“Have you studied the books?” Vigo’s voice clipped the silence of the corridor as they approached his office.

  “Yes.” Arthur kept his grip tight—a glass vial of green liquid in his right hand, a bulging satchel anchored in his left.

  Vigo slid his key into the lock. The tumblers clicked.

  “Prepare some ingredients for me.”

  Arthur stepped toward the sprawling bookshelf while Vigo dropped a heavy leather case of papers onto his desk.

  “I am an alchemist, but I am also a teacher,” Vigo said, his tone shifting into a cold, practiced cadence. “Preparation must be autonomous. Every day. Completed within a half hour. But as this is your first day, I will demonstrate the procedure. Your primary directive from this moment forward is to assist my experiments. The experience itself will be your instructor.”

  He pressed his palm against the narrow gap between two bookshelves. A familiar emerald luminescence bled from the wood.

  It’s exactly as I suspected—Head Instructor Vigo is a true virtuoso of Magic Engineering.

  This mechanism’s trigger relies on far more than a crude burst of elemental mana. Vigo is micromanaging every current, altering the pace, fracturing the energy into multiple streams to align each invisible tumbler of the permutation lock in perfect sequence.

  I must memorize this.

  “If I may ask,” Arthur ventured, “what specific fields of experiment will we be conducting?”

  “Alchemy dictates our current research,” Vigo replied, already resuming his march across the room. “Though we may entertain discourse on other subjects when time permits.”

  He swept an arm toward a monolithic wall of cabinets.

  “All ingredients reside here. Alphabetical order, top left to bottom right. Each bears a tag, though you will find several vacant.”

  Vigo paced the length of the wall, halting exactly three times. His hands darted out, extracting three distinct items and dropping them into a woven basket. Reaching the corner, he pivoted a sharp one-hundred-and-thirty-five degrees and strode to the dead center of the chamber.

  “This is the crucible,” Vigo announced. “Where all alchemy occurs. I will now commence preparation.”

  He snatched two flasks of clear liquid from a side table, dumping them into a four-liter iron pot in a precise one-to-one ratio. The mixture sat inert, devoid of any violent reaction. Satisfied, Vigo submerged a pristine white rag into the fluid.

  “Total sterilization precedes every operation. I manually aerate this laboratory every dawn, but we must choke out every conceivable risk of contamination.”

  He yanked a thick rope dangling near the hearth. Above, gears ground together, and pure moonlight spilled down through the chimney’s throat.

  “Keep the door ajar during sanitation to allow the fumes an escape route. Do not inhale deeply, or you may hallucinate—this is a violently potent disinfectant. The door remains open for five minutes post-cleaning.”

  “Do not fear chimney contamination. Layered barriers inside the flue incinerate dust and repel external intruders. Your greatest threat of contamination, rather, is yourself.”

  “Dip your hands briefly into the basin.”

  “Once the surfaces are purified, you will synthesize the exact compounds I instruct, pulling from those cabinets just as I have.”

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Vigo retrieved the three items from his basket.

  “Observe. These synthesize Sivanamine, identical to the sample you brought here.” He hovered a hand over two of the components, stirring them directly into a nearby pot of emerald liquid.

  “But this,” Vigo murmured, “you likely do not recognize.”

  He picked up a disk that looked entirely unnatural. Flawed in its circumference, yet impossibly, razor-thin throughout.

  “This is a genuine alchemical component. A far cry from the crude powders and medicinal weeds you know. Just as the philosopher’s stone transmutes base lead into coveted gold, Gorium devours ordinary ingredients and regurgitates an elevated form.”

  Gorium? I never encountered a single mention of it in the texts he provided!

  Vigo plunged the disk into the pot. The liquid erupted. Jade froth churned, darkening violently into a sludge-like brown. The caustic bubbles surged upward, kissing the very rim of the pot before receding—without spilling a single drop. As the froth dissolved, a murky, stagnant fluid remained.

  “What… what is it?” Arthur breathed.

  “Hush.”

  Emerald light flooded the wall by the entryway. Vigo tapped a nondescript groove on the adjacent counter. Instantly, the alchemist’s shadow stretched. He seemed to shoot upward—no, the floor beneath Arthur simply vanished. The ground plummeted, swallowing Arthur into pitch darkness.

  Woah. Not even a second to brace myself. I’ve already hit the bottom.

  Pitch black. I can’t see a thing.

  “Hey, Vigo,” a voice echoed down from the world above.

  That voice—is it Head Instructor Clive?

  How does he know about this hidden chamber? Don't tell me—did I lead him right to the door?

  “Clive,” Vigo called back. His tone smoothed out, shedding its icy edge for an empty, practiced warmth. “It is pleasant to see you return to the laboratory. I trust this means your recovery progresses?”

  “It does, largely thanks to your unwavering support. Is there anything you require assistance with, or is that all?”

  Stone ground against stone. Arthur pinpointed the harsh, rhythmic scrape of a mortar and pestle from the darkness.

  “That is all. But I could have sworn I heard someone else in here—did you take on a new apprentice?”

  “I would not permit incompetent children to contaminate my research,” Vigo retorted sharply. “Leave if your business is concluded. You are hindering my work.”

  A heavy door slammed shut far above. Seconds ticked by in the suffocating black. Then, the mechanical shriek of gears woke the shaft, descending toward Arthur. Overhead lamps snapped to life, their harsh glare catching the cold reflection in Vigo’s spectacles as the platform settled.

  “Does the entire faculty support our practices?” Vigo asked, stepping off the lift, a porcelain cup cradled in his palm.

  “Unfortunately, they are not yet ready to accept the totality of my work. They operate under the delusion that they have uncovered my secrets. They are completely mistaken.”

  “They deny my petitions in every other regard—alchemy remains absent from the Academy’s curriculum despite my relentless advocacy. In placation, they grant me authorization to conduct my private alchemy. It is barbaric, but it provides the perfect alibi to actually accomplish what I desire.”

  “The experiments conducted above encompass books one through five.”

  “There is much more to alchemy than that.”

  “This is the crucible where the true experiments are conducted.”

  Arthur’s eyes swept the subterranean laboratory. It mirrored the dimensions of the room above—a perfect rectangle with a central alchemy station. But the walls held no standard cabinets. Instead, they were lined with towering, transparent cells. Not iron bars, but seamless, glass-like encasements. Inside each pod floated a perfectly motionless organism.

  “Here, we unravel the mysteries of book six, and we shall develop book seven—my Magnum Opus.”

  Arthur’s gaze locked onto a cluster of pods. “Are those… humans?” he asked, pointing a trembling finger at the pale bodies suspended within. They possessed four spindly limbs, a torso, and a head—a terrifyingly familiar anatomy.

  “Experiments conducted on human anatomy to yield human applications guarantee the highest fidelity of data. After all, humans are human,” Vigo said smoothly. “But those are not human. Look closely at the finned ears. Those are Seamen. Monsters.”

  “...Are they alive?” Arthur asked, stepping closer to inspect one of the pods.

  “Does it make a difference?”

  Arthur’s blood turned to ice. His mind didn't race; it simply stopped, paralyzed by raw, primal dread. The shift in Vigo’s inflection was microscopic, but a monstrous, suffocating emotion now poisoned the air between them.

  Arthur swallowed hard, a prisoner awaiting the executioner's gavel.

  “No, of course not,” Arthur swore to the lie, meaning every single syllable. “The ends justify the means. No cost is too high for the sake of progress.”

  “I knew it was a good choice to take you in,” Vigo said, his voice practically vibrating with twisted delight. The thick mustache entirely masked his mouth, but Arthur didn't need to see his lips to know the alchemist was smiling.

  And knowing that, Arthur forced his own lips to curl upward into a smile to match.