Chapter 111: Alchemist association
Max gave it a little thought and decided to sell to those people his potions. He was sure he will make profit easily. He had a lot of different potions with him, and it would be much more profitable to interact with the alchemy association.
Max called one of the people that were helping the different customers to choose and said: "Hello. I would like to sell my alchemical products to the pavilion. Is it possible?"
The attendant looked at Max with a strange look and said: "Are you a part of the alchemy association?"
Max did not get the point and asked: "No. Why?"
The attendant expression changed for a second, but after that he still returned his professional face and answered: "You need to be part of the association to sell potions here and to be at least at the level of an alchemist. The alchemist apprentice or helpers cannot sell potions to the association."
Max sighed and said: "Where and when I can take this test for an alchemist?"
The attendant looked at Max for a couple of seconds and said: "You can take it even now, but you will have to pay for it. If you fail the money will not be given back to you. The cost for a test is 10 gold coins."
Max got the point that this amount of money will make a lot of people think twice before taking the exam and will not waste their money and the time of the alchemists.
Max just nodded and said: "Let's do it!"
The attendant sighed to himself and said: "Alright, follow me!"
Max was led to the third floor, and he waited there for around half an hour.
After that an old man came over and told Max to follow him. Max arrived at a big room that looked like a class. The old man sat a the place of the teacher and said: "The first exam is the theoretical exam. If you pass it, you will have to make at least one low level pill or potion to become an alchemist. You have two hours of time. Good luck."
The old man talked like a machine. Max understood that he got a lot of people that failed this exam miserably before a lot of times. Max looked at the exam and it was easy stuff. Different recopies for low level potions. What are the uses of different ingredients and where you can find some of them. Also, there were questions on how you can know that this ingredient is good to use, that it is ready to ripe. These were trivial questions for Max. 700 years of alchemy did not go to waste. Max finished the exam in 40 minutes. He checked his answers to be sure he did well and after that he handed the exam to the old man.
The old man looked at him with a look of understanding. 'Another guy that did not know enough about alchemy and just lost ten gold coins for nothing.' That was what the old man thought before he took a look at the exam. Soon the old man saw that Max got the few first questions right and started to check the exam seriously. After another 20 minutes of checking the old man rose from his seat and said: "Congratulations, young man. You answered all of the questions in the right way. It is a very rare occasion. It was a long time that someone got to pass the first stage of the exam from this empire."
Max was amused that someone called him a young man. He looked young, but he was more than a thousand-year-old cranky old man.
The elder led Max to another room with different alchemical ingredients. The old man did not really make a big introduction and said: "You have a day to make one low level potion. Good luck."
Max just nodded. He liked the fact that this man did not really talk too much. He just goes by the minimum number of words needed.
The old man prepared to sit at the room for a lot of time, but Max did not give him the luxury. Max wanted to do the best level potion possible, which was a peak level potion. To not waste much time, he chose the healing potion. It was one of the three more simple potions to make, and Max finished after around half an hour. The old man did not pay much attention to what Max was doing. Most of the times it took the candidates a long time to just pick up the right ingredients to the potions. Some of the alchemical ingredients looked similar and could confuse a lot of people. It could cause the potion even to blow up at times when the candidates tried to mix components that would react very dangerously with each other.
Max finished the potion and came over to the old man and gave him a flask of the potion he made. The old man looked at the potion and froze. He looked at Max and then at the potion for a few more times and asked: "You did that?"
Max just nodded.
The old man sighed and said: "Could you please make another one of those potions? I want to take a look. It is just too fast of a result and the potion seems to be of a very high quality. I just want to make sure."
Max did not make trouble for the old man. Max made potions for days in a row, so to make another health potion did not take him much time. Max did not use any heating, which was very strange for the old man, but he saw the ingredients were melted in a fast phase. It made him even more confused, but he waited for Max to finish before asking. Max worked like a robot and after the same amount of time he got the same potion level as before.
Only after Max finished the old man said: "How did you finish the potion without using any heating facility from what we had? And how the ingredients got mixed without you even moving the flask all of this time?"
Max sighed and said: "I am a fire and water mage. I don't need to touch anything. I can just control water and fire and make the potion with better control."
The old man gasped. It was a rare case to see a mage with two affinities. The man did not let Max wait much time and just told him: "This is a great job! You passed. Your potion seems to be even better than the potions we compare the result with. You take your potion. It is a tradition for alchemists to keep their first potion to themselves. Long time had passed sense someone from this empire passed the test. The people that passed before were not really brilliant. They were good enough to pass and that's it, but you have a chance to get to a higher place then just a simple alchemist. Work well young man. Congratulations!"
Weekly Power Status
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Ranking 
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