Sharp

“A poisoner is not an affliction specialist. Get that into your head. Affliction specialists throw out generic poisons, diseases and curses with no thought of tailoring them to the target. Indeed, they can’t tailor them because they come from general skills. A poisoner will tailor the poison to the target for a much more effective result. A poisoner is a specialist alchemist altering the magic in the poison for a particular purpose. You may not want to kill. You may want to put your target to sleep, numb them, or disorientate or affect their minds to lose memories. All these things a poisoner can do, even after the body changes to silver rank and has fewer vulnerabilities. It is called magic, and the magic is in the poison.

“What is the most common poison used today?” Professor Russom was an elderly Human. The signs of age are unusual. I couldn’t determine his level, so it was at least silver.

Puzzled expressions followed by some suggestions.

“Snake venom?”

“No.

“Necrotic?”

“Probably the most popular with affliction specialists, but no.”

“Pesticides.”

“That is different thinking, but no. It is alcohol. People willingly drink alcohol by the keg. Why? for the way it makes you feel—the buzz, the loosening of control. That is the poison working. You can get alcohol ranked Iron, bronze, and silver. A clever Poisoner can rank up any poison. I will not be teaching you to brew or distil alcohol. Go do your own experiments for that. I am available for testing.

“Can you create a poison to increase the cooldown on somebody’s skills? Of course, you can, but it is not easy. Magic affects magic, and poisons are often overlooked as a medium to affect the magic around us.”

“The first lesson you have to learn is that you are not immune to the poisons you make. Everybody learns this the hard way despite all the warnings. Hopefully, the lesson will not be fatal. This is the only lab you will use for your poisons, and you will keep it spotless. At each station are gloves, aprons, eye masks and breathing masks. Use them. At the back are some generic antidotes. If you use them, you will pay for them because it means you have failed in the first line of protection.

“This first concoction you are going to prepare is for me to get an idea of your level of alchemy. You all know that from iron rank on, you don’t need to have pesky annoyances like going to the toilet. This concoction is my own design, and it will enable you to give an iron ranker the runs,” he grinned.

This was going to be a good course. The professor went on to describe different delivery methods as well as different types of poisons. Turning them into gases can be effective. Learning to detect and identify different poisons was going to be a big part of the course. Creating antidotes to poisons was as much a part of the course as creating poisons. More than half the course was going to be identifying a poison and designing an antidote before the “victim” dies. There is a strong demand for antidotes to the poisons put out by affliction specialists. Professor Russom consulted for several of the Arena teams about poisons and antidotes.

Weapon Construction and Maintenance started with Professor Sue saying, “Anything can be a weapon, so we will concentrate on the more common ones. Swords, Knives, Spears, Axes, War hammers and maces. Wooden weapons and bows are taught in a different course. This course will not make you a blacksmith or even a weaponsmith. If that is your aim, then you need to find an apprenticeship. I can help with that, so come and see me. The most we will do here in the forge is make a small utility knife. Then, we will test the knives against the training materials and see how bad they are. Weapon crafting is a full-time occupation.

“However, we won’t just be teaching metal weapons. On the desk before you is a section of Iron-rank Earth-Beetle Chitin. Our first exercise is to shape this into two different knives, one with a straight edge and one with a serrated edge. We will then sharpen them up and add a leather handle. You will follow the designs because both knives need a crossguard for your protection. This exercise will get you working with different materials, and we can compare the benefits and weaknesses against the most common metal blades, as well as the difference between a straight edge and a serrated edge.”

“Can I make a bone knife, Professor Sue?” Asked a student.

“You can in your own time. The principles are the same as the chitin. Bone is generally weaker, but there are alchemical solutions that can treat it so it can stand up to a lot more. If you want to form knives from different materials, come and see me. Stone is a common one and I knew a guy with the Granite essence who specialised in stone weapons.

“Back to the chitin. There is a specialised knife on your desk for chitin as the chitin can crack if you are not careful. You need always to keep the blade sharp…”

This was going to be a great course. I need to talk to the guy wanting to make the bone knife, as I can probably source the Alchemical supplies. My Reaping Magic sometimes offers bones, so making them into knives seems a good upgrade. I also get chitin. Maybe the guy has the Bone Essence. That could be a mutually beneficial arrangement.

“Most Industrial Alchemists protect their formulas like a dragon protects its hoard. Most are never written down but passed from master to apprentice. The Alchemy Association has some publicly available formulas; the most well-known is Crystal Wash. Crystal Wash is beyond the scope of this course; you can waste your own coin trying to make that.

“This course will cover a range of different uses for alchemy, and if you want to take it further, you will need to do an apprenticeship. I do look for promising students to assist me in furthering my alchemy work. Don’t bother asking until the mid-semester exams are done.

“We will cover cleaning, Cloth and Rope, Leather, including tanning, Acids and anti-acids, Metals and common solutions in Blacksmithing, Mining, and explosives. We will spend some time on methods of breaking down a formula to determine how it works. As in all alchemy, the focus is on distilling and refining the magic and harnessing it for the purpose.”

“If you want something in particular, you will need to research how it works and create it. The final assignment for this course is doing just that: creating a formula for a purpose that you want to use. I expect to have your final projects approved by the mid-semester exam, and this will dominate the second half of the semester.”

OK, I guess the first thing is to become a member of the Alchemist Association and see what formulae are available. If there are no available formulae, I might need to put off the bone guy. I might need to create one. Nothing is ever easy. However, becoming a member of the Alchemist Association will get me access to their member discounts and priority for my sale of herbs. Accessing the right quintessence is as much a key to formulae as the other ingredients. The discount is very useful.

Industrial alchemy does not have as high a profile as Medicinal Alchemy. Everybody wants healing potions, and the more potent ones bring in more coins. Industrial alchemy is great in its wide range of uses, and most industrial alchemists specialise. I have no intention of specialising. I want a bit of knowledge in every part of alchemy at this stage. Making the basics is good for now. It is the more potent formulae that are usually locked away.

This analysis of existing alchemical solutions and working out the magic behind them is the most useful thing. Of course, it is not easy. I am picking the mid-semester exam is going to be us working out what an unknown formula is.

“If you are in this class, you have all completed Melee Basics, so you have a basic technique or sometimes more than one. What this class will do is take the basic technique, hone it, and refine it, making it your own. This will change your technique into something new, something unique to you. This makes it into something that will grow with you as you rank up. As your reflexes and physical abilities grow with your ranking, this technique will grow with you. That is why it is so important not just to use the standard technique.

Those of you who are specialists, and I know we have a lot of sword users here, that is your main weapon. We are also going to train your backup weapon. For most of you, that will be a knife. For those of you who trained in more than one weapon, we will focus on your main weapon. If you get ambushed, what are you going to fight with? Then what is your backup weapon? Your backup needs to be readily accessible as you will need it in a hurry.”

My main weapon was going to be the axe and shield, and my backup weapon was my claws and teeth. Jeb warned me that people would look down on me by fighting with claws and teeth, but that is OK with me. My self-esteem does not depend on what other people think, and a low opinion might help with certain stuck-up nobles. I have Rend. I need to level, and nobody will be able to disarm me unless it is literally like Astrid did in the first assessment.

Melee fighting is going to be a lot of hard work and training. The instructor didn’t think we would get past my main weapon. If I wanted to do the same for the spear, I could work at it myself or retake the course next Semester. I would not be the first to do that.