At a young age, Adam showed an interest and aptitude for both alchemy and engineering. By the age of 9 he was apprenticed to one of Ptolus’ most prominent alchemists and read every book on engineering he could get his hands on. Upon finishing his apprenticeship at the age of 17 (two years earlier than expected due to his aptitude), he joined a traveling circus as an alchemist and engineer to earn money, with the intention of opening his own alchemy shop in Ptolus. During his travels he learned several new skills, including swordsmanship, acrobatics, and survival techniques. But his most important discovery came when a circus goer traded some kind of technical schematic for some help with bridge design for his village. The schematic turned out to be the design for a firearm. After studying the design very carefully for several months, he acquired the necessary materials and, at the age of 21, crafted his first firearm. It was at this time that he left the circus and returned to Ptolus, using the money he had saved up to open an alchemist shop on the opposite side of town from his mentor (so as not to steal business from him). His shop was successful enough to allow him to take on an apprentice of his own and allow him to continue studying firearms and gunsmithing. A year later, having successfully integrated gunsmithing into his alchemy shop, he began taking on small adventuring contracts to show how useful and well made his firearms were. This was yet another successful venture, bringing in money from new customers wooed by the quality of his work (his firearms and alchemical concoctions had seen him though his adventures hadn’t they?) as well as from the adventures themselves. This became the new model for his business; his apprentices took care of the easier contracts while he adventured to market his creations and took care of the more complex or important contracts.
