Dr. Cortes grinned at me in the wake of hearing my response and nodded. The strange old man beckoned for me to approach him.

"Well Althos, you can begin your education by approaching me." He said before his body language became withdrawn and focused on the tools in front of him. I approached him, curiously.

I walked as close to him as I could, stopping on the other side of a table that was where many of his tools were situated. Chief among them were numbers of different bowls made of some ceramic material and an equal number of miniature clubs located right inside of them. Dr. Cortes noticed me glancing at them, and began to speak.

"Do you know what you're looking at?" He asked. His face was facing me, but because of his goggles, I couldn't see if he was actually staring at me.

"I don't." I confessed, simply. He chuckled and grabbed one of the mini-clubs sitting in one of the bowls and began to speak again.

"What you're looking at are mortars and pestles. These are some alchemical tools." He said, before raising the club into the air turning his face towards it.

"This is a pestle. Alchemy often requires things to be beaten, ground, or otherwise rendered malleable-enough for usage in potions, and pestles are one tool that we alchemists use to make objects suitable for usage in our potions." The tiny man told me, speaking confidently.

He nonchalantly handed me the object, which I deftly took from him. I examined it closely and noted its surprisingly heavyweight, as well as its simplicity. It was a clear, well-cared-for and tiny club made of white stone. While I was examining the tool the good doctor continued to speak.

"I no longer possess the strength needed to perform my alchemical duties. And when I say 'strength', I want you to know I am being literal. Grinding things to dust, powder, or paste is physically taxing. I was able to do my work unaided for many years, but now I can't even handle the damn thing for more than a quarter of an hour without my hands aching to high heaven." The goggled doctor explained.

"And I take it that's where I come in?" I asked while turning my gaze in his direction and smiling.

"You catch on quick. Yes, that is what I would like for our arrangement to become. You help me with the physical parts of alchemy, which you'll find are oftentimes a bit more... involved, than merely grinding some plants or rocks into dust or paste, and I will both pay you and teach you basic alchemy." He told me, quipping for a bit before getting to the point.

I considered what he said before replying. I had a simple question for him that I asked while I thought about his words.

"So wait, what is alchemy?" I asked, curiously. I heard him utter a soft laugh, one he may have been attempting to hide from me given just how quiet it was.

"Oh, you young-uns with your lackluster magical education." He muttered, complaining slightly. I myself chuckled at his consideration of me, in my ambiguously-aged looking body as a "young-un".

"Alchemy is a supernaturally oriented branch of science that is focused on the transformation and alteration of matter. Alchemists have a number of different specialties, but I am a potion-mixer myself. I create and sell potions... Magical drinks." He informed me, a soft grin on his face by the time he finished speaking.

"I see... That sounds really neat actually." I told him, my voice growing audibly more excited as I spoke. His grin grew wider as I spoke.

"It's so neat! I'm an expert-ranked potion-brewer. If I were a pretentious asshole I could say something like 'I can tell you how to bottle fame, brew glory, and even put a stopper in death', but I'm not. So instead I'll say that if you turn out to be a diligent student I could teach you how to brew potions that heal stab wounds, how to make many escudos out of a few minutes of work and some plants, or even how to sell potions that save marriages." The elderly man explained, smugly.

He was standing upright as he spoke, but even as those words were escaping his lips he stood up straight and righted his posture. He projected his voice more in a show of confidence and almost seemed to grow stronger from speaking. It was as if his confidence were making him more of a man.

"And what do I have to do to begin learning about this?" I asked, well aware that it sounded like I was getting the better half of this deal. He studied me for a few moments.

"Your open curiosity is both annoying and endearing." He told me, his lips in a flat line. I laughed audibly, the sound stretching and echoing throughout the room we were standing in.

"I've been told that before. Mostly by old friends." I explained, grinning at the stone-faced old man.

"Well, you're lucky that curiosity is a good thing in a scientific field. It's encouraged, and very often it's... rewarded." He informed me, curiously. I looked at him quizzically but he wasn't done talking just yet.

"I'll be real with you, Althos. Partially because I have a feeling you won't work with me unless I'm honest, which is fair. I'm in bad shape right now. My hands work, enough for me to do basic things anyway, but not for me to be an alchemist. At least not worth anything. But there is a solution. You. Well... not 'you' personally, but the concept of you." The old man said, speaking enigmatically.

"I need someone strong to aid me. I need someone willing to do repetitive tasks for me. I am more than happy to pay that person for their time and labor, and I will teach them about alchemy if they'd be interested in learning anyway. It'd be an investment on my part. In both of our futures." He revealed, gradually unveiling a scheme.

I nodded at him, beginning to see the cogs in his mind whirl before my eyes. I could appreciate his simplicity, and I was happy to have a tutor.

"If I agreed, would this start... immediately?" I asked, wondering what sort of arrangement the town's eccentric scholar had in mind. He shook his head at me, a slight frown on his face.

"No. I'd need to get used to you first and see if you'd be worth teaching. That would take a few days, but it wouldn't be long. For the sake of being forthright with you my first impression of you isn't bad. That said... do you care to sit down and begin to learn? I have some basic ingredients we could use right here." He said, before opening up a part of the table that was unviewable from where I was and pulling out some rocks.

He slammed two rocks into two bowls, producing a loud noise that reverberated throughout the room.

"What am I looking at?" I asked, studying the hefty stones. They were silver stones, and they looked thick.

"You're looking at iron ore. Iron is a handy metal with plenty of medical uses. It's also tough, especially for its size. This should serve as a worthwhile test to see if you possess the proper physical aptitude for the sort of work I'll need you for." He revealed to me, a sly grin on his face.

---

The stones sat in one of the bowls. He nudged one of the bowls towards me, and I proceeded to push it closer to me. I grabbed my own pestle and lifted it into the air above the bowl. The object felt weighty but not unwieldy in my hand.

"You take the pestle, and you just... proceed to beat this rock." He said a lascivious smile on his face. I shook my head at him, somehow understanding that he was making an awkward, dirty remark. That said, I swiftly began to undertake the task I was asked to accomplish.

I swung my pestle into the rock, striking with a weapon for the first time in my life. The object swung fast and hard and slammed into the strange mineral that sat in front of me. The iron ore was thrown into the pestle by the force of my blow, but none of it was chipped off. Dr. Cortes looked at the ore in front of me and chuckled. And then he began to replicate my action, just with less force.

I proceeded to lift up my pestle and strike the iron again. By repeating my actions I received a repetition of the initial results. And this marked the beginning of the next few minutes of my day. Minutes I'd spend whacking at iron ore.

---

A few minutes after I began striking the iron one the good doctor had dropped in front of me, Dr. Cortes looked at me and frowned. His body language conveyed his disappointment. He was hunched over, and his hands trembled with the work he had just done.

In front of me, there was a heavily bruised looking clump of iron ore. The thing was littered with indents. It was also more or less undamaged by my actions.

I was annoyed by this, and placed the pestle on the table. "I'm gonna be brave." I declared, before looking at Dr. Cortes with a determined expression on my face.

"Do you have extra iron? In case my bravery results in abject failure?" I asked the scientist. My question drew a soft chuckle from the old man. He nodded at me, and I smiled at him.

"Alchemy involves supernatural elements. I can get down with that." I said to him, raising my hand and preparing a spell. I put a finger close to the pestle and reminded myself of a spell I had yet to use. I took a deep breath and placed a finger close to the mortar.

"I am a druid. I possess magic. I don't need to just use my hands." I explained out loud. This elicited a soft, surprised, gasp from Dr. Cortes.

I thought back to when I first entered the forest outside of town. I recalled what my grimoire revealed to me: the list of spells at my disposal. One of them stuck out to me as I glared at the annoyingly hard clump of iron that had stubbornly resisted my initial attempts to break it down.

[Embers: Produces a small sphere of flame that can be used to illuminate your surroundings or as a ranged attack on enemies.]

I focused on the spell and activated it through sheer annoyance. Before both my eyes and the eyes of my potential teacher thin gouts of flames escaped from the two fingers I had placed next to the pestle and mortar, with the vigor of newly created life. They came to life while producing a soft hissing noise, one that was quieter than the sound of delighted laughter that escaped Dr. Cortes' throat.

"Magic... what a diamond in the rough." The old man muttered, unable to hide his excitement. I grinned, and studied the little line of orange flames that were emanating from my fingertips.

I gently moved my finger as close as possible to my clump of iron and watched as the flames that were jetting out of my fingertip began to collide with the iron ore.

---

"I am going to heat this iron ore, and then break it." I said, determinedly. Dr. Cortes nodded as I watched the iron begin to glow.

The iron before me transformed from a colorless clump of ore into an eerily radiant, misshapen block. It took several moments, moments in which both Dr. Cortes and I were both obsessively observing the iron ore situated in my pestle. But that wasn't the only thing I was doing.

I slyly pressed my other flaming fingertip against my mortar and watched as the blunt object began to change colors in my hand. The weapon-like tool also turned a stunning shade of orange, due to it being heated to a high temperature. I lifted the glowing weapon into the air and brought it down hard on the ore.

The impact of the mortar against the ore produced a spectacularly loud noise that filled the room. It was the sound of a hard object slamming into another hard object combined with an explosive hiss of escaping steam. I watched as a whole chunk of the ore instantly fell apart under the force of my blow, turned into a mixture of dust, powder, and a thick, syrupy liquid.

Dr. Cortes covered his eyes and shouted something that was indistinct to me at the time. This was because I had just received a new message from the system.

[Your first time experimenting with fire and it was truly explosive. Nice. Just so you know, it's these sorts of neat little interactions with the world that increase your influence over domains and subdomains alike.] My companion revealed, surprising me by not offering to unlock something just now. I shook my head and refocused on the situation in front of me.

At this point the explosive noise from earlier had died down. Dr. Cortes was looking at me expectantly, before sighing and preparing to repeat himself.

"I suppose you must not have heard me. I was complimenting you my boy!" He said, excitedly. There was an energetic tone in his voice, a genuine and surprising level of excitement.

"Now... go on, do it again!" The old man declared, giving me orders. I chuckled and repeated the process I had just done for the first time. I'd spend the next two hours doing this.

---

Two hours later I was covered in sweat, and well over a dozen chunks of iron ore had been thoroughly transformed by my fusion of magic. I grinned at the scene before me. The table between myself and Dr. Cortes was littered with pestles containing iron dust, powder, and what I now knew was something called "molten iron".

"Hehe... Haha... HAHAHA! I can't believe this! Althos, you are great. You have some strength, some magic, and can even transform iron into molten iron. It's... you're something special." The elderly individual said to me. There was a tone of unexpected awe in his voice at the end of his remarks.

I grinned at him. My grin was sincere and my lips were open, so my grin was showing my teeth. This caused Dr. Cortes to chuckle gently.

"I believe it's time I receive an explanation." I said while the man I hoped to make into my educator was still chuckling. He fell silent after he heard my request though, which was a bit disappointing. He held his silence for a few moments before acquiescing to my request.

"What you just did was use heat to soften metal, before suddenly and explosively slamming it with an abrupt change in temperature. That caused it to dramatically and handily explode." He revealed to me. There was a smugness in his voice that I could plainly and easily hear.

"Iron and its various states of being, are handy items. They are used in the creation of health potions. This is because iron is a critical part of blood and health potions replenish blood, among other things." The human said to me, speaking gently and plainly.

"Health potions are excellent and capable of restoring a significant amount of health in those who imbibe them. They close wounds, heal cuts, and can even cause the undead to writhe in pain." The elderly fellow said, before pausing and considering what to say next.

"Now to show you how to create them." Dr. Cortes said to me, his voice filled with audible excitement.

---

A few moments later the enigmatic alchemist was hard at work barking orders at me. The room resounded with his voice.

"Now Althos, grab some of the dust from the iron ore and sprinkle it onto some of the forest roots!" The man commanded. I obeyed him and sprinkled some of the dust from the iron ore onto two thick roots, huge green things that filled one of the pestles in front of me. The roots were ugly and smelled bad, but they were also apparently capable of restoring significant amounts of health to those who needed it.

The dust fell from my fingertips, sliding through them and covering the roots in a fine, silvery powder. It smelled faintly of the earth underneath me, and I chuckled at that.

"Now use the mortar in front of you to pound the roots. Beat them until they are nothing more than an ugly, green paste." My educator commanded. I chuckled and obeyed his command, finding this much easier to do than pounding iron. I did this for two minutes, only stopping when Dr. Cortes commanded me too.

"Halt!" He roared, after thoroughly studying my labor.

"Now... it's time for a test." He said, approaching me and sticking out a finger so that he could deftly grab enough of the thick paste I had just created. There was a smile on his face as he did so.