Fate Alchemist - A Regression Academy LitRPG

After combat training on Firstday, Wulf and Kalee ran straight to the main hall for dinner. They were almost late.

Dinner today was when he was going to make a move on the Lions. He had to start an infiltration somewhere, and it was better to play the fool than let them catch him and get suspicious.

As they ate a hearty dinner of steak and potatoes, he took a seat near the front of the table, right beside the Lions. Their most important members—like Varl and Athllas—sat at the center of the cluster, flanked by lesser members of the Association.

Wulf plunked himself down right beside a skinny human boy. Judging by the High-Bronze badge, the boy was a third year. "What do you want?" the boy demanded.

"I was looking to join," Wulf said plainly.

"You?" The boy scoffed. "No, no. Get out of here, and don't talk to us again. We don't take low-ranked second years. Already a wash-up, already useless."

"How do you know I'm low-ranked?" Wulf asked. "How do you know any of us are low-ranked?"

The boy laughed again. "You want all four of you? That's even worse. All of you guys have that look about you. Not very confident, not groomed, you're clearly not part of a fancy guild or another Association—we only take people who have already been in lesser Associations. You must be low ranked."

"I'm ranked one hundred and seventy-six in the entire year," Wulf said. "That's hardly low, considering I just got here and haven't been in a tournament fight yet."

The boy let out a huff.

"And Kalee here is ranked one hundred and seventy eight," Wulf added. "Irmond is three hundred and fifty, and Seith is three hundred and twenty-three. We were just promoted from the Istalis Academy, and—"

"What's this?" Varl asked, leaning over the table to look right at them. "Some fresh blood trying to get in, hm?" He tilted his head and stood up, then walked over behind them. "What're they asking for, Fim?"

The boy—probably Fim—said, "They want to join, sir."

"And you're telling them to go away?"

"Aye, sir."

"Is that Association policy?" Varl demanded. It was a leading question, as if Varl already knew the answer.

"Under Ymara, it was. They needed a recommendation from—"

"And I'm not Ymara." Varl shook his head, then wedged himself in between Wulf and Kalee, forcing them to inch over on the bench. "I recognize you four. You said you're from Istalis, yeah?"

Wulf nodded.

"You wouldn't happen to be the bunch who stole a couple Oroniths and fended off a couple demon attacks nearly single-handedly, would you?"

Wulf nodded again, much slower this time.

"I'll make you a deal," Varl said. "Considering your impressive track record, I'll cut you some slack if you want to get in on the…business. You know what we're up to, yeah? Looking to get a little money for yourselves, or get some connections in the upper world? Or maybe you've just got a craving for reema and want to skim some off the top? I don't care."

"What do we have to do?" Wulf asked.

"I'm going to…have your upcoming tournament fights adjusted." Varl glanced around cautiously, and looked at Terrence especially. "I'll make sure you go up against opponents rated nearly at the top of your brackets. Considering you four are likely at the bottom of your brackets."

Wulf sighed. "That would be true."

"So I pull some strings, make your fights harder," Varl continued. "You win, I'll let you join the Lions. You lose, you never talk to us again."

"I accept," Wulf said.

"Good. Check your tournament dates tomorrow morning when the new posting goes up."

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~ ~ ~

The next morning, when he met the others at the running track, he took a long look at the upcoming tournament bracket. He hadn't checked before, but his first fight was in a few weeks, and it was against someone named Remy. Uninteresting on its own, but they placed Wulf's odds of defeat at 1:30.

Not amazing, but he'd believe that when the fight actually came. For Irmond and Kalee, the fights had a similar level of difficulty, but for Seith, her odds of victory were listed as 1:70.

Wulf raised his eyebrows, until he saw the name of her opponent. Meirim Telgrad.

"Those bastards," she spat. "They put me against my brother."

Wulf sighed. "Is that…a bad thing?"

"I'm not going to win," she said. It was probably the most confident she'd ever sounded.

"Just because the odds are bad doesn't mean you can't pull it off," Wulf insisted. "You know what these people are like. They don't have an unbiased bone in their body."

"It's not just the odds," Seith said. "I spent my first eighteen years in a constant fight with the others of my litter." She crossed her arms and stepped back. "My earliest memory is of fighting my brother in an arena. He beat me, pounding my face into the sand and making my nose bleed. I was…five years old."

"They've fought almost every week since that day," Irmond said. "She—"

"Not the time, Red."

"Sorry," Irmond muttered.

Wulf chuckled a little, but the situation didn't exactly call for humour, and he straightened his face immediately. "Did you ever beat him?"

"Not once. He's just better at everything. He's a Pilot. He's got a stone aspect, and I don't."

Wulf put a hand on her shoulder. "I don't believe that. Now, look, last tournament, we took you out immediately, and I'm sorry about that, but let's not buy into that aspect-bias stuff. There's no reason an Artificer is worse, less skilled, less strong than a Pilot. You didn't think that back in Istalis."

Seith sighed. "I can try, but—"

"We'll help you," Wulf said. It was his job to lift up his crew. "We'll book a sparring session in the gyms every evening, and we'll help you get into the habit of fighting a Pilot, without smashing your face into the ground."

"Right. Yeah."

"Seith, we'll help you. If you need, I'll even make you a potion." He lifted his hand up. "That's a promise."

~ ~ ~

For the rest of Secondday, Wulf went about his schedule. He had a class late in the morning, another option. It was called Introduction to Codex Construction. Technically, it was for Artificers, but since there wasn't a lab component, he could join.

There was no lab component, it turned out, because they were only discussing the theory of creating massive codexes. They didn't have the resources to do so. Also, according to the professor (Dr. Tallari), Codex Artificer was an incredibly coveted position.

That being said, because of how rare the main component of a codex was—a lost Messenger—there would be no practical component of the class whatsoever.

Afterward, he had lunch, then ventured to his last class: Introduction to Dungeon Delving. It was the most important class of the semester, and it would, in fact, run all year. They wouldn't get to delve into the dungeons yet, but they would learn precisely what the dungeons were, strategies for raiding them, and there was a lab component: in the second semester, they would embark on their first expedition into the depths.

The professor, Dr. McGemild, was an elderly woman who wore an emerald-green robe and carried a Low-Ruby rank badge. Judging by how old she looked, she must have been a couple centuries old at least, if she was a Ruby.

Wulf didn't have to like the Academy, but he could respect her knowledge, given how much she must've had.

As such, she began the lecture with: "Since this is a second year class, expect no leniency. We will begin with heavy information, you will receive a deluge throughout the semester, and if you are not drowning in dungeon information by the end of the year, I will have done my job horribly wrong. There will be no late assignments accepted, and a partially incorrect answer on a worksheet or test will receive no points. I expect that most of you will fail on your first attempt of this class."

Wulf blinked slowly. Maybe he didn't like her very much, after all. A class that you were expected to fail couldn't be a very well-taught class.

"For in a dungeon, you will receive no leniency from the Field. A failure will be a failure, no matter the strain, and it will be your death. The monsters native to our world will show you no mercy. I hope to never lose a student who passes this class, however, there are still exceptions." She folded her fingers and met the lecture theater with a grave expression. "And it should be noted that there are many cases where you will meet a fate worse than death. I will not elaborate, except to say that you should heed my teachings if you want to live far into the future with your mind and soul intact."

Wulf sighed, then leaned back. This was the only class where he was together with Kalee, Seith, and Irmond—they'd planned their schedules accordingly. That meant that, for an hour and a half, Athllas had no one watching him. He'd definitely be fine, but they couldn't push it too far.

He glanced at Kalee, and she shrugged. "I've never been in a dungeon before," she whispered. "It's not exactly a place you take the blind girl."

"Right," Wulf muttered. "Well, she's probably making it out to be worse than it is. Most of them were just…fighting monsters. I mean, hard, yes, but not impossible. Not a fate worse than death. It is, I suppose, possible that there are dungeons worse than the ones I frequented. I never fully cleared out a dungeon in my past life, either."

"Don't, like, look at me, man," Irmond said. "You're the only one of us who has experience with that kind of stuff."

"Please open your notebooks," Dr. McGemild said. "Draw your quills, and we will begin our studies."