The Runic Alchemist

"Uhm.. Sorry.. I.. I just.." She stammered, not meeting his eyes, looking down constantly.

"Take a breath and tell me why are you following me..?" Damian repeated, a bit more calmly this time, she was making him nervous just lookin at her.

"Uhm.. I apologize for it.. I just wanted to see.. Him." She pointed at Toph perched on his head nervously, who trumpeted in return as if saying 'Am i famous..?'.

"Why..?" Damian asked, looking at her with narrow eyes.

"Ah.. We once had a baby elephant lost in our village, we kept him for a month.. He was not colorful like him though.. I just wanted to meet him before they send me back.. " She closed her eyes halfway though and clapped her hands as if saying 'Please'..

Toph was too important a part of his well-being to just give him away to girls randomly. Damian held him a bit more protectively, "Sorry, but he doesn't like it when anyone touches him.."

"Uhm… Yes.. yes, that's fine. Can I come closer..?" She asked.

Damian had already prepared an air blade spell and a wormhole spell while walking, ready just in case, though he doubted anyone would do such a stupid thing as attacking him among so many people. In such a secure place from where they could not even leave till tomorrow. She was barely qualified to be in the second job category as a first ranker, or had a really big mana pool on just her first job. Toph was not defeseless either, Damian had bought the best protection enchantment item money could buy and had around his round head in a chain. He had checked the validity of that thing himself and it survived even one of his earth scorching giant runic circles spells. Also,

Damian could kill her in a second with hundreds of air blades beforeshe could even blink twice.

"Sure.." Damian replied with a gentle smile.

Thankfully she did not do anything suspicious, they even walked toward the crowd together, before she said bye to Toph - he even replied trumpeting in acknowledgement as she left.

A weird thing, maybe he was a bit too much on the edge. He was not in the war anymore, not everyone was out to get him. Still asking for Toph who was his weakness so randomly was not something he could ever get used to.

Damian found the three, as they were returning from whatever the test was. No, there were four. That new girl was still with them. Seeing him they waved at him till he reached near them.

"Is it already done..? How was it..?" Damian asked, catching the glimpses of some people moving around in the crowd behind them.

"Nice.. We all made it to the S rank in this one too.." Evrin replied.

"There was no doubt in that, what was the test about..?" Damian turned around and joined them as they walked back to the academy building. The test looked like it was in its final phase, and he didn't feel like watching.

On the way back they filled him in. Third test was about their fighting techniques. They fought a simple stone golem controlled by a second ranker in teams of ten, and were ranked on their efficiency in sword techniques, they were not allowed to use anything else. Damian did catch a glimpse of the golem, he had hoped the famous Highsword academy might have some of the old metal golems but alas the art of metal golem making was truly lost to everyone.

"What were you doing till now..?" Sam asked as they once again sat down for dinner in the mess hall.

"I overslept.." Damian confessed. Continue reading at empire

The rest of the night was uneventful just as the rest of the week. Damian and his group observed many tests, the gates opened only once in the morning in which all the people who failed even a single test were left out, while a stream of newcomers came to try their luck.

Since there was nothing much to do, Damian asked one of the staff members to let him enter the library - but they refused, saying the library was only available to use after the academy year started. Even though he was special case they did not relented.

He had plenty of his own books so he wasn't much disheartened, Damian just wanted to take a look. The ones who passed the tests were not allowed to leave till the end of the week, when they will release the list of students who were accepted and in what year.

Grace had stuck around with them all week, they were neighbours also in the VIP noble's section with Evrin and Einar, who were sharing the room. Sam was staying with him. The groups and people over the week consolidated, the noble kids showing their social abilities made contact with all the influenced people in the common and VIP section. Most stayed dejected and worried, not knowing if they would make the cut.

Damian didn't get much more interesting spells, but there were few once in a while that were totally unique. Also turns out the spell for his hair color change was also bestowal type, like healing and his mimicry. After tinkering with the spell the whole day, locked in his room with his hair back to normal pitch black, Damian finally managed to find the section that selected color in the spell. It was still just a number with a weird rune, but the change in number did produce some new colors.

Now he had a choice between, Blue, Red, Blonde, White and light green. The rune could be changed to another for more colors but Damian couldn't decipher the new rune yet and didn't know what to replace it with. At least this much success was good enough for a day's work.

Funnily enough in this case, the Arcane synthesis's demand of spell's scale-for its potions to have good effect, worked in his favor. As the big runic circle for it-as big as he could draw with his hands-The diminished hair color change spell potion had an effect of making the color really light. So When he used white, he got grey hair. And subsequent changes in other colors. Making a small batch of each color, Damian used it to fill some empty vials he had and now he had good stock of potions to disguise himself, if needed.

Since not a single one of his old aquintances had shown any recognition towards him, plus Damian really felt silly with weird hair color, he chose not to bother with it. Anyway he couldn't get the same green again with potions, and he couldn't keep up the runic circle spell all the time, it was exhausting. So he just let it go and decided to be himself-he can handle anything that would come with it.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

The batch of colorful hair potions were more of way to pass time, also it was his gift to the princess for her timely assistance. Though, it wasn't required, it did help him get used to people without being recognized.