"So, are we just going to start?" Syryn drawled to the audience.

He had noticed the absence of a master of ceremonies. They were their own anchormen it seemed.

Syryn rolled his eyes when his foe began a loud speech. "Greetings! I pay respects to the honourable master Altaire."

A hum of exclamations rose up from amongst the audience members who hadn't known that Altaire was with them. The avians craned their necks and looked around trying to catch a glimpse of the famous alchemist.

"It is my honour to have one so acclaimed as yourself to sit here and bear witness to this battle of alchemy between my young opponent and I. This humble alchemist-"

"Enough already," a member of the audience interrupted him. "Let the pretty boy speak."

Syryn lifted a corner of his lips at the avian who had interrupted the speech. "I'm Syryn Nigh'hart. Now, can we get started?"

"Do tell us before you begin, what potions are you brewing?" The same avian asked.

"Butterfly potion, Bubble bath, and swan feather potion," Syryn answered as he furtively glanced at Altaire. The man canted his head to the side when he heard Syryn's answer.

"Why pick such easy potions? Anyone can brew them," he was asked by another member of the audience.

"I agree, these are simple enough that anyone can brew them but, can they compare to a potion concocted by an expert? Do not underestimate elementary potions. The simplicity of their brewing allows an alchemist to express their creativity and expertise in ways that a beginner cannot. You'll see what I mean."

"That's well and good but can I take you out on a date after this is over?" A daring member of the audience asked.

"If I lose, yes," Syryn grinned at the woman whose face was hidden behind a tasselled fan. "Only if I lose."

"A thousand Kruns of gold to buy the date off of that lady," a man in a blue robe announced with a chuckle.

"Ten thousand!"

"I asked him first," the woman with the tasselled fan told the others. There was a bit of indignation in her tone though she tried to hide it.

"Thirty thousand!"

"Five hundred thousand," an old lecherous man called out from one of the boxes reserved for VIP.

Syryn's mood was complicated. He stared up at the VIP box and wondered if he could lose on purpose. It was a lot of money and he could use that to feed the tentacled child he had adopted. All he had to do was talk and look pretty for the old lecher.

The teen shook his head and laughed, and it was a sound like the bubbling of clean water from a brook. In a frivolous tone, he spoke to the audience. "Ladies and gentlemen, why fight? In the event that I lose to this man, I will go out on dates with each one of you, but on different days." Syryn could afford to flirt with the audience because, in his mind, victory was assured. There would be no dates with anybody. The little bidding war going on over him may have sounded nice to a less discerning person but Syryn was quite aware of how they were cheapening his worth as a person by turning him into a commodity bought with money.

"Then I'm also offering a hundred thousand for a date!"

"Alright, alright, settle down folks," Syryn commanded the audience with a smile. "It's time we began our test."

---

Syryn and his opponent surveyed their ingredients, picked out what they needed and laid everything before the hourglass was turned upside down.

The teen glanced at his opponent and saw that the man was starting with a bubble bath potion, the easiest and quickest to make. He, on the other hand, decided he was doing all three at the same time.

Brewing was like cooking. Three dishes with three different styles of cuisine and timings could be ruined easily if one was careless with the sequence of ingredients and the delicate timings they demanded. With brewing, a small mistake didn't just change the flavour, it ruined the potion. The stakes were much higher.

"Why is he cutting everything up?" A member of the audience asked. They could see that Syryn's opponent was already adding a few ingredients to his cauldron. It looked to them that Syryn was a slow worker, or worse, a fool bumbling through his potion-making.

"He's a pretty flower vase that everyone wants a piece of. What do you expect? An amazing show of alchemy?" Someone else answered maliciously.

A few chuckles followed his answer. It didn't bother Syryn. He was focused on his task because the results were going to smack them all on their jealous faces. This time, he took a page out of Altaire's book. Syryn was going to attempt a mathematical approach to his brewing. He had tried it before for such elementary potions because they were easier to calculate.

"Syryn, are you sure you know what you're doing? Some ingredients lose their efficacy when you leave it unused for too long," a young know-it-all from the audience attempted to lecture him.

"Eh? I forgot about that!" Syryn replied with an exaggerated widening of his eyes. "I'll have to thank you for reminding me."

The audience laughed at the airheaded beauty who had no idea what he was doing. Only the silent Altaire took notice of the sequence of ingredients that Syryn had chosen to work with. Only he understood what the teen was doing.

"You should leave the alchemy to the experts, Syryn. Why don't you join my household?" Now everyone wanted to call him by his name. A shiny dumb new pet that they all wanted to play with, that was what he was.

"You're distracting him," a bald headed avian chastised the others.

"What's there to distract? Our Nuan alchemist is already almost done with a potion but Syryn hasn't started on his yet. What a farce this is. We all know who will eventually win so we might as well enjoy the time spent teasing the little beauty."

Utsui hated how they were talking about Syryn. It was as if they didnt care that the teen was amidst them as they disrespected him. He was even madder at Syryn for acting stupid when he was clearly smart enough to become a master healer. Why was he dabbling in alchemy when he could conquer medicine?

"Hah! Look, he stopped chopping everything. Looks like your reminder was effective." Syryn had ceased his mad run through the ingredients and a tiny pile was left untouched. Because of their perceived idiocy of his, no one bothered to take a look at the ingredients he hadn't touched yet. After all, Syryn's face and chest were more interesting to stare at than some plain-looking plants.

"And now he's turned on all three stoves. Oh Syryn, you dumb adorable boy."

"I'm already thinking about how sweet his lips will taste when I kiss him on our date."

The alchemist had the impulse to throw his knife into the crowd. He could pretend that his hand had slipped, couldn't he?

Syryn began to measure out his ingredients in a particular order that non-alchemists wouldn't understand the significance of. It looked to the audience like he was playing the part of an alchemist - like a child playing a game of make belief. The ease of effort and the speed with which Syryn swapped the ingredients on the weighing scale made it seem like he was randomly placing items before removing them. They didn't know the sign of an expert when it was staring at them in the face.

"Oh, he's finally making his potions. All three at one go, too! My, my, we have a professional alchemist amongst us. I'm sure Master Altaire is impressed!" The sarcasm in his tone could not be mistaken for anything else.

Syryn abruptly stopped throwing the ingredients into the cauldron and bit his lips in thought. He was busy doing calculations in his head but the audience assumed that he was feeling lost. And all of a sudden, he began attacking the ingredients with renewed fervour. Suffice to say, the audience was convinced that Syryn had no clue about alchemy. But the way he kept adjusting the heat every few minutes finally clued in some of the more astute alchemists. They'd seen it before when working with finicky potions.

"Do you see how clean his fumes are?" One alchemist whispered to another.

"Very little smoking. He seems to know what he's doing," the other alchemist whispered back. They were too afraid to voice out their doubts in case they were made fools of by the others.

"Syryn, do you have a special someone? How about staying at Nua and becoming my little lover? I'll treat you well." The lechers in the audience were getting bored, and it was obvious from their flirtatious remarks.

"You're too old for him. Have some shame." And when Syryn thought a decent person was defending him, the man spoke again. "A beautiful boy like him deserves a younger partner, like me."

"In the end, aren't you all just planning to use and discard him? Poor Syryn. You're being treated like a toy," the speaker indirectly insulted him.

"Please show some respect," a young but authoritative voice rang out with suppressed fury. Utsui just couldn't keep his peace any longer. In a bitingly cold tone, he addressed the audience. "Syryn is a guest of Nua and I request that you all hold your tongues lest he think that we're all savages like yourselves."

The teen peeked up from the cauldron he was focused on. Utsui was an angel. Nobody could tell him otherwise.

"Young master Utsui, we're just having a little fun. Syryn doesn't mind."

"I mind," Utsui snapped back. "The next person who says anything disparaging about the two competitors will be removed immediately from the amphitheatre."

"Thank you, Utsui," Syryn said from the stage. "My potions are complete."

The audience members felt like they had been struck by lightning. Done? Already? All eyes turned to Syryn's cauldrons, not believing that his potions had been successful.

The middle-aged man not far from Syryn was adding his final ingredients to the second cauldron. How could Syryn have completed three potions while he was still working on his second one? He frowned at the teen. Failed potions, his mind supplied. It was the only possibility.