Alchemy was hell.
Noah sat at the back of the room, parchment open, quill in hand, shadows muttering in his head while the professor droned on at the front of the class.
The man's voice was a low, constant buzz, layered with the clink of glassware and the hiss of burners.
Words like "reactive catalysts," "stabilization ratios," and "mana-binding agents" were scrawled across the chalkboard, but none of it made sense to him.
He'd missed too much. The three months in chains had gutted his foundation.
The other students scribbled furiously, nodded at explanations, and measured powders into neat measurements.
Noah stared at his parchment. His notes were a graveyard of half finished sentences. He didn't even know what he was writing anymore.
He leaned back, eyes half-lidded, letting his shadows curl beneath the desk like restless cats.
"Boring," one hissed. "We don't need this to make the world pay."
