9%]
[You have increased your Tier to Middle-Gold.]
[You may upgrade two Marks, and all your Skills and Marks have their effectiveness slightly increased.]
An upgrade, as he understood, was a massive leap in power, whereas if the Field said they had a slight increase in effectiveness, it meant the Skill or Mark didn't have the written text changed, but the way it worked was simply improved. [Arm of the Alchemist] would probably take less mana to use, while hitting harder.
He placed his two conscious upgrades into his last Grand Mark, because it needed more upgrades, and it had plenty of strong basic Marks nestled under it, then told Irmond what had happened.
"I'm still at Low-Gold," Irmond replied. "Thirty percent progress."
"Then that's a good sign," Wulf replied. "Means you're not ready to give up and stall out, yet."
"I feel close. I'm not sure if I can go the distance."
"We'll see," Wulf said. "Even if you don't make it to Orichalcum, you'll still have done impressively well for any Ascendant."
"It feels weird to hear you saying that."
"I feel like I've said something like that before." Wulf scratched the back of his head. "At least once before."
"Maybe, but it usually feels like others have to remind you."
He shrugged. "Regardless, if you can keep advancing, then don't give up. I found that after completing class-related skills, I felt a lot more prepared to compress my core, and the compression stuck much, much easier."
"But I can't just brew potions."
"I…actually had an idea to deal with that slight issue."
~ ~ ~
"Ah, Wulf, come in," Dr. Azanthius said. "First time since the codex malfunction that you've come to visit me. Is everything alright?"
"I came to ask a favour, sir, actually."
"A favour, you say?"
"Could we get a dungeon pass? I hear you've given some out to the fourth years. One run a week, deep as they want, provided they leave the first floor for the lower years and don't clear it out."
Azanthius chuckled. "Of course, Wulf. I thought McGemmild would've already given you one."
"Well, I considered asking her, but in all honesty, I don't know if she likes me much. She's hard to read."
"That she is…" Azanthius muttered, as if the two of them had history. Then, he pulled open a drawer beneath his desk. "I'll write up a permission slip for you. Come back around this time tomorrow, and it'll be there for you."
"Thanks."
"Now, you as an Alchemist, you don't need the dungeon at all, do you? I assume you have your own supply of resources, and it's not my place to ask perfect specifics, but what could you need the dungeon for?"
"My crew, headmaster." Wulf shrugged. "They've got arena fights, sure, but Irmond got eliminated recently, and Kalee's next fight is against Leo."
"You don't think she can win?"
"I'd like to have alternatives to advancement in case she can't. Besides, fights are too far apart for combat Classes like Mages and Rangers to really make use of."
"To make use of on a timeline like yours, you mean," Azanthius reminded him.
"Yes, well…" Wulf scratched the back of his head.
"Don't worry, I'll have the slip ready for you. Show it to Dr. Blyke if he gets mad at you for trying to depart, and show it to the guards at the dungeon entrance if they try to get in your way. They'll let you pass without a fuss after seeing my signature."
"Thanks, sir."
They both went quiet for a few seconds, before finally, Azanthius said, "So? Was the codex your doing?"
"I was going to ask you if you knew anything about it," Wulf said with a smile. "Or if you knew who had done it."
"So you had your eyes on my codex, huh?"
"Well, I had considered ways to protect it." Wulf raised a finger. "But that's exactly what someone trying to deflect the blame would do."
"Then let's simply agree that it was a complete accident that it got destroyed, and never talk about it again." Azanthius winked at Wulf.
"Sounds good, headmaster."
~ ~ ~
Over the next few weeks, they took Wraith down to the dungeon every week. Wulf didn't focus on gathering resources, but if he found rare loot from monsters that he could use in a potion, he always took it.
But more importantly, it gave Kalee and Irmond the chances they needed to compress their cores. In Wulf's own experiences, he needed that extra push or kick to keep the momentum going. There was always a burst of advancement progress after the initial "Class activity," whether it was crafting or fighting, but you needed a constant stream of activity related to your Class in order to keep up the pace.
The day before reading week began, on his last Sixthday, he found a note slipped under the door of his dorm room. A note from Valens.
Wulf picked up the note and breathed, "Did he find it?" But it only said:
Tomorrow. Meet me at the Order hall.
- Valens