The most shameless alchemist in history

"The school's decision is to give you another chance," Nuonuo told him seriously.

"Opportunity"—Dure didn't understand what this opportunity actually referred to.

"Two days from now, you will have been enrolled for a full month, and the academy will conduct a grade assessment for you," Nono explained.

"Does the rating refer to the assessment of magical energy level?" Dure thought for a moment, as he wasn't entirely unfamiliar with this kind of thing.

"That's right, it's an assessment of your magical energy level. I need to remind you that this assessment isn't about potential, but rather your actual mastery of magical energy. It's a reflection of your overall strength. I know you're quite talented, and you performed exceptionally well in the magical energy reaction test."

Nono paused here, staring into Du Lei's eyes, which made the latter feel a little guilty, because his so-called "excellent performance" was actually obtained by cheating, but he dared not tell anyone about it.

“But there are too many talented people in this world, and far too many people are unable to realize their potential. So you have to understand that this opportunity is actually very slim for you.” Nono suppressed her smile, using this method to remind Du Lei to pay attention to this point.

"Why is it so uncertain?" Du Lei couldn't understand this point, because if it was a level assessment, it must not be difficult to pass, otherwise it would be too harsh and would kill most people with one stroke.

"The reason why it's so unlikely is also due to that bald Charlotte. For other students, reaching the intermediate level in the ranking assessment is considered passing." Nono practically spat out the name "Charlotte" through gritted teeth.

She already disliked that guy who was always thinking about how to win the vice dean's position. Now, on the issue of Du Lei, he was constantly going against her. Unfortunately, she was just an intern teacher and had no say at all, which made him grit his teeth in anger.

“And what about me?” Dure noticed the difference.

“You also need to reach the intermediate level,” Nono said confidently.

"Isn't this the same?" Du Lei felt a little confused. Others were at the intermediate level, and so was he.

"It's different, because you must reach the mid-stage of the eighth star level to do so."

Training Venue 265

After Nono left, Dure realized how serious the problem was, and he also began to regret that he had forgotten about the ranking system, because he knew about it from the beginning. It was a routine of the academy, but he had been engrossed in alchemy for the past month.

This caused him to overlook other things. The ranking assessment was imminent, but Dure was completely clueless. He was totally at a loss. Before leaving, Nono told him to assess his own position in private so he would have a better understanding. Otherwise, rushing onto the field would be troublesome.

The evaluation method differs from the magic energy reaction test. Previously, the magic energy reaction only required holding a magic energy crystal to display the result. However, the evaluation level is much more direct, which is to test one's level by fighting against puppet creatures.

After all, a level is not just a number, but a combination of data including combat skills and magical energy level. As for puppet creatures, they are creatures generated using magical energy and are managed by the academy's teachers. There is a place in the academy where a large number of puppet creatures exist, which is the training ground.

Since entering Maple Leaf Academy, Du Lei has never set foot in the training grounds. He spends most of his time in the library and the grove where he conducts alchemical experiments. After receiving Nono's advice, he decided to go to the training grounds to test himself against the puppet creatures, as the saying goes, it's better to be prepared.

He arrived at the training hall around 6 PM, which was the busiest time there. After class, many students would choose to go to the training ground to hone their skills. Here, in addition to challenging their classmates, they could also challenge puppet creatures.

Real combat is the best stage to improve oneself, and most students agree with this. After all, having magical energy but being unable to convert it into substantial combat power is not only a waste but also foolish.

The training hall is located on the west side of the academy. It is a large, bowl-shaped venue. In addition to the main hall with a large number of seats, there are a total of sixteen smaller training fields of various sizes around the training hall. These training fields are all prepared for the students to compete against each other.

In addition to the small training ground, there are dozens of training rooms in the training hall. The training rooms are very narrow, enclosed rooms, and are neatly arranged. Their purpose is to allow students to compete with the puppet creatures. Of course, such a narrow room can only accommodate one person sitting down.

It's clearly impossible to start a battle. The key to the problem lies in the fact that each training room has a small magic stone. The magic stone's function is to transport students to another spacious area to face the challenge of the puppet creatures, and the method of teleportation is very special.

Because the students' physical bodies remained seated motionless in the training room, it was their minds that were teleported away. In other words, the magic stone had a hallucinogenic effect, creating dreamlike scenes that allowed the students to fight against puppet creatures within those dreams.

Although it is not a real battle, it can simulate a situation that is very close to reality through the students' senses, and even the fighting in the hallucinations. The real feeling stimulates the nerves of the brain. This sense of realism is actually no different from fighting in real life.

The only difference is that you'll feel tired in the training room, but you won't get injured, yet the combat experience you gain is the same.

What Dure needs to do now is go to the training facility, find a training room to conduct a simulation, and determine his current level.

"I've only been to the shooting range before, and I've never been to the main training hall. This place is really huge." After entering the training hall, Du Lei was quite impressed by the massive buildings and the students training enthusiastically inside.

"But if the library is so grand, it's normal for the training hall, as the main building, to be imposing as well. By the way, isn't that Lance over there?" As Du Lei passed by the training ground, he saw people fighting in the center of the arena below.

One of them was his roommate Lance. Lance was a hardcore training enthusiast, as enthusiastic as he was when he went to the library. There were many people watching him near the training ground, since watching others fight could also help him learn from their experience, in addition to training himself.

"With his skill level, passing the rating assessment shouldn't be too difficult. Let's leave him alone for now and focus on myself. The training room should be over here." Although Du Lei had never been to the training hall before, there were signs along the way, so he easily found the location of the training room.

"It seems no one can use this place. As expected of Maple Leaf Academy, this is the product of the combination of modern technology and magic power. They even have an operating manual." Du Lei found an empty training room. The door was open, but it closed automatically after he entered.

Inside the door is a space that can only accommodate a maximum of three people standing side by side. It is sealed on all sides, like an upright box. Actually, calling it a coffin would be quite accurate, but that would be too unlucky.

There is a chair in the training room, but it is different from the chair that Dure usually sits on. This chair has a metallic sheen, and there are a lot of cables connected to the chair around it. The dense cables converge from the side of the chair all the way to the top of the room.

Just like blood vessels in the human body, the final destination of blood vessels is a transparent glass cover, only the size of a palm, through which you can clearly see what's inside: a small, emerald-green stone the size of a fingernail.

Of course, what can be placed in such a place is not an ordinary little stone. Although it has a green glow and looks crystal clear and very beautiful, it is not a gemstone. In fact, it is much more valuable than a gemstone. It has a special name, magic stone, as the name suggests.

This is a stone with magical properties.

"Let me see the instructions. You just need to sit in the chair and pull down the lever to use it? That's really convenient. Sigh, I still need to pay with a crystal card." Du Lei read the instructions next to him. It can be said that the training room is completely automated, and no one needs to explain it to you.

"That's really realistic, but I still have a few crystal cards, so I'll just pay." Du Lei noticed a card slot on the side of the chair, just the right size to hold a crystal card. He chuckled to himself, realizing that even the training room wasn't a place you could just use casually.

Otherwise, there wouldn't be more than a dozen empty training rooms here. They're so useful; if they didn't come at a cost, they'd probably have been taken over by those cultivation fanatics long ago. They wouldn't let them, would they?

266 Intermediate Opponents

Since entering Maple Leaf Academy a month ago, Du Lei has devoted all his energy to studying alchemy. One reason he is so engrossed in this subject is that he has been tinkering with various potions since childhood, which belongs to the potion synthesis science of alchemy. Another reason is the influence of a certain person.

During this month, he was practically obsessed. Fortunately, he finally figured out some tricks of alchemy. Although he had only just crossed the threshold and there was still a long way to go, it was at least a good sign that boosted his confidence.

While his alchemy research was progressing rapidly, he neglected the academy's ranking examination. The ranking examination was an assessment and affirmation of students' comprehensive abilities. As a magic energy research academy, Maple Leaf Academy has always been known for cultivating outstanding magic energy warriors, and has produced many elites throughout history.

After a month of adaptation and learning, the students have gained a basic understanding of magic power. In fact, many of them had already mastered the relevant skills of magic power before coming to Maple Leaf Academy. Most of them are full of confidence for this rating test and are waiting for that day to arrive so that they can get a good score.

But for Dure, this was too rushed, especially with only two days left. While others could already determine their level and conduct targeted training, he didn't even know his own level and was completely confused.

Therefore, he had no choice but to go to the training hall immediately and use the individual training room for simulated training. After paying for three crystal cards, he pulled down the control lever on the seat and sat down properly. He had never used such a thing before and did not know what would happen.

All he could do was hold his breath and wait quietly for the training to begin. After a few seconds, a soft white light appeared before his eyes, obscuring his vision. The training room and the dense network of wires that resembled blood vessels that had been in his line of sight disappeared.

At the center of the white light, a green light kept flashing. Du Lei, who had never experienced anything like this before, was a little nervous. He tried to look around to figure out what changes had occurred nearby, but he found that he could no longer control his limbs and his body was numb.

At the same time, there was a hissing sound of electricity, which made Du Lei a little panicked. However, recalling the instruction manual he had seen earlier, he relaxed a little, knowing that this was an essential process. He adjusted his breathing to calm himself down and waited for the training session to begin.

"The instruction manual said that there would be a dizzying feeling of lightheadedness and dizziness. If you are not used to it, you can stop immediately. Although such a reaction did occur, it is still bearable. Hmm, what exactly is that in front?" After waiting for more than ten seconds, the white light began to dissipate.

The numbness that had been binding him gradually disappeared. He opened his eyes and could see a surge of electricity running across his body, but the electricity quickly disappeared into the ground. The scene before him was no longer the narrow training room he had seen before.

Instead, it was a vast, empty wilderness. If he hadn't read the instructions beforehand and known that this was a world constructed from illusions, he probably would have thought he had been teleported somewhere else, because there was a teleportation barrier in the academy that linked the academy to Maple City, greatly shortening the distance.

"Although I don't understand its principles and operating mechanism, as long as it can help me pass the level assessment, that's fine. Nono told me before that my requirement is to reach the mid-level of eight stars, which means I have to defeat an mid-level eight-star puppet creature in the test."

Dure looked around. The surroundings were desolate, and the sky was gray and gloomy, which made him feel somewhat depressed. However, apart from withered trees and barren land, there was nothing else to see. Dure knew that his opponent had not yet appeared, and he had enough patience to wait.

"Let me reorganize my thoughts. There are nine levels of magical energy in total: beginner, intermediate, advanced, steel, fire, king, dragon, emperor, and the legendary, ethereal saint. Each level is further divided into ten star levels. After all, even though we're all in our teens, there's a difference between eleven and nineteen years old, which I can understand. But if we're talking about age, does that mean I have to be at the eighteen-year-old level?"

Du Lei only learned this information from Nono not long ago. When she learned that he had been enrolled for so long and still hadn't figured out the most basic magic power level classification and concepts, Nono was almost furious. Fortunately, Du Lei had a good memory and comprehension skills, and his progress was rapid.

"I remember that most of the mercenaries in the village were mid-level before. I thought they were invincible just because they bragged. But now it seems that mid-level is just the second to last level. Riley, who was with Black Wind, seems to be high-level."

Dure recalled his time in the hot spring village, when he had no concept of magic power and could only let the mercenaries talk nonsense. Now that he had mastered the relevant knowledge, looking back, he felt a little amused, but he still remembered a few important people.

"As for the others, what level is Nan Yin? She seems to have said that she could easily defeat more than a dozen mid-level opponents. At that time, she was clearly stronger than Riley, which means she was at least high-level, perhaps even steel-level. As for that monster in the lava lake..."

Although more than a month has passed, the incident is still vivid in Du Lei's mind, leaving him deeply moved.

"So, after only one month of enrollment, I'm supposed to reach the level of those mercenary uncles? That's a bit too much to ask. Hmm, what's that commotion up ahead? Is my opponent showing up?" When Du Lei was still in Hot Spring Village, he thought he was a world away from the mercenaries.

They were from completely different worlds, yet in just over a month, he was suddenly on par with them. And that wasn't all, because most of the mercenaries were in their thirties or forties, while he was only a teenager.

This means that as long as you make the right choices and the platform is high enough, you can be 20 or 30 years ahead of others. This conclusion shocked Du Lei and made him realize how cruel the world is, but he didn't dwell on it for long.

Because at that moment he saw something walking towards him in the wilderness, and he knew very well that his training time had arrived.

"An eight-star mid-tier opponent is the guy I'll be facing in the level assessment in two days. Let's see just how big the gap is between us." Du Lei was ready to go all out.

267 Bare-handed

When Du Lei learned from Nuonuo that the evaluation standard for reaching the mid-level of the eighth star was to defeat a puppet creature of the same level, he was somewhat surprised but not panicked. The difference between surprise and panic is that one is feeling unexpected and then panicking because he cannot solve the problem.

As for the other one, it cannot be ruled out that there is a solution. In fact, Du Lei not only has a solution, but quite a few. You know, when he was still in the snowy mountains, he had dealt with many magical beasts. On the very night that the Easterner named Nan Yin arrived at the hot spring village, he even defeated three magical beasts.

Those three mutated gorillas were probably mid-level. Du Lei remembered Nan Yin mentioning once that they were around three-star mid-level. Although there was a five-star difference in level, Du Lei believed that even if he were given a high-level magical beast, as long as its star rating wasn't too high, he could handle it.

So when Nono scolded him, he remained calm and composed. This attitude continued until he entered the individual training field from the training room. Facing the charging rock giant, he originally thought he could easily deal with it, even though the creature's body was covered in rock.

His defense was exceptionally strong, and under normal circumstances, it would be impossible to break through his defenses. However, Dure could easily create distance and slowly trap and kill him by surrounding his prey. He was very experienced in this kind of battle. He was so confident, but he soon realized that he was completely wrong.

“This ominous feeling is... Where’s my dagger? Where’s my crossbow? Oh no, I forgot about that. In this place, I can’t use any weapons. Am I supposed to fight it bare-handed?” Dure touched his sleeve, originally wanting to reach for the modified crossbow.

But his sleeves were empty, completely bare. He finally realized this wasn't the real world, and he recalled a rule in the ranking system that weapons couldn't be used. Therefore, no weapons were generated in the solo training arena.

"Rumble, boom!" While Dure was still in shock, the rock giant had closed the distance to him. The latter raised his fist high and smashed it down on him. The rock giant was nearly two meters tall and, because it was made entirely of hard granite, it weighed at least 600 kilograms.

This thing is on a completely different level from humans, and its strength is astonishing. When it crashed into the ground, it created a huge crater in an instant. Fortunately, Dure dodged quickly and was not hit by it, but the flying pebbles still hit Dure, leaving him in a mess.

"Fighting it bare-handed without any tools and winning? What a joke!" Du Lei was devastated when he realized this. He finally understood why Nono looked at him like that. It turned out that the ranking assessment was not as easy as he had imagined.

After he retreated a few steps, the rock giant, having failed in its attack, pressed forward again, forcing Dure to retreat once more. Although he had indeed dealt with many mid-level or even higher-level magical beasts before, his fighting style was more of agile guerrilla warfare than strength-based.

"No matter what, we should still give it a try. There's still hope. What if a miracle happens?" After dodging more than a dozen attacks, Du Lei realized that he couldn't just keep dodging, because the rock giant wasn't human. It was completely tireless.

Dure knew that something had to be done to change the situation, so he decisively launched an attack on the rock giant. Even without tools or weapons, he believed he could bravely fight the rock giant.

Of course, all he had left was courage. He faced the lava giant head-on, but in just one exchange, he was struck by the rock giant's heavy fist. The two were not even in the same league, and he was sent flying like a kite with a broken string. This gave him a real taste of flying.

However, this feeling did not last long, because his vision suddenly blurred as he was standing in the open field. With a dizzying feeling of lightheadedness, Du Lei, who thought he was going to fall heavily to the ground, stumbled and almost fell to the ground, but he did not fall to the open field.

Instead, he was in a cramped, single-person training room. It was clear that he had finished the training and returned to the real world. According to the instructions for using the training room, there are two ways to exit during training: one is to exit when the training ends. Obviously, Dure did not do that.

The other one is that the trainer is killed. Of course, this death is a simulated situation. In reality, for Dure, it would just be a feeling of exhaustion.

"Are you kidding me? One punch and you've taken me down? Am I that weak? I thought it would be an easy and pleasant task, but I didn't expect it to be this troublesome. Oh no, there are only two days left. It seems like there's no way I can deal with such a powerful guy."

Dure realized the seriousness of the problem, slapped his forehead, and his future looked bleak.

Meanwhile, outside the registrar's office, Nono walked out angrily. She had gone to the registrar's office to confront Charlotte. Although she was extremely reluctant to see Charlotte and his bald head, she chose to swallow her anger so that someone could get through this smoothly.

Charlotte's attitude was very good at first. Although Nono was just an intern teacher, he knew that she was an intern teacher with a very good background and someone he was trying to win over. However, when Nono mentioned the grade assessment in two days and her classmate Du Lei, Charlotte's face immediately fell.

He sternly stated that he absolutely could not tolerate Du Lei's disregard for rules and regulations. Allowing him to participate in the level assessment and giving him the opportunity to stay in the academy was already exceptionally merciful, and he would never give in. This infuriated Nuonuo, who immediately slammed the door and left.

"That guy, I've only been gone for a little over half a month, and he's been skipping classes every day. Now it's questionable whether he can even stay in the academy. Although I certainly don't want to get involved in your affairs, you are still my student. I would lose face if you were expelled."

Nuonuo stomped her feet in anger, but after thinking it over carefully, she still couldn't find a way to break the deadlock.

"What should we do? What should we do? That guy definitely won't pass the level assessment. With that bald-headed Charlotte overseeing things, even if we wanted to help him, there's nowhere to turn." Nono was extremely anxious, and humbly going to Charlotte was the last thing she could think of.

However, this tactic proved ineffective, which was a huge blow to her.

"Are we just going to watch him get expelled? No, think about it carefully, think some more, there must be a way. Don't rush, if there is, we can do it like this." After frowning and thinking for a while, Nuonuo suddenly had a flash of inspiration and came up with a solution.