Mage? Magic Engineer!-Chapter 125 - 122: Temporary Worker at the Holy Kingdom’s Number One School

Rorschach felt like things were happening all at once. Just last month, he had been free to arrange his own studies and life as he saw fit. Now, he suddenly wished he knew a cloning spell.

To help Rorschach get his funding faster, Master Kano thoughtfully informed him that his proposal defense had been moved up. On top of that, Rorschach was also reminded that he needed to prepare lessons and select or compile textbooks for the Basic Alchemy course at the Valuvanan Higher Normal College. The embarrassment from the latter, admittedly, was entirely because Rorschach had completely forgotten about it.

He tearfully thanked his mentor for his immense generosity.

Since the "generous" His Majesty the King hadn’t contributed much money, and the Tower of Stars wasn’t very invested in the school, many seats on the Valuvanan Higher Normal College’s board of directors were snapped up by sponsors. On closer inspection, many of these big bosses were backed by the Magic Guild, so the Guild was quite pleased with the outcome.

Many Mage Clans now planned to send their children to the college if they didn’t inherit any Magic Talent and couldn’t become Apprentices. Meanwhile, merchant companies would use the enrollment slots they received for their sponsorships—some for training their own heirs, and others as rewards for mid-level partners or even the children of regular employees.

The children of the Magic Guild’s "own people" accounted for half of the three hundred students in this first preparatory class, which made the sponsors feel their money was well spent. The other half of the students were selected from charity schools and Monasteries run by the Church. Although the Guild could no longer interfere with this group’s faith, at the unanimous request of the King and the sponsors, the Church promised not to accept any graduates into the Clergy.

"The Order Church agreed to that?" Rorschach was stunned. ’Is this some kind of reverse recruitment program?’

"The Lord Bishop of Saint Miller Cathedral personally agreed to it," Master Kano explained. "In exchange, he proposed that outstanding graduates must be prioritized for assignments from the Kingdom."

In truth, Dipresy’s viewpoint had always been consistent: if students cultivated with such great effort all ended up running back to a Monastery to chant scriptures—and since they couldn’t learn Divine Arts themselves—their only contributions to the Church would be debating, growing peas, and brewing wine, all of which was of no benefit to the Kingdom.

There was no shortage of newspaper magnates among the sponsors. The college had only just enrolled its first preparatory class, yet news of the opening ceremony was everywhere. The papers hyped it up immensely, with slogans like "Cultivating the best teachers for the advancement of human wisdom and art!" Among the public, it was already being treated as the Holy Kingdom’s... no, the entire continent’s top school.

Having had his fill of such fanfare since returning from the Sub-plane, Rorschach didn’t attend the opening ceremony. He only entered the "Kingdom’s Number One School" the next day, when it was his turn to teach, carrying his lesson plans and class equipment.

Like Rorschach’s own alma mater, the college was located in a castle with a courtyard. Its rectangular layout was divided into two teaching areas, an administrative area, and a dormitory area. However, since this year’s students and their families were all true-blue Old Valuvanans, not many of them actually boarded at the school.

"Mage Rorsch—I mean, Teacher, this is the academic building," a staff member said, having shown Rorschach the campus layout. "Your classroom should be marked on your schedule. Do you need me to accompany you?" Since the current faculty was a cobbled-together group on secondment, there was only a shared faculty room and no private offices for any of the teachers, so Rorschach didn’t bother to go see it.

’I’ll just slip out after class. I don’t need an office at all!’

The classroom wasn’t particularly large. A quick scan after Rorschach entered revealed about forty people seated inside. Master Snow was sitting at the back of the room, and he gave Rorschach a nod. There was also an old gentleman auditing the class. He was lean and wiry, sat ramrod straight, and had a graying beard that he kept neatly trimmed rather than letting it grow wild.

Rorschach had sensed a similar air about the Mechanical Director. The man was clearly a soldier, or at least he had been.

’Why would someone like that be auditing the class?’ But since Master Snow didn’t seem to find it strange, Rorschach pretended not to notice him and started the lesson for the new students.

All the students sat quietly and properly in their seats. Their clothes weren’t as fine as those of the Apprentices at the Tower of Stars, nor did they have the jaded air of the middle- and upper-year Apprentices. They weren’t surprised to have a teacher who was practically their peer, and their gazes toward Rorschach were filled with innocence... Well, he’d just assume it was a thirst for knowledge. Their discipline was better than the Apprentices’, which put Rorschach a bit more at ease.

After introducing himself, Rorschach laid out the props for his experiment as planned. He intended to put on a good show for the first class to lure these newcomers down the rabbit hole, using a common trick from his chemistry teachers in his past life.

"Before the lesson officially begins, let’s do a little experiment. Would the students by the windows please draw the curtains? Thank you." After speaking, Rorschach extinguished the classroom’s lights himself.

The whole room darkened. Rorschach struck a match and lit an alcohol burner. Everyone’s eyes were drawn to the burner’s pale blue outer flame and its light yellow inner flame.

"Please pay attention to the color of the flame, everyone." That’s right, Rorschach was going to perform a flame test. He figured this little trick was simple to prepare and had a great visual effect.

He squeezed the bulb of an atomizer. On the market in Valois, these were typically used for perfume, but the one in Rorschach’s hand contained an ethanol solution of copper chloride. A small amount of the solution sprayed into the alcohol burner’s flame was instantly vaporized by the high temperature and ignited, producing a beautiful blue-green flame.

He had also prepared atomizers containing a boric acid-ethanol solution and a potassium chloride-ethanol solution. These things took some effort to make in this world. While boric acid was readily available, Rorschach had to produce the potassium chloride himself by burning plant ash, leaching and filtering the result, and then adding hydrochloric acid.

’Unfortunately, my efforts don’t seem to be getting the expected reaction. Why is the classroom still so quiet? Give me some kind of reaction!’

Rorschach had expected the students to be oohing and aahing, but by the light of the burner, the teacher at the podium could only see their expressionless faces. They continued to watch his demonstration with those clear eyes, but now, to Rorschach, their gazes just looked vacant.

’I need to liven up the atmosphere...’ Rorschach, who had not been an education major in his past life, thought of interacting with the students.

"Look, we just successfully changed the color of the flame. Would any students like to come up and give it a try?"

Rorschach waited for a while before a student finally broke the silence. He said cautiously, "But we don’t know any magic, Teacher Rorschach."

’So that’s what these kids were thinking...’

"What’s your name?"

"Louis, sir." ’Is the teacher angry?’ The student began to regret speaking up. Louis had previously studied at a charity school run by the Church, and he was no stranger to the taste of punishment. To maintain order in the classroom, those Cultivator teachers would brandish their rods of Light at a moment’s notice.

"Alright, Louis. Please come up to the podium. Be careful, watch your step so you don’t trip."

After the student was on the podium, Rorschach handed him the atomizer with the potassium chloride-ethanol solution. "Please give this lamp a little spray. Don’t squeeze the bulb too hard, and definitely don’t spray it at your classmates."

Louis could only do as he was told. To his and the other students’ surprise, his action also successfully changed the color of the flame. Although the interference from the yellow light of sodium ions wasn’t completely eliminated, the violet light from the potassium ions was still clearly visible.

A small stir went through the classroom. This, however, was exactly what Rorschach wanted.

The color of the potassium ions wasn’t very easy to see, so Rorschach had Louis spray it again. Then he picked up the last atomizer. "You can go back to your seat, Louis. Thank you for your cooperation. Who else wants to come up and make a third color?"

"Me!" "Me, teacher!" The class finally came to life. This time, Rorschach chose a female student. The flame color of boric acid was also green, but it was more yellowish compared to copper—a beautiful, vibrant green. 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

Light returned to the classroom as Rorschach packed up his experimental equipment. "A moment ago, Louis said that you all don’t know magic. But as you can see, you don’t need to be able to manipulate Ether to change the color of a flame. In fact, since stepping into this classroom, I haven’t used any magic at all."

This was also why Rorschach had deliberately used a match to light the alcohol burner. "In this first lesson, I want to tell you all that Alchemy is a discipline that studies the transformation of matter and the creation of new things. I would even go so far as to call it an art. Even if you are not a Caster, you can use your own knowledge to achieve feats comparable to magic."

After he finished, a student raised their hand and asked, "Then can we achieve things that magic cannot?"

At this question, both Master Snow and the old gentleman who were auditing the class waited with great interest to hear Rorschach’s answer.