At midnight, Victor—after a long stretch of sleeping well—couldn't fall asleep.
He rarely suffered from insomnia. The last time it happened was when he discovered he'd transmigrated into the alchemy world.
He didn't like drastic change. He didn't like losing control. And yet now, once again, he'd been forced out of his comfort zone.
As he went downstairs and passed the door to the laboratory, he stopped—because to his surprise, Vesemir still hadn't turned in. Instead, the old witcher was extracting plant essences.
The sound of Victor's footsteps couldn't fool a witcher's sharp senses.
Without turning around, Vesemir said, "Can't sleep, kid?"
"Yes. The new environment's a bit hard to adjust to, so I came out for a walk. And you… what potion are you making?"
"An old witcher formula—Stamina Tonic. It boosts the effects of physical conditioning. You extract it a few hours ahead of time, and drink it while it's still warm before training. That works best. From now on, it's something you'll be drinking every day."
Vesemir said it as casually as if it were nothing, but Victor—who understood alchemy at least a little—knew exactly what it meant.
This was genuine kindness. Otherwise, there was no reason to stay up late just to prepare something for him.
"Thank you," Victor said.
Then he turned around, went back to his room, lay flat on the bed…
…and fell asleep.
…
The Stamina Tonic was unexpectedly delicious—sweet, like fruit juice. Vesemir said they'd improved the taste back then for Ciri, that little troublemaking monkey. Paired with cave fungus, it made a nutrient-packed breakfast reserved for witcher apprentices.
Training began with "the Trail."
"The Trail" was a route that wound around Kaer Morhen's ancient keep, set with obstacle after obstacle. Witchers often practiced running and breath control here.
To Victor, it looked like a medieval version of an obstacle course. It was great for training running, jumping, crawling on all fours, climbing, and balance.
Its most obvious drawback was that the safety measures were also medieval.
Meaning: there were none.
Also, even though Vesemir called it "the Trail," the books recorded that the younger witchers had given it another name:
"The Killer."
Vesemir ran the entire route with him, start to finish. He was so considerate that Victor felt a little embarrassed—like making a several-hundred-year-old grandfather sprint and leap around like that was downright cruel.
But Victor quickly learned that experience mattered.
By the time Victor was gasping for air, Vesemir was still perfectly fine.
After a short rest came basic sword training. The practice swords at Kaer Morhen were similar to European longswords—two-handed blades with long crossguards.
But during his very first lesson, Victor didn't even get to touch a sword.
Up until lunch, all he practiced was footwork: hands on hips, feet shoulder-width apart, knees slightly bent. Step forward with either foot. The front toes pointed toward the opponent, the back foot turned outward about forty-five degrees.
According to Vesemir, that stance kept your balance in every direction—forward, back, left, and right. Master the footwork first. Otherwise, holding a sword would only get in the way.
After lunch, a normal witcher apprentice would rest briefly and then continue training. But at Victor's request, Vesemir left three hours open in the afternoon so Victor could read in the library. After that, training resumed until sunset.
By the time dinner was over, Victor felt so exhausted his whole body seemed drained to the bone. He washed the dishes, went upstairs, collapsed onto the bed—
—and sank into deep sleep.
…
After making sure Victor was properly covered with a blanket, Vesemir left the guest room with a smile.
He found the day's training strangely enjoyable.
This kid lacked technique, sure—but his body had been nurtured remarkably well. And his temperament was unexpectedly tough. On the Trail, even when he was so out of breath he could barely move, he never stopped. It was the same with sword drills: even when he'd burned through his stamina and looked like he might topple over, he still endured until the end.
But toughness like that needed testing.
A child raised in a peaceful environment probably wouldn't last more than a week before begging for extra rest, Vesemir thought.
…
A month later, Vesemir admitted he'd underestimated Victor's potential.
He was a commoner's genius.
On the Trail, he hadn't made any earthshaking leaps, but he grew steadily faster—and now he didn't need Vesemir running beside him to complete the daily course.
In sword work, he'd started with the plow guard and was now practicing the ox guard. The progress wasn't fast, but it couldn't be called slow either.
And as for studying, it was even more striking. Over centuries of life, Vesemir had taught countless brats. Some had photographic memories. Some could skim ten lines at a glance. Some could infer ten things from one.
But Victor's focus and quiet steadiness when he read—that was the rarest of all.
…
That night, after dinner, Vesemir assumed it would be another calm evening.
But Victor didn't head straight for the library.
Instead, he came to Vesemir on his own, asking for help.
"I need to apologize first, Vesemir," Victor began. "There are… still some secrets I haven't told you."
Seeing the seriousness in those blue eyes, Vesemir chuckled, warm and hearty. "Kid, trust is never built all at once. So you don't need to apologize. I understand completely, and I never took it to heart.
"But I'm glad you're willing to trust me more now. So—what is it you want to tell me?"
"I'm an alchemy apprentice."
"Mm… I know that. So?"
"The books I've been referencing this past month have helped me confirm something. The alchemy I learned is different from what this world calls alchemy… or rather, it's decisively different…"
Vesemir raised one eyebrow.
"If we define it by the meaning of the words, what I learned shouldn't be called 'alchemy.' It should be called… Unbelievable Alchemy. And I want to try and see if I can show it in this world!"
…
In the laboratory, Vesemir handed Victor the main ingredient for the Stamina Tonic—an ou-shu-apple—and watched as Victor tossed it into a large cauldron of boiling water without hesitation.
"The normal process of preparing an alchemical potion is nothing more than choosing a combination of methods: extraction, grinding, mixing, fermentation, simmering, distillation, filtration, calcination, and so on.
"But Unbelievable Alchemy is, in essence, a form of conceptual synthesis. You use your own mind as the reference, and through simmering, you fuse added materials on the level of concept.
"So what we need is only a heat source, a cauldron, a stirring rod, and enough clean water to cover all the ingredients.
"Looks like making soup, right?
"It really isn't much different from making soup…."
As Victor spoke, he tossed in the secondary ingredients one after another: longleaf plantain, white crape-myrtle petals, verbena, dandelion, juniper-stem fruit, and more.
Then he began to stir.
Green, white, red, yellow, blue, and reddish-brown herbs rolled and churned around the rod. The direction and speed had no pattern at all—only what his heart felt like doing.
"When you stir, imagine what you want the finished product to be like. The clearer the image in your mind, the faster it completes.
"For example, the witcher Stamina Tonic I'm making right now—I've been drinking it for a month, so I know exactly what the finished effect should be. I can also tell which parts count as impurities. So I estimate it'll take about an hour.
"Like this—just throw everything in, and then keep stirring… stirring…"
At this point, Vesemir almost wanted to stop him.
The ou-shu-apple was one thing, but there was far too much plantain, far too few white crape-myrtle petals. The ghost-needle mushroom should only use the cap. Dandelion should use only the root, yet Victor tossed the entire plant in. And the juniper-stem fruit—he'd even thrown it in without cracking the hard shell first.
But after hesitating, Vesemir held back.
This child had been too steady for the past month—steady to the point he hardly seemed like a child at all. He should know what he was doing.
…Forget it…
Even if it was a prank, at worst it would waste some ingredients.
With that thought, Vesemir decided to broaden his heart and let him continue.
And so, an hour passed.
Vesemir watched, wide-eyed, as Victor hummed an otherworldly little tune—cheerful in a way that was almost unsettling. In the dim laboratory," Victor stirred a chaotic stew into a muddy yellow sludge that gave off a sharp, choking stench.
Then—without warning—radiant seven-colored light flared from the cauldron, blasting straight into Vesemir's silver-gray catlike pupils.
He froze.
In that moment, he had no idea that with a single lapse of attention, he was about to become an indispensable "background figure" in textbooks centuries later.
…
In the dim laboratory, the seven-colored light was dazzling.
At that instant—being the first person in history to witness Unbelievable Alchemy—the witcher Vesemir, faced with such an impossible miracle, dropped to his knees before the cauldron, his mouth moving as if trying to speak… but no words coming out.
And the flame-bearing sage who had brought forth this great divine sign revealed a holy smile.
"Want to learn? I'll teach you."
Those words pulled back the curtain on modern alchemy—an instant history was bound to remember…