As he looked at the camp he could not help notice how filthy it was. How did someone like him end up in a place like this? He should be in Rome right now and enjoy one of their famous bathhouses. Vel could not help think about his parents how he had tried to say goodbye multiple times but they had simply ignored him. It seemed like they had decided to wash their hands of him. He couldn't really blame them, they didn't know the whole story and thought that he hated Felix because he was a swimmer, if only he could explain it to them.

The camp was made in the middle of the jungle and all the low-level cadets were assigned to small tents they had to share with multiple others. Only one-third of the cadets would become full-fledged soldiers of the republic and most of them would be paid to defend the border from the Germanian's.

Vel walked to the center of the camp and saw all the other cadets waiting for the commander to arrive. He let out a sigh of relief arrived on time and joined the others trying to blend in. He had made sure he was wearing simple clothes and tried not to stand all. The thing most normal soldiers hates was nobodies with privilege, he knew because he used to be one of them.

The commander exited his tenth and joined them wearing his standard Roman military uniform and looked battle-worn. A high ranked commoner he thought as he looked at him with interest and tried to observe him but couldn't feel anything. This meant that his realm was so high that he couldn't even feel it which surprised him.

“In the next four years two things will happen, you go home, or you become a soldier of the Roman republic,” the command said straight to the point.

He looked around to size the cadets up as he continued, “I know most of you have been thought that the Germanian's are a bunch of primitive barbarians who don't amount to anything, but that is far from the truth. Those are just a story people tell their wives and daughters and even themselves to be able to sleep at night. Yes it's true that we have the stronger military, yes we are the more advanced nation, but if I had to guess, I would say that an average Germanian soldier is able to clear ten more levels from the tower of Romulus than an average Roman soldier. So if we send you home it's nothing personal, it's just so we don't have to dig your grave a later.”

Everyone looked in shock and started to talk amongst each other. Ten levels? How could that be? Even Vel didn't know this, he wondered what the reason for it was. he would soon find out he guessed.

The commander quickly finished his speech and told everyone to follow him for their first training. Nobody expected to have to begin so soon but did as the man told them. They spend most of the afternoon doing basic military training like running, carrying weights, and even some swimming. Most of the people had a hard time with it but not Vel. He could do this even when he was a human, let alone now that he had entered the origin realm.

When they came back to the camp the commander released them from duty and almost everyone fell on the ground exhausted. He waited another half hour before the last person arrived and gave them the warning that they should be able to complete the course on time in two weeks or they would be expelled. The commander looked around and noticed Vel, not only was he not tired, he wasn't even breathing heavily.

“Boy, follow me,” he said as he pointed to Vel and entered his tent which was the biggest in the whole camp.

Vel walked inside and was met with the last person he expected to see. He walked towards the old man and bowed as he greed the elder and said, “it's nice to see you again secretary Servius, I hope grandfather is doing well.”

“The last thing you have to worry about is your grandfather,” Servius said clearly not interested in small talk. He poured himself another glass of wine and continued, “I suggest you enjoy your last free day for the next couple of years because your training will begin tomorrow.”

“You are going to train me personally?” Vel asked a little confused.

“You are the heir. It was always going to be my job to train you, only now it has to be in this shit-hole instead of Rome which I'm going to make you pay for,” Servius said clearly not concerned about their social standing any longer. He threw a scroll towards him with the location he expected him tomorrow and told him he was excused.

“My lord is it smart of talk like that to the senator's grandson?” the commander asked a little concerned.

“Not really, but the senator has ordered me to treat him like any other student,” Servius answered as he finished the glass of wine and poured himself another one. “This is going to be interesting,” he smiled after he downed his third glass in only five minutes.

At the same time, Felix reached Rome and was taken back by how beautiful it looked. It wasn't anything like he had read in history books and the city looked big enough to at least house twenty to thirty million people. He couldn't help think how lucky they were for entering through the VIP entrance and not having to wait in that long line that almost had no end to it.

He couldn't help shake his head as he saw the people walking around and feel bad for them. The city was only clean on the outside, but on the inside, it was rotten. He saw thousand of poor people walking around collecting dead bodies with the small storage rings they were carrying. “I perfume the bodies they are collecting are swimmers?” He asked his grandfather who was riding a black horse next to him.

The grandfather smirked and answered, “Most of them, yes, but the city waste management service doesn't discriminate, anyone who doesn't have someone to take care of them after their death is collected and burned.”

Felix felt his resolve get stronger the more he looked around. He had decided the moment he asked to come here, he had two choices, succeed or become just another body that would be collected by the city waste management.

“Here put this one, it's an identification badge your kind as to wear at all times by law,” his grandfather said as he handed him a small blue badge with the Roman eagle on it.

“I know, even I'm not that far removed from the world,” he said as he took it and put it on.

They rode for another ten minutes before his grandfather said his goodbyes and ordered two guards to escort Felix to the academy. He followed them for another two hours before they reached their destination as the city was just truly too big for words. It reminded him of megacities on earth but a lot more chaotic.

He went inside and saw around twenty people waiting for the selection to begin. As he had thought it was even hard to take the audition or else every poor person trying their luck would take the exam. He made sure to stand far back and tried to be out of everyone's sight as he saw around ten elders enter the room and take a seat at the small tables the staff had prepared for them. On the table they had served them the best tea and sweets Felix knew his own family enjoyed at home.

The examiner then explained how the evaluation was going to work. The academy was in actuality a scouting ground where masters who were looking for students would come and find promising students. These students would then learn from their master and when the master thought they were ready would take the final exam. If they succeeded they would join the rank of master and become one of them. Felix was sure there were different ranks even between masters but this was not the time to find that out.

He wasn't really happy about it, this meant that there were no real criteria for acceptance. Every master could take the student they wanted and the chance of them wanting a swimmer as a student was almost zero. Well, he had to just see what would happen. He had decided to try a couple of times and see how far he got. After that, he would see what his options were and decide what to do next.

The master pointed to a painting behind him that was completely blank and told everyone what the test was. The students would sit in front of the painting and try to examine It with their spirit force and see how much insight they could receive. The more the painting became visible, the more talent they had as an alchemist and the Doa of alchemy.

The first student sat down and was able to make about ten percent of the painting visible before he ran out of spirit force and had to stop. This worried Felix a little because it meant that the less spirit force you had the less chance you had and he himself was just at the second step of the spirit realm. The examiner asked which master was interested in the boy and no master responded.

An hour passed and only five out of the twenty people were selected by masters, most of them had made more than half the painting visible. The best student was a young girl who had made sixty-two percent of the painting visible and had the choice out of five of the masters. By the end, every master had raised their hands once except for the master sitting at the far right who looked bored out of his mind. He didn't have that master look the others had, no long beard or white hair. He was a clean-shaven middle-aged man who had dark black eyes and was wearing simple middle-class clothes like himself.

The examiner saw Felix standing there as the rest left and said, “your master left boy, please leave the grounds.”

Felix bowed respectfully and answered, “I'm here to take the test.”

The examiner including most masters behind him laughed and shook their head in disapproval. A swimmer as an alchemist? What's next. dogs as magistrates?

“It's against the law for your kind to take the examination,” one of the masters called Arruns said in disgust as he took another sip of his tea.

Felix didn't feel like arguing with them and just took out the small scroll his grandfather had given him and handed it over to the examiner.

The examiner hesitated but eventually took the scroll and read it. He then walked back to the other masters and passed over the scroll to the one sitting on the far left who also read it and passed it around until every master had read it. It seemed like every master was looking at the others for an answer about what to do.

Arruns was the first one to speak again and said, “it seems like we can't stop you from taking the exam because of your connections. But not even a senator can make us take you as a student against our will. So make it quick.”

Felix walked towards the painting and sat down and started to concentrate on it. It took a couple of seconds for him to control his spirit force as he was incredibly bad at it but he eventually succeeded. The next moment he felt an incredible amount of information flood into his brain and the only way he could describe it was incredible. There were no recipes or something but he felt like he understood more about the essence of alchemy with every second felt more refreshed. He had worried about running out of spirit force but luckily he was able to comprehend the painting so fast that wasn't going to be a problem.

The masters who were not paying any attention quickly got the surprise of their lives as the painting became completely visible. But it wasn't good enough for them to accept a swimmer, many people including some of them themselves had been able to comprehend the knowledge of the first painting, but they had never seen anyone do it so fast.

Felix spent the next two minutes collecting his thoughts before he stood up and bowed to the masters before he asked, “there are more than one paintings aren't there?”

The masters were surprised and knew the boy was incredibly talented. Most students including themselves had never thought there would be more to the doa of alchemy but this boy had noticed how fast and great the doa of alchemy really was.

The examiner asked the masters if they wanted Felix as a student and as he expected was met with silence.

“Blame the heavens kid,” the examiner said as he shook his head in disappointment. Talents like that are only found once every fifty years, too bad, the boy was a swimmer.

Felix didn't say anything and just bowed again and turned around and left. There was no point making enemies out of these people. The day would come where they and every other person who looked down on him and others like him would be punished for their crimes. He was going to make sure of that!

“We should kill him,” said Arruns the master who hated swimmers the most of all the people here as he had lost a daughter to the Germanian's.

“I don't think that's a good idea. didn't you see the letter? The boy had clearly powerful connections,” another master answered.

“Connections or not, he is still a swimmer. A swimmer who just left with secrets our country had collected over thousand of years,” Arruns said but didn't really get a positive reaction from the others and decided to ask the only person who truly mattered. “What does master Lucius think?” he asked but didn't see anyone when he turned around and found only an empty chair.

“That's why he is the best alchemist we have had in generations, while we wasting time discussing he properly went back to his experiments,” the examiner said with a lot of praise for master Lucius.

Felix spend another hour looking around before he found a restaurant that accepted swimmers and went inside to eat. He had enough money for housing but he still needed a job if he wanted to buy ingredients to start his training. It wouldn't be as fast as training with a master but he knew deep down he could do it himself if he worked hard.

The fastest way to make money was to make simple drugs like cocaine or heroin and sell them to the poor and weak but he didn't want to do that. He didn't want to become the same man he was last time. This time he was going to take it from the rich instead of the poor.

‘I still have the recipe for the antidepressant,’ he thought before he saw a man sitting in front of him and almost fell out of his chair from fright. the wine he was holding fell down right on his face and the food he had just ordered fell on the ground completely ruined.

Felix took out the small handkerchief his mother had given him and cleaned himself up and then was able to see the man in front of him, he recognized the man. It was the middle-aged man who was a master at the examination. “What do you want?” Felix asked as he got up and sat back down on the chair.

“To east lunch with my new student,” the man said with a smile on his face.

“I'm sorry but didn't you reject me?” Felix asked confused.

“Of course I rejected you, you're a swimmer. Having a swimmer as a student publicly would mean I would be blacklisted by the whole country,” the man said as he took out a small bottle of wine and two cups from inside his storage ring and pored both of them a glass.

“So why take that chance?”

Lucius took a sip from the wine and was pleasantly surprised by it, the seller had truly not exaggerated. He finished the glass in one go after that and said, “because you have the talent and even if you make a mistake and someone finds out, the solution would be quite easy, ill just have to kill you.”

Lucius then stared at the young boy sitting in front of him and asked, "do you accept?"

Felix thought about it for a second and simply nodded his head in agreement.