Chapter 288

In the square of the apprentice recruitment meeting, the flow of people was indeed a bit more than a few decades ago, but it only changed from "extremely sparse" to "slightly sparse."

The freshman number of this batch, which barely broke four hundred, was still a case of many monks and little porridge for such a large academy.

Jie Ming, like every time in the past few decades, sat steadily behind the recruitment desk of the Alchemy sect, holding a thick classic in his hand.

Seemingly reading intently, his mind had actually drifted far away, thinking about the details of a certain energy circuit optimization scheme.

He no longer held any expectations for this trip, only regarding it as a routine matter that needed to be fulfilled.

However, fate always seems to like to play a little joke inadvertently.

A small figure, slightly timid and lingering in place for a long time, finally shuffled to his desk.

Jie Ming's thoughts were pulled back to reality by this subtle movement, and he curiously raised his eyes to look at the little girl who looked only eleven or twelve years old.

She was wearing a clean but not gorgeous cotton dress, her brown curly hair looked a bit frizzy, her hands were nervously twisted in front of her, and her eyes were dodging, not daring to look at him.

Discovering Jie Ming looking at her, the little girl shrank back like a frightened fawn, but finally gathered her courage, moved a small step forward, and said in a voice as thin as a mosquito:

"H-hello—Instructor Jie Ming." She glanced quickly at the badge engraved with the name on Jie Ming's chest, confirming his identity, "I—I want to join Alchemy."

Jie Ming looked at her calmly, and his powerful spiritual power instantly traced back the information fragments that had vaguely come from the testing hall in the distance just now.

Although the distance was far, for an official wizard, capturing those announcement sounds about talent levels and the corresponding soul aura ripples was not difficult.

"Tier 4 talent, Anita Chuck. Is that right?" Jie Ming's voice was steady and waveless, directly pointing out her name and talent.

Anita seemed to be startled by this precise "recognition," and her little head nodded like a chick pecking at rice: "Y-yes, Instructor."

Having a surname, Chuck—Jie Ming understood instantly.

This usually meant that she came from a family that possessed at least wizard inheritance.

Such a child choosing the logistics department was eight or nine times out of ten listening to the pointers of family elders, rather than out of her own love for knowledge or insight into long-term interests.

Thinking of this, the slight ripple that had just risen in Jie Ming's heart quickly subsided, replaced by a trace of disappointment that was hard to detect.

But his face still maintained a waveless state, trying hard to recall and imitate the posture of Instructor Clark when he recruited him back then, nodding slightly, and saying in a tone with a bit of vicissitudes and indifference:

"A wise choice. The wizard's path is long and dangerous; only by ensuring survival first can one talk about the future. Persist, even if the aptitude is ordinary, one day, you will be able to glimpse the scenery that belongs to you."

These words, which he felt were full of wisdom and deep meaning when he heard them back then, now spoken by himself, carried a programmatic flavor.

"Yes, thank you for your teaching." Anita answered carefully, her tone respectful, yet lacking a touch from the heart.

Jie Ming didn't say more, took out a beast skin scroll that looked quite ancient and even a bit rough from under the table, and handed it to Anita.

"This is the standard apprentice contract of the Nuolun Workshop," he explained officially, "Read every clause on it carefully. If there is no objection, leave your blood and spiritual imprint on it. Remember, once the contract takes effect, any behavior that violates the terms will pay a price you cannot afford."

This scroll looked simple, but it was actually a quite precise wizarding tool.

That seemingly rough "beast skin" was actually leather taken from a beast at the official wizard level, usually used to make one-time high-power wizarding tools.

Using it to make a contract this time was considered a quite extravagant act.

And the surface of the scroll was even applied with clever light and shadow wizardry, making it a "display" itself.

It only presented half of the contract content; if one wanted to read the full text, one had to slide their finger upward on the surface of the scroll.

This was the second hidden test set by the Nuolun Academy when recruiting apprentices, mainly aimed at those apprentices who had no wizard background and relied entirely on themselves.

If one could discover and operate it by oneself, it was enough to prove that their observation, exploration spirit, and understanding were extraordinary.

However, for apprentices with family backgrounds like Anita, this was already an open secret.

Jie Ming watched her skillfully slide her finger upward on the surface of the scroll, the light and shadow changed, and the complete contract text appeared; she just scanned it quickly, clearly the family elders had already explained the key points to her.

Jie Ming shook his head secretly in his heart, and the last trace of expectation also dissipated.

Anita quickly followed the instructions, pricked her fingertip, and dripped a drop of fresh blood.

At the same time, Jie Ming guided her to separate a wisp from her still-weak spiritual power and merge it into the scroll.

Hum!

The scroll flashed with an imperceptible light and then returned to calm, marking the official establishment of the contract.

Jie Ming took out two books as thick as bricks from the storage space: "Basic Alchemy Manual" and "Basic Meditation Method," as well as a quite heavy wooden box containing basic tools and a pictorial of common materials, and placed them in front of Anita, while warning:

"This is what you need to get started. There are ten days until the official class starts. During this period, you must master the 'Basic Meditation Method' and successfully get started. If you cannot do it, your first month's standard resource allocation will be deducted."

He pointed to the wooden box: "Inside are your basic tools and some common materials. The academy has a public laboratory, but you need to book the usage time in advance."

Immediately, Jie Ming's expression became serious, and his gaze looked sharply at Anita: "Remember a few basic rules: First, safety first, any operation must strictly follow the specifications, no luck allowed! Second, private fighting is strictly prohibited in the academy, any dispute must be submitted to the instructor for adjudication. Third, respect knowledge, all borrowed books and used equipment must be carefully maintained and not damaged. Fourth, points are the only currency for you to exchange for resources and knowledge in the academy, work hard to earn them through tasks and learning!"

After quickly explaining, Jie Ming told her the general direction of the dormitory area, sat back in his chair, picked up the book he hadn't turned a few pages of, and signaled that she could leave.

"Thank you, Instructor, student takes her leave." Anita bowed respectfully, hugged the heavy books and wooden box with difficulty, and left somewhat kneeling.

Watching the thin back disappear at the edge of the crowd, Jie Ming blinked helplessly.

He began to be a little disappointed, but after thinking about it later, he felt that he seemed to have judged people by their appearance just now.

Judging her "lack of wisdom" just by the other party's background and skillful operation of the scroll might be unfair.

"Forget it, since I've accepted her—I hope you can bring me some unexpected surprises in the future." He whispered in his heart.

Ten days later, Jie Ming stepped into the exclusive laboratory assigned to the Alchemy sect by the academy, which he had almost never used, for the first time.

In the empty and huge laboratory, only Anita was waiting there early, looking particularly lonely.

Regarding this, Jie Ming didn't have any special performance; the bit of passion when he first became an instructor had long been smoothed out by the coldness of being ignored for the past few decades.

"Welcome to Alchemy, one of the most stable and foundational disciplines of Nuolun Academy." Jie Ming didn't care about Anita's reaction below at all, his tone was flat, neither fast nor slow.

"Here, you will learn the core of alchemy—understand, decompose, and reconstruct."

"Understand is the cognition of the essence of matter, analyzing its elemental composition and energy properties. Decompose is to dismantle matter into the basic units that constitute it. Reconstruct is to use spiritual power to guide energy and matter according to your will, reshaping it into a new form or endowing it with new properties."

Jie Ming glanced at Anita, his tone becoming serious: "Alchemy has extremely high requirements for spiritual power; your spiritual power is your strongest tool. The precision of spiritual power control determines the upper limit of your alchemy."

He walked to a small operating table next to the podium, on which was a piece of irregular gold that looked quite heavy.

"You should have already previewed basic alchemy, so I won't waste time. Today's first lesson is basic shaping." Jie Ming said calmly, "This is one of the most basic practices of alchemy, controlling the shape of objects through spiritual power. You will practice with gold."

Jie Ming didn't say more, directly took out a standard gold ingot for alchemy, and handed it to Anita.

"Watch carefully."

Jie Ming was concise and began to demonstrate the most basic gold shaping technique.

Soft and precise spiritual power flowed from his fingertips, guiding the gold ingot to flow, stretch, and change shape like a living thing.

The process was accompanied by Jie Ming's explanation of the points of energy input rhythm and material structural stability.

After the demonstration, he guided Anita to conduct her first alchemy practice in her life.

The class ended in a somewhat dull and mechanical atmosphere.

Anita operated strictly according to the steps, made no mistakes, but had no spiritual energy at all, more like completing an assigned task.

After returning to his core laboratory, Jie Ming recalled the scene in the classroom and sighed helplessly again.

This time, he wasn't sighing at the student's possible lack of wisdom, but at her attitude that was almost written on her face.

The other party lacked interest in alchemy, which Jie Ming could understand; after all, it was a choice arranged by the family.

However, expressing this lack of interest so obviously in the classroom, even affecting her own focus and learning efficiency, made Jie Ming somewhat unable to understand this behavior.

"If she keeps going with this attitude," Jie Ming looked at the eternally burning sky of the Purgatory Sulfur Plane outside the window and muttered to himself, "then I'm afraid she will really only be able to stay at the 'logistics' level for the rest of her life, and will never be able to touch the true core of wizards."

This first student didn't seem to bring surprises, but instead made him see the gap between ideal and reality more clearly.