3 THE ALCHEMIST

Meld Loggins, the knight captain. As far as first impressions go Ivan felt this captain fell appropriately into two roles, 'hero' and 'mentor.' With a well-built body, short spiky brown hair and a short beard, Ivan believed this man to be the embodiment of a warrior, the small scar on the left of his chin only amplified the effect.

However there were more important things to focus on currently, such as the twelve centimeter by seven centimeter silver plates handed out to each of the students. The students stared into the plates curiously before pointing their inquisitive gazes towards Captain Meld.

Letting out a hearty laugh, Captain Meld seemed to be content with their confusion.

"Alright, you kids all got your plates? We call them status plates. As their name suggests, they take various parameters and quantify them for you. They also make for great identification cards. So long as you've got these, you'll be fine even if you get lost somewhere, so hang onto them tight, you hear?" Captain Meld's frankness was a breath of fresh air to Ivan who had already grown tired of the kingdom and Holy Church's roundabout way of speaking with them.

"Oooooh. And just in case you're curious, we'll be comrades fighting together on the battlefield, so no point in being so stiff with each other!" As if detecting their hesitation, Captain Meld addressed their concerns and even urged the students to speak casually with all the other knights.

"You'll see that one side of the plate has a magic circle inscribed on it. Use the needles I passed out to prick your finger and drip some blood onto the circle. That will identify you as the owner of the plate. Then, if you say 'Open Status,' you'll see your current stats displayed on the plate. Oh, and don't bother asking me how it works. I've got no clue. These things are artifacts left from ancient times." At the end of his statement, Captain Meld showed a little of his embarrassment as his duty as a teacher to these kids is to solve any questions they may have, that's when he came to realize that perhaps the only thing he can really teach them is how to fight.

'How fascinating…' Meanwhile, Ivan found himself enamored by the mysteriousness of the status plates. 'How can it identify our names? Can the name displayed be changed so long as the owner wills it? If the owner of the plate were to be deceased, would the status shown erase itself, otherwise how would it keep track of a user's advancements? And most of all… can someone be forcefully identified so long as a drop of blood is retrieved and linked to a blank plate? If the former were to be true then it'd be easy to identify a criminal so long as a single drop of blood is found..'

In his excitement, Ivan swiftly pricked his finger and watched as the blood dripped down and onto the magic circle on his plate.The magic circle flared as his plate slowly dyed gray, according to Captain Meld, the reason the status plates made great identification cards was because their color and the color of their owner's mana were always the same.

Holding his plate in front of him, Ivan carefully read the description that had magically appeared.

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Ivan Korei Age: 17

Male Level: 1

Job: Alchemist

Strength: 30

Vitality: 80

Defense: 70

Agility: 30

Magic: 200

Magic Defense: 150

Skills: Language Comprehension - Mixing - Plant Appraisal - Transmutation - Increased Mixing Speed - Increased Transmutation Speed - Forager - Cat's Eye - Encyclopedia - Auto Harvesting - Fast Learner - Fast Reader - Herbalist - Wakeful - Increased Mana Recovery

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In front of his eyes laid stats displayed out like a video game, that along with skills which Ivan assumed were complement to his class.

'But alchemist huh…' Ivan couldn't think of a better class to suit him. This seemed like too much of a coincidence to him, he could come to the assumption that a person's class is dependent on their nature. However, he felt as though he shouldn't make such a baseless claim without any evidence. 'I suppose I'll just need to learn the nature of my classmates, and determine if their classes somehow match their character.'

If his assumption was true, then it didn't seem like an impossibility to raise a group of children with the idea of grooming them to awaken with a warrior class for instance.

'But what makes a person's class final? Is it the moment they link with a plate? Or is it perhaps when they reach a certain age? Then again all this can be thrown out the window if classes were determined upon birth- Hm, I'd have to ask Meld if such an experiment was ran using the blood of a newborn baby.'

To Ivan, running an experiment like this seems quite simple: Firstly, connect a newborn child with a status plate, if a class is shown then mark it down. Secondly, raise the child in an environment most likely to point them towards a particular class, check the status plate to see if there were any changes in the class. That way it'd be a definite reason to believe a class is determined at birth if no changes occurred, or alternatively the environment a child is raised in will shape their future class.

Though Ivan was fearful that his bringing it up would make the Holy Church come to a sinister realization. In which case he has no doubts the Holy Church would indoctrinate children, take them away from their families, in the name of raising warriors to fight in the name of their Lord Ehit.

'Ah forget it, I'll just do my own investigation into it.' That fearful realization was enough to make Ivan hesitate to bring it up to Meld. Though it'd definitely be an expensive and heavy time investment, he had no doubts the result would be important in his goal of creating a human, or at least his constitution of what he believes to be 'human.' If this world was as bountiful as he believed, then he was sure the life he creates would follow the rules of the world. That being they would be able to have their own class, as such it would be of utmost importance to raise the new life with the intentions of endowing them a job that would be beneficial to them.

After all, it'd be a shame to miss out on giving the life he creates some benefits.

Anyways, he categorized his class to be a non-combat class, though he could definitely think of some applicable ways his class may aid him in combat. Though these ideas would have to be on hold until he had an opportunity to test the capabilities and limits of his class.

"Listen up!" Clapping his hands together to gain the attention of the class who were too busy ogling their stats and skills, Captain Meld continued to debrief some useful information regarding the aspects of the status plate.

"Your stats will naturally increase as you train, and you can also use magic or magic-imbued items to raise your stats. Also, those with a high magic stat will naturally grow faster than others. No one knows exactly why, but we assume it's because a person's mana assists in the growth of other stats. Later on you'll all get to choose equipment that corresponds to your individual stats. The items in our treasury will be yours for the taking! You're the heroes who are going to save our kingdom after all!" Ending his grandiose speech with a hearty laugh, Captain Meld enamored the students with promises of treasures and valuable tools, after all who could deny free stuff.

Ivan though had thoughts of his own. 'If the way to level a class was not by slaying monsters, but rigorous training, then how would that affect me as a bearer of a non-combat class?'

He could only imagine that a way to level his class would be to learn more about it, and perhaps through usage and the results of his craft. To Ivan this was a good thing, as spending time grinding monsters seemed like a waste of time that'd be better put to use in creating items beneficial to him.

As such he saw no reason for him to delve into the dungeon in the first place.

"Now listen up, jobs are split into combat-based and non-combat based disciplines. Combat jobs are exceedingly rare. Only one in every thousand, or ten thousand depending on the job, people have a combat based job. Non-combat jobs are technically rare too, but…well, one in every hundred people has one. Some of them are even common enough that one in every ten people has one, actually. There's a lot of people who have non-combat production related jobs." Captain Meld for someone who seemed like a battle junkie sure held a lot of info.

'So non-combat jobs are common huh… well not that it matters. I myself am satisfied with the card in life chosen for me.' Just because non-combat classes, or jobs, were common Ivan felt there was no reason to underestimate them, after all with the skills he was imbued with he inferred his products would be capable of sustaining a small army as he is now while using minimal resources. Of course assuming his occupation allowed him to mix healing and stamina items, those alone would be game changers in war.

And it didn't seem as though the Alchemist class was solely locked to the process of creation, if the growing skills were anything to go by. If Ivan felt like it he believed he could sustain himself by selling his wares and he'll be living in comfort in no time. Either way he was happy to have a practical job that suited his interests and if needed, could be used to support him.

"Oh yes, don't forget to report your stats to me. I'll need to know them to decide how to best train you guys." Rubbing his head abashedly, Captain Melt berated himself for almost forgetting the main purpose they were here.

Stepping up before any other student, Ivan went ahead with the intention of gauging how valuable his class would be to those of the kingdom and the Holy Church.

"Hm? I've never heard of this job before… Aside from that, I must say your stats are quite impressive. As expected of a hero from another world!" On the inside Captain Meld was panicking, he had spent several nights before hand researching all known jobs just to make sure he could be of some assistance to the children, and yet for the first time ever a job he had never seen before appeared right before him.

For now he'd have to keep a reminder to tell his king in hopes he can assign someone to find any traces of the job known as 'Alchemist.' Though from what he can infer based on the skills shown on the plate, he assumed the job to be a non-combat based one, that and the field of alchemy did indeed exist in this world. It was just odd that till now he has never heard of or seen it.

Meanwhile, Ivan was in a bit of a contemplation of his own. Though it wasn't yet confirmed what he had on his hands could be a job never heard of before. This came with it's own ups and downs.

The positives: with a possible 'unique' job, the Kingdom might value him as someone who holds unknown potential, if they were to favor him then he'd have access to an abundance of resources. As the sole bearer of the 'Alchemist' job he wouldn't find it strange that the Kingdom or Holy Church would expend resources to figure out the ins and outs of a potential boon.

The negatives: would the Kingdom and Holy Church really expend resources on a job they know nothing of just to satisfy their curiosity? Ivan doubted that. Another thing would be, even if his job does hold great potential the likely move for the power supporting him would be to monopolize and restrict his actions.

Freedom was something Ivan found scarce under his new watchful 'boss.' With guards that managed their halls and a curfew to disallow students from sneaking off into the night. Even personal guards that followed students to make sure they didn't escape. It was clear from the beginning that as he is now Ivan was just property of the Holy Church and the Kingdom.

His plan was clear: milk the Kingdom and Holy Church for as much resources as he can without pissing them off, then make a break for the outside world to conduct his personal goals as soon as he was confident in his strength and knowledge.

The maniacal laughter in his mind was interrupted by a ruckus between two students.

"Hyahahaha, you've got to be kidding me! This guy's not even gonna last ten minutes! He'd die so fast that you wouldn't even use him as a meat shield!"

Ivan watched as three particularly sleazy looking classmates of his mercilessly surrounded and harassed his classmate neighbor, apparently Hajime Nagumo had been revealed to have a non-combat based class, but if that were all then the rest of the class wouldn't have joined in. Along with having a very common non-combat job, 'Synergist,' Hajime was unfortunate enough to have the lowest stats in the class, at a whopping ten all around, making him about as average as any grown adult in this world. Not only that but the amount of skills he had only amounted to a despairing one, quite the letdown compared to his classmates who all at least had 5 skills.

"Hey! Stop laughing at him! I won't allow anyone to laugh at their classmates on my watch! As a teacher. I absolutely will not condone it! Now return Nagumo-kun's plate this instant!" Aiko-sensei, as protective of her students as always, oppressed Hajime's bullies with her tiny frame, somehow succeeding in intimidating them and complying with her orders.

Aiko-sensei turned around towards Hajime and gave him an encouraging pat on the shoulder. "Nagumo-kun, don't worry about your job! Look, I got a non-combat job too! And aside from my job, most of my stats are pretty average too! You're not alone!'

Despite her encouraging words, Aiko-sensei's pink status plate showed a different story. Though her job was 'Farmer,' she possessed a total of 15 skills. Not only that but despite having a value of ten or five on some of her stats, her magic stat in particular was a whopping 100, equaling Kouki Amanogawa who possessed the legendary 'hero' class.

'Hm, looks like I'm not the only one endowed with a non-combat class. But Aiko-sensei sure does have some impressive stats and skills.. This does indeed make me confident in my choice.' Aside from Captain Meld, no one knows what class Ivan possessed, that of course being because of Meld's confusement that he never even said aloud what his job was, and his comment about Ivan's stats lead people to assume he held a combat class.

Initially, Ivan included Aiko-sensei in his plans as she possessed a line of thought that aligns with his goals, however now that Aiko-sensei has been revealed to have a job that held great power over the Holy Church and the Kingdom, he was confident that his plan will succeed.

As for Hajime, though he held some sympathy as a fellow non-combat job, Ivan held no interest in aligning himself with someone who only viewed his differences as something detrimental. If Hajime had thought of practical ways to utilize his glorified blacksmith powers instead of allowing himself to be dragged through the mud in his own depression, then maybe he'd consider him.

But who was he to come to a conclusion on Hajime's character after having only known him for a day.

And that closed up the short introductory day to Job's and skills. For the remainder of today Captain Meld instructed his students to familiarize themselves with the kingdom's training grounds as well as other facilities.

It was quite bountiful for Ivan, as he had managed to find the library full of the knowledge he needed to prosper in this world.

Meanwhile, behind the scenes Captain Meld had an audience with the king to discuss the matter of Ivan's job, though the effect of that meeting is better told for the future.