ch 15

After one black eye later Heather finally decided to take me to the headquarters of the Living Alchemy Collective which turned out to be a short distance away which made me wonder why they didn't get there earlier in order to have a better spot so they could better recruit people but then again considering the amount of doubt Heather had towards me actually joining the Living Alchemy Collective plus the overall cost of their research it's no wonder why they had such trouble getting people to join as most would go broke before they achieved any actual results in this area of study in fact it would be much more profitable to focus on health potions or Alchemical weapons but I had something that others didn't my dungeon instincts they could potentially guide me to help improve in this area.

Of course I didn't put all my eggs in one basket as I also signed up to study other things like engineering as well as enchanting and looking around at the desperate looking faces of the rest of the Living Alchemy Collective I'm glad I didn't put all my faith in them although the lab looked state of the art that was the problem I noticed a distinct lack of unique equipment likely they used up their entire budget to acquire this and forgot to calculate for other expenses and were reluctant to return it and instead hoping for Heather to reel in a fat cash cow with her looks.

I understood them sometimes I would get so wrapped up in my experiments and equipment that I would forget about the cost but I came from a wealthy noble house and could ignore the cost there but most of them were likely the same until they came here unfortunately but the academy doesn't work like the outside money isn't the only thing one needs in order to prosper but also achievements and personal power as your family isn't permitted to assist you hence why people create factions within the academy as certain resources would be closed to you otherwise unless you could stand on your own which is infinitely more difficult so I won't bother with that path.

Although they are stupid when it comes to priorities they are talented given the fact of how difficult it is to create homunculi Although it appears that they each have their own area of study and seemed unlikely to share their personal research which is very common especially among elite alchemist but they are also desperate which will allow me to gain more from them and if I play my cards right I could turn some of them into my minions as not everyone belongs to an important family and some will need someone to look after them if they want to thrive.

Rick:"I already figured out the situation if you want to use my credit then I going to want a lot in return like the homunculus research as well as what you have on golems"

desperate urchin A:"How do we know that you are worth it if we give you that and you have nothing"

desperate urchin B:"Yeah you just arrived didn't you?"

Rick:"My brother is the Thunderbird and I scored high on all of my exams including combat and tactics giving me plenty of credit to work with"

Heather:"Your brother is the Thunderbird!?"

All of my siblings that are attending the academy are already famous especially my eldest brother who is simply known as the Thunderbird he is considered a combat and military genius ranking in the top five within the academy and set to inherit the family after his service in the military as is family tradition for all heads of the Blood-Storm family which has raised our family's prestige and because I helped him win the heart of favorite fiancee he was more than willing to help me out in the academy he even told me to ask for his help although he would be graduating next year that was more than enough for me to establish myself although for now I had more than resources on my own to start.

After finding out about my background they easily submitted to me and received their Alchemical knowledge of golems and homunculi of course it was coded making nearly impossible to read but the leaders assigned Heather to be my assistant to help me decode it and to work on my own projects obviously they were trying to use her to get on my good side as she is ridiculously gorgeous but they forgot that just a few hours earlier I punched her in the face so I wasn't completely controlled by such things that and Lilly seemed to hate her for stealing my attention as she still needed the collectives protection she had no choice but to obey.