Chapter 255: The Second Part of the Written Exam
The Beauxbatons classroom had been converted into an examination hall.
The atmosphere was nothing like it had been during the first round of written tests. A heavy silence filled the room, broken only by the scratch of quills across parchment and the occasional anxious intake of breath.
The second written examination tested genuinely advanced alchemical knowledge.
Leonardo unfolded the exam paper, his eyes moving swiftly from one question to the next, and his brows drew together slightly.
Hard.
But not for him.
The reason for Leonardo's frown was simple: for the vast majority of the competitors, it was far too difficult.
Many of the topics it covered clearly lay beyond the standard school curriculum, while some were so obscure that few students would ever have encountered them.
Leonardo lifted his quill, and a smooth line of ink began to flow across the page.
With Nicolas's personal, unreserved guidance and unrestricted access to borrow those one-of-a-kind manuscripts and secret texts long lost to the outside world, the questions before him felt less like obstacles and more like a series of engaging riddles that let him put his learning to the test.
The others in the examination hall, however, were nowhere near as composed.
Reiman felt his scalp prickle. The knowledge the questions drew upon seemed vaguely familiar, yet the moment he tried to put quill to parchment, he found himself struggling to organise his thoughts.
He took a deep breath and forced himself to stay calm. If it was difficult, then it was difficult for everyone. Only by keeping his composure could he perform at his best.
Then, as his eyes swept over one particularly lengthy question, they suddenly lit up.
[Given that the precision of rune etching directly affects the efficiency with which a material's properties are activated, describe the core runes, etching sequence, and rune traps that must be avoided when engraving crystallised Venomtooth Beast tears to activate only their paralytic property while suppressing their distorting toxicity.]
A flash of delight crossed Reiman's face, for one simple reason: Leonardo had discussed a remarkably similar topic with him before.
The theoretical points Leonardo had explained were still fresh in Reiman's mind. Once he'd sorted out his thoughts, his quill finally began to move.
The clock ticked on.
Leonardo worked through the paper at a steady, efficient pace, encountering almost no real obstacles.
His eyes settled on the final question. In essence, it asked the candidates to propose, from an alchemical perspective, a method or concept for alleviating the pain and frenzied symptoms of a werewolf's transformation during the full moon.
His quill paused for a moment.
Rather than testing specific alchemical knowledge, this question reached well beyond the standard curriculum. It was designed to probe a student's imagination, their understanding of complex magical-creature problems, and whether they possessed the innovative, cross-disciplinary thinking needed to tackle them.
Werewolves... a people bound by a curse.
Those born with the condition were exceedingly rare. Far more were unfortunate victims infected through a werewolf's bite.
Every full moon, they were forced into a transformation they couldn't suppress. Stripped of reason and consumed by bloodlust and frenzy, they brought suffering not only upon themselves but also inspired fear throughout the wizarding world. Shunned by society, they often became trapped in a vicious cycle of poverty and isolation.
In the field of Potions, the Wolfsbane Potion had been a landmark breakthrough, created by Damocles Belby, who had freely made the recipe public.
It allowed werewolves who drank it to retain their reason throughout the transformation, an unquestionably remarkable achievement.
Its preparation, however, was extraordinarily complex and expensive, and very few people were capable of producing it consistently.
For most werewolves struggling to survive on the fringes of society, the Wolfsbane Potion was little short of a luxury.
Without access to it, they inevitably lost control on the night of every full moon. That, in turn, only deepened society's prejudice, making it even harder for werewolves who wished to return to wizarding society to find work, trapping them in a vicious cycle with no obvious escape.
Leonardo, too, fell into thought.
The loan task for the Emerald Tablet Fragment required him to sell alchemical creations or potions above a certain value.
The Wolfsbane Potion undoubtedly qualified.
Completely curing lycanthropy might still be beyond his reach, but if he could improve the existing Wolfsbane Potion formula or brewing process, simplifying its preparation and reducing the demands of its key ingredients, he could greatly lower both its production cost and the barrier to obtaining it...