“Now, to begin, this drug name is called Gummy, and is a byproduct of a magical girl medicine called Snow Tears that is used to relieve stress. To make this drug is simple, but to make a high-quality medicine is quite the effort. First, you will put the base ingredients into the beaker, which are 50 grams of Ice hair, 2 pints of Wag Blood, and a cup of virgin boy tears. We will then place the beaker on the magic burner to dissolve the ice hair into solution. You wanna keep the temperature below boiling at 95 celsius. Next...”

Alex followed along, step by step, and with the help of the numbers, was able to maintain the heat, material amount, and time. The only problem she had was with how much magic power she needed to infuse into the potion. Having not done such a task ever, she almost failed like many of the girls.

Wiping the sweat off her brow, she looked at her beakers, seven glowing and three dark. Out of the entire group, she tied for second with another girl, with first finishing eight. Although she got second, Alex didn’t feel bad, since she felt confident that with enough practice she’d hit 9/10 success rate with ease.

As she basked in her accomplishment, magical girls who failed were dragged out by the automatons. Cries and wails could be heard, as they were dragged out to meet their fate. Besides the teacher, only fifteen remained, Fei not included in those numbers.

After this, I should help Fei study potions as a show of good faith. Maybe make some extra drugs on the side with ‘tutoring’ again.

While thinking on how to make some good pocket money, the teacher Albi started clapping her hands, making Alex’s skin crawl.

“You’ve all done so well, I’m surprised that there's still so many of you left that finished the first stage. Let’s move onto dropping the mortal byproduct out of solution of the magical girl drug. First and those tied for second, as a reward, are allowed to fail all but one batch. The rest of you, if you fail three of them well… you know what happens to you, right?"

“Now, listen up so you are not left behind. As you can see on your desk, there is a covered jar. I want you all to carefully remove the lid so as not to spook what’s inside. If you do, well, I hope you don’t mind smelling like shit for a month.”

Alex and the rest listened closely, taking her warning to heart in opening the mysteries covered jar. As the seal was unbroken, Alex had an urge to look at what was inside, but decided against, not following her curiosity.

Unfortunately, one of the girls in the lab decided to look into the jar to which tiny screeches were heard, and dozens of black strings shot out. The girl wasn’t fast enough to dodge, and the strings hit her face.

She started to scream as the black strings started tunneling into her skin, turning her once healthy-looking skin pitch black. Then, the girl started to gag, holding her throat and nose as she fell to the ground.

“Are you oka— OH GOD, THE STRETCH! WHAT IN EVIL IS THAT?!”

One girl near the afflicted girl said, as she forced herself to hold down her lunch. The affected girl wasn’t so lucky, as she began convulsing and throwing up all over the floor.

As the thirteen other girls moved away in horror, they covered their nose, in hopes they would hold their stomachs contents in.

As for Aibi, the teacher rolled her eyes with a charming smile, “Carry her out and put her near the people hung up. Make sure to place her upwind to punish those failures, though do take them down in an hour after they have had their fun.”

Clapping her hands, two automatons appeared and dragged the poor girl out to be hung on the cross. As Alex held her nose, to stop the stench of sunbaked rotting flesh and shit, she whispered a silent prayer for Fei, hoping she could escape disaster.

With a smile, Albi turned her attention back to her remaining students, seeing the terror written on their faces.

“Let this be a valuable lesson, always be careful when dealing with drug making, girls. Ms. Karen has just demonstrated why you must take the utmost caution when dealing with materials. And as dangerous materials go, this is one of the tamest. Skin Eater Ants, who within minutes, as a colony, can eat an adult female's skin off, leaving the body in agonizing pain before it dies from blood loss. Bone Jelly invades the body, and melts the bones inside, leaving the body a slime within ten minutes."

“Or, my favorite, the Anomaly worm, who at high speeds tunnels through your body, leaving it in parts within a minute. But the best part about it is that all bits of body parts are alive and mentally connected to the intact head thanks to the Anomaly worm making it its temporary home."

“This is because of the worm's nature, to preferably feed on the body alive. It will then move the head to the center of the temporary home, as the pieces are infected by its unique substance that infects the cells to form tumors."

“For hours, it will eat the body, allowing the victim to feel the pain of being eaten alive, piece by piece, before the worm enters the head to lay its eggs which will hatch just before the head expires in a few days."

“Now that that little warning is out of the way, let's begin extracting the wood slugs to place in solution, shall we?”

The girls could only shake their heads in acknowledgment, wishing to not turn out to be another Karen.

…

One by one, the girls fell, until only five remained.

Four had failed the wood slug extraction and met the same fate as Karren. As for the rest, they failed at various stages of the extraction. Even Alex was shaken as she stared at the two piles of what looked to be about the size of sugar cubes. The bigger one was that of the mortal drug, Gummy, yellow in color, that came out to fifty cubes. While Snow tears came to only be about ten cubes.

As she sat back in her chair, mentally exhausted, Albi went around the room, inspecting the drugs one by one. She tested them by popping one cube into her mouth, closing her eyes, and sighing.

“Ah, yes, this one is passable to be sold, but it’s low quality. You added a few too many wood slugs, and the temperatures were off around the fourth cycle of reducing. Take your hard work and go. And remember, if you partake, remember that your body can only handle two at most every twelve hours and it should only be used just before meditation.”

“Low quality…”

“Low quality…”

“Mid quality…”

“Mid quality…”

One by one, the girls were graded and left, until it was finally Alex’s turn. Like with the rest, the teacher, Albi, grabbed a cube and popped in her mouth.

“Hmm... this is Mi—” Just as Albi was about to declare the quality of the drug, she stopped, as if struck by lightning. Seeing this, Alex started sweating inwardly, wondering if she had messed up somewhere.

Did I mess up on the third cycle of heating? But I was sure I caught it before it hit dangerous levels. Maybe it was that extra gram of Wood Slug the numbers suggested. It could have been that maybe some of the materials were bad and it made this batch useless.

Trying to figure out where she went wrong, or if the world had royally screwed her hard work, Alex stared as Albi opened her mouth.

“Your name is Alex, right? A blank from the Black Card Gang, correct?”

“Yes?”

The teacher sighed, “A shame. If you were from one of the lesser gangs, I’d have forced them to give you to ours. Well done on making a high-quality drug on your first try. I was watching you and thought your process would produce mid-quality with the mistakes you made. If you wouldn’t mind, could you tell me how you moved your mana? It would be the only way to explain how you got this quality. I won’t punish you if you don’t tell me, so have no worries. I’m just curious, is all.”

Although she said it with a smile, Alex felt her neck hair crawl and her back felt drenched in sweat.

Her mouth says no worries, but her eyes say I’ll get it out of you one way or another. Fucking… why did I have to try my best? Can’t I just have a normal day anymore?

As she lamented her predicament for a brief moment, her mind and mouth were already moving.

“I would like to offer a deal…”

…

And so, a full hour passed, and the two sat across from one another, haggling over an agreement.

In the end, Albi was smiling, but not smiling, “You are one shrewd blank, Ms. Alex. As long as you can keep your head, you’ll go far in the world of magical girls. I’m glad we could come to an agreement.”

Awhile, Alex was sighing to herself, bitterly. This is how much I can get with my current status. It’s better than nothing, but I could’ve milked out so much more if I had the power to back up my stance.

Although bitter inwardly, outwardly, Alex was full of smiles, as she signed the document before her. She then handed it over to Albi to sign, and then she put it in an automaton, which spit out two copies of the contract.

“This agreement has been overseen by robot 028-X, and has been recorded in the campus database. Each party will receive a paper copy of the contract in case the data is lost. Robot 028-X will also take a scan of the contract in the event of unforeseen accidents. Have a good day, Ms. Alex, Ms. Albi.”

And so, with the agreement reached, the robot left, leaving the teacher and student alone.

Albi smiled widely, “Now, Ms. Alex, would you kindly teach me the method you found out?”

“With pleasure, teacher Albi.”

…

Walking out the door, Alex walked as fast as she could to get away. And when she turned the corner on the street, went into an alley. She held her chest, where her heart was beating like a thunderous drum, and leaned on the wall.

Sweat was pouring down her brow as her body trembled.

Is my life going to be like his every day? Filled with such cutthroat deals? God, what is wrong with these teachers? Hours… Hours to teach her how to alternate mana gently to increase the synergy of the ingredients.

I have a feeling that if she didn’t get it, she’d have kept going through the afternoon and the night until she did. Note to self, don’t use the numbers most optimally to make drugs, unless privately, and if I have enough power to sell them without worry. But I can't believe that the numbers came to such a conclusion after reading some books on drug theory.

It took her a bit to settle down and get her heartbeat under control.

When she did, Alex turned to the medium size backpack she held in one hand. Well, at least I got this and a few more things out of that deal. With this, I’ll have insurance getting into C-Rank. Still, I’ll need to do more preparation. I’ll hand these over to Sugar for safe keeping. For now, I’ll go check on Fei and see how she’s doing.

Dusting herself off, she began making her way to her dorms, when a thought hit her.

Although teacher Albi's methods are cruel, it was pretty funny. Heh, put up people on the cross naked to smell shit and rotten corpses from upwind.

Oh god. Why did I think that was funny?