"First order: The recent increase in beasts within the forest. What is your report regarding the issue?"
"Reporting: The next beast tide will happen in approximately one month. All signs point towards a tier 1 spirit beast deep within the forest driving out other beasts towards the city as the cause."
"Have you already planned a solution?"
"Yes. We should keep it simple and stick to the usual procedure."
"Any problems with the walls?"
"No."
"How about the population of the outer city?"
"Around 100.000."
"Alright, the number should be high enough. How is their condition?"
"Surviving on a minimum."
"Good enough. Then two weeks from now we will close off the walls and prepare for the beasts. In the meantime I will send letters regarding our plight around in hope for help. Hopefully someone will help us. Well, we should be fine anyway; after all, we already prepared enough manpower," the man chuckled lightly, while no one else showed any particular emotion on their face.
...
Michael arrived at his temporary home without any trouble. On the way, he went to buy different ingredients to prepare himself as well as let Tianfu prepare a delicious meal.
The children obviously enjoyed Michael's considerations and happily started to cook with him.
Michael himself looked at the two children, who looked a lot healthier than just a few days ago, with some warmth. Their frail bodies and thin faces, while remaining thin, had become not just recovered from excessive starvation but brighter overall during this short time.
Soon I will be able to earn some real money. Michael suddenly felt close to a father taking care of his children. Something he would never expect during his endless years of loneliness and some mixed feelings about what would happen after taking care of them. Originally Michael wanted to leave them alone afterwards, after all, while he continued to travel...
The night came and went by quickly, and Michael headed towards the inner city once more.
Passing the guards he saw last time, he had to take out his verification he purchased just yesterday, even though the guards definitely hadn't forgotten him.
Just another chance for mockery. It seemed like these guards were bored and therefore just made life tough on the people from the outer city.
Ignoring the mocking looks from the guards and the people constantly avoiding him, Michael headed towards the Alchemy Association to start translating all the ingredients needed to pass the test.
A very simple task in Michael's mind, but as proven yesterday, even a simple task could get complicated just like that.
Arriving at his destination, Michael decided to ask for the library at the counter he visited last time since he had no idea where the library was located.
Sadly, the counter didn't have the same nice Qiu Zhengyi employed, but a rather rude, annoyed student described the way towards the library in a lazy manner after receiving Michael's receipt for using it.
Good enough, Michael thought. Better than getting held up at every step of the way.
Michael headed towards the library without any troubles and enjoyed the quiet atmosphere inside.
The library itself wasn't as huge as Michael had expected, but overall it still held multiple rows of bookshelves, as well as enough individual tables and chairs for approximately 50 people to study at the same time.
At the moment around 30 students were around, sitting in silence while staring at their books. Noticeably, all of the students present were around the same age as Qiu Zhengyi and Mao Ping.
Most of the students present were preparing for their own exams in four days.
Some of the students gave Michael weird or even disgusted looks as he passed through to look through the shelves. Luckily no one directly confronted him. There was no time left to worry about an unimportant character like Michael in their mind. Their own future was a lot more important.
Looking through the shelves, Michael quickly found a few books on ingredients, picked them out, and sat down at an empty place to read the books.
He now just had to learn every name in the language of this world, and he would be done.
Luckily every single page had a hand-drawn picture of the plant and an entire page of explanation for said plant. Michael, of course, didn't read the explanations and directly skipped to the next page after reading the corresponding name of the plants or other ingredients and putting it to his memory.
This created a scene that made this already unusual visitor of the library, normally preserved for students of alchemy, even more odd and annoying.
More and more students looked at Michael with displeasure since the scene of an unknown person casually flipping through books at a pace that made it seemingly impossible to even read a word caused a lot of students to feel like the invader intended to mock this place and the students themselves.
This overall uncomfortable atmosphere enhanced itself constantly, while the sound of an almost frantic flipping of pages dominated the quiet sounds within the library to an increasingly higher degree.
This caused more and more students to lose their concentration due to the situation of seemingly pure disrespect and disregard.
Michael had indeed caused a quiet commotion without even realizing it; he himself just continued to flip through the pages without rest or any sign of stopping. He had a lot of words to learn after all.
Just as the librarian, an alchemist disciple, wanted to ask Michael about what he was doing, another voice sounded from the entrance of the library.
"You really dared to show up, commoner?!"
At the door of the library stood Mao Ping and his followers, including the unfriendly clerk at the reception desk.
This scene even brought some hesitation towards even the alchemy disciple. Scolding Mao Ping for disturbing the quiet library was something he didn't dare to do.
Mao Ping himself walked towards Michael, who, after a few more flipped pages, put his book away and looked at the familiar face that disturbed him last time.
Really? Again? Can't these people just leave me alone?
"It is as I had predicted. Just like a horse wanting to soar to the sky and become a Pegasus, you, in all of your arrogance, came to the library. Instead of reading, though, you just flip through a book and look at the pictures like a child."
A laughter echoed through the otherwise silent library, as the people around Mao Ping all started to laugh.
"What a fitting comparison. A horse is just an animal belonging to the ground."
"Young Master Mao Ping really is a man of great words. A toddler trying to uncover the secrets of heaven and earth..."
During this barrage of attacks, Mao Ping just observed Michael, hoping to see an expression of shame, while he himself held his head high as the superior party.
"Hahahaha, this idiot probably can't even read. Look at his clothes; he is not just a commoner; he comes from the outer city," another follower said.
"What from the outer city?" Mao Ping asked in surprise. Was that really true? How could someone from the outer city come to the Alchemy Association? Didn't he know his status?
"Yes, young Master. Don't you see the symbol on his clothes? That branding is there to tell the difference between us and outsiders. Every outsider coming into the inner city has to wear clothes with this symbol on them."
The follower pointed towards the symbol embroidered on Michael's chest while speaking. The red circle with the golden gem and crossed lines to form a net. The symbol of Master S's clothing.
Michael raised his head for the first time and looked at the person who just spoke. "Is that true?"
The teenager looked at Mao Ping, who nodded at him, signaling him to answer himself.
"Yes, that is how it is. Filth from the outer city needs to be spotted from far away. The chance of getting robbed by these savages is just too high to let them roam free without any measures."
Looking at the agreeing faces within the library, Michael finally knew why everyone ignored him.
So that's how it is. The people of the outer city are forced to wear these clothes to enter, and the people of the inner city are afraid of them for some reason. No wonder everyone avoided me.
Unknowingly to Michael, though, the faces that agreed with the statement mostly confirmed their biases after watching Michael's "reading" just now. Normally they would cower in fear and mostly disagree with Mao Ping and his followers in silence, but oddly enough, Mao Ping seemed to be mostly in the right this time.
"Hahaha, commoner. You are even lower than I could ever imagine. I should stop calling you a commoner and start with savage instead. Maybe one day you will work yourself up to commoner, but you should stop trying to learn something that is out of reach for someone like you. Alchemy is something for the people of high standing and high intelligence, not for people who beg for food. Give it up!"
Michael sighed, quite annoyed by the constant interruptions, and honestly even quite angry at the deliberate scheme Master S's clothing seemed to be.
"I won't give up. Just leave me alone and let me do my own thing. Why is it even important to you what I do?"
Mao Ping could just shake his head at this question: "You really are a savage. Of course it is important for me to intervene in this matter. Someone like you, who tries everything in his power to mock the status of the Alchemy Association, needs to be taught a lesson rather sooner than later. From saying you would pass the test without troubles, to learning only one day for the exam, to just flipping through the books on that one day, everything makes it impossible to just watch on. Now give it up!"
"Give it up! Give it up! Give it up! Give it up! Give it..." Mao Ping's follower continued to chant, and after some time even people within the library who were annoyed with Michael's earlier behavior joined in.
"No!" Michael just said, raising his voice a little. "I bought this day at the library, and I bought the right to participate in the exam. I will not quit."
Mao Ping looked at Michael with some shock. It was rare that someone directly told him no, but then he started to smile once again.
"Savage, it seems like you will have to learn your place the hard way then. I will let you participate in the exam, but as soon as you drop out in the first round, I will make you regret your choice today."
Without another word, Mao Ping, followed by his group of followers, left the library, and the silence was restored.
The students finally came out of their stupor and could finally focus on themselves again, but that focus was instantly broken as they heard the sound of flipping pages once more.
Michael had been faster than them, and instead of cowering in fear and panicking due to the threat of Mao Ping, he just continued his process.
In the end, the people in the library just ignored him and continued learning themselves. This savage was not worth convincing. He was a hopeless case.
After just one hour of learning, Michael had memorized every ingredient, plant, and term regarding alchemy found within the books of the library. He was quite disappointed to find a lot of plants and ingredients he came to know completely missing from the books of the supposedly mighty Alchemy Association. Especially some important plants needed for his most potent drug were missing. A drug, although he was immune to it, he still couldn't help but miss somewhat.
Shaking his head, he stood up and put the books back where they came from before leaving, still satisfied. He was now ready for the test that would make him an official alchemist.
What he didn't know was that everyone within the library breathed a sigh of relief and every book he touched would be cleaned by an expert before anyone would touch it again. Michael's status within the students of the Alchemy Association had truly reached rock bottom.