Professor Flammel

John stumbled, having been sitting before he was teleported into a standing position right outside his next class. He walked into what would have looked like a normal high school Chemistry classroom, if it weren’t for the insane amount of glassware on the counters in the lab half of the room. No teacher in their right minds would leave that much expensive equipment out where a student might touch it and cause a massive disaster. He was the first to arrive, including the professor. He walked into the empty room and looked around, wondering what seats were empty and safe for the taking. He walked once around, deliberating, and then a man walked in.

He looked to be in his early 40’s, with graying shoulder-length hair held back by a leather headband, smile lines around his eyes, and a chest-length beard. He wore a strange pair of what looked to be goggles around his neck, and a lab coat over a leather apron. A pair of jeans, a red dress shirt, and black work boots were visible under the apron.

“Are you my new student?”

His voice was gruff, but not unfriendly. John nodded.

“Jim New-somethingorother, right?”

“John Newman, sir.”

“Respect, even when insulted. That is a rare quality. Well, you see, John, you are my only student this class period. I have no idea what was going through administration’s mind when they did this to ya, but all schedules are final so you’re going to have to deal with it. Aarav said you had no discernable experience with Alchemy, is that true?”

John nodded again, starting to fear where this conversation was going.

“Not a man of many words either, you may enjoy this class. Well what Aarav said was obviously true, and you are one of the few students to admit it. Experience in Alchemy isn’t a discernable trait. You can’t tell if someone has a background in astrophysics, or engineering, or microbiology just by looking at them. It’s a science, not a magic. It’s the science of magic, if you ask me.

“To see if you really have any experience with Alchemy, I’ll just have to give you varying difficulty levels of work until we get to where you have no idea what you’re supposed to do. Unfortunately, most students that admitted that Aarav was right in saying they had no discernable experience actually had no experience.

“I don’t want to know whether you have any experience or not yet. I want to see you tackle at least one problem before admitting either way.”

He started walking towards the rear of the classroom, towards the glass jungle. He half turned to John, then motioned for him to follow. John followed. The professor stopped in front of the first countertop and opened a drawer. There was a rune circle carved into the wood. He placed his hand on it and it glowed white, then all the glassware on the countertop started glowing white, and with a flash, it was all gone.

“You won’t be needing all that for what I’m asking you to try today. What you’ll be trying to do, is what every alchemist, or at least every true alchemist, first learns to do: turn lead into gold.”

The rune circle glowed white again and a lump of lead materialized on the countertop after another flash.

“Good luck.”

With that, he walked to the front of the class and pulled a book out of his desk and began reading.

John checked his mana. 30/170

Fuck. I hope I won’t need that much mana for this.

He cast craft on the piece of lead, focusing in his head an image of gold and all the alchemical tools around him. A few seconds passed, and he started to worry that Alchemy wasn’t a crafting skill. Then, a glowing orange blueprint began to scrawl itself onto the counter. The professor looked up from his book with a questioning look, then continued reading.

The blueprint had a picture of a bar of gold. Nothing more. John was confused, but his body took over and he just rolled with it. First, he walked to the back of the room where there was a cabinet full of leather aprons and weird goggles like the ones the professor wore. John put on an apron and a pair of goggles. The headband that held the goggles in place was brown leather, and the glass was clear. There were several attachments with different colored lenses, like the ocular device from National Treasure. He then walked back to the lump of lead and flicked on a silvery set of lenses. The world burst into a nimbus of color, every object had an aura. He focused on the lead, though, and hovered his hands over the aura. The lead’s aura started to pulsate, and spikes of it reached out to John’s hands. John flicked on a blue lens over the silver lens on his right eye. He could see the electron clouds of the atoms in the lump of lead. He flicked on a red lens over the blue one. He could see the cluster of protons and neutrons in the nucleus of one atom. He sent out a tendril of mana and slowly pried off three protons. Then, in a backwards ripple effect, three protons from every lead atom got sucked into his mana. He released the protons as Hydrogen gas.

He took the colored lenses off of his goggles, and in front of him was a lump of gold. Then he put his hand on it and, with a flash of mana, there was a bar of gold. The blueprint faded off of the table.

“Well done, looks like you do know your basics. Or at least, your magic does.”

The professor raised an eyebrow at John. John shrugged, not wanting to give anything away.

“You had no idea what you were doing the entire time. I saw it in your face. You were confused. An Alchemist who knew that he was making gold out of lead would have a shit-eating grin on his face. You cast a spell and let the magic do the work for you. Just like in your Smithing class.”

John nodded.

“That’s some really rare magic, kid. Fire, Smithing, Alchemy, Summoning. The weirdest combination I’ve ever seen. And your class schedule tells me that there’s even more to come.”

He grunted.

“You better watch your back, John. The students here don’t take kindly to powerful upstarts with eclectic abilities. But that’s enough grimdark. Your next test! Wait.”

He looked at the clock.

“Oh. Not enough time for your next test. Read a book or something, I guess.”

The professor walked back to his desk, mumbling to himself. John looked at the clock. There was an hour left in class.

What would he make me try to do that would take over an hour in a two-hour long class?

He sat at a desk and meditated until the bell rang.

Loud music was playing. Violins, violas, cellos, and double basses sang. Trumpets, trombones, baritones, and tubas blared. A full symphony, and all the less iconic instruments included. The 3rd movement of Beethoven’s 7th. A girl with lime green shoulder length hair bobbed her hair to the beat, and waved a conducting baton in her left hand. She stood still in front of a wall of speakers, her oversized purple sweater falling to almost her knees. Her bare feet were planted shoulder-width apart. Her legs were bare as well. Her electric blue eyes shone with an intensity born of passion as she conducted her symphony.

“LIZ! TURN THAT SHIT DOWN! I CAN’T HEAR MYSELF THINK!”

A voice floated up from downstairs. The girl rolled her eyes and flicked her baton at the speakers. An arc of electricity zapped from her hand, up the baton, off the tip and into the speaker in the center of the wall. The music stopped.

The bell rang, and John was teleported into the courtyard. He stayed aware of his surroundings, no one was going to surprise him. He made it to the gates safely. As he walked towards where his car was parked, someone called out to him.

“Oi! Newman!”

John turned to see another group of thugs. This group was bigger than the last one, and they wore matching green flat bill hats instead of bandanas.

“We heard you gave Julie a hard time. We’re here to return the favor.”

John had a feeling they were more capable than the last group.