POV: Sammuel
When I got back to the Request hall it was already almost dark. That really took a while huh, though it was mostly just walking from here to there and back.
I head into the hall and give the poster to the clerk at the front. It’s a different person though, they must’ve changed out for the night. This one is a little older, he’s probably 30-40.
When I give him the poster he takes it, and opens a drawer to get the payment for it. Though even after getting money, I still don’t know where I can go to spend the night.
“Could you give me directions to the nearest inn?”
“Just down the street, take three rights and a left. There’ll probably be a whole bunch of people there so you can’t really miss it”
Keeping the route he specified in mind, I take my money and leave.
It only takes a couple of minutes to reach a decent crowd of people. I assume this must be the inn so I head over and up to the front desk.
“How may I help you”
The receptionist is a somewhat young lady, probably around late 20s to early 30s by my estimate.
“I need one room just tonight”
“And how long will you be staying with us?”
“Just tonight for now”
“Okay, that’ll be twenty-five doru”
Assuming the number on the page was the amount of doru I got, I should have about one thousand. And the room only cost twenty-five these requests pay quite well, I can see why someone would take them as their main source of income. The only problem is that I don't know how many of which coin equates to twenty-five doru.
I guess I could just ask how much it is, but that nights raise suspicion about me. I’m suspicious enough as it is. I only have one kind of coin anyway so I should be able to figure out the approximate value of each coin. If I remember right, I was given about twenty coins, making each worth about fifty.
Producing one of the silver coins, I set it on the table in the hopes that I’m right. The receptionist takes it, searches for a moment, and bends me back a couple other coins. This is probably the change, meaning that I was right, partially at least.
“Alright, you’ll be staying in room 13, have a nice night”
The receptionist sets a key on the counter as she says this. I finally have somewhere to properly think, consider everything I know so far, and construct a plan for the future.
Taking the key, I head over to room 13. It’s quite a small area, but it’s perfectly acceptable, it’s not like I need much room right now anyway. I only need this as a place to sleep for tonight.
Now, to start on everything I know of this world.
First, there are things that shouldn’t be possible based on the laws of my past world. There are animals that are too large to reasonably exist, the people have a strange reliance on magic and have not developed any kind of technology beyond a very basic level, and every creature I’ve seen so far has a strange effect on mana.
I’ve learned that humans here are born with the innate ability to absorb, purify, and control mana. It’s safe to assume that the other creatures are the same. And it seems like there are certain things that attract specific types of mana, the people here call them attributes, and Humans have these attributes as well.
There is some group of people who are following me for some reason. They make themselves invisible with light mana, but of course this doesn’t matter in the face of my glasses. I don’t know who they are, but it’s possible they’re some form of authority in this world. When those other people seemed to notice them they didn’t seem to mind, so it’s likely that these people are quite common.
The big problem with these invisible people, is that I don’t know what their aim in following me is. It’s possible that they’re merely keeping tabs on a suspicious individual, but if that were the case then they wouldn’t have so many. It’s much more likely that whatever brought me here released some kind of signal that they took notice of, and then started following me thinking I caused it.
I’ll find out who they are and what they’re after eventually, and right now they aren’t doing anything so I’m fine. If they go after me I’m sure I’ll be able to get away at the least. I’m no good in a fight, but my control over mana is absolute once I purify it with my wand. That alone is enough to place me as quite the formidable foe, though any trained fighter would still easily defeat me in a head on clash.
Moving on from there, a more immediate issue is what I’m going to do next. My ultimate goal with this world is to attain perfect control over mana, but to do that will take much time and research. Research requires both money, and authority.
Money should be easy enough to acquire if I become hall certified. Even the regular request gave me enough money for more than a month in this inn after all, and the hall restricted requests are supposed to be more valuable.
The problem is authority. I need the ability to conduct research in any corner of the world with zero restrictions if I am to achieve my goal, but I don’t even know how to read yet. The best and fastest way to gain the influence necessary to conduct research, and gather materials from anywhere, would be to join under a king or similarly powerful figure in this world. However that is far from simple.
The first thing I need for that goal is a greater understanding of this world, it’s nations, and it’s needs. If I know what this world needs, then I can easily bend it to my will. There is I can’t accomplish, so obviously I can meet any request that any nation might make of me.
However, before any of that is possible, I’ll need to learn to read. I can barely get around as it is now, and I can’t do any research if I can’t read. The best way to learn is definitely to make money, and hire a tutor. This places even more importance on becoming hall certified.
I can’t get any other job without knowing how to read, and this job gives me the most freedom anyway. This also leads me directly to people having issues with magic, and that’ll help me with learning how magic works, and further lead to achieving my ultimate goal.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
This is my plan for tomorrow, I’ll start by registering to become hall certified, then I’ll take on a request, and if I have time, I’ll ask for directions to a library if there is one. Then the day after that, I’ll look for a library, and if I can’t find one I’ll have to find someone else to tutor me.
I’m not really tired right now, I could easily go a couple more days without sleep, but I know I should save my energy for what’s to come. I’ll have to work hard to achieve my goals, and that leaves no room for wasted energy.
_________________________________
That was the best sleep I’ve had in a while, but that isn’t saying much since I usually sleep for three or four hours every two or three days.
As my per my plan, I head over to the Request Hall. I don’t think the requirements will be very hard for me to accomplish, even if I can’t read. I should be fine in terms of the assessment.
The big problem is that I might need magic abilities, of which, I have none. I have my wand, but that doesn’t really count here. I can only hope it doesn’t matter.
And so here I am, about to apply for hall certification.
“Hello, how may I help you?”
The first clerk that I met is here, and he’s still got the annoyingly cheery tone.
“I wish to apply for a hall certification”
“In which branch would you like to apply?”
“I want to apply as a magic architect”
“Okay then, first we’ll have to do a mandatory test of your mana levels and attributes, it shouldn’t matter for a magic architect, but it’s mandatory so we have to run it anyway”
This is the moment of truth, will my mana levels matter, or will I be able to become hall certified regardless?
“If you would just place your hand on this orb right here”
The clerk directs me to a strange orb he retrieved from under the counter. It has a small amount of mana in it, but it’s pure mana, and it’s in a formation I do t quite know. I have no clue what it’ll do, but the only way to find out is to try it.
I place my hand on the orb, and the mana inside enters my body, circulates for an instant, and returns, displaying a number in the orb. The number is zero.
The orb appears to send mana through my body to calculate my mana level, not unlike my mana sensor. The difference is that my mana sensor doesn’t use mana to scan for mana.
“Zero? I see, you’re unawakened”
The clerk gets a strange look of confusion, that immediately turns to slight sadness. I don’t really care why, but it is unite odd.
“Is that going to matter?”
“Not practically, but for magic architects, anyone with a mana level under twenty is required to apply in a group with at least one combat specialist. Don’t worry though, we offer the choice to either have you find them yourself, or have us find someone for you”
Really? I mean, I guess it makes sense, they need to have some safety measures to make sure magic architects don’t get themselves killed, but still. I can take care of myself perfectly fine, I don’t need anyone else, they would only get in the way.
Regardless, it’s not worth giving up on this just because of that. Since I don’t know anyone, and barely know the town, I should have them find someone for me.
“I’ll be fine with you finding someone for me”
“Perfect, now we can move on to the actual test, follow me”
The clerk leads me into a back room with a couple boxes laid out. Then the clerk finds another small box, this one has a hole cut in the top instead of a lid.
“Alright first you’ll need to pay the fee, it’s one hundred doru”
I hand the clerk two silver coins, and he begins to explain the rules of the test.
“Alright, so we’ll start with me drawing a random artifact from this box. Then we’ll give you a brief description of what it should do, and if you can make it, you pass. The artifacts range in difficulty by quite a large margin, so luck plays a pretty big role for you”
Luck? That’s bullshit, I don’t believe in luck. It’s utterly unscientific. If you have to rely on luck, you’re guaranteed to fail eventually. It doesn’t matter what he pulls from that box, I’ll make it with eases, I have a decent understanding of how artifacts work.
The clerk pulls a paper, and has a slightly troubled face when he reads what’s written on it it.
“Ouch, bad luck. Well, maybe you’ll have a chance next time”
It can’t really be that hard, I can definitely do it.
“What is it?”
“You need to make a dimension ring, or alternatively, a dimension bag. Essentially, it needs to have an area to store a large amount of objects within it, connected to the ring or bag with space attribute mana”
That is… insane. I don’t even know what space attribute mana is. Though I can assume by process of elimination, that it’s one of the two mana types with unidentified effects. And I’m pretty certain it’s the one that seems to teleport around. After all, what’s the most basic type of spacial movement if not teleportation?
Knowing that is certainly helpful, but it still doesn’t change the fact that I have no clue how it’s supposed to work. Regardless, all I can do is practice moving space mana a little bit, and learn how to connect two points of space.
“Will you be trying to make a ring or a bag? If you make a ring, you’ll be immediately set a tier higher than if you made a bag. So if you make a bag, you’ll be the ‘student’ rank, but if you make a ring you’ll be a ‘researcher’ rank. However, you cannot change your decision once you make it”
The choose is easy, if I get put a rank higher, making the ring is the obvious choice.
“I’ll be making a ring”
“Really? Alright then, here you go, this is all you’ll need to make a dimension ring”
The clerk hands me a ring, when I look at it, it attracts quite a bit of space mana. That makes sense, given what I’m making.
“Alright, you have one day, you can only use the things in here, and you cannot leave unless you succeed, give up, or fail”
With that, the clerk left. I immediately take out my wand to fiddle around with space mana. I never tried to use space mana because I didn’t know what it did and it’s more efficient to practice something g when you know what it’s supposed to do. But now, I know what I’m doing, sort of.
Something I noticed immediately, is that space mana particles have two ‘modes’, it can be on, or off. If it’s on, it’ll move anything it comes into contact with to a connected particle, and if it’s off it does nothing. A particle that’s on can only transport items to other particles that are on, and none that are off.
The second thing I realized, is that I can easily connect particles, all I need to do is merge them, and then separate them again. Knowing this makes this seemingly impossible task, extremely simple.
What I need to do, is set up a mana formation that will move the space mana particles to anything held within thirty centimeters of the ring. The issue with this is that it will also transport the hand of whoever is trying to deposit something.
So instead I went for a different approach, one that’s much more complicated, but also much more likely to succeed.
I first set up a formation of electric mana in the ring, that mimics the actions of a human brain. I then have this ‘brain’ absorb the thoughts of whoever is wearing the ring. This will allow me to have the ‘brain’ move the space mana only to the object the user wants to deposit.
The second part is quite simple, I need to make an area for the things to go. So what I need to do is set up a specified area of space mana that’s connected to the space mana in the ring, so when that mana gets activated, the object is sent to the specified space.
This is quite simple, all I have to use is a bit of open space. Fortunately, I can move my mana to just about anywhere. This means I can set up the receiver in space and I can make it as big as I want. I’ll stick with just ten meters for the sake of simplicity though.
Once I set that up, I need the third step, retrieval. This is pretty much the same as the first, I make a second ‘brain system’ and connect it to the first via space mana. Then, whenever the user wants to withdraw something, the first brain will send a signal to the second brain, which will activate the space mana to send the object they want back.
Adter constructing it all, it took a total of five hours, but it should work.
I call up the clerk, who comes back into the room. When I hand him the ring he looks quite surprised. But when he tries it he’s even more surprised.
“You really made this in just five hours? Usually it would take at least a full day to properly form the mana in one of these. You must be a master artificer if you can use those tools so well with no mana of your own. Anyway, congratulations, you’ll be given your hall certification as soon as we find you a partner. What name should we put on the certificate?”
“Sammuel”
“No surname? Alright then, Sammuel it is”
People are always confused about my lack of a surname. I was simply never given one. I named myself as I had no parents to do it for me, and I saw no reason to give myself a surname as well.
But anyway, I’ll be certified once they find a partner for me. That’s great, it’s only a matter of time until I can take on the requests with larger rewards. Then, my plan will be fully in motion, and I’ll have taken the first step towards my ultimate goal.