Now that he had resolved to put his power to the test he needed a volunteer to help him, so he went to find someone in order for him to be able to test it on them and after a bit of consideration he quickly decided who would be the perfect candidate for being his first assistant in his endeavors.

A person wich would not only let him test his powers without complaints but would also be subtle about it and wouldn't report to his parents everything that occurred. He would have to perform many experiments as a conductor some having a certain degree of danger so if possible he would like to keep his parents out of the loop. There is nothing that a conductor hates more than having someone supervising and interfering in their experiments and Alabaster was no different in this aspect.

Without any further delay he went straight towards the back of the mansion, he walked until he arrived at the front of an warehouse that was completely isolated from the rest of the mansion.

He then knocked on the door and waited for a few seconds before the door was opened revealing a very messy and dirty servant wich had bags under her eyes showing that she wasn't having nearly enough rest and an expression that clearly showed that she didn't appreciate the visit.

"How many times have I said that I didn't want to be disturb-  M-Master?! what are you doing here?" Indeed, the person that he came to meet was non other than his loyal attendant Beatrice, the reason for her being in a isolated warehouse and her current appearance is that after she had her own awakening as a alchemist two years ago she requested to be given a workshop, wich she recieved in the form of an old warehouse, it's location was also ideal for safety and so she wouldn't be interrupted, meanwhile her appearance is due to her dedicating almost all of her free time to developing her ability, sacrificing even her own sleeping and eating time. She must have locked herself in her workshop since the end of the ceremony. 

"*Ahem* Greetings, Master Alabaster, what compels you to come find this humble servant?" She while still looking messy quickly realizes her previous blunder and proceeds to greet him appropriately. "Let's go inside first, so we can freely talk" I say while already inviting myself inside."But inside is a complete mess- I mean, understood. I will do as master wishes." She changes her tone after seeing that I was already making my way inside before even hearing her reply.

Inside her workshop, there can be seen various stacks of boxes that are expected as the place is a old warehouse, additionally there can be seen various tunes and sacks with various materials witch she uses to perform transmutation, there is also a table with various scientific apparatus such as a cooler box, a heating plate, many machines to separate and mix materials and an compressor witch are very commonly used by alchemists that are learning the art of potioneering.

But Alabaster doesn't pay to much attention to it and just sits in a stack of boxes, Beatrice sits in another stack of boxes that are across from him shortly after and then Alabaster starts to talk.

"Well, the reason why I came and disturbed you is because I want to make a proposition for you, I need someone for me to be able to use my powers as a enhancer, but most of the mansion staff would report everything directly to my parents and they would be constantly breathing down my shoulder, so I would prefer it was you who helped me." She is currently the only person I can count on for this, when we first met she held an enormous admiration for my parents and would do everything they asked, while nowadays after we became much closer she seems to be just as loyal to me as to my parents and is willing to keep a few secrets from them for my sake as long as I promisse her some benefit.

She, after hearing all of this adopts a thinking pose and seem to start a lengthy internal argument to decide if she would become my accomplice, and in the meantime I stay silent and await patiently for her to come to her decision.

After a lot of thinking she she slowly nods, her mind made up to support her master and longtime friend. "OK, I will help you" and hearing her confirmation he feels relief and gratitude so he responds. "Thanks, I aways knew I could count on you" But he was quickly cut off by her, "On a condition though, I agree to be a test subject for your powers but in return you will also be a test subject for my potions and you must also not tell anyone about it, I recently reached a bottleneck and need someone to test out my potions, preferably someone who can give me feedback on the potions unlike the animals I've been using and a conductor would be even better to test due to your better constitution and greater absorption of the potions." It seemed that she failed to find anyone that was willing to become her personal lab rat inside the Manor and I'm probably her last option. 

While such proposition was unacceptable for a attendant to make to his master, I had no problems with it since we were friends for 8 years and I felt it was a fair trade since my request would also trouble her so I quickly agreed to her proposition. From now on we would both use each other in order to test out our powers and further our experiments while keeping it a secret from everyone else.

And it seemed that we would already put to the test our pact, since she seemed to already have something in her workshop that needed testing. 

"Since you are already here then you can already help me with something." She says while leading him to her work area.

In there she led me to her work table wich had various glasses and tunes filled with many different solutions.

"Here drink this" She says to him while handing him a tube with a green fluorescent liquid that looked very suspicious, prompting him to ask " What's in it?" And she responded "This potion has the effect of decreasing your heartbeat and suppressing the shaking of your hands making you be capable of greater accuracy and control while working on delicate experiments."

He was still on the fence about the suspicious liquid but he knew that she wasn't going to give him enything if it was too dangerous and it has probably already went trough many tests before landing on his hands. Besides he already agreed to help her and it was time for him to deliver on it.

The liquid was drunk in a single gulp, it's taste being very bitter and unpleasant. It took a few seconds for the effect to appear, when it did he felt like his veins were freezing and his body was cold but completely still, without a single shiver, his body was forced to remain completely still and he felt that he had complete control over every single muscle.

"I should be working soon, I have already tested this potion on myself but having another person to test it's effects would provide me with greater insights. Now, describe it to me to everything to the tiniest detail. How are you feeling? Does it has the intended effect? Does it have any other unforseen side effect? Do not hold back and share everything with me!" She talks while being unable to hold back her exitiment, she is finally being able to test her potions in other human beings, although it was on her master and behind the Lord and madam's back. But he gave his consent and sacrifices must be made in the name of progress!

Alabaster calmly and patiently listed of all the effects that the potion was having on him while she took notes, nodding from time to time as she seemed to be already experiencing a great increase in her productivity with his new insights.

After that the two of them spent a few hours with him drinking many medicinal and utilitarian potions while she would continuously take notes and come up with various ideas to increase the potion's performance or reduce it's cost via swapping certain ingredients with more common ones. Since conductors have a greater absorption of the potions allowing for the affects to appear quicker but also wearoff quicker allowing him to drink a large amount of potions in those few hours.

The path of alchemy is a very open one and there is more than a single way for you to reach your goals so most alchemists prefer to not have a guidance of a master narrowing their path so its up to each alchemist to experiment and discover new paths to themselves.

But now, he had upheld his end of the bargain and it was time for her to do the same. They decided that it would be better for them to move to a clearing just outside the warehouse for him to test out his powers, even if augumenters are not know to be very destructive with their powers, it was still better to stay away from the place filled with volatile materials as a precaution.

Reaching there Alabaster started to notice that Beatrice was fidgeting and seemed a bit nervous which was quite uncommon. Today he was able to get many reactions and expressions out of her due to she being taken by surprise and her exhaustion both physical and mental, but her mental fortitude is really hard to crumble under most circumstances, so I became quite curious about the reason.

"Why are acting so skittish? If you are thinking that I made all this way towards here just to take advantage of you? Than you apparently don't trust me that much even after we spent 8 years together." I say trying to lighten up the atmosphere while trying to make her tell what's on her mind.

And to my surprise she tells me without the need to push it further. "When you use your powers on me, when we become connected, will you be able to know what I'm feeling? Will you be able to see my memories? Are you going t-" "No I won't!" I quickly cut her off before her thoughts continued to become more wild "As far as I know, that kind of ability is reserved for mental manipulators or psychics as they are called, augumenters do make a connection but its a one way street so the enhancer himself doesn't gain anything." I quickly explained to her, she must have been worried about her privacy due to not having enough information, after all augumenters are uncommon even among conductors.

Hearing all of this she quickly relaxed and went straight back to her usual stoic self, she wouldn't have lost her composure if the person in question wasn't Alabaster, but her feelings and thoughts are something she didn't want him to become aware of under any circumstance.

"Relax, I'm going to form a connection now, it will not be very stable since its my first time but you shouldn't feel a thing regardless." She steadied herself while wondering if his choice of words was on purpose.

His eyes were now closed and he skillfully guided his energy through his circuits, he has been circulating it almost every moment since the end of the ceremony and although the energy's responsiveness was never a issue for him, now he can do it more naturally, eventually he could do it instinctively just like breathing.

His energy was guided into his brain where his nexus resides, he just like everyone before him was incapable of pinpointing how the procedure occurs but the energy that left his nexus was no longer the plain and shapeless void energy but a more specialized one, that arranged itself in various strands that interlocked with each other.

He proceeded to guide this 'cord' to exit his body which took a few tries before he figured out how to open his pores since he didn't have an liquid helping him this time. After succeeding he brought this cord near Beatrice, but he quickly realized that there wasn't a specific instruction to where this cord must be connected in order for the power to work.

But after a few minutes of poking and prodding, wich she found very to be hard to bear, having described it to have been extremely ticklish between her occasional bouts of giggling, he found a place whitch felt 'right' and that place was behind her had, in the top of the spinal column.

And finally, once he connected them both by fixing the cord through this spot he felt...

Nothing, he already knew that he wasn't supposed to feel anything besides the connection itself but was still a bit disappointing, he was hoping that he was shown those visions again. They are by far the most concerning thing that happened in his awakening and he was hoping to be able to get a chance to find something more out of those visions. They are the most anomalous aspect out of the whole ceremony.

Alabaster would soon discover that the visions weren't the only abnormal aspect of his awakening since any other conductor would think that performing three condensations on the same day of his awakening would be nothing if not abnormal.

"How are you feeling?" Alabaster asked.

"Great! to be honest this feeling is almost too good, its like I've been spending my whole life carrying a weight on my back just to be removed right now. I can now understand why enhancers are fought over wherever they go, I can see myself grow addicted to this feeling if I abuse this power." She responded with a tone that failed to conceal how exited she was currently feeling.

To start off, he asked her to perform various physical exercises in order to gauge exactly the potency of the enhancement and the results were overwhelmingly high, but that is natural since he had already gone through 3 condensations and his power far outshone a apprentice augumenter. But he was bothered because a the end of every exercise he would suddenly recieve some feedback in the form of information and a enhancer isn't supposed to gain anything when using his powers so he tried to test out one hypothesis.

He asked her next to go back in the workshop and try brewing a potion wich she gladly complied, after it was done, the potion ended up being of slightly higher quality due to her greater dexterity and accuracy during the brewing, and just like before he felt a feedback but this time he had a theory he wanted to test out.

"Can I use your equipment for a bit? I need to test something." He asked her out of nowhere, normally he wouldn't do so since potioneering is the realm of the alchemist with others who posses void energy being able to replicate to a lesser extent but he needed to test out his theory.

"S-Sure, just make sure to not damage anything." She agreed but was puzzled with the reason he would need her equipment.

With her permission, he gone ahead and started to repeat the same procedures she had in order to brew a potion, and while he was going trough the steps his mind seemed to supply him with the necessary information on demand and his body moved almost on his own. Beatrice became shocked with what she was seeing, he was perfectly copying her previous movements while going trough the steps without a single mistake.

The final product was a potion that was inferior to the one she has brewed with his assistance but about even with the one she has brewed by herself. Someone who never performed alchemy before has made a potion comparable to one that was made by someone who has been brewing for two whole years.

This bizarre situation had only one explanation:

"I have awakened a mutated power" "Eh?!" It seemed as the extents of his new found powers were much greater than he previously imagined.