Jake sat in the meditation chamber as he went over some basic knowledge within the token related to the Academy as a whole. He had wondered for a while how exactly an educational institution would function in the multiverse, much less an Order of poison alchemists, and the way it worked was rather, well, simple?There wasn’t a curriculum or a set schedule of teachers and their lessons. There were no long-term lesson plans or forced subjects either; there weren’t even defined grades or "years" of any kind. It was all honestly weird from the perspective of someone from Earth who had experienced traditional education. He even saw that those teaching were, more often than not, also students themselves.Classes and lessons did exist, of course, but you had to sign up for them individually, and they didn’t end with any exam or test or anything. There wasn’t attendance, either, though it would be stupid to not attend a lesson you had signed up for due to one other thing: Credits.No, not Cre

Jake stepped through the gate and appeared at the back wall of what looked like a massive lecture hall. The hall had nearly a hundred meters to the ceiling and a large stage down at the bottom, where Jake saw a dwarf that he assumed was the teacher. He was currently talking to a few scalekins as he showed off a cauldron to them.The rest of the hall was already pretty filled. Jake looked around and guessed there had to be at least a few thousand present already, with more coming every second from other gates opening up all around him. A brief scan revealed around half of those present to be scalekins of different variants, with the rest a mixture of all kinds of races.Everyone was E- or D-grade, with the majority in D-grade. Jake decided to just find somewhere vacant as he took a seat, very curious as to how a lesson in the Order of the Malefic Viper would function. He did see many others already had cauldrons out and were tinkering a bit with them.About ten minutes later, right at

Jake had, thus far, wondered about one thing during this lesson: how the hell was it worth 420,000 AC? Like, sure, it sounded like it was an interesting viewpoint and application of Willpower merged with the Alchemical Flame, but it didn’t seem that special. It was basically just a trick most would probably figure out at some point themselves, and definitely not worth paying that much for. It was also possible that those at higher grades just got a shitload of AC.Luckily, after the first hour and the end of the introduction, the A-grade dragon gave an answer."To achieve this oscillation and resonance between your Willpower and Alchemical Flame, I have set up a number of methods and training exercises. It will primarily be done within the Soulspace and will depend on whether you possess a Soulflame or not. The first parts can be done either way.”He waved his hand, and crystals appeared on each pavilion at once. Jake inspected it for a moment as he walked over and held it in his hand

Jake spent the next few hours researching Soulflames, but he eventually put it on hold and shelved the entire topic. Choosing a Soulflame was something he didn’t doubt he would eventually do, but he wanted to get a bit further on his path first. In fact, getting a Soulflame as a D-grade was generally viewed as a bad idea, and Jake had to learn how to make certain personalized arrays first anyway.Due to that, Jake returned to studying neurotoxins. He also began actually selecting some lessons to attend in a week or so when the introductory lessons began. From a talk with Reika, he learned that another batch of new students had just arrived that day, and apparently, even more were coming. Not from the 93rd Universe, but just from across the multiverse. It seemed like the Order was really recruiting!At least, he thought so, until he discovered this was just a normal occurrence every year. The real recruitment periods were far rarer and often had millions of new entries, while a few hun

Jake had been put on the spot, and while he had wanted to reject the invitation, his curiosity had eventually won out. And in hindsight, he was glad it had, as he came to see much of the Order he hadn’t before.He had not gone home after the lesson, instead following the female dragonkin through a portal to what was essentially a buzzing metropolitan area with bars, cafes, restaurants, and shops everywhere. All of them catered to members of the Order, and it was truly a massive area.Passing the gateway had also shrugged off all the annoying followers who had stared at Jake like he was evil incarnate. No, he was not looking forward to meeting many of them again at the lesson the next day.The two of them headed towards a café that offered private rooms to have their discussion. Using personal residences for discussions with people you didn’t trust was rarely done, and Jake could see why. The rules of safety seemed to primarily dominate in public areas, and giving someone access to a r