After another half a day filled with the most exciting of all sacred and forbidden arts — statistics — Maria let out a sudden, frustrated growl. “Alright, I surrender. Your theory about courage makes perfect sense,” she declared.

I had to admit, I was impressed by her development. She was getting impressively capable when it came to using various mathematical models, far better than any undergraduate student I had the pleasure of teaching. As for doctorate students, it was not exactly a fair comparison, as their general math competency needed to be quite high to be accepted to work with me.

Yes, Intelligence was helping her to do the calculations faster, but it didn’t give her instant comprehension, and unlike her, my students had the advantage of modern software suites.

“You have come a long way in merely a few days,” I said.

She shrugged. “What can I say, you’re a good teacher,” she said.

I chuckled. It was a rare compliment for me to receive even before the Cataclysm. I wanted to tease her about it, but too bad I wasn’t able to extract myself from the latest problem.

“Alright. I’m learning what that expression means. Spill,” she said.

I sighed as I pushed her two sets of hand-drawn graphs, displaying the relationship between various personality traits and skill improvement performance. “Check them first,” I said.

She did so, looking unaffected. “I don’t get it. It’s confirming what we had guessed. Brave people show better skill development.”

“Not that,” I said. “Do you mind creating another graph, but this time, I want you to graph only the standard deviation of every single personality trait we have surveyed for.”

“I don’t see the point…” she started, only to pause. “The variance for the people that manage to improve is much greater than the others,” she said. “But I have no idea what this implies. Something good? Something bad?”

“First, some background,” I said, wanting her to understand my point. “You have already seen the personality tests I had put as a part of the surveys I asked them to fill out,” I said. “The one I used here is based on the five-factor model, which is the one we had commonly used for our past experiments. It’s not perfect, but it's still sufficient enough to be used for most general-purpose research projects that rely on self-reporting.”

“Meaning, you’re familiar with the results it should have produced,” she said.

“Yes, and the variance for the people that’s unable to upgrade their skills is low. Absurdly low,” I said.

“How absurd?”

“Well, I have worked closely with several psychologist friends during my career, including some studies on how various personality scores are affected by being members of self-selecting groups with strong self-reinforcement effects. The groups we examined ranged from fraternities to social support groups, and we even managed to work with a couple of religious groups that technically qualified as cults.”

“And?” she asked.

“The results of these groups were significantly lacking the general variance of the society, but none was as unified as the Farmers that failed to upgrade their skills,” I said. “Frankly, if I wasn’t the one that administered the tests, I would have assumed that they were a practical joke.”

“What does it mean?” she asked.

“I have a wild theory, but before I go further, I want to apply the same process to the guards,” I said.

“We don’t have enough guards with Common skills,” she said. “We already gave every single one of them an Uncommon skill as a joining bonus.”

“And, unraveling my weapons that help them to improve their skills rapidly is too risky,” I continued, agreeing with her. “We need to be back in town to run that experiment,” I added.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“We can’t. Not with everything here,” she said.

“Not right now,” I admitted. “For the purposes of assisting Eleanor, the experiment could be declared tentatively successful. We can focus on more practical tests for the moment, like whether we could teach how to use Mana to one of the farmers.”

“Really?” she asked.

“Yeah. Eleanor is already able to use mana reasonably well, and we can’t delay it too much. Ultimately, the objective of the third-floor outpost is to validate whether a natural upgrade of the skills is a valid method. We have already confirmed the first part. Now, we just need to see if it can be applied to mana.”

“Really, that’s the objective of the whole outpost? How about hunting for more beasts,” she said.

“Well, that as well,” I said, waving my hand dismissively. While I appreciated the potential fortune and the welfare opportunity it represented intellectually, it hardly excited me on a personal level. “I have already identified a few candidates that are sharp enough to recognize this is a valuable opportunity and won’t blab about it easily,” I said.

“Do you want to bring them out immediately,” she asked.

“No, I would rather not. Not immediately,” I said. “Actually, I have a few questions for you first, about Meditation.”

Her expression tightened. For a moment, I was afraid that I had annoyed her by asking her about her secrets. “Why? Are you thinking about another suicidal experiment?”

“No,” I said, but under her gaze, I couldn’t help but wilt a little. “Not this time,” I said. “I promise.”

“Fine, but no experimenting without my presence, no matter how simple. Meditation isn’t as simple as it looks.”

“I promise,” I said, appreciating her concern even though the way her stern gaze lingered on me for a moment longer was annoying like I couldn’t be trusted. Then again, she did have a reason to fear that, right? “No experiments without you around.”

“Good,” she said, her posture relaxing slightly. “Now. Meditation isn't simple still. As the rarity improves, it starts to have a lot of variants that work better under certain situations, though the stat distribution helps as well. Some of them work better with Intelligence, while others are more fitting to be supported by Wisdom.”

“Any difference between the two,” I asked.

“Please no interruptions until the end of the class,” she said, though her smile showed it was more about mocking my teaching habits than anything else. Admittedly, another deserved blow. I chuckled. It was a good joke. “There are too many differences, but knowing how your mind works, you’re most interested in this: the ones reliant on Intelligence focus more on complicated shapes and rotation patterns that optimize the mana movement based on the environment, while Wisdom-based ones rely more on conceptual transformation.”

“Conceptual transformation?” I asked.

“Well, you had the Common one, and now you have the Cleansing Meditation. It’s a good example of the shape-dependent transformation, though it’s rarely used,” she said.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because, not everyone is crazy enough to optimize how to get mana out of dungeon products. They are too valuable to use like that by any sane person,” she said.

“So, does it mean it’s useless?” I asked.

“Not necessarily,” she said. “Though, it’s certainly specialized. Some dungeons, particularly in deeper levels, only contain mana deeply mixed with the taint. So, it’s still a popular choice for specialized dungeon explorers, especially since it works well enough with just Essence.”

“And, how about conceptual?” I asked.

“That works on a completely different principle,” she said. “Instead of a spell-like pattern, it often relies on a mental image of one strong concept, and then overlaps it with one’s center.”

“Patterns like what?” I asked.

“Well, it depends on the specific variant and the class, but I know some simple concepts like a raging fire, a calm lake, or an evening rain are all possibilities.” She interrupted me with a raised hand. “No, I don’t know much other than the general idea. Since my class is purely Intelligence-driven, I didn’t go any deeper. It’s just the nuggets from campfire chats as we attacked dungeons or tried to defend against monster waves. Nothing more.”

“So, no experimenting,” I said, realizing what she was driving at.

“No experimenting,” she said. “Not even with me. I wouldn’t even know where to start. As for the Intelligence-based meditation … it’s harder to describe. It constantly shifts according to the environment, not unlike a combat skill. It’s hard to explain.”

“Hmm,” I said, pausing. “How about writing it as a formula?”

“As a formula? How?” she said.

“Good question,” I said. “You remember my experiments with the hexagons,” I said.

“You can’t be serious. That doesn’t even begin to describe the complexity of it.”

“I know. That’s just where we start, and even with more empirical evidence, I could hardly build a reliable model of mana flow as a function of fluid dynamics. It’s very far from my area of expertise. But, as long as we get a general basis, it should work.”

“Do you think it will?”

“There’s no reason it shouldn’t,” I said, which, admittedly, was quite a bit of optimism. “And, even if we fail, spending a few days studying mathematics is never a loss.”

That earned a chuckle from her, before I started giving her a crash course on topology and algebraic geometry. It was a lesson I would have happily extended for a few days, but merely a few hours into our new topic, we were interrupted by Eleanor rushing from the keep.

And, she was too fast for someone bearing good news.