Bookbound Bunny

B2 - Chapter 56 - Crazy Toxic

Lily, Lotte, and the other three students stood around awkwardly waiting for Professor Sylwel to finish what he was doing. He was writing something down while occasionally glancing at the door as the last few students slowly milled out.

"Seems this class has yielded the largest batch so far, and judging by the low signups for tomorrow's, I don't think that will change," Sylwel said as he looked over the group. "Depending on how the group goes and how many stick around, I might need some of you to coordinate the distribution around the class. Can't have all the assistants in one lesson."

The professor then proceeded to give a brief explanation of what he expected, which primarily involved assisting the students with the practical exercises after his demonstration. He wasn't expecting any of them to teach or share theoretical knowledge; he only wanted to ensure that nobody caused any accidents.

"In the beginning, there won't be much, but later on it can become an issue," the professor explained. "All it takes is one idiot to throw in a handful of pyre powder instead of a pinch, and suddenly half the room will lose their hair and eyebrows."

While Lily hadn't worked with any particularly hazardous materials yet, she could understand what the professor was talking about. She'd watched Miss Camilla work, and her bad eyesight had caused one or two near mishaps to go out of control.

Naturally, this led to the question of "how can we be expected to help if we haven't done it beforehand," to which the professor only chuckled.

"That's where my extra lessons come into play. You are welcome to visit my lab on weekends, where I will review the lessons for the next week or two in a condensed format. I've found that those with a solid background tend to catch on quickly enough that it won't be needed. In the worst case, I'll request some of my assistants in the second or maybe even the third year to help me."

"Sorry to be blunt, Professor, but what's in it for us?" one of the boys asked. "I don't think learning the lesson ahead of schedule is enough payment to be honest, I'd rather breeze by as a regular student if this is all we get."

Sylwel grinned in response, as if expecting this response. "Naturally, a few headstart lessons aren't all I'm offering. My assistants, assuming you pass the probation period, have full access to use the lab here whenever they wish. Unless you've brought an entire alchemy set to your dorm room, I'm sure you'll enjoy the free range access."

Lily and the group all nodded; that was already quite a good deal.

"I'll also be providing some lessons that are not part of the curriculum, and I'm willing to sponsor all my assistants with some basic supplies within reason. In addition to that, you'll get to take part in some of my experiments if I feel you are up to the task."

Any hesitation on the boy's face vanished, and now he looked eager to join. The rest of the group was also practically salivating at what was on offer.

"And, if you're outstanding, or maybe you have a unique talent to bring to the table, I might offer a bounty reward," Sylwel elaborated further, before pointing at Lotte. "For example, you could donate blood to my research, or later, when you're better trained, work in the toxicology lab."

"Me?" Lotte asked, evidently very confused.

"Yes, you. Unless your bunny friend also happens to have extremely poisonous blood?"

Lily quickly shook her head, while Lotte silently gasped.

"When you chose to come here, your parents sent some of your bloodwork and previous health evaluations to the school to explain your circumstances," Sylwel explained. "Not only could I provide you with some recipes to help your condition, but I believe you should be quite immune to any toxins, poisons, and venoms, insipid compared to your own. Making you perfect for the job, assuming you put in the effort to get there."

"Um... are you sure?" Lotte hesitantly asked.

"Of course, I performed the tests myself and am very familiar with toxicology. Or did you think I faked my previous demonstration?"

Lily and the rest of the students all looked at the professor in confusion, not knowing what he was talking about. When nobody spoke up, he let out a disgruntled sigh before reaching into his lab coat and pulling out another purple vial.

"This is concentrated blight bloom extract," he said, pointing at the vile, causing Lily and two other students to jump backwards in horror.

Lily had only read about it in one of Camilla's books; it was a deadly flower labeled "burn on sight" to prevent its proliferation. It caused a slow death if left untreated, and the corpses it left behind would not only spread its seeds but also infect others who came into contact.

"You drank that!?" the girl next to Lily screamed out.

"Of course," Sylwel replied nonchalantly. "I thought it would be quite the spectacle to show the proof of my work, and yet nobody in the entire class was impressed. To think once again my years of research would go underappreciated."

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"We had no idea what you drank," Lily quickly pointed out. "You didn't even label the vial."

The professor stared at Lily, blinking a few times before looking at the vial. "I see your point."

Oh gods, he's crazy!

"What does that have to do with me?" Lotte asked.

"Well, much like myself, you should be immune to this," he explained.

"I'm not drinking that!" Lotte promptly shot down any chance of that happening.

"While that would be an impressive demonstration, I wouldn't expect you to. However, I can show you why I've hypothesized this result," he said, and reached into his outside pocket and pulled out a syringe. "May I please take a small sample of your blood?"

Despite him asking and pointing at Lotte's arm, Lily was the one who flinched backwards and clutched her arms tightly. Lotte, however, sighed, and with some curiosity to see where this was going, held out her arm.

"Okay... but only a small bit," she reluctantly agreed.

"Excellent. This will be quick, I can assure you," he said and effortlessly extracted a small bit of her blood.

To Lily and almost everyone except the professor's surprise, Lotte's blood was almost entirely black. Just the sight of it alone gave you this underlying feeling of something about it being wrong and dangerous.

"Watch," he said and stabbed the needle through the cork of the purple vial and injected her blood into the mixture.

The blackish blood began to seep through the purple liquid, and when he gave the vial a small swirl, it expedited the process even further. In a matter of seconds, any trace of the purple substance was entirely gone.

"To put it simply, your blood kills other toxins," Sylwel said.

"I had no idea..." Lotte replied.

"Well, I imagine no sane parent would let their child be bitten or stung by a venomous monster, nor willingly ingest such substances."

The students were nodding their heads when, to the horror of everyone present, the professor uncorked the vial and drank half of its contents in a single gulp. Lotte herself screamed in terror, but the professor quickly held up his free hand in a gesture to calm them all down.

"See, this was the reaction I was expecting earlier..." he said as he licked his lips. "I'll need to run a more thorough analysis on the remainder, but I cannot taste or detect even a hint remaining of the blight bloom extract."

"I think I'm going to throw up..." Lotte said, her face going pale.

"There's a bucket over there," Professor Sylwel said with a point of his finger. "And, as it should be obvious, my experiments led to me being immune to any and all toxic substances, magical or otherwise, from my rather robust testing."

[I really do hope he is working towards lichdom; otherwise, I fear he will soon become a victim of his own experiments. We lose so many great minds and future pioneers to their reckless tendencies. I wonder if he transmuted his own body to gain such immunities?]

Don't agree with him! Lily mentally cried out to no avail.

Once the group had calmed down and Lotte had made sure she wasn't going to hurl, the professor continued as if nothing had happened.

"Not to dishearten any of my other prospective assistants, but I will point out I would have requested her to donate regardless of her alchemy experience," Sylwel said, pointing at Lotte.

"Lotte..." she replied. "My name's Lotte."

"Ah! Names would be a good idea, yes," the professor suddenly agreed.

While Lily continued to wonder what she had signed up for, the group quickly introduced themselves.

The two boys were Richard and Kenny, while the girl was Samantha. She even stressed this a few times, emphasizing that it was "Samantha, not Sam and definitely not Sammy."

Lily held back a small giggle, finding it a little funny, but she figured that outside of assistant lessons, she probably wouldn't get much chance to interact with the three as they hadn't stood out in regular classes, and none of them were in Maranix.

When Lily introduced herself, the professor looked at her curiously as if something was on the tip of his tongue.

"Lily... Lily... I think I've heard that somewhere," he mumbled.

Lily sighed. Here comes the magical bunny spiel again.

Even the other students seemed tired by it, the excitement had long worn off after seeing too many teachers react this way.

"Yes, she's the Lagia with star magic, please don't make it a big deal," Lotte said, attempting to come to her rescue.

"You can use magic? Interesting..." Professor Sylwel commented with as much enthusiasm as if she'd said the sky was blue today. "I simply had thought you were perhaps a friend of whatsername who came to learn some potion making for adventuring. While somewhat rare, there are a few Lagia who take up the craft."

His nonreaction was more surprising than anything, causing the students to almost wish he'd reacted like the others. He pulled out a small notebook and began paging through it.

"I'm sure I heard that name from somewhere else, though..." he continued to murmur, seemingly ignoring everyone else until he found the answer.

To everyone's relief, he found it relatively quickly before the awkward silence went on for too long.

"Aha! Found it!" he said and thrust the page he found forward to the group. On it was a sketch of a familiar-looking glyph. "Are you the same Lily who drew this?"

"It looks sort of like the one I drew for Headmaster Fabrelis," Lily answered. "Although there are a lot of mistakes in this..."

"So the mysterious glyphmaker comes right to my doorstep," Sylwel said with a grin. "I was growing worried that I'd need to talk to whatshisface and find out which of his enchanters drew this."

"Professor Ollie?" Lily asked.

Sylwel snapped his fingers. "Yeah, that one. As for the quality... I'm afraid glyphwork was never my forte, so I could only sketch as best I could from memory."

"What's so special about this glyph?" Samantha asked curiously.

"Well, firstly, it was a triangle," the professor answered excitedly.

"A triangle?" Richard repeated.

"Yes, a triangle. I've never seen a fire triangle before, but there it was," he further explained, bringing the other students up to pace. "In addition to that, it was the exact temperature to dissolve Sneezeweed without compromising the Crystallized Anise."

Lily nodded. "Yes, that was its original purpose. But I thought you said you were bad with glyphs?"

"Oh no, my dear, I had no clue what the glyph was doing in its design. However, I knew the temperature all too well; I was a student once, too, and mass-producing basic detox potions was my bread and butter," he answered with a grin.

"Let me guess, you want me to draw glyphs for bounties?" Lily replied.

The professor's grin got wider. "I'm glad you're offering my dear. I can already imagine quite a setup for some mass potion production depending on what you can draw for us."

Lily gave a defeated smile. She should have known that she'd never truly escape from her alchemy glyph drawing duties even once she was free from Camilla's clutches.