Copying hundred essays didn’t bother Alex at all – he easily copied at least one a day maintaining good calligraphy. Besides that in the early mornings he went to the training grounds and then listened to the lectures. The second part of the day he spent in the library and the nights – in meditation. He didn’t socialize with other students and basically ignored them. Apart from rare polite exchanges with the other teachers, even Wazir, the only person he spoke to was Adil and, in fact, Alex preferred such arrangement.

An additional hidden bonus was that this routine allowed him to almost completely avoid Nabia thus maintaining peace of his mind. Her living right next to him was a bit of a burden, but focusing on work and cultivation definitely helped.

Some people would get bored out of their minds from such life, at least students from the noble families would, but Alex gladly welcomed it. Not only it was an effective way of spending time – he could swear he could feel his own mental and physical growth.

To copy essays turned out to be a great idea. Even though they were written by children, these were the geniuses of their respective generations and after the first few days Alex quickly lost the last bits of skepticism happily diving into the sea of childish scribbles.

On the surface level contemplations of a teen on ‘why my soul particles are of different sizes’ or ‘how to channel Qi to get a better result in the stone slate test’ might sound laughable, but actually provided with interesting perspectives for another beginner.

Only now Alex realized that he, despite cultivating for decades in different lives, worlds and according to different techniques, was an actual beginner. Just once he become a Qi master and had a long way to go to become one again, or according to this world’s standards – a Qi warrior. But even that would be a beginning compared to the guys with open third eyes who ran around and used some strange mental abilities on peasants like him.

Regarding the young saints, reading and copying their essays was especially interesting experience. Up until now Alex had no clue how differently those guys perceived the world, but their collective tendency of learning how to invade the minds of others made him especially weary. At some point he even intended to create something like a ‘temporary’ soul brand, but in the end decided against it.

Nevertheless, Alex found the topic of the soul branding particularly interesting and decided to make it his subject of study for the rest of the time in the academy. The first essay named ‘Soul particles – what to do with them and why.’ became the first part of the collection of essays he intended to write on the subject.

While writing an essay every half a year was mandatory, Alex actually enjoyed the process and approached it as if it was a scientific work. Unfortunately he lacked the main thing any actual science paper needed – an open, repeatable experiment confirming the research results, thus all he could base his assumptions on was his own experience and the claims of other authors.

The outcome was unexpected. Before turning the essay in three months before the deadline, Alex showed it to Adil in order to ask his opinion, but the old man, after quickly skimming through it, threw him and the other students out of the library, locked it and disappeared for few hours.

When the next day Alex met him again, Adil said, “Your essay was fine, you passed.”

Alex knew it was not as simple since his work was miles ahead of anything he had read on the second floor, but didn’t really mind – he wrote for his own pleasure after all.

He only asked, “Do I get some bonus points for finishing it early?”

The old man looked back at him and asked, “Is there anything you want?”

Alex worked his ass off during the last months in order to get Adil to say something like that and now could happily give the prepared answer, “I would like you to tell me your opinion and experience on the soul particles and whether they have actually anything to do with our souls.”

“Do you plan to create your soul brand and are afraid it could have negative consequences?” Adil asked.

“Partially.” Alex didn’t deny it, “But that is still far in the future. What I currently lack is an opinion from a competent person. I doubt I’ll be able to read about it for the next couple of years and our teachers also won’t go into detail, at least not as much as I want to.”

Adil thought for a bit and then said, “What you ask is worth more than a simple essay or even copying hundred of them.”

Alex didn’t reply. Currently he knew the old man well enough and it was clear the old geezer was preparing to ask for an astronomical price.

And the saint didn’t let him down, “Your talent is lacking, but since you’re trying so hard, I’ll make an exception. After you copy everything in this library, I’ll tell you what you want to know.”

“Why don’t you just directly kill me? Or throw me in the river? If I even attempt that I’ll be older than you after I finish!” Alex said feigning pain in his voice.

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“How old exactly do you think I am?!” Adil angrily asked.

“How the hell would I know?” Alex took a step back as if afraid, “All I know is that you’re the previous guy who was tasked to copy all the books here!”

“Your mom was tasked!” Adil shouted and pointed at his forehead, “Do you think a respectable saint like I would take an advantage of a child? Even if he is dumb and lacks talent like you?!”

“Not only you would take advantage of me, you would whistle happily while doing so!” Alex retorted.

It was not the first time they bargained like this and, truth to be said, both enjoyed the process greatly. Almost an hour later they finally made a deal – Alex had to copy all the essays students have written up to this day, but he didn’t have any time limitations.

When he first heard the last condition during the earlier discussion, Alex thought it was just another empty argument, but after some time he realized it was Adil’s subtle hint to allow him to arrive to the top floors legally much earlier than he otherwise would while following the regular rules. Of course, he had to finish copying all the essays on the second floor first before proceeding to the third and so forth, but that didn’t matter.

What mattered was that it was very unlikely for Adil to break the rules of academy on his own and earlier the old man ran off somewhere to get the permission for Alex to study more advanced knowledge. Obviously he didn’t shy off and used Alex as well, but the latter didn’t mind. He knew he had to make a considerable contribution as payment. In addition, the copying could be considered as a method of learning thus both sides were winners in the end.

If he was honest with himself, Alex was hoping for a reaction like this. He was clearer than anyone how much a writing of a child differed from grownup’s and even more the train of thought. But since he looked like a boy, elders in the academy had to think of him as some kind of a genius. His unwillingness to socialize made it even more believable and clearly in the world where everyone did their best to become physically stronger the higher ups of the academy were happy to groom an introvert youth with a scientific mindset. Thus him gaining access to the higher floors of the library was welcomed by both parties and the conditions were actually reasonable as well.

Adil was pleasantly surprised Alex didn’t jump into a working frenzy – the boy only slightly increased the workload to maximum of two and a half essays per day. But Alex was preparing for something else entirely.

His part of the first deal was about to be done and it was not clear how long Adil would allow him to hang out on the top of the library. Therefore he was doing some preparations by mapping out the academy’s grounds, measuring distances between objects and drawing an actual map.

Alex didn’t hide his actions at all, in fact, a secretive behavior under the all seeing eyes of the saints would be incredibly silly. He happily let the old librarian observe his actions that mostly resembled the work of a curious youth.

Thus, when few days later Alex was brought to the roof of the highest building in the academy, he was well prepared. Or at least he thought so. But no matter how he stared at the peaks individually, counted the structures or looked around the place for more clues, he could not think of anything.

Adil kept his word and let Alex sit there the whole day undisturbed, but the only gain the latter got was annoyance with himself. The five peaks proudly stood there in a simple cardinal direction formation and other than being convenient, pretty and good for defense there was nothing more to it.

Alex didn’t give up though. His intuition screamed there was something special about this place and he forced himself to calm down and methodically stare at each of the peaks for about an hour, then switch to the next.

The sun was already setting behind the mountains in the west when he gave up and decided to simply enjoy the picturesque view since he couldn’t think of anything. Alex had to give it to the emperor – he chose a beautiful spot to build the academy on.

One of the first questions he intended to clarify from above was if the river naturally split in two to encompass the academy or it was done artificially, but from what it looked like it didn’t really matter – whether it was the work of nature or a man there were no secrets behind it.

“Any findings?” Adil asked sitting next to him.

The old man moved like a ghost appearing and disappearing without a sound and Alex was long used to it.

“Not really.” Alex shook his head.

“What exactly were you looking for?” The old saint asked, “Maybe I can tell you – I’m quite smart, you know? I was also here when the Academy was built.”

“Something feels off with the geography here, but I can’t tell what.” Alex honestly said with a sigh, “And for some reason I think it has something to do with the river.”

“Not bad! You are partially correct.” Adil said.

Alex looked back at the saint awaiting further explanation, but the old man pretended to not see that.

“Why only partially?” Alex asked forcing back a sarcastic remark.

“I’m glad you asked!” Adil happily said.

From the looks of it he enjoyed Alex’s fiasco and after waiting for the whole day could finally show off.

“Couple of decades ago the Western peak didn’t exist.” He happily explained, “In its place the river formed a small lake, but the two streams encompassing the other four peaks did exist – that is why I said ‘partially’.”

Alex wanted to curse his intuition that worked much better during the last life when he was a female and now only made him fork for months only to get a nice tale from an old man as a reward. But the intuition somewhere deep within kept screaming it was not its fault and there was more to the situation than what he saw.

“Alright.” He took a deep breath and loudly analyzed the view, “So the academy is built on four nice hills we call peaks and the fifth was erected artificially. Ok, so far so good. The fresh water from mountains flows gathers in that river over there and flows around the academy … but I’m missing something! And you clearly see that, old man!”

“Of course! That is why I’m the saint and you’re just a random peasant!” Adil pretended to sound all high and mighty, but then both laughed at his theatrics. They have been playing this game for months and both knew the unwritten rules well.