In a courtyard, surrounded by pots and raised beds, with the sound of water lapping against a pond"s edge, sat a man, a Teacher. At a stone table, on which he had scrolled doc.u.ments scattered here and there, the Teacher was reading, occasionally scribbling notes and at other times sipping from a tea cup. After reading a scroll, he tossed it into a small wooden container upon the bench. The container did not appear to be able to fit the scrolled doc.u.ment, at yet it vanished inside regardless. This container was a spatial device, much like an interspatial bag, just with a different external look. It also could fit much more inside than most interspatial bags could.Feeling that the tea in his cup had grown tepid, he poured it onto the floor and not into one of the nearby pots or flower beds. This was because each pot and raised bed contained precious herbs, he could not risk ruining the conditions of the soil, which he maintained with precision and painstaking work. Many of his herbs had their own wants and needs and to ensure they grew into their greatest potential, he had near perfected his care towards them over the centuries. His greatest joy was to sit amongst them, able to enjoy the fruits of his labours before they were harvested for use in pills and potions.
Tossing another report into the box, which happened to be an invoice for new cauldrons, he heard a voice calling out to him in a jovial manner and naturally, he glanced up to greet his visitor. "Volun," he said as the silver haired man approached. "What brings you to the outer alchemist school?"
"Actually, I have something to discuss with you," the man replied, taking the offered seat upon the stone bench opposite the other. A tea cup was summoned from the wooden box and placed upon the table, before it was filled with a light scented green tea and placed before Volun. "Thank you," he said, gratefully, before continuing from earlier; "Actually, it is about one of your students."
"One of my students?" The other Teacher questioned, however before Volun could clarify, a third voice was heard in the garden;
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"Teacher Sagi!" The words were followed by a man in white robes favoured by the Healers of the Inst.i.tute. "Excuse me for intruding, but I wanted to know where I could find a student of yours!"
"I think I should prepare a fresh pot of tea," Sagi sighed and gathering the cast iron tea pot, he entered his home in order to do so.
Sometime later, when fresh tea had been poured and the three men had exchanged light pleasantries, the visitors began to finally discuss the reasons for approaching Teacher Sagi during this four day break period. As Volun had arrived first, it was only fair that he broach the subject first as well.
"As I previously mentioned," he began, "I came to talk to you about one of your students."
"There hasn"t been any trouble, has there?" Teacher Sagi asked him. It was not unheard of for students of any schools to have differences after all, say if requested pills were not to the standard the requester insisted upon despite rewards being low or if tamed beasts had escaped and wandered into the small herb gardens in amongst the dormitories of the students.
"No trouble," Volun"s eyes were twinkling with excitement. "I wanted to speak to your student about somethings. Especially about his carvings!"
Teacher Sagi"s bushy brows furrowed and his hand fell to his waist, where happened to be a carved wooden charm in the shape of a flowering bladed thistle. "That student... I only know of one in the outer school that has a hobby of carving things. What do you want from him?"
Volun"s eyes happened to catch Sagi"s movement and he smiled as he said; "Have you yet to notice the unique trait of the charm upon your belt? Try using your inner eye to look at it more closely." Sagi"s frown deepened, but he did as was suggested.
A moment later, his eyes widened and his brows rose high upon his forehead as he exclaimed; "How is that possible? Leo really did this?"
"I don"t quite understand what"s going on," The Healer interrupted the flow of their conversation, slightly impatient, "But you say this... Leo is the only student who can carve things? Then is this his bottle...?" The Healer took out a small jade bottle with a cute carved label attached. Inside the bottle was a single pill. The Healer had fought profusely with Teacher Corvus over this bottle and lone pill, the other insisting he needed those pills for what if his cute student was hurt again in the future? In the end, Corvus took the three other pills and placed them in a high quality jade bottle that the Healer had given him in exchange. His heart had bled slightly for that bottle cost more than ten times the price of the cheap bottle he was left with.
Sagi looked down at the bottle and slowly nodded, recalling the numerous labelled jade bottles upon his three students" stall. Leo had decorated the bottles in order to make his pills stand out from the rest of the common pills and potions available, not yet able to make rare things nor high or peak quality ones. Sagi had been impressed by his ingenuity. "What of it?"
The Healer poured the lone pill into his palm and handed it to the alchemist. "Take a good look."
"It"s just a One Heart Pill..." he paused and looked more in depth, drawn in by the scent of the Pill which was just so pure and the glossy sheen of it. This... this couldn"t be one of Leo"s pills... right?
"A One Heart Pill identical to this healed severe outer injuries of a martial arts student not too long ago," The Healer informed him. "The wound healed rapidly and cleanly. There won"t even be a scar. Not only that, it is clear it has less impurities than most One Heart Pills."
"But my Leo?" Sagi couldn"t help but be dubious. After all, who more than his Teacher should understand his talents and capability? Leo"s talent lie in his patience and amazing consistency and control. His pill quality was improving, but generally his pills could be said to be average or just good. This pill which was not quite a normal One Heart Pill, he couldn"t claim to know its quality having nothing to compare it against.
Volun"s eyes were sparkling even more intensely as if having unearthed a rare treasure. "Then why don"t we go and speak with him and find out?"