The most shameless alchemist in history

"Durey, what's going on with this academy? One terrible thing after another has happened. Everyone says Maple Leaf Academy is a cursed place. Do you think that's true?" On the way back, Lance shrank back, remembering the rumors he had heard before, and asked Durey in a low voice.

"You actually believe in something like 'cursed' just because I have a cursed thing on my hand?" The cursed thing Du Lei was referring to was naturally the cursed bracelet that he was temporarily keeping. He didn't believe in those mystical things, otherwise he wouldn't have accepted it so readily.

“But look at what’s happened lately, earthquakes and fires. You saw it last night too, that fire just wouldn’t go out. Apparently, some people saw ghosts in the fire, huge ones, and some even saw huge footprints at the scene. It’s terrifying.” Lance gestured with his hands.

Dure rarely talks to others and is the type who seems unapproachable. But Lance is different. He gets along very well with a group of students in the training hall and has obtained a lot of information from them. In a sense, he plays the role of gathering intelligence for Dure.

“If it can leave footprints, how can it be a ghost? Have you forgotten what we encountered in the Misty Forest?” Dure scoffed at this. He had only listened to Lance for a few words before finding the flaw in the argument. His insight was far superior to Lance’s.

"The one you encountered in the Misty Forest...you mean the Flame Lizard?" Lance thought carefully and quickly recalled the attack he had experienced. It hadn't been long, and even with his bad memory, he remembered it clearly.

"That's right. If I'm not mistaken, the beast that attacked the academy last night was probably a fire-attribute magical beast. Don't forget that this is a gathering area for magical beasts. It's not unusual for a few high-level magical beasts to occasionally come in and cause trouble. Just wait and see, the academy will issue an announcement soon."

Dure spoke with conviction, and his arguments were all based on evidence, not fabricated out of thin air, making them very convincing.

"Now that you mention it, it seems that's true. So, was the previous earthquake also caused by magical beasts?" Lance brought up the earthquake again.

"Well, that's about right," Dure said vaguely, as he couldn't possibly tell Lance that the earthquake was related to him.

“That puts my mind at ease. I thought there really were ghosts in the academy. Alright, I can get back to training now. Well then, Durei, goodbye for now.” Lance’s tense expression relaxed. He breathed a sigh of relief and said goodbye to Durei as they reached a fork in the road.

He turned to the left, towards the training hall. To him, it would be a waste not to train hard and sweat it out in such good weather.

"He's such a big guy, he won't be afraid of ghosts, will he? Oh well, I should probably get back to business. I feel like I have a pretty solid grasp of the theoretical knowledge of alchemy, so now all that's left is to experiment." Dure didn't go to the library; for him, reading was certainly very important.

But the purpose of reading is to apply what you learn. Otherwise, if you keep reading without any experimentation and don't transform it into actual energy, what's the difference between that and a castle in the air? Thinking of this, he quickened his pace and came to a nearby grove of trees.

The grove of trees is filled with many crooked rocks, forming a small artificial hill. The area is deserted, and few people usually come here. Even now, on a weekend during the day, there is no one around. It is the perfect place for Dure to conduct his alchemical experiments.

“Then I’ll get started. Teacher Winster demonstrated the process of disassembling and recasting silver items before. I don’t think I can do that, but as long as I can disassemble the iron items and achieve this step, I’ll have completed today’s task.” Du Lei looked around.

After confirming that there was no one nearby, he wrapped a thin thread around the nearby stones and tree branches, and tied two bells to them. The bells were inconspicuous and made a very soft sound, just like ordinary wind chimes.

However, Du Lei's hearing was sharp enough to detect it. He was simply creating a perimeter so that he could detect any intruders in time. Although what he was doing wasn't anything shameful, being disturbed was still unpleasant.

After completing these arrangements, Dure sat cross-legged on the ground. He took out an ordinary dagger and placed it on the ground. He carefully recalled the structural formula and decomposition formula of iron recorded in the book, and wrote them on the ground with chalk, forming a unique alchemical formula.

This formula is universal and recorded in books. Although it is not very efficient, it will definitely work as long as you are well prepared. This was also confirmed by Dure from Winster. He made quite a lot of preparations for this experiment.

He wasn't like Lance, a reckless person. Since he'd chosen to try, he was determined to succeed in one go. Suppressing his excitement, he wrote down the alchemy formula and completed the construction of the transmutation array. Now, he was only one step away from success.

256 Just one step away

Dure is a very patient man. This patience was formed in the vast snow-covered mountains. When he hunts, it is common for him to lie in the cold snow cave and wait for a day and a night. Even after the prey finally appears, he cannot make a move rashly, because that will inevitably attract the prey's attention.

Once he scares away his prey, his long wait will be in vain. Therefore, before he can kill with a single blow, no matter how good the chance seems on the surface—whether it's 80% or 90%—he will wait until the moment of absolute certainty, and even if it's only for a split second, he will strike decisively.

The same applies to alchemy today. If it were anyone else, they would probably have started trying it immediately. But Dure knew the principle that haste makes waste. He did his homework thoroughly and made sure that he would not make any mistakes before he began to try alchemy.

In fact, after he inscribed the transmutation circle, the alchemy process went very smoothly. The dagger on the ground emitted a faint light, a light he had seen before when watching Winster's alchemy. Although the light was not as intense as Winster's, it meant a good start.

Dure dared not be complacent about this achievement. He knew it was just the beginning and he dared not be careless. He kept the decomposition formula of iron in his mind and tried to release magical energy from between his hands. Winster had once given him a very vivid analogy.

Alchemy is like simmering soup in an iron pot. To turn ingredients into a delicious broth, you need to control the heat. Magic energy is like that heat. If there is no continuous infusion of magic energy, the ingredients cannot be cooked through. If they cannot be cooked through, it means that a qualitative change cannot be achieved, and the result will be failure.

Dure memorized every detail and carefully channeled magical energy into the iron dagger encased in the transmutation array formed by the alchemical formula. His goal was to disassemble the dagger, a process somewhat similar to melting iron into molten iron in a furnace.

In fact, the decomposition step in alchemy is no different from blacksmithing in some respects. The key lies in the subsequent recasting process. Of course, Dure is not an ambitious person. He is very satisfied with being able to complete the decomposition step today. Time passed by little by little.

His forehead began to be covered in cold sweat. He remembered that when Winster was doing alchemy that night, he was covered in sweat and exhausted just from reforging the silver candlestick into a silver dagger. Not to mention Durei, who had not even crossed the threshold of alchemy and was not even a beginner.

"Don't rush, be patient, you can definitely do it, be patient." Du Lei knew he had reached a crucial moment, and he dared not be careless at all. He kept reminding himself to pay attention to the finishing work. As he focused, the pale blue light became stronger and stronger.

To outsiders, especially laymen, it might seem that he was doing something they didn't know, but Du Lei knew that the light emanating from him was clearly the light of hope. Beads of sweat seeped from every pore of his body and dripped onto the ground, soaking a small patch of earth beside him.

He was suspected of being dehydrated, but he couldn't care less. He could clearly feel the iron undergoing decomposition. He was truly only a hair's breadth away from success. If he persisted until he had a 100% chance of success before choosing to hunt his prey.

So now his success rate has started to rise from 90%, to 91%, 92%, and 99%.

Success is just around the corner

"boom"

Just then, a crisp sound came from the other side. Du Lei, whose body was tense and whose legs had gone numb from sitting cross-legged on the ground for too long, was thrown out by a force and flew several meters away, crashing into a large rock and falling to the ground.

"Thump." Du Lei's face turned pale, and his whole body trembled violently due to muscle spasms. He gasped for breath, and there were large water stains on the ground. Since his body was mostly composed of water, he was clearly in a state of extreme dehydration.

"Did it succeed?" Du Lei's first reaction was not to care about his current physical condition, but whether the alchemy was successful.

“No, no, that sound at the very end…” Dure shook his head slightly, his face pale and bloodless. Recalling the “bang” he heard, he felt a vague unease and scrambled back to the location of the transmutation array to check the situation.

"How could it have failed?" Although Du Lei had prepared for the worst beforehand, in fact, he always prepared for the worst before doing anything. But while preparing for the worst, he also had expectations.

Although he never admitted it himself, he was a very confident person. He believed that he had made enough preparations and that the experiment should be flawless. He should have succeeded by default, but all of this turned into "should" with the shattered dagger.

He knew he was conflicted. On one hand, he told himself he might fail, and the purpose of doing so was simply to be able to better accept the moment when it finally came. On the other hand, he told himself he would definitely succeed and could fully enjoy the joy of success.

However, the scene that actually unfolded before him told him that he had failed, which made him collapse to the ground in despair. On the one hand, he had suffered a heavy blow, and on the other hand, he was really tired, both mentally and physically, and had reached his limit.

A gentle evening breeze blew around, and the black curtain was drawn, as if a farcical comedy was about to begin. Du Lei knew that he was the comedian standing under the curtain, and he had truly failed.

"Damn it, how could this be? Where did things go wrong? How could it fail? I checked every step carefully. How could it turn out like this?" Du Lei wasn't someone who couldn't handle setbacks, because he was never one of those privileged individuals who had everything go smoothly.

He worked harder than others, but he didn't get even half or a tenth of what they did. This made him feel somewhat resentful. He examined the transmutation array and alchemy formulas, trying to find his own mistakes, because finding the problem meant there was still a chance.

He could have succeeded if he had just corrected the mistake and tried again, but in reality, he checked everything carefully and repeatedly, following the proper procedures and striving for perfection. Yet, the situation that shouldn't have occurred still happened.

"No, we can't give up here. Don't rush. There must be a problem somewhere. Be patient and try again." Du Lei tried to calm himself down. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and adjusted his mental state.

After a few minutes, he finally calmed down a bit, slowly opened his eyes, and began his second attempt.

257 Asking the teacher

Dure is a person who absolutely cannot tolerate his own failure. This is not because he is particularly stubborn or competitive, but because he realized something when he was very young, or rather, his environment forced him to realize something: victory will fill his stomach.

Failure, on the other hand, would cost him his life. It was a very unequal formula, because he needed countless victories to survive. Once he failed, all his victories would vanish. The harsh environment forced him to be extremely cautious in making every choice.

Besides caution, there is another essential element: the willingness to risk one's life. When there is no way out, one must go all out and dare not slack off in the slightest. This is like a thin knife, sharp enough to easily take a person's life.

At the same time, it is fragile. If you hold it in your hand and apply a little force, you can break it. Of course, the cost of breaking it will be caused by the rebound of the bent part, resulting in secondary damage. Perhaps the environment has changed, and Du Lei will not have to risk his life. Even if he fails, he can still eat and will not starve to death in the freezing cold.

But his will only became stronger, because what he needed to do now was no longer to fill his stomach, but to have a broader stage. To achieve this, he had to work even harder than when he was struggling to make ends meet. If he failed once, he would try again.

If he fails a second time, he tries a third time, until he loses track of how many times he has failed.

The morning sun dispelled the veil of night and peeked through the dappled branches, finally bringing some warmth to the boy's cold skin. He had been so spirited yesterday, but today he looked very haggard. Not far away, squirrels and rabbits were peeking out from the grass.

Birds were chirping in the treetops. It was a beautiful morning. As the days passed, early spring was shedding its chill, and wildflowers sprouting one after another on the ground heralded the imminent arrival of warm spring. But for Dure, this morning was not beautiful, because he had failed again.

"Where exactly did things go wrong? This is really unacceptable. Damn it, I'm so unwilling to accept this." Du Lei had been thinking about it over and over again, but a whole night had passed and he still didn't know where the problem lay. He even resorted to the most foolish methods to explore it.

The most foolish way is to start from the first step, try it little by little, check it again and again, and only move on to the next step after confirming that there are absolutely no flaws in this step. This is very time-consuming and has never been considered a smart approach.

But for Dure at this moment, he would try every possible method, but even after doing all that, he still failed.

"This can't go on. I'll go ask Professor Winster for advice. If it's him, he can definitely tell me where the problem lies." Dure tried to get up and go find Winster, which was the best solution he could think of at this stage, but he found that he couldn't move his body.

"Damn it, I've been sitting here all night, my legs are completely numb, it hurts so much! I survived the freezing cold of the north, but it feels even colder here than in the snow-capped mountains!" Du Lei patted his legs to speed up blood circulation, completely unaware of the pain as he conducted the experiment.

After the experiment ended, he finally experienced the feeling of extreme cold. The cold seeped into his bones through his pores, and the pain brought tears to his eyes. His lower limbs were completely numb, making him feel like his legs didn't belong to him at all.

"This is not good. Wait, what's going on? This warm current!" Just as Du Lei thought to himself that he was going to suffer here, a warm current suddenly came over, which made him pause for a moment. Under the effect of the warm current, his senses slowly returned.

His previously stiff legs began to regain feeling, and he slowly stood up, loosened his muscles, and felt much better.

"It's you!" Dure was initially confused, but he quickly remembered something and took out the egg from his pocket. He had found it underground in the Misty Forest. He had never known what was inside the egg, but he was certain that it was definitely not a spider egg.

It would occasionally emit a scalding heat, which became its way of communicating with Dure. It was the heat it emitted that helped Dure get through the crisis. Otherwise, with no one around, he would have collapsed here and no one knew when he would have been found.

"Hey, since you can radiate heat, why didn't you help me sooner and make me suffer so much? That's so unfair! You're so generous with heat when you burn me, but you become stingy when I'm in trouble. Forget it, I'm too lazy to argue with you. I'm going to the library."

Du Lei dusted himself off and got up. He had spent another night in the grove. He was a mess, his hair was disheveled, and his clothes were covered with fallen leaves and twigs. It was really inappropriate for him to go to the library like this.

"I should go back and take a shower and change first, otherwise it would be too embarrassing." Du Lei looked at himself and smiled awkwardly. Fortunately, no one else saw him, otherwise it would be too embarrassing. After making up his mind, he headed towards the dormitory, which was not too far away.

When he returned to the dormitory, Lance was not there. He knew without a doubt that Lance had gone to the training ground. Lance did not seem surprised that Dure was not returning home. After tidying up quickly, Dure rushed to the library without even having breakfast.

In his view, changing clothes was a way to show respect to Mr. Winster. Otherwise, if he went to meet people in a messy state, even if Mr. Winster didn't say anything, he would still be somewhat displeased. As for filling his stomach, such things that wouldn't cause trouble for others were not worth mentioning at all.

"I originally intended to handle it myself, and didn't want to bother Professor Winster unless absolutely necessary. In the end, I overestimated myself. I hope Professor Winster won't laugh at me." As Du Lei stepped onto the library steps, there was still a hint of self-reproach in his voice.

Asking teachers for help is an essential part of the learning process, but if you can solve problems independently, you will definitely be able to handle them more easily and with greater ease next time you encounter a problem. Du Lei believes this, but now it has come to this point where he has no other choice.

"Where is Mr. Winster? I can't find him!" After entering the library, Du Lei searched for Mr. Winster's whereabouts, but after searching around, he couldn't find him. Only the short-haired girl he had seen before was on duty at the library as a librarian.

"What are you doing sneaking around here? Please keep your voice down and don't disturb other people reading." The young librarian saw Du Lei looking around and came over to scold him. Actually, there was no one in the library at this time, only her and Du Lei.

Therefore, when she says "don't disturb others while they're reading," the "others" she's referring to are clearly herself.

"Um, I'm very sorry to bother you, but I wanted to ask if you know where Professor Winster went. I haven't seen him for about two days." Dure wasn't good at dealing with this type of girl, so he tried to keep his tone gentle.

“Professor Winster has taken leave to travel. He’ll be gone for a while, and should be back in about two months.” The girl thought for a moment and gave Winster his whereabouts, as well as the uncertain return date.

258 There's a madman

The news that Winster was not in the library surprised Dure, because he had come to the library specifically to ask Winster questions related to alchemy. Since Maple Leaf Academy did not offer alchemy as a subject, his understanding of alchemy was basically limited to two sources.

The first channel was books. Although Maple Leaf Academy did not teach alchemy, there were related records in the library books. Du Lei mastered a lot of related knowledge through this channel. Since entering Maple Leaf Academy, he has spent most of his time in the library.

The second way to learn about him was through Winster. As a former alchemist, although Dure didn't know why Winster gave up his identity as an alchemist, everyone has their past. Although he was curious, he didn't pry into Winster's past, but he could confirm that Winster was very powerful.

This was not just his subjective judgment. He could tell from the way others, including Nono, treated Winster that he was a person who appeared gentle and refined on the surface, but was actually unfathomable. What was even more valuable was that such a person would tell him about alchemy.

Before this, Winster had made it clear that he was open and honest, and whenever Dure consulted him, he would answer all questions without reservation. However, in order to better tackle this difficult problem of alchemy, Dure chose to think for himself most of the time, which actually worked very well for him.

However, when he truly faced an insurmountable problem and needed Winster's help, Winster was nowhere to be found. This left Dure with a deep sense of frustration stemming from a series of setbacks. Nothing he did went smoothly, which suddenly made him somewhat impatient.

"Hey, what's wrong with you? You're just standing here without moving. It's scary, okay?" The female administrator waved her hand in front of Dure's face. She told Dure that ever since Teacher Winster went on vacation, he had been standing there like a statue, not responding no matter how much she waved him.

"What?" After a long while, Du Lei finally came to his senses. He looked at her in surprise, not having heard what she was saying.

"It's nothing, it's better to stay away from strange people like that." The girl quickly waved her hand, the last part of which she said after she had walked away. She wouldn't be foolish enough to say such a thing in front of Dure; what if he did something terrible, and there was no one else around?

"She really is a special girl." After watching her walk away, Du Lei pondered for a moment and gave his assessment.

Dure was very disappointed to find that Winster was not at the library. He could have waited if Winster had only been gone for two or three days, but the problem was that Winster would be gone for at least a month, which gave Dure a real headache.

To spend a whole month waiting would be unbearable for him, and frankly, he couldn't do it. So he decided to solve the problem in another way, that is, to solve it independently without relying on Winster. To this end, he chose to stay in the library and continue reading books.

He believes that throughout history, there must have been others who encountered the same situation as him. He will search through countless books to find similar cases, compare them, and see how others have solved this problem. This is his only hope at this stage.

Maple Leaf Academy Library is enormous, with hundreds of bookshelves on the first floor alone. Each bookshelf is densely packed with books, and the bookshelves are so large that simply standing on tiptoe or jumping is completely useless if you want to reach the books on the upper shelves.