Leon made the Fox bandages over a three days and was carefully rolling up the last of the soggy bandages to place securely into an interdimensional bag, a better version of the inters.p.a.cial bag as the latter not only provided s.p.a.ce, it provided time. Whatever was placed inside an interdimensional bag would not rot nor dry out nor age, although living things could not be placed inside anymore than within an inters.p.a.cial bag.It had been a long three days and Leon longed for nothing more than a hot bath and a cup of tea. He suspected other students would feel the same, although they would need to use the large communal baths that were in a Hall to the south of the others. They were exclusively for alchemist students as they did not require points to use and alchemists could make their own herbal baths, but had to go to the extra length of filling up a small, spare tub with heated water to do so. Leon, however, had no intention of using the communal bath as he still had a long journey to get to his little isolated hut and would rather not arrive their sweaty and needing a second wash.
As he cleaned up the spare cauldron and the kegs and basins that he had used to make the Fox Bandages, Teacher Sagi came into the room allocated for his use in the Lecturer"s Hall. "Thank you for all of your a.s.sistance in these past few days, Leo," the man said, smiling broadly. "I was most impressed by your focus to the task. I heard that you even helped to make a few other pills while the potions were setting."
"Y-Yes," Leon admitted. He had been bored waiting as he had filled all the available kegs with potion and had nothing to do, but grab and eat a quick meal. The Food Hall had been producing a selection of cooked meats, rice, potatoes, vegetables and bread for most of this busy period, from early in the morning until late at night, as well, so students could eat whenever they liked rather than at set times.
After eating, though, he had still had time on his hands and was witness to black smoke pouring out of a certain young woman"s cauldron. He"d seen Maimai near to tears with frustration, further exasperated when her sister, Merylin, had produced a fragrant blood pill from her cauldron. It could have been considered as good a pill as Leon"s improved blood pill from the scent and l.u.s.tre of it, although Leon knew its side effects would be worse than his still. He had kneeled beside Maimai and murmured softly; "Hey, long t-t-time n-no see."
"Senior!" Maimai had wrapped her arms about his neck, literally throwing herself on Leon"s small frame with a sob. Leon had had to wrap his arms around her to stop her from pushing him over flat upon his back! "Senior! Please help this useless student!"
Ignoring the sudden glares coming their way, he had patted her on the back and helped her practice making the one heart pill until she got the gist of it. It turned out that Maimai was an easily distracted girl. The best way to help her was to isolate her from the other students, so he brought her to the room he had been working on and had her create pills in there, with the door shut to reduce the noisy world beyond.
Once Maimai"s concentration was a little better, he had created one heart pills beside her, dishing the average quality pills out swiftly and without fail. Maimai had still messed up once or twice and also produced a handful of very poor quality pills, but mostly, her success rate had improved and she had a couple of jade bottles worth before her stomach had rumbled and she had convinced him to join her for dinner.
Leon did not know it, but he had become perhaps the most hated student in the outer school that day. If only they knew, like Maimai suspected, that he could only be a girl"s good friend and never her lover, they might have not eaten so much vinegar.
Teacher Sagi also did not know Leon was being disliked by other Male students at that time, but it would not have mattered to him even if he had. His eyes were on the unexplored potential of the youth before him.
For the three years that Leo had attended the school, he had not stood out much, just been seen as a diligent student, but not talented, hardworking, but not exceedingly so. He had produced a lot of pills, but they weren"t particularly of notable quality. Teacher Sagi, however, had always considered Leo as reliable, though; he would fulfil any task given to him with reasonable speed and never handed in poor pills. There was just one time he seemed to falter and that was when he had had his unexplained deviation in his cultivation. And yet since then, he had proved himself once more as reliable, had broken through into Secondary level cultivation and even had Teachers from other schools enquiring after him. Naturally, this would make Teachers of the Alchemist school sit up and take notice of him.
As this was the case and as Leon had proven himself even more producing a recipe after learning it with Teacher Sagi"s teachings swiftly and showing talent with the harvesting of the thorns, Teacher Sagi knew that there would be even more interest in him. So naturally, Teacher Sagi had to claim the boy as his direct student first.
"Leon, how would you like for me to be your Teacher?"