"Done with the first one."

Virux looked up at her from his desk, his eyes wide with surprise. "Truly? That was fast."

"I aim to please," Pale answered.

"Yes, I can see that. May I check it?"

Pale nodded, then passed Professor Virux the copy she'd made of the first book he'd given her earlier. It had taken the better part of several hours to completely copy it down to a blank book, but she'd done it, thanks entirely to her artificial nature; it was a lot easier to transcribe words onto a page when she could recall the details of every page by memory with just a glance, and when every mechanical ministration her hands made was free of error.

Virux flipped through several pages before turning back to her, amazed. "Well, I'll be…" he muttered. "How did you do that, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Just a skill I have," Pale told him. "Was there anything else you wanted from me for now? I can get started on the rest of that stack, if you'd like."

"Take a break from copying those books for now," he offered. "Your writing hand must be killing you after that. Keep the desk manned; I'm going to go get some food, and you can do the same once I'm back. Got it?"

Pale nodded in understanding, and Virux set the copy she'd given him aside, then stood up and left the room.

And once he was gone, with nothing left to do except man the desk, Pale got to work.

Nobody had come into the archives all morning, and even if someone did, they could simply call for her and she'd come running. For now, though… there was an entire library of information scattered around her, and she was willing to peruse all of it to find what she needed.

Pale walked along the aisles of bookshelves, scanning the titles of each book with a glance as she went. Thankfully, the Luminarium had meticulously cataloged each one, even to the point of writing a title or description onto the spine of each book; this made her search far easier than it otherwise would have been.

There were two things she needed in particular – a source of aircraft-grade metal and a way to arc weld it onto the broken parts of her ship. A quick diagnostic scan confirmed her suspicions – her FTL drive was still damaged, but thankfully not in a way that made it irreparable. The real trouble was going to be getting the ship back into a healthy enough state that the jump to FTL travel wouldn't instantly tear what was left of it to pieces.

Propulsion in general was also going to be a concern, but less of one; her ship ran on nuclear power, and while the engines had been damaged, they also weren't completely irreparable. But it was going to take time and resources to get everything back in working order, neither of which she had in abundance.

Still, Pale knew she had to start somewhere, and while everything was going to be difficult to find, she was willing to at least look for them somewhere on the planet as opposed to jumping directly to uplifting the entire thing. Turning Sjel into a space-faring civilization would take decades, even in the best-case scenario she'd given to Kayla all those months ago; while it wasn't an option that was completely off the table, she was willing to spend some time searching for a more natural solution first.

After all, she'd already been absent from her war for several decades, and uplifting would take several more; spending a year or two trying to find a solution that already existed was nothing compared to those.

The easiest thing to find, at least to her, was going to be the metal. Her ship used a classified blend of several different aircraft-grade metals; she knew the recipe for it, so to speak, and so it was possible to make more, but she'd first need to find the closest equivalents to the base materials that this planet offered. Iron was practically guaranteed, as were most of the other basic metals; the problem was going to be things such as steel. Depleted uranium was almost certainly a no-go, but she could make steel work. It wouldn't be anywhere near as tough, but as far as she was concerned, it really only needed to work for a few FTL jumps rather than serve as a permanent solution.

At least, that was the hope; she still didn't know where this solar system was in relation to the one she'd come from. Her ship kept a log of her last known position before the jump, however, and so she was hoping that it'd be as simple as pointing herself in the right direction, locking in on that position, and making the jump.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

For now, though, her focus was on the raw materials more than anything.

"Let's see…" Pale muttered, looking through the books that lined the shelves, laser-focused on the words adorning their spines. "There must be something around here somewhere…"

XXX

She spent the better part of half an hour scanning through the various rows of books before finally finding something that seemed promising. It wasn't much, really just a history of metalworking throughout the various territories throughout Sjel, and even then, it was mostly in relation to weapons and armor. But it was a start, and so Pale took the book back to the front desk and began flipping through it, scanning each page as she went.

As expected, steel was the most technologically-advanced metal Sjel had to offer, at least at first glance, and it was only produced in relatively small quantities. This was unsurprising; the planet hadn't yet had its own industrial revolution, and so large-scale production was still far-off for them, at least in the natural sense. That could be mitigated easily enough, she supposed; it'd require reaching out to someone with the capability of making it in the first place, but it could be done.

Still, Pale read on. The book was surprisingly thick, and even with her accelerated reading ability and eidetic memory, it was taking her a while to get through it. Eventually, though, she found something that interested her.

"Dragonsteel…?" she read out under her breath. Her brow furrowed as she continued to read.

"'Steel with an incredible hardness to it and a very high melting point, known to be used for the highest-quality weapons and armor available; as such, it demands a very high price. Unfortunately, the method of its production is a secret known only to a select few, namely the dark elves to the south-'"

Pale instantly paused, her eyes going wide. Inwardly, she gave a silent curse, but read on.

"'-who keep the means of its creation a very closely-guarded secret. At any given moment, only two people in the world know the true method of how to create Dragonsteel, and they are sworn to secrecy using a blood oath. Many outsiders have tried to obtain the secret for themselves, however the dark elf weaponsmiths would sooner take it to their grave than give it up, as so many have found over the years.'"

Pale let out a frustrated grunt, setting the book aside as she did so. It was frustrating; Dragonsteel sounded like exactly what she needed, but of course, it was extremely hard to get. Her only in with the dark elves was Nasir, who seemed to hate her after what she'd done to him during initiation. Still, that was her best lead; if nothing else, he was worth talking to again, if only to point her in the right direction.

The sound of the door to the archives opening caught Pale's attention, and she looked up, expecting to see Professor Virux returning from lunch.

She froze when she found Valerie standing there instead.

The two girls met each other's gazes, both of them staring with wide eyes. To Pale's surprise, Valerie began to tremble, then took a step back.

"I'll… I'll come back when Virux is in," she promised.

"Wait," Pale called out to her as she went to turn and walk away. "He won't be back for a while, it seems. He left me in charge while he's away. What do you need?"

"N-no, really, I can-"

"This is my job," Pale insisted. "If you need something, I can-"

Valerie began to tremble even more, and Pale froze when she realized what was going on. She blinked, then after a moment, let out a small sigh.

"...Look, I'm not going to hurt you again, okay?" she offered. "What happened during initiation, that was… regrettable."

"Regrettable…?" Valerie echoed. "That's your word for it? Y-you… you destroyed my legs…"

"I did, and that shouldn't have happened," Pale told her. "Even if I fixed them up after. But you have to understand, I feared for my life; I thought you were about to kill me."

"That's what I thought about you!" Valerie replied, all traces of fear apparently having left her as she stared at Pale with a snarl on her face. "You drew blood, and then kept threatening me afterwards! I did what I had to do to protect myself!"

"And you tried to bludgeon me with rocks," Pale retorted. "We both made mistakes back then, okay? But I have no grudge against you, and in fact, like I said, I regret what happened back then – what I did, I mean. I wish I could take it back, but I can't. There's no need for you to be afraid of me. I don't even have those weapons on me anymore, see?"

Pale motioned to herself, showing that she was unarmed save for the combat knife sheathed at her waist. Valerie still didn't seem content with that, however; Pale let out another sigh.

"What book were you looking for?" she offered. "I can get it for you."

"I just told you, I'll come back when Professor Virux is in," Valerie replied. "I'm not in any kind of hurry, and… and I don't want to see you one-on-one again; too many bad memories…"

With that, she turned and walked out of the archives, leaving Pale alone.

XXX

The rest of the day went by quickly, though Pale didn't see Kayla again until later that night, when she came stumbling into the dorm room, looking exhausted. Immediately, Pale rushed to her side, only for Kayla to wave her off.

"I'm fine," she said. "Just… tired. Professor Tomas apparently takes that whole 'discerning your vocation' thing seriously, because all we did was read about jobs, practice doing various jobs, test our skills for various jobs… it was harder than I'm making it sound."

"I'm sure," Pale offered. "Do you need anything?"

"Just a hot bath and a meal… I take it you've already eaten?"

"Yeah, but I'll go with you to the mess hall regardless," Pale said.

Kayla breathed a sigh of relief. "Thanks. What about your day, though? How was it?"

"It was…" Pale searched for the proper word for a moment. "...Interesting, in a few different ways. But mainly because I might have made some progress."

Kayla gave her a surprised look, and Pale continued. "What do you know about Dragonsteel?"

"Only that it's expensive and really hard to get," Kayla replied. "Why? Do you intend to use that to repair yourself?"

"That's the idea. The only problem is getting my hands on enough of it to make the necessary repairs."

"Yeah, I can imagine… I guess you'll need to find a way to make money, then?"

"Not necessarily," Pale answered. Kayla tilted her head, confused, and Pale added, "The dark elves are the only ones who know how to make Dragonsteel. And fortunately for us, there's a dark elf attending school alongside us."

Kayla's eyes went wide. "Pale, are you sure about this? I mean, that bridge is pretty thoroughly burned…"

"It's worth a try, regardless," Pale said.

"Well… if you say so. Hopefully, it works out."

Pale's only response was to nod. First thing in the morning, she was going to track down Nasir and start asking him questions.

Hopefully, he was more receptive than not.