Once that side of things was done I took out anything I absolutely didn't want to risk from my inventory. This meant all the skill and ability stones mostly. They were all carefully stashed within my realm. Finally the time came to get it started. It wasn't anything dramatic like some grand spectacle. The system fragment from Isabelle's world simply turned to rainbow colored smoke that sank into my palm. My own system became entirely inoperable after that. I couldn't even use my inventory which made me relieved that I had the foresight to remove anything I might need from it.-
Flammel noticed nothing during this time. I was always quite careful to keep any hint of the system at best mere speculation so it's temporary loss did not create any outward ripples. Not that I really noticed it as I fully poured my attention towards soaking up as much knowledge on alchemy I could from the ancient man. Flammel was a good teacher, if a bit scatterbrained sometimes. I didn't meant that in a bad way either as he would just randomly get ideas in the middle of a lesson or become inspired about some problem he was having.-
It was these little flashes of genius that made his bodily situation so sad. There was so much more he could do if he wasn't tissue paper durable. I had asked him about about it too and what he said cleared up a lot of my doubts.
"The philosophers stone can indefinitely extend ones life. But you still age. And time? Time weakens even the strongest stone, much less an already frail human body. Unfortunately there is no solution to this problem. My lifeforce is exuberant but my body is a frail shell that I simply don't know how to reinforce without trading away my humanity." he said seriously.
"Why not create a younger version of your body and transfer your soul to it? There would be no soul already there and it would free you from your frailty. No moral lines crossed." I suggested and he chuckled but shook his head.
"There are precisely three problems with that idea. The first is the difficulty of creating a soulless body capable of containing my soul. Even muggle souls grow denser and heavier over time, magical ones far more so. My body has contained my soul since the beginning, but a cloned vessel? It would likely degrade from incompatibility within months. I'd be trapped in a never ending cycle of swapping vessels every few months." he said gravely.
"That.... makes sense. What about the other problems?" I asked already dropping the idea but curious about what else was wrong with it.
"The second problem is the magic itself. Soul magic even on a relatively minor scale such as yours is already considered nearly the pinnacle of what anyone has ever done. Actually moving ones own soul out of their body and into another without dissipating would take something at least three orders of magnitude higher if not even greater than that. No one has the skill for it. You may be the only person who could reach that sort of height in that field with your obvious talent in the field but it would be something that would take you decades at least. You would be an old man by then. A very scary old man but an old man all the same." he said with that tone i've long since come to recognize as his teaching voice.
"I see. And the third?" I asked curiously.
"Other witches and wizards. It doesn't matter if you never intended to use the magic for ill. The moment the world learns of it you'd be hunted down. Because others wanted to do it, because they saw it as abominable, the list of reasons go on and on. In the end even if you successfully manage to keep it hidden the risk of it getting out alone might drive you to madness." he said seriously.
"Annoying, understood." I said with a nod.
He chuckled "Yes, very annoying."
Once I had a decent grasp of the enchanting aspect of alchemy Flammel moved over to the material side. And while I was surprised by it I could accept that I flat out didn't have any talent for that field of the art. There was a sort of "leap of faith" type intuition involved with an uncomfortable amount of the field that I just didn't have. I mean sure I learned the parts with structure like the transmutation rituals but the more intimate and finicky parts were basically not an option. Flammel thought it was great. Not because he was being mean or anything like that but because I was too good at most everything else.
I had almost nothing I actually struggled with and while that isn't technically a bad thing it does invite envy. Talent has always been a source of strife for humanity. It's the competitive aspect of evolution rearing it's head. The best win. It's one of the reasons we resort to murder even. Some people get so jealous of someone elses talent and success and just decide to take that person out to quell their jealousy. I certainly had a talent that could invite that sort of jealousy. For Flammel learning I had a flaw, even a rather niche one, was a source of great relief.-
I ended up only learning the structured part of that field before Flammel moved on to biological alchemy. You know how dissection's are done in schools on frogs and sharks? A LOT of this field was doing that with any body you could get. That was just the nonmagical side however. The really questionable part was stitching muscles and bones from different bodies together magically while checking for rejections and incompatibilities.