Chapter 171 (Part II): The Alchemist's Gambit
A Dance of Poison and Virtue
Leonid the Gaunt's skeletal fingers clenched, his parchment crumbling to ash. The chamber's air thickened with the stench of burnt pride. Bennett stood motionless, his shadow stretching long across the Guild's obsidian floor—a rook poised to checkmate kings.
"You dare lecture me on Guild law?" Leonid's voice rasped like a blade on bone.
Bennett tilted his head, the ghost of Seymour's smirk playing on his lips. "Only a fool mistakes tradition for truth. Article IX, Section 3, Master Leonid. Shall I recite it again?"
Archmage Ilnes, oblivious as ever, bellowed from the sidelines: "HA! LAW-TALK'S BORING! LET'S BREW LIQUID FIRE!"
The Viper's Counterstrike
Bennett stepped forward, his alchemist's satchel clinking with vials of liquid moonlight. "Your disdain for alchemy reeks of fear. Tell me, Leonid—when was the last time you concocted a potion without setting your beard aflame?"
Gasps ricocheted like stray spells. Even Erek the Cunning paused mid-scribble in his grimoire.
Leonid surged up, his gaunt frame trembling. "You insolent whelp! Gandolf's ghost would—"
"—applaud," Bennett cut in, cold as winter iron. "My master valued innovation over insignia. Or have you forgotten how he dissolved the High Council's rank system in '42?"
Chairman York Zog's circlet glinted dangerously. "Enough! Lord Bennett, your theatrics—"
"—expose your hypocrisy." Bennett spread his arms, a martyr framed by stained glass light. "You demand I kneel to your tests, yet recoil when I wield your own laws as shield. How very… unmagisterial."
The Gambit Revealed
Memories flickered—Seymour's spectral whisper during his first poison trial: "Power isn't taken. It's mirrored back tenfold."
York Zog's knuckles whitened on his staff. "Very well. Pursue your… alchemical whim. But know this—" His smile dripped venom. "The Guild shall institute a special evaluation. Succeed, and we'll crown you First Alchemist of the Continent. Fail…"
"—and you'll still get your petty certification," Bennett finished, grinning sharp enough to draw blood. "How magnanimous."
Erek coughed tactfully. "Come now! Let's not—"
"I accept." Bennett's voice froze the room. "But know this, Chairman—your 'special evaluation' will be remembered as the day the Guild begged an alchemist for mercy."
The Crucible's Whisper
As Leonid stormed out, trailing curses like comet tails, Ilnes clapped Bennett's shoulder hard enough to dislocate a lesser man. "HA! WE'LL MELT THEIR FACES WITH GLORY!"
York Zog lingered, his circlet askew. "You play a dangerous game, boy."
Bennett uncorked a vial of shimmering voidmoss tincture. "Games are for children, Chairman. I'm rewriting rules."
When he left, the lingering green vapor from his cloak coalesced briefly into Gandolf's face—winking.
Chapter 171 (Part III): The Alchemist's Triumph
The Crucible of Time
Bennett stood before the Guild's obsidian examination table, his shadow stretching like a smirk across the polished stone. Chairman York Zog's golden circlet gleamed with predatory anticipation, while Leonid the Gaunt loomed like a vulture eyeing carrion. Only Erek the Mad twitched with uncontainable glee, his fingers stained from dissecting a rogue fire-salamander moments prior.
"Begin," York Zog intoned, savoring the word like poisoned wine.
Bennett's hands danced—not with spells, but with the precision of a maestro conducting silence. Vials clinked, powders hissed, and the air thickened with the tang of crushed starroot and crystallized twilight. Twenty base formulas? Child's play. He recited them backward, his voice a blade slicing through the Guild's pretense of impartiality.
Leonid's parchment quivered. "Enough theatrics! Proceed to the true trial!"
The Impossible Equation
York Zog leaned forward, his smile a dagger sheathed in silk. "Now, Lord Bennett… replicate a mid-tier spell through alchemy alone. No incantations. No gestures. Pure chemistry."
Erek cackled, lobbing a glowing mushroom into the chandelier. "HA! ASK HIM TO TURN LEAD INTO DRAGON TEARS NEXT!"
Bennett's lips curled. Mid-tier? How quaint.
"With respect," he purred, "I'll aim higher. Let's recreate Gandolf's Wheel of Chronos—a high-tier temporal spell—through alchemy."
Gasps crackled like lightning. Even Ilnes paused mid-rummage through his explosive satchel.
York Zog's circlet slipped. "You… you claim to manipulate time with herbs?"
"Not herbs," Bennett corrected, withdrawing a black-shrouded pot from his spatial ring. "Perspective."
The Bloom That Defied Death
He unveiled the night-blooming cereus—its petals furled tight, a captive awaiting dawn's execution. "Behold: the Ephemeral Queen. She blooms at first light… and dies by sunrise."
Murmurs rippled. Erek sniffed the air. "Smells like Seymour's old lab after she blew up the—"
Bennett silenced him with a glare. Uncorking a flask, he let a single iridescent drop fall onto the soil. The liquid shimmered—not with magic, but with the cold, alien beauty of something older than spells.
The cereus bloomed.
Crimson petals unfurled in defiance of physics, of logic, of every law scribbled in the Guild's gilded tomes. Minutes crawled. The flower didn't wither.
Leonid lunged, skeletal fingers brushing a petal. "This… this is no illusion! The cellular decay—it's halted!"
York Zog's teacup cracked. "Explain this… this abomination!"
Bennett smirked. "Would you share your finest spell, Chairman, if I demanded it?"
The Unspoken Truth
Erek's nose twitched. "I smell… moonlight? No—stardust? Wait, is that—"
"Irrelevant," Bennett snapped, sealing the flask. Inside, the diluted essence of the Spring of Eternity swirled—its true nature buried under layers of crushed phoenix ash and fermented shadowmoss. A masterstroke of misdirection.
Ilnes bellowed, shaking the hall. "HA! THE BOY'S DONE IT! TIME ITSELF BOWS TO MY APPRENTICE!"
York Zog rose, his authority crumbling like ancient parchment. "This… changes nothing. Alchemy remains a lesser—"
"—path," Bennett finished, looming suddenly taller. "One that just outshone your proudest mages. Tell me, Chairman… does your 'lesser' art keep your roses fresh?"
The Aftermath
As the cereus blazed eternal under Guild torches, Leonid whispered to York Zog: "We must confiscate that formula. If it spreads—"
"—we'll praise it," the Chairman hissed. "Let the masses marvel at his 'genius.' Meanwhile, we dissect every leaf, every drop of soil. That power… it will be ours."
Unseen by all, Bennett dipped a finger into the flask. The liquid recoiled—not from him, but from the rot festering in York Zog's soul.
Seymour's ghostly laughter echoed in his mind. Well played, little viper. Now watch them gnaw on the bones of their own greed.
When Bennett left, the cereus still bloomed—a scarlet middle finger to the Guild's crumbling edifice.
Chapter 172 (Part I): The Alchemist's Bargain
The Weight of a Crown
York Zog's circlet felt heavier than a mountain. The Guild's obsidian walls seemed to close in, their runes pulsing like mocking eyes. Bennett stood before him, a vial of liquid time clenched in one hand—a weapon masquerading as proof. The air reeked of crushed nightshade and shattered pride.
"A high-tier temporal spell," Leonid the Gaunt rasped, his skeletal fingers tracing the frozen bloom of the cereus. "No illusions. No trickery. The boy… he's done it."
Erek the Mad cackled, lobbing a crystallized firemoth into the chandelier. "HA! CALL HIM 'LORD OF LEAFLINGS' NOW!"
York Zog's jaw tightened. How? Even Erek, with his labyrinthine mastery of alchemy, had never breached the threshold of mid-tier mimicry. Yet here stood this upstart princeling, barely fledged, wielding time itself like a tavern magician's coin trick.
The Thorned Offer
The Chairman's voice dripped honeyed venom. "Lord Bennett, your… innovation compels us to bestow the title of 'Continent's Premier Alchemist.' A rare honor, reserved for—"
"—those you wish to bury," Bennett finished, smiling sweetly.
Silence.
Ilnes the Oblivious bellowed, "HA! GILD HIS NAME IN PHOENIX BILE!"
Erek's grin faltered. Even Leonid's perpetual scab of disdain cracked.
Bennett stepped forward, the cereus' eternal bloom casting his shadow long across the Guild's sigil-carved floor. "Let's dispense with theatrics, Chairman. You'd sooner crown a goblin High Mage than let 'alchemist' and 'premier' share a sentence."
The Viper's Retreat
Memories flickered—Seymour's ghost hissing in his mind: "When they offer gold, demand iron. When they offer crowns, steal the anvil."
Bennett bowed, the picture of contrition. "I must decline. At fourteen, such accolades would only invite… unwise comparisons."
York Zog's relief was palpable. "Modesty becomes you, Lord Bennett. Yet the Guild cannot let such brilliance go unrewarded."
"A laboratory," Bennett interjected, eyes glinting. "Here in the Spire. With unrestricted access to… archival reagents."
Leonid's parchment crumbled to ash. "Outrageous! The Forbidden Stacks are—"
"—precisely what I require," Bennett purred. "Unless the Guild fears what an alchemist might uncover?"
The Unwritten Pact
Erek's stained fingers twitched toward his poison satchel. "The Stacks house formulations that could melt a titan's spleen! You'd trust this whelp with—"
"—more than I trust your self-control," York Zog snapped. Turning to Bennett, his smile could have frostbitten a dragon. "A laboratory, then. And the title… withheld, pending further review."
Bennett's returning smile held all the warmth of a dagger's edge. "How prudent."
As the Chairman scribbled the decree, Ilnes leaned close to Bennett. "WHY NOT TAKE THE SHINY NAME? I'D WEAR IT BACKWARDS FOR FUN!"
"Names fade," Bennett murmured, pocketing the laboratory key. "But what we build… that endures."
The Aftermath
When the chamber emptied, York Zog stared at the eternal cereus. Its petals pulsed faintly—not with magic, but something older.
"Track his every move," he told Leonid. "That laboratory must become his gilded cage."
Leonid's scoff echoed through hollow corridors. "You fear a child?"
"No." York Zog's circlet shimmered with stolen starlight. "I fear what Gandolf's ghost might whisper next."
Outside, Bennett pressed the laboratory key to his lips. Seymour's laughter coiled through the metal—a promise written in poison.
Chapter 172 (Part II): The Architect's Gambit
A Tower of Shadows
The air in the Guild's Sanctum tasted of ambition and ozone. Chairman York Zog gestured grandly toward the spiraling obsidian tower, its apex piercing the clouds like a dagger aimed at heaven. "A laboratory here, Lord Bennett—among the stars themselves. No mortal ruler could offer such glory."
Bennett traced a finger along the rune-carved wall, his smirk hidden beneath a veneer of awe. A gilded cage disguised as an honor. How predictable.
"Generous beyond measure, Chairman," he replied, bowing just deep enough to mock. "Yet a duke's duties chain me to earthly realms. My experiments require… frontier soil."
York Zog's smile tightened. "Very well. We'll erect your laboratory in the northern wastes. The Guild shall supply—"
"—materials discounted," Bennett interjected, savoring the Chairman's flinch. "For the greater good of magical advancement, of course."
The Bargain's Bite
Erek the Mad cackled from behind a floating grimoire. "HA! THE WHELP WANTS PAWNS!"
"Assistants," Bennett corrected, sweet as nightshade syrup. "Three apprentices. Three alchemists. And… Set."
The name hung like a curse. Leonid the Gaunt's quill snapped. "The wand peddler? That slack-jawed imbecile?"
"Precisely." Bennett's eyes gleamed. "Genius often wears a fool's face."
York Zog waved a dismissive hand. "Take him. Take them all. Let history laugh at your circus."
The Poisoned Chalice
"Now the academy," Bennett purred, watching the Chairman's composure crack like thin ice.
York Zog's circlet glowed warningly. "You overreach, boy. The institution's—"
"—needs teachers," Bennett finished, spreading his hands like a martyr. "Who better to mold young minds than Gandolf's heir? I'll teach alchemy—the art you've scorned into obscurity."
Leonid's parchment burst into flames. "Heresy! To let this… this child lecture on—"
"—truths your dusty tomes ignore?" Bennett's voice dropped to a velvet growl. "Or do you fear what sprouts when seeds meet fertile soil?"
The Jester's Crown
At the wand shop, Set blinked like an owl in daylight. His oversized head tilted as Guildmaster Clark recited the edict. "Serve him well, boy. Or face the Foundry Pits."
Bennett leaned close, whispering words only Set could hear: "They call you fool. I name you architect. Together, we'll brew storms."
Set's fingers—calloused from carving failed wands—twitched. A spark danced in his dull eyes.
The Chessboard Revealed
Crossing the Guild's courtyard, Bennett finally let his grin bloom. The northern laboratory would become his forge. The academy, his recruitment ground. And Set…
Oh yes. The Guild's discarded "imbecile" holds the key to everything.
York Zog watched from his spire, oblivious to the viper coiling through his halls.
Leonid hissed, "Why allow this farce?"
"Let him play teacher," the Chairman sneered. "Every hour he wastes tutoring brats is an hour he's not unraveling real power."
Far below, Bennett paused by a frozen fountain. His reflection showed not a boy, but a wolf wearing sheep's wool.
Seymour's ghostly voice chuckled in the wind: "The best traps are those they help you build."