"Earl... Earl.... Earl!!!... Earl wake up!!!", Earl could hear a familiar voice calling out to him, it was grandpa Ollie. After finding Earl passed out right outside the shops door, he quickly took him inside and laid him on the shop floor, he took a towel and some water and placed it on his forehead, but still after 3 hours he still hadn't regained consciousness, grandpa Ollie didn't have any medicinal herbs with him, nor could he perform any form of Alchemy, this was the best solution he had at the time.

"grandpa Ollie?", Earl had finally regained consciousness, though his vision was still a little blurry, he slowly sat up straight, as he was lying down on the shop's floor, "what happened to you?", grandpa Ollie asked with a worried look on his face, Earl held his head trying to remember what had happened, he remembered everything from the early morning visits, down to the details of what Mr Adams had said, his face suddenly went white when he saw a message appear

[Vlad Talisman deactivated]

[Healing process complete]

[HP 100/100]

[Spiritual energy depleting]

[Spiritual energy: 5/50]

[You must consume life energy in 12 hours]

[Your Spiritual Energy depletes]

"What's wrong?", grandpa Ollie asked, seeing his grandson's expression, Earl quickly snapped back to normal, "It's nothing, I just took the final exams, Mr Adam said it was a direct order from the AAO, and that if I passed they would come take me to a highschool they'd handpick themselves, but after the exam, I just got exhausted and thought I'd take a nap outside" Earl said as he gave an awkward smile.

His grandfather sighed a sigh if relief as he took out his clay pipe and smoked a little, "Don't worry me like that, okay?", grandpa Ollie then stood up and helped Earl get off the floor, he then picked up the towel and water he had been using on Earl and went up stairs with it, "I didn't open shop because of you you know..., you should still get some rest, you might seem fine now, but you were out for 3 hours, just take it easy, I made breakfast upstairs okay?'' With that, grandpa Ollie left, going upstairs, seeing his grandfather leave, Earl began to panic.

"12 hours!!??, I thought I had a day, what am I gonna do", he stood there panicking, when he heard his grandpa call him, "Earl, if you don't eat, your food will get cold", "Okay grandpa, I'll be right there" Earl replied, he then decided to think about it later, and head upstairs.

About 1 and a half hour had passed, and Earl was all dressed up and ready, he wore a simple black shirt, along with some pants, he put on some shoes and decided to take a stroll through the forest behind the hill where the shop was, he just wanted to clear his head and think of what to do, he remembered that the first message he saw after waking up was one which said that the Vlad Talisman had been deactivated. A Talisman was any rock, gem or ring that was inscribed with Alchemy, unlike beast gear, it wasn't made using beast crystals, they were artifacts that existed naturally, and when used for alchemy, even if they lost their magical energy, they wouldn't shatter, but just turn into an ordinary object, and it seemed like the pendant his parents left him was a Talisman, and not just any Talisman, but something they called a Vlad Talisman, he didn't know what it did, but he knew it was powerful, not only had it healed him before, but it had given him an Affinity in his system, he would do more research later on, but he had to figure out how he would solve the problem of consuming life energy.

If what he thought was right, then he would have to kill someone, and he didn't know if he was physically or mentally prepared for that, a she was deep in thought, he received a message

[Your Spiritual Energy depletes]

[Spiritual Energy: 4/50]

Just then it felt like hundreds of swords had pierced Earl's stomach at the same time, he held his stomach tightly as he knelt down on the floor, he grabbed it even tighter as the pain was immense, his head started aching, and he fell to the floor in pain, he laid there grabbing his stomach and tucking his knees in, it lasted about 20 minutes before the pain subsided and he could move now, his head still ached a little, and he still felt pain in his stomach, but he could still move around, "I have to solve this problem, and fast" as he said that he suddenly heard a scream coming from deep within the forest, and it sounded like a girl.

Meanwhile, Mr Adams was walking away from the 5th house today, and was heading towards the next house, he decided to take one more look at the piece of lead that Earl used in his own exams, it looked completely normal, when he turned out to the side, a good portion of it was smooth and sturdy, it was steel, he smiled at the thought of it and said to himself out loud " Well it seemed you managed to pull off a miracle Earl'', he had taken record of the time used in completing the physical and mental part of the exam, and Earl did just above average, normally he would've failed if he didn't turn the lead into steel, but somehow he managed to pull it off, though he didn't completely transmutate it, but this would definitely give him a fighting chance, " What's got you all happy?" a voice asked from behind him, Mr Adams quickly turned around and saw Miss Edna walking up to him smiling herself, "Oh, it's nothing really I was just thinking about one of my students, he didn't have any talent for alchemy at all, but he managed to pull through today", he then paused for a moment before speaking once more "Miss Edna what are you doing here?", Mr Adam asked curious as to what she was doing so early in the morning, suddenly the atmosphere became a serious one, "I've been tracking the Order of Rouge Alchemists, and I have reason to believe that there is one of them in this town, and what more, it's a child", Mr Adam's eyes went wide open, he was shocked to think that the ORA had already started their activities, and what's more they sent someone to this town, and a child nonetheless, after thinking about it for a while he decided to ask a question, "do you know who it is?", "No'' Miss Edna answered, "But I have three suspects, Nora Huddersfield, William Fresch, and.... Earl White"

"Ahhhhhhhh", the scream was loud, and it was clear that it was a girl who had screamed, Earl noticed this and started walking slowly towards the scream as he held his stomach tightly, after about 30 minutes of walking, he saw a girl laying on the floor with a beast trap stuck on one of her legs, he immediately recognised the girl, it was Nora Huddersfield, a girl from his class, she had a red dagger beside her, and there was blood on it, not too far away from her was a dead beast, it was about the size of a dog, and had a giant cut across its chest. There were beasts in the forest behind the hill, but most of them were basic and Intermediate beasts, and most of them were relatively slow, so if someone were to run into one, there would be able to run away, most at times, beast traps were put around the forest, to seriously injure, or kill beasts, depending on the strength of the beast, and alchemy used in making the beast trap, luckily for the Nora, She had been caught by a basic tier beast trap which looked like an ordinary bear trap, but whatever happened her, she was badly injured.

"Nora, are you okay?, what happened?" Earl asked while coming over towards her, she looked seriously hurt, and he was trying to see if he could help, "Does it look like I'm fine?, of all the people to find me it just had to be the most useless on if them", she shouted at Earl, she then tried moving, but shouted once more as the pain had stung her, "You shouldn't move, don't be a bitch and just let me help you" Earl snapped back at her, he was in pain and still tried to help her, yet all she could do was insult him, he then started walking towards her, she grabbed the small dagger off of the floor and pointed it at him, "don't come any closer than that, and who are you calling a bitch", Earl now felt irritated, and didn't even feel like helping her, besides she always insulted him, and made fun of him, so he didn't even have to help her, she didn't deserve it, what could she even do with her small dagger, sure she could perform alchemy, but she wasn't as talented as Jake, and needed an alchemy circle to perform alchemy, and there were none around, he decided to take another step when the small dagger suddenly grew longer and almost stabbed him in his stomach, but he quickly used his left hand which was wrapped with bandages to block it, however it still pierced him and blood started dripping from the wound.

Seeing this Nora smiled, "I warned you", Hearing those words made Earl angry, he was passing through enough right now, but people like her would just keep on insulting him and hurting him, and for what?, because he decided to help?, he hated people like this and decided that she didn't deserve to live, he needed to consume life energy anyway, so it would be a win win situation for him, he grabbed the sword in his hand and pulled it out, he then pulled it as hard as he could and Nora left the hilt of it, it then turned back to a small dagger and was now in Earl's hand, Seeing this Nora gritted her teeth in anger,

"That's mine you have no right to-", she suddenly felt a great amount of pain on her leg, she could feel it getting squeezed, she shouted as the force and pain became more and more, she managed to look at the boy who was Infront of her and saw him pushing down the beast trap with his foot, the pain was even more now and she felt that at any moment her foot would come flying off, she lifted her palm and faced it at Earl, Earl was still stomping on the beast trap when he lifted his foot off of it, he then stomped as hard as he could on it and her leg came flying off, he looked up at her to see the look of agony on her face when his eyes went open as he felt danger coming, his skill ' Third eye ' had activated, he saw her palm face him, and there was an alchemy circle on it, 'Crap', but it was too late, fire came flying out her palm and straight at him, the fire engulfed his face, and he immediately fell to the floor screaming.

Nora began crawling the opposite direction, as she saw that her attack had hit him, "Help...., Somebody ", she screamed as she crawled, she crawled for about 2 minutes screaming for help when she felt a hand grab her shoulder from behind, she turned around and saw Earl grab her from behind, with his face completely fine. As Earl screamed in pain, he ran towards a random direction, and fell into a small pond, after coming out he saw a message

[Vlad Talisman activated]

[Healing process has began]

Just then the burns on his face began healing and his face became normal, as if nothing had happened to it, he looked at himself in the pond and saw his face healing, with that he started running back towards Nora.

Earl saw Nora crawling and shouting for help, he rushed towards her as he saw a message appear

[Spiritual Energy depleting]

[Spiritual Energy: 1/50]

He suddenly felt the same pain he felt before, his vision became blurry, and his head began aching him, but rather than before, he bore the pain and grabbed Nora, as she turned around, she once again threw her hand at his face, but he was quick to react and slapped it aside, the fire flew out of her hand but just ended up burning some grasses and dead leaves, there was suddenly horror on her face, as she was pinned down, Earl then saw a message appear

[You must consume Life Energy in 1 minute]

Seeing this message, Earl instinctively bit her neck, and soon blue particles could be seen leaving her and going into his mouth, her body became weak, and her eyes began rolling back as her life energy was drained, but for Earl it was a pleasant experience, he felt his tired body getting energized, and this life energy thing treated sweet to him, he kept on sucking as he saw a message

[Spiritual Energy: 2/50]

[Spiritual Energy: 5/50]

[Spiritual Energy: 11/50]

[Spiritual Energy: 20/50]

[Spiritual Energy: 30/50]

[Spiritual Energy: 40/50]

[Spiritual Energy: 50/50]

with his spiritual energy being filled, he let go of her, and let her body fall to the ground, her eyes were rolled back all the way, and wasn't moving, she was dead, as Earl looked at her dead body, he felt uneasy and sick, it was an unpleasant feeling, but he expected it to be much worse, looking around he scanned the area to see if anyone had seen him, he saw no-one and decided to leave, but before that he looked at the dagger in his hand, and thought to himself, 'I wonder what tier this thing is?', there was no doubt that it was powerful, but didn't know what grade it was, but he decided he would take it with him as it could be useful, as he didn't have any current beast gear.

He then ran away towards the shop as he knew that beasts would soon come, not only smelling Nora's blood, but also the dead beast's carcass.

Meanwhile Miss Edna and Mr Adam when Jake was walking by, he then saw his two teachers talking, he decided to walk up to them, " Hi Miss Edna, Mr Adam", Mr Adam noticing him turned around and answered him, "Oh what seems to be the problem Jake?", "Nothing really, but I heard someone screaming , and it sounded like a girl", "Where?" Miss Edna was now suddenly interested as it may have something to do with the ORA agent, "In the forest after the hills, towards the North side of the town, after grandpa Ollie's shop", Jake replied with a straight face, "Take me there " said Edna