With that matter taken care of more or less I was able to focus my attention on learning alchemy with Flammel. He was a supremely patient teacher and didn't berate me or even raise his voice when I made a mistake. I ended up spending six full days alone learning calligraphy under his watchful and calm eyes. As much as I thought I'd hate it the art of brush writing was actually something I enjoyed a lot. It was both precise and emotive at the same time. The way the words felt changed depending on how you wrote them. It was surprisingly deep all things considered.-
It wasn't a hard thing for me to learn though as I already had the muscle control for it and just needed the technique. Flammel had even made it interesting by rolling magic control into the process. I had to constantly maintain a slow but smooth trickle of magic through the brush and ink as I wrote. This was apparently a trick he learned from the east years back that made calligraphy really pop to the perception. The reason for this was simply because a wizards magic was tied to their mind and souls so whatever emotion they were feeling during the process bled over and imprinted onto the work.-
I pushed it even further by seeing if I could do the same with haki as well. The result was both awe inspiring and rather disturbing. Frankly it was like those chinese cultivation novels where they talk about intent so powerful it could linger long after the person behind it was gone. Haki as it turned out could achieve a similar effect, something Flammel was positively giddy upon discovering. By mixing magical energy with haki my spiritual imprint was left in every word I brushed down.-
It created one of those anime worthy things where someone is looking at a set of writings and feel an oppressive aura from it. Needless to say I fully intended to create a few quotes with deep meaning using this method to flex on guests in the future. The method was also ridiculously useful in creating talismans apparently. Talisman crafting was a unique form of alchemy created in the far east that bound spells to paper in order to create consumable casting tools. The way it was done was using a special kind of ink to mark the slips of specially refined paper before raw magic was forced into the markings.-
It was quite similar to normal enchanting but cruder as the symbols used had no magical effects themselves, it was the ink and paper that made it work. Additionally the magic forced into a talisman was put there via wandless, silent casting so by todays time period the art was next to dead because the entry barrier was too high. According to Flammel there were at most only four people in the world who still practiced it and he was one of them.-
The man wasn't called the greatest alchemist alive for just the stone he made after all. No, he had earned that title by exploring every aspect of the art including the versions belonging to entirely different schools of thought in the far corners of the world. Maybe he wasn't the greatest expert in any single field beyond material alchemy but in terms of breadth he was second to none. Learning all of this left me feeling some kind of way as I felt it such a pity that such a character had been basically ignored by Rowling in my previous life.-
Personally I respected the man because even after six and a half centuries of it he still found awe in magic. You could see it in the way he lit up when he discovered something he didn't understand. To him magic was a wonderful thing that he cherished, unlike many who had it I've met. The amount of witches and wizards who took magic for granted was sickening. Was it any wonder the magical world had almost fully stagnated? That was what set muggles apart from the magical community, they constantly moved forward.
Ignoring my dissatisfaction with how complacent the magical world was the discovery of how my haki worked in talisman creation led Flammel to him skipping my current lesson and moving over to that since it was more interesting for him. Either way I was still learning so it didn't bother me any.-
"I must say, this soul magic of yours is just a gift that keeps giving! Why, I haven't been this inspired in decades!" Flammel said beaming with joy.
"Glad to help I guess?" I said not quite sure how to answer something like that.
He held up the latest talisman to his eye and inspected it carefully.
"Heh, that fellow over in Japan would suffer a stroke if he could see this thing. He's been worried about the art of talisman making dying out in his generation only for the solution to his problem to show up on the opposite side of the world." he said with a chuckle.
"Who do you mean?" I asked curiously.
"Kenzo Mizuyama, the current headmaster of Mahoutokoro. The Japanese school of magic."