Academy of Alchemical Understanding

Also known as AAU, is the former school that served Taicans. This academy was built by the Emigdia builders around 8500 years before the Sundering. The Academy specialized in 12 different schools of alchemy: Air, Arcane , Decay , Earth , Fire , Light , Nature , Water with 4 additional schools being lost to history. Each school had a headmaster that oversaw the teaching and progress of the students. Students were accepted based on merit primarily but students were able to get in if they or their benefactor had the funds to pay for the schooling. The students were kept in constant competition with each other in order to hone each other skills with a yearly competition at the end of the year known as the Headmasters' Tournament with the winner of the tournament winning the President's Cup. Although the records are vastly incomplete some records have survived as to the winners of the tournament.

Former Winners of the President's Cup

Abaddon Ayla, School: Decay, 6th year

Oleander Hyrim, School: Nature, 5th year

Lucian Porter, School: Light, 4th year

The AAU functioned on a 7-year system. The first year was general training, teaching students how to mix potions to create wondrous effects and the strengths and weaknesses of each school. The second year students were forced to choose a school to study under but this choice was no permanent until the end of the first half of the student's 3rd year. Upon the third year, the students were invited to participate in the Headmasters' Tournament, according to the surviving records no third year ever won. The 4th year to the 6th year students were taught rigorously and the drop out rate grew exponentially until the 7th year. In the 7th year students who survived, in all sense of the word, were known as Masters of their school and Masters of an Alchemical school became so knowledgeable and fluid with their understanding that it appeared that they were conjuring effects out of nowhere. These masters were often times babbling words and formulas to themselves giving the appearance of incantations that would create these "magical effects". These beings were often hired as shock troops by armies early in history before the existence of alchemy became common knowledge. 7th year students were frequently asked to teach younger students as well but were compensated for the amount of time they spent teaching.