Stepping through the portal from Telviras, Felix arrived in what appeared to be a completely normal room. The walls were smooth grey stone or concrete and the floors were tiled.

Felix had been expecting something completely mind blowing from what he had been told was the most prestigious school in the multiverse. This seemed, like a normal building or school. It was nice and clean, the walls and tiles of the floor completely unmarred. No signs of aging whatsoever but still, it was completely mundane where Felix had been expecting something awe inspiring.

However, he almost immediately noticed the aether here was different. It wasn’t much denser than Telviras or even the planet holding the Usorium ruins but it was even more fluid than either. The aether was like water where everywhere else had been like honey or molasses in comparison. It was pliant and fast while being even slightly denser.

On top of that, the anima around him was similar and Felix could swear it almost hummed with experience. It was like everything it had experienced was significant, it was pliable and fluid just like the aether and at the same time, it was filled to the brim with experiences. Unfortunately, it still wasn’t nearly dense enough to harvest and use efficiently, creatures still were, by many orders of magnitude, the fastest way to collect anima even here.

The portal quickly closed behind him leaving him completely alone, along with Grim under his arm and Nova in his robes, in the room. There was a single set of double doors that actually looked to be made of wood on the far wall but before Felix could even consider heading towards them, they opened.

Stepping through the doors, a young looking woman with short brown hair and large glasses approached Felix.

“Welcome to The Eramith Academy.”

“Thanks. I’m here to… register and hopefully attend?”

She smiled, “Unfortunately… the application period has passed and all students are already accounted for. The tournament registration closed two days ago and the winner has already been decided. You’re going to have to wait until the next registration period.”

“Yeah, I meant to be here sooner I just… couldn’t quite make it.”

She nodded in understanding then frowned, “How did you get here by the way? At this point you would need…”

Felix held up the token he had gotten at the end of his tutorial as she trailed off. As soon as she saw the token, her eyes widened and she nodded, “Oh… You’re… Hmmm. Would you follow me please?”

The woman led him out of the room and through the double doors. Together, they walked through a hallway that matched the room he had just been in except that the walls were covered in intricate carvings separated by pillars that reached all the way up to the arced ceilings above. The ceilings themselves looked to be painted or something similar except that as soon as Felix paid attention to them, he could haves sworn they were moving ever slightly. Looking back down, he noticed the very same thing of the carvings on the walls.

She led him over to an open doorway that led directly outside onto a large open park area that stretched out in every direction.

Felix followed her along stone pathways, not flagstone, tiles or cobblestones but a single sheet of solid stone formed the pathway beneath them.

Looking around, Felix saw colorful grass, trees that grew to form benches in their trunks, massive flower beds that formed perfect canopies and other unnatural looking feats of landscaping. As he inspected them though, Felix wasn’t sure if they were formed that way intentionally or not because they looked so natural.

The seating in the trunk was covered seamlessly in the bark of the tree and the seat along with the back were formed of roots and knots. Were it not for the branches that formed arm wrests along the side, Felix wouldn’t have even realized it was supposed to be a bench at all.

The woman leading him walked much faster than Felix was used to people walking but nothing he couldn’t keep up with. They crossed the park and headed towards another building, this one with a more gothic exterior made of dark stone with pillars and many windows.

Heading inside through an empty doorway, she turned down a hall and led him just a few meters towards a door and stopped. Turning to him, she raised a hand, “Wait here a moment please.”

Felix nodded and she disappeared through the door. While he waited he looked around and noticed the interior of this building was completely different from the other one they had been in. The walls on the inside were wooden but not paneled rather, they looked like they were made of a single solid sheet which Felix was almost certain was impossible.

Considering how long the hallway was in either direction and the direction of the grain, he was convinced this was some kind of trick and that they hadn’t found a tree this absurdly wide.

As he examined the wood to try and find the seams, Felix realized the grain was moving ever slightly. Just a millimeter ever minute or so but enough that he could see it. As he stepped back to see if it was all moving the same way, he realized the grain of the wall itself formed a large depiction of a forest. Almost like a painting but so subtle, he only saw it when he focused on it.

He only had to wait a few minutes before the same woman that had been leading him, opened the door and stepped aside so Felix could enter.

Felix had been expecting an office of a dean or something so he was a little worried when he saw the room looked to be set up for a council to pass down judgement. Felix was led up to a podium in the middle of the room surrounded by a raised half circle desk behind which there were 4 individuals sitting and looking down upon him.

In reality they weren’t really paying much attention. One of them seemed to be tapping away at some screen Felix couldn’t see.

[?] Raphiasus: Professor of Alchemy (Lvl ?)

Another was adjusting his robes.

[?] Jeplin: Professor of Botany & Herbology (Lvl ?)

One was eating.

[?] Thakorm: Grand Baker Supreme (Lvl ?)

The last individual briefly glanced over at Felix then went back to the book they were reading.

[?] Elkon: Professor of Beastial Biology (Lvl ?)

Initially, Felix wasn’t sure if their disinterest should worry or calm him but before he could make a decision, another individual walked into the room from one of the side doors. As they walked in, Thakorm tossed the newcomer something which they caught and promptly started devouring even before they found their seat.

[?] Haris: Professor of Tactics & Strategy (Lvl ?)

As Felix identified the professors in the room, each and every one of them were evidently aware of what he was doing yet none commented on it. As expected, he couldn’t see their grades or levels at all. To him, it felt like they varied hugely in strength but he had no idea if some were intentionally masking their strength somehow.

The one who was reading, Elkon, closed their book louder than was necessary then fully registered Felix being in the room, “We have the requisite number of professors here now, shall we begin?”

Walking over from the side of the room where she had been standing, the woman who had led Felix here walked forwards then gestured at Felix while looking up at the professors, “This prospective student just arrived via portal less than an hour ago.”

She turned to him and nodded which he immediately understood and complied with. As soon as he presented the token, two of the professors stared at him incredulously, two of them started whispering amongst themselves and Haris, the latest arrival, just giggled as they continued to eat whatever it was they were munching on.

One of the ones who was staring at him spoke up, “You’re from the 256th?”

Felix nodded, “Yes.”

The one in the middle, Thakorm, who had been initially eating and was later whispering, leaned forwards over their high desk, “Rather early for an integrated. Would you mind presenting your title for us to confirm?”

Felix quickly equipped the title for a few moments until the professor nodded and he removed it.

“Status confirmed by all present. Student accepted?” Thakkorm turned to the others.

A chorus of ‘ayes’ followed then the woman who had led Felix in nodded and walked back over to him.

The professors all slowly rose from their seats and leisurely walked out as Felix was led back out of the room by the same woman.

“I’ll get you registered and show you to your dorm. If you have any questions, please feel free.” The woman looked over her shoulder as they walked not quite side by side but slightly staggered down the hall.

Felix sighed in relief, “That was much easier than I was expecting when you said I was late…”

“Oh, you aren’t late. That token means you were already accepted. Most of the students are accepted ahead of time and aren’t actually here yet. You missed registration but you were an integrated, we don’t expect you to send that in ahead of time.”

“So there was no chance I wasn’t accepted there?”

She shrugged as they walked through the courtyard towards a completely different building, “Pretty much. It’s mostly a formality so they can confirm your story with the title. 5 professors witnessing the title makes it nearly impossible to trick them all.”

“Oh, well that’s a relief. You said registration is closed, how many students are there?”

“We have 528 students registered to start in your cycle, 529 with you.” She answered immediately as though she was already very familiar with the number.

“How many students total at the school?” Felix followed her into a building made of stacked, thin stones that was almost like brickwork

“529. There is only one cycle at the school at once. There are students from old cycles here too but they aren’t really students, we call them Adepts. They don’t attend classes, they’re here pursuing research or helping professors.”

They walked into a room that appeared to be an office and she sat at the desk, Felix taking the seat across from her as she gestured towards it, “When do classes start?”

“In 8 days. You’ll have to choose your classes by then and I’ll get you registered. Just make sure you hand them in the day before they start and I should be able to get you into everything you want. Assuming no scheduling conflicts.”

“How common are those?”

“Scheduling conflicts? They don’t happen for a normal students because we schedule classes based on what everyone registered for. In your case, I finished the schedule last night so there’s a chance you get unlucky. If you can get me your class schedule in the next day or two I can redo the scheduling and guarantee no conflicts.”

“Where do I find a list of classes?”

“I’ll hand it to you after we register you. You can see descriptions and get more information either by tracking down the professor, who may or may not be on the planet, or heading to the library.”

“Perfect. What do you need from me for the registration?”

“Nothing. Just give me a few moments to write everything down. Are these your only companions, bonds, familiars?” She asked gesturing towards Nova and Grim.

Felix nodded, “As of right now these are the only ones.”

“Does the book have a name or is it not sentient?”

“The book is Grim.”

“Excellent. Just to confirm, you are Felix Kade, the spirit is Nova and the book is Grim. Would you like to have your level, class, race, profession, skills, items, extraordinary abilities, faction allegiances, I assume blood relations are not applicable, or anything else registered? All of those are optional.”

“Is… there any reason to do so?”

“Recruitment at the end of the first cycle mostly.”

“Then no.”

She nodded and handed him three tokens that mostly looked like large coins along with a ring, “These coins are bound to you and your bonded companions. It is most common to wear the ring but that isn’t necessarily possible with spirits or tomes. So long as either the coin or ring are present, you will be recognized as a student of the school or bonded to one. They also identify your position as an Initiate for those outside the school.”

Felix nodded and took the items, handing a coin to both Grim and Nova who stowed them. Inspecting his own, Felix saw the coin looked to be made of some silvery almost white metal. Imprinted on one side was a triangle made of a hammer, a sword and a wand with some kind of letter in the center. On the other, Felix’s own face was imprinted surrounded by the name of the school along with his status as a student.

Stowing the coin, he inspected the ring and saw it was a simple flat band with a break in it along the back made of a darker silvery metal. Opposite the break on the outside, the same triangle made of a hammer, sword and wand with a letter in the middle was imprinted. The band was otherwise blank and unadorned.

Slipping the ring onto his left index finger, Felix couldn’t find any kind of magical property to it whatsoever making him feel strongly like it was a waste of a gear slot. He always had the coin to fall back to if he found a better ring in the future though.

Clearly sensing his disappointment, the woman smirked, “If you need a new ring just come by and I can replace it.”

“In case I lose it?”

“Or break it. It’s a bit of a tradition to show off a little by modifying the ring depending on what classes you’re taking. Obviously if you have a better ring you can always use the coin though. You’ll see what I mean later on.”

Felix nodded, “So are you the… head of registration or something?”

“Librarian actually. I also handle registration but it’s not a complicated job so, no need to have anyone dedicated to doing it.”

Felix was a little embarrassed he still hadn’t bothered checking her name, being a little flustered when he arrived then distracted for almost every moment after that so, he identified her now.

[?] El-Essenor (Lvl ?)

She seemed to be just as aware of others identifying her as the professors had been, “You can just call me El, Librarian El, or Ellie if you’d like.”

Felix nodded, “Thank you. Would you mind showing me to the library as well once we finish up with all this?”

She smiled and nodded in respect as she recognized the hunger in his eyes for books and the knowledge they contained, “Of course.”

Standing from behind her desk, Librarian Ellie grabbed a number of papers from a drawer then neatly stacked them and handed them to Felix as she walked towards the door, “Here is a list of classes along with some basic information as well as a registry of teaching and research professors at the Academy right now.”

Felix took the papers and stowed them in his Soul Space, already having scanned and memorized them passively before she had even picked them up.

He followed her back through the courtyard at the center of the campus to another building, this one a tall structure of stone work between tall trees being used as pillars. Once again, the trees were placed a little too geometrically to be natural but there was otherwise no sign that they weren’t perfectly normal trees.

Through a set of large metal banded double doors, they walked through a simple lobby and over to a set of spiral stairs that ascended up to the top of the building. As far as Felix could tell, just like all the other buildings he had seen here, none of them were spatially altered at all. The inside perfectly matched the geometry of the outside which Felix found a little odd.

He mused at the irony that he now expected buildings to be spatially expanded as they climbed up to the 9th floor.

She led him down a hall then turned to him, “Any idea what kinds of classes you’ll be taking? Your profession or general interests?”

“Enchanting, spells, magic objects. I’ve heard of Soul Binding so if I can get into that?”

She nodded, “Perfect. This room should suit you nicely then.”

Looking around, Felix was surprised to see all of the doors along the walls being so distant from each-other. He realized the rooms probably each contained many bunks but was proven completely incorrect when she opened a door on the right revealing a massive apartment.

Almost as if it were a house of it’s own, the room contained a sitting area, an enchanting workshop with all the tools he had seen and used in Inscripticae and more. There was a small forge along with many desks, shelves, tools, suspended clamps and a section with a ritual circle inscribed into a perfectly flat section of the floor.

Off to the right there were two doors. She opened one and revealed a bedroom far larger than would ever be necessary and the other, a bathing room.

“This is your dorm room and will only open to your ring or coin. If you’d like different tools, furniture or layout, that can be arranged.”

Felix quickly shook his head, “This is… great, no complaints here.”

“That’s the end of the standard tour, would you like me to lead you to the library now?”

“If you wouldn’t mind, thanks.”

She nodded and led Felix out of the room, the door closing itself behind them, then back out of the building they were in and over to another.

Following Ellie into another gothic stone looking building, this one less castle like and more like a clean church in appearance.

Through another large empty doorway, Felix followed Ellie down a hall and through a large set of wooden double doors into a large but not massive library. In fact, the library looked to Felix like a very standard, normal library.

The floors were carpeted and the shelves were wooden. There was a seating area along with a front desk which Ellie sat behind.

None of the books were flying, none of them glowed or were chained shut. It was so mundane, Felix was genuinely starting to feel disappointed with the school in general.

Turning to Ellie, “Could you point me in the direction of the books describing the classes please?”

She smiled at just pointed at the shelves behind him, “Start walking and make your intentions known. If you don’t know how, just start talking about what you’re looking for.”

He frowned but turned and started walking towards the shelves anyways. Unsure what to look for, he started talking to himself, describing what he was looking for and as soon as he started, the floor of the library itself started to move.

Shifting beneath his feet, the threads of the carpet twisted and shifted until there was a clear path for him to follow directly over to one of the shelves. Following it, Felix arrived at a book shelf that was lit by a series of glowing bugs skittering around.

Reaching towards the lit shelf, one of the books slid outwards, protruding from the rest and Felix plucked it off. As soon as he had the book in hand, the bugs all dimmed back to darkness and turning around, the carpet was back to normal.

Maybe not quite as mundane as I had thought.

Walking back over to the center of the library, Felix sat down and opened the book. Though the class list and the book were already memorized, Felix felt like manually setting them out in front of him for some reason. He still used his scan to flip to the right pages instantly but something about the more mundane and rustic vibe of the library compared to Telviras’ made him feel like it was more appropriate.

Considering how many students there were at the school, Felix was astonished by how many classes were offered. There was everything from Baking, Sword Play, Metallurgy, Magical Healing, Non Magical Healing, History, Political Science, Alchemy, Micro & Macro Economics to Armor Crafting and Weapon Crafting.

Some of the courses were recommended to be taken together like Magical and Non Magical Healing while others were completely independent. On top of that, some of the courses listed out the courses that would be offered the next Epoch that naturally progressed from their predecessors for planning purposes.

While there were plenty of courses that looked fascinating and Felix would have been inclined to take, he knew not all of them were applicable. There was also the issue of time and grades. If his grades mattered, then he wouldn’t bother taking any martial combat classes, as much as he thought it was a good idea to train against martial fighters.

Unfortunately, what he really needed was direction and advice. How many classes were recommended to take? How strong were the pairing recommendations? Were there specific classes he should be taking? The only person he had available to ask with any answers was Ellie so Felix looked up from the book but immediately stopped himself.

Sitting directly across from him, at the same table in the sitting area of the library, despite the 20 or so empty tables around them, was a young looking red haired woman with excited eyes and a very warm smile.

“Hello.” She waved as soon as he noticed her.

While Amani and other elves Felix had encountered in the past had melodious voices that were pleasant to listen to, her voice was completely different. It sounded perfectly normal, if a little soft, but nothing out of the ordinary.

Though she had only offered him a single word however, Felix immediately felt a trickle of happiness, joy, wonder and warmth spread through him. It immediately reminded him of his experience at the restaurant Jozusto with Thezan and Rathos after dealing with the Ravens. The effect was muted, but it was pleasant. There no doubt in his mind, or rather his soul though, that she was the source of the effect.

Felix furrowed his brow, “How long have you been sitting there?”

“A few minutes? I sat down a few seconds after you opened the book.” She smiled widely and as far as Felix could tell, completely genuinely. She was either very nice, very happy or on drugs.

Before Felix could ask why she was here, the woman sighed, “I haven’t decided yet if I should be offended or not that you didn’t notice me.”

Felix completely ignored her as he could tell she was just teasing him, “Do you need something from me?”

“Nope, but you needed me so… here I am.” She winked.

Felix frowned, “How exactly do I need you?”

With completely confidence and unwavering surety, she tilted her head towards the librarian, “You were just about to go ask the librarian a bunch of questions about which courses you should take.”

Can you read my mind?

She smiled, “No, but I don’t need to read your mind to know your intentions.”

“Who are you?”

She giggled a little, “A student, just like you.”

[C] Melody (Lvl 1003)

Felix sighed, “Alright so how many classes should I be taking at once?”

“Up to you. Most people take about 4 leaving them with plenty of free time. I’m registered for 6.”

“Are there any required classes, classes I’m automatically registered for or classes that I just plain should be taking?”

“No, no and that depends?” She shrugged, “Pacifist?”

Felix shook his head.

“You probably want to take Group Combat then. It might seem like a bad fit at first but I promise it will become much more valuable as it progresses. Solo Combat is also very common.”

Felix nodded in acknowledgement, “What about grades, do they matter?”

“Sort of. Depends who you are. For you, probably.”

Felix shook his head to clear it, “Wait… why?”

“Recruitment at the end of the epoch mostly.”

“Oh I don’t care about that.”

“What about sponsorships? Are you rolling in credits or would it be nice to have someone paying for everything you do?”

“Wait… how common is that?”

“Here? You’re almost guaranteed to have at least one sponsor. The question is how rich are they?”

“Ok, grades matter then. What about the recommended pairings, how important are they?”

“Depends on the class. Some are so intertwined, you’d be a fool not to take both. Often that means it’s more like one and a half classes worth of work instead of two though. For all the classes you’re looking at, you should take both.”

Felix realized she had been reading the book in front of him as he flipped through it an-. Suddenly remembering the effect she had on his soul as she spoke, “Did you make me sit here and read the book so you could follow along?”

She shrugged innocently, “I didn’t make you… I may have suggested it though…”

“How did you do that?”

She reached forwards and pointed at one of the classes on the list, “Take this and find out. If you need any more convincing, I’ll be there.” She looked at him suggestively.

“Am I going to regret taking 8 classes?”

She waved away his concerns, “Nah, you’ll be fine so long as they aren’t completely new to you.”

“Alright so ‘Spell Formation’ paired with ‘Mana Structures’, ‘Mana Control’, ‘Solo Combat’, ‘Group Combat’, ‘Constructs and Elementals’ paired with ‘Animancy’ then ‘Soul Manipulation, Reading & Cultivation’.”

“You aren’t gonna take Casting? You looked at that one for a while.”

“No. I just… It’s not as applicable as I first thought.” Felix stood and closed the book in front of him, replaced it in on the shelf then walked back towards Ellie’s desk and handed her his final list of classes.

Turning around to thank Melody for her help, Felix found her standing right behind him. Much closer than was normal in his mind.

“Uh… thanks for the help…”

She smiled gleefully, “Sure thing. I know you desperately want to go do something now and I’m not gonna stop you but meet me back here in 6 days 4 hours.”

“Wh-”

“It’ll be worth it, I promise.” She skipped to the side towards the exit and waved at him as she vanished around the corner.

Shaking his head to clear it from the odd interaction, Felix turned back into the library and started talking to the shelves.

In Telviras’ library, he hadn’t found any useful information on spell nodes, spell formation, mana, mana channels, mana theory, enchantment or anything like that. No information that had any real value.

When he spoke to the shelves and followed the carpet and bugs to a section on spell formation here, Felix was overwhelmed with information.

The first book he picked up was so complicated, he had no hope of understanding what was in it. It spoke of spell formation and its complexities, which nodes could be paired with others and how to modify nodes. It spoke of the orientation of the nodes along with their resonance with certain channel configurations and brushed over all of it as if the reader simply knew.

The next was equally as complicated so Felix, after having scanned all of them, asked for more introductory books.

Bioluminescence guided him to a number of books he could actually understand so Felix marked those in his Memory Palace and moved onto the next topic.

He didn’t expect to spend even close to an hour in the library so when he finally scanned all the books he could think of as relevant, he was astonished to see how long it had been.

Almost 18 hours in the library… I know it took a while to scan the higher grade and rarity books but still… 18 hours.

He would have time to go over all the information in class, along with a professor and other students so Felix put off reading the books for the time being.

Flying back to his dorm room, Felix sat himself down in the empty area dedicated to ritual circles and shifted his consciousness internally. He had a number of things he wanted to look at before classes started and whatever Melody was trying to drag him to.

First on his list was to figure out if his brain computer thing had been damaged by his soul collapsing when he was first put next to the object.

Tuning himself into his soul and feeling it out, Felix was astonished to find the computer exactly as he had left it, perfectly stable as far as he could tell. He had no idea if it had done what he had wanted it to, if it was connected into his brain at all, but it hadn’t been crushed.

Checking his status screen, his intelligence hadn’t actually changed from when he had last seen it.

Name: Felix Kade FREE 0 Innate: Ascendant Prodigy: Mana (Wizard) STR 34965 Class: [D - Legendary] Reaper (Lvl 778) DEX 134804 Race: [D - Unique] Wanderer (Lvl 885) AGI 43443 Profession: [D - Arcane] Mana Engineer (Lvl 992) PER 88676 Health: 795,270 / 795,270 VIT 79527 Mana: 55,814,480 / 55,814,480 INT 143768 Energy: 2,304,880 / 2,304,880 END 57622

He had no idea if the computer would actually increase it but he was hoping it would. Seeing as how he had given it plenty of time to naturally merge with his brain, Felix was ready to push things along himself.

Before he actually physically modified or even touched anything, Felix decided he was best off trying to naturally merge them. The best way he could think of doing so, was to head into his Memory Palace.

Previously, he had modified the library to be bigger and adapted the skill in doing so. While it hadn’t actually modified his brain structure significantly, as far as he could tell, it did push on the bounds of his mind. He was now hoping, that if he did something similar, his mind would adapt and utilize the computer he had strapped to it.

As soon as he arrived in the center of the library though, Felix noticed something was wrong, he couldn’t immediately tell what though.

Looking up through the skylight above, the sky was wrong. It took him a few minutes to realize it was the sky because it was so natural. Instead of the sunny, clear blue skies he had intended to be up there, Felix saw a dark starry sky. He hadn’t added a day night cycle in here because it would change the lighting and make it harder to read and yet, there it was.

Hey Grim, when did it become night in here?

When you suffused your body with a layer of your soul. The day night cycle just kind of… started.

Looking around at the rest of the library, he realized something also felt off to him. It wasn’t anything specific just a feeling he had while in there. It wasn’t how it had always felt before. Instead, it reminded him of his Soul Garden more than anything.

Felix hadn’t constructed any windows other than the skylight originally but now that he looked up at the stars, he almost felt like there was something outside of the library. The sky had changed and seemed to even be moving along. The stars twinkled and to Felix, felt completely real. They were distant like real stars, completely unreachable and yet, in his Memory Palace and his Soul Garden, he was aware of everything or he should have been.

Though he had modified the Memory Palace to be infinite, such that he would never be able to reach the walls, the library was contained entirely in his mind and so, Felix simply willed himself to one of the walls and appeared there.

He reached out and modified the wall to now have a door, his hand landing on its handle as it appeared. Felix took a figurative breath then opened the door.

Theoretically, there shouldn’t have been anything there. His Memory Palace was a mental construct and it was a library. He hadn’t constructed anything outside of it, space started and ended within the library.

Despite the theoretical, Felix took a step out of his Memory Palace and into a field. It was barren and empty, the ground made of some blank grey material that was perfectly flat. Way off in the distance he saw trees, very familiar trees forming a perfectly peaceful but dense forest.

Willing himself over to the trees, Felix found his Soul Garden. It was exactly what he was expecting to find and yet it was still a surprise to him.

How is this… here? How am I outside of my library? I guess this explains the sky changing? My Soul Garden did have a day night cycle. They must have melded together when I suffused my brain with part of my soul.

Felix moved himself back over the outside of the Library and looked around.

What the hell am I supposed to do with all this space? My Library is already infinite on the inside. I don’t need, or even want for that matter, more libraries. I guess I probably shouldn’t leave it like this though.

The outside of a library needed a path to get there so Felix added one, a walking road of sorts leading up to the library.

He also added some brushes and small trees along with grass and flowers around the library. There was no need for it to be a solitary monolith. He also briefly toyed with the outside of the building, making it looked like a building instead of a blank cube.

Ok… how about a park with a small fountain?

He spent what had felt like a few hours messing around with the landscaping, creating a small fountain and park area, replacing the blank grey with fields of grass.

When he was done he looked around and while he was happy with what he had done, he couldn’t help but feel like it was empty. He had a library with a path that led to a fountain all surrounded by an empty field on every side, save for the Soul Garden way off in the distance.

Not sure what else to do with this place. I don’t even know if this is because of the computer or not.

With no way to tell one way or the other and nothing left to construct in his mind, Felix returned his consciousness to reality and was happy to find his Soul Garden’s time dilation had applied.

That’s convenient for the future.

Unfortunately, his Intelligence still hadn’t changed at all. Briefly taking a peak at the computer, Felix saw things happening, some transistors flickering but nothing significant. It was so sparse that it could have just been feedback or resonance so he still had no idea if it was working or not.

He decided to give it more time and turned his attention over to spell casting.

Now that he knew the weird sudden casts were the spell he was fastest at and most comfortable with, he had more direction as to why they happened and how to potentially control them. As far as Felix knew, just about everyone else in the multiverse used their spell lists to cast spells. He had seen some mentions of raw casting in the books he had just scanned in the library but they described it as an unachievable dream for any spell that was remotely complicated and even then, required centuries of dedicated practice.

That wasn’t the case for Felix, for whatever reason that seemed to be tied to his unique soul. Felix had been raw casting spells right from the beginning, on accident.

Considering it was the spell he was most familiar with, Felix was starting to think he was accidentally casting it but the question was how. The effect had saved his life once and allowed him to catch an enemy once. It was useful but it was also dangerous if he couldn’t predict it.

His goal was to figure out what was happening so he could either train to make it predictable or completely disable it so he wasn’t catching himself by surprise in combat. Given it had something to do with familiarity, or so he suspected, Felix focused in on his soul.

Souls contained experiences and instincts, what he was doing seemed almost like an instinct to him. In a highly emotional situation, when he was frustrated, scared or desperate, his fight or flight reactions kicked in and he cast the spell he wanted to.

To confirm his theory, Felix focused in on his soul as he willed a burst of force to cast. He didn’t force himself into a stressful situation because he was hoping that if his theory was correct, he could trigger the cast anyways.

Though it took him a few hours but Felix finally started to trigger the cast himself. It wasn’t consistent yet but it was far better than it had been. He also figured, now that he could feel where it was coming from and had some control over it, that he could entirely disable it until he had fully figured it out.

Damn, I wish it was the stronger version of a Force Blast. I know I’ve cast the lesser version more so it makes sense but… it just isn’t as useful. Hopefully I can figure out a way to do this with other spells in the future. Even if I do, it’s going to take a hell of a lot of casting to become that comfortable with them. Also… doesn’t seem like I can modify it much. It’s the same spell with the same cost every time… damn. Gonna have to choose them carefully then.

Satisfied with that casting, Felix turned his attention to his soul. He had found that he could compress anima even further than he was capable of before after having trained against the inky blackness and so, he did exactly that with his second layer.

The actual size of the second layer didn’t matter at all so compressing it just gave him more room. He was hoping for other benefits but couldn’t find any initially. In order to do the same thing with the third layer, the one suffusing his body, he would have to add in more anima because for that layer, size did matter.

He also transferred the enchantment he had designed to his new coat and fed it to his Reaper’s Mantle after some quick tests. It worked perfectly and the quality seemed identical which was a huge relief.

In order to improve the enchantment though, he had some spare anima lying around so he started experimenting with suffusing anima throughout his Reaper’s Mantle. He had no idea what the skill was actually doing and his mind kept telling him that it had to be System Fuckery, generating material. On the other hand, something about the class itself gave him pause.

The other skills he had from his class seemed to be designed to circumvent The System so it would be wrong for the Mantle to fully utilize it.

Felix summoned the cloak and cut pieces off of it, forcefully regenerating them, dismissing it then resummoning it, all while honing in on the skill and the produced material with his every sense. His matter senses told him it the material itself was identical and his mana senses showed him a slight burst of mana every time he summoned it.

Regenerating it used a ton of mana but that was expected as it seemed to be actually creating material from mana, something that was extraordinarily expensive.

If I dismiss it with damage then resummon it, the damage remains. The exact same damage. It has to be the same cloak right? That means it’s not disappearing and regenerating, it’s being moved to another space or something?

Ding You have become more proficient with the Innate Class skill: [Legendary] Reaper’s Mantle (Novice I => Novice III)

Appreciating the confirmation, Felix started focusing on following the cloak itself. He attached a small seed of highly affinized anima to the cloak then dismissed it. Trying to then sense that piece of soul matter, he managed to track the cloak into a small pocket space, a Soul Space.

Wait… I can have multiple soul spaces? Grim? Did you know this?

Grim was in the process of flying around the room playing with Nova but had more than enough focus remaining to have a mental conversation, Nope. Never heard of that. I guess… I don’t see why not?

I wonder if they conflict? Like if there is a shared size or something. Like if you have 10 liters of total capacity then you can one space at 10 liters or two at 5 or one at 1 and another at 9? I guess there’s only one way to find out… or two because there’s probably a book on it here… three if I find the right professor… whatever.

Just as he had created his first Soul Space, Felix forced open a new space, this time placing it elsewhere within his soul.

That was… really easy.

You are way better at soul stuff now.

Fair enough.

Felix quickly expanded the new space to the appropriate size then completely cleaned it out creating as perfect a vacuum as he could muster. As soon as it was done, he moved the ball of liquid black into the new space, completely separating it from his makeshift inventory and everything else he stored in there.

That is… comforting. Back to this Mantle though.

Now that he knew the Mantle was simply located in its own Soul Space, Felix was much more comfortable with completely suffusing it with anima. The only question remaining was what would happen when it regenerated but he didn’t mind testing that out later. For now he just wanted to see how much better the enchantment on the coat could be.

It didn’t take him long to completely suffuse the coat once he had found the right intentions to imbue into it. He wanted it to protect the coat somewhat, allow the enchantment to coordinate and give him some control over its baggy and indulgent and amount of fabric.

Once he had though, he could immediately feel it, even when it was stowed away. He didn’t really ever plan on stowing it because it regulated temperature perfectly but it was interesting to him nonetheless.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

I guess it must use anima to remember the coat, materials, enchantments then the anima directs the mana to generate the material when it regenerates? Can I do that myself?

Ding You have become more proficient with the Innate Class skill: [Legendary] Reaper’s Mantle (Novice III => Novice IX)

Woah… that was a leap. I didn’t even realize this had a proficiency before. Was it just hidden? Weird.

Without a great way of testing his cloak enchantment improvements, Felix simply moved on. He only had a few days left so he took some time to start reading through the books he had scanned while practicing his casting. Instead of casting a huge variety of spells though, Felix specifically chose a small number he wanted to be able to instinct cast and focused on those. Among them was the improved Force Burst as well as Phantom Step.

When the time arrived, Felix seriously debated ditching Melody and just continuing his training and reading. Ultimately, the fact that she had helped him and seemed to be able to read him so easily, made him think she might be right about it being worth it so he decided to go.

Grim and Nova required some convincing to enter his main Soul Space again but now that the all consuming liquid was gone, they were willing, if a little reluctant.

Felix let Nova nestle into his robes after making sure she was ok with going in and out of his Soul Space but it was far more convenient for Grim to be in his Soul Space. Felix also got the sense from their bond that he preferred it.

Flying back out to the library, Felix was actually surprised to see no one else on campus. It was just as empty as the day he had arrived even though there was only just over a day left until classes started.

Melody was lying in the grass outside the library, not actually inside the building at all, and staring up at the sky.

As Felix approached, he noticed she was wearing a different set of clothes, something that stood out only because he and almost everyone else he knew past the integration, rarely did. This time, she was wearing a sundress, perfectly suited to the clear skies and warm weather.

Stepping over next to her and looking down at Melody, Felix saw her look over at him, her warm smile ever present. He waited a few minutes for her to tell him why he was there but she seemed perfectly content to just lay there.

Felix sighed, “So, why are we here?”

“Cause this was the easiest place to meet.” Melody hopped right up to her feet in a movement that should have been physically impossible then clasped her hands behind her back.

“You said it would be worth it?”

“You’re an integrated, right? Exile?” She seemed so sure of what she was saying, Felix didn’t really see a point in denying it.

“Yeah.”

“Then yes, this will definitely be worth it.” She tilted her head straight back to speak to him as she led him wherever it was they were going.

“Mind telling me where we’re going?”

Melody pointed ahead of them, “That way.”

“How far?”

“A couple hours at this pace, we shouldn’t miss them though.”

Felix cringed, “I have no interest in walking for hours, can you fly?”

She giggled, “Course I can. You should learn to enjoy life a little more. How much of the campus have you seen? The planet?” She took a deep breath, “Take it in and enjo-”

Felix darted past her in the air, no interest in having her lecture him.

Just a few moments later, she caught up to him, her hands still clasped behind her back making it look like it was trivial for her to outpace him, like a casual stroll.

While Felix could have faked the same demeanor, everything about her screamed the same lackadaisical and yet joyous nature as always. This was no different to her at all. Felix on the other hand was focusing on the spell casts as well as resisting the wind that buffeted his face all while keeping himself balanced. He was good at it, he had plenty of experience, but he wasn’t that good at it.

Felix fell back behind her a little so he knew where they were going and followed her through a tight grouping of trees that was too small to be a forest. The trees themselves were beautiful with deep purple leaves and bright orange and yellow fruit hanging from the branches, each and every one plump and ripe as far as Felix could see.

Soaring over the trees, they flew over a field with numerous grazing animals that were astonishingly low level. They seemed like standard animals he might have found on earth with levels between 5 and 20 at most. Considering where he was, he was fully expecting super high level animals abound.

Finally, Melody dropped down and sat on the edge of a large cliff face, just under a tree and Felix lowered himself down a few meters away.

The cliff was completely vertical, dropping at least a few kilometers down to an ocean below.

Felix sat down following Melody’s lead, legs dangling off the edge, “Why are we here?”

Melody smiled then hopped up and grabbed a fruit from the tree above them, falling right back to the same spot she had been sitting just a moment before, “Well you kind of rushed us so it might be a couple hours. Just sit tight, I promise you’ll at least find it interesting.”

Felix shrugged and grabbed a fruit for himself then sat back down. Taking a bite, the fruit was incredibly sweet and perfectly ripe. It reminded him of a peach with just a hint of citrus.

Watching his first bite with knowing smile, Melody leaned back onto her elbows as her feet swung back and forth, “So how was the integration?”

Felix shrugged, “Fine I guess. Kind of boring.”

She snorted, “You would say that, Exile.”

“To be fair, I wasn’t there long. Tutorial then a world event then I left.”

“Woah. You did leave early.” Melody turned to him with a mischievous smile, “So does that mean you were the one who refused a Dragon evolution?”

Felix contained his shock and didn’t let it show at all, “A what? I don’t… Race I take it? I didn’t get that as an option.”

She giggled, “Uh huh. You know how many scholarship tokens are distributed per integration?”

“I don’t know, 5?”

“At most one but on average, less than one. Similar rate to Dragon evolutions.”

“Ok I need more information on those then. What are they and why am I being interrogated about them?”

She looked at him for a moment then turned back to looking at the sky, “Only once per integration, never more sometimes less, an offer is made to someone who surpasses everyone else in a specific field. The option to evolve their race to a Dragon, skipping multiple grades in the process.”

“Yeah definitely not me. Must have been someone else.”

Melody actually seemed to accept that, which Felix was very grateful for, “Alright fine. It’s totally possible, likely even, that the defier was holed up somewhere studying their focus while you smashed through events. Let’s just say it’s not a huge leap to assume it was you, might want to be careful out there.”

“Thanks. Do you know what they were better than everyone else at? What their… focus was?”

She shook her head, “Nope. Just heard rumors that the Dragons are not happy because it was a really good one.”

Shit.

Melody casually tossed the core of her fruit into the ocean in front of her, flying much farther than Felix had expected, “So what have you been up to then if you got out that early? You must have gotten out what, half an epoch ago?”

Felix nodded, “Just over an epoch actually. I got a job at an enchanting shop in Telviras. Learned some stuff, made some stuff, did some Adventuring.”

“That’s fun. Meet any cute girls? guys?”

Felix winced just slightly, “Really?”

“Hey I’m just saying. You’re like a child leaving the integration, I wouldn’t blame you for going on a tear through the capital.”

Sighing, Felix didn’t bother answering, throwing his own core off the cliff then hopping up and grabbing another fruit. Once again, it was perfectly ripe despite the fact that he had picked it at random.

Melody turned to Felix and pouted, “Do you have to be so boring?”

Felix shrugged, “No.”

She couldn’t help but hold back a smile then dropped to the ground, her hands folded on her stomach as she stared into the sky.

A few moments of near silence later, Felix heard her begin to hum. He looked over and noticed her fingers lightly tapping along her belly too and could have sworn he heard an instrument not dissimilar from a piano playing.

The simple tune she created was the most beautiful music Felix had ever heard. It was incredibly simple but he didn’t feel for even a moment like it was missing anything. The effect she had on his soul, the calming and joyous feeling she seemed to transmit was amplified.

Listening to her, Felix felt completely relaxed and content. He even let the spells he had been forming behind their backs dissipate so he could simply enjoy the experience.

Suddenly the music stopped and Melody snapped up into a sitting position. Felix realized he had simply been staring off into the distance for far longer than he had intended. He hadn’t fallen asleep but it was like she had put him in a different form of meditation.

It was nothing like a trance, he was perfectly aware of his surroundings the whole time, but he just didn’t want to move or do anything. He had simply felt content to feel himself completely relax and let go.

Taking a few seconds to readjust to his surroundings, Felix finally looked over and saw Melody pointing off to their right, “It’s starting.”

Felix followed her finger and almost fell off the cliff as he tried to fully grasp what he was seeing.

Far above them, likely outside or just edging the planet’s atmosphere, Felix saw a massive object. He was pretty sure it was a ship of some kind but he couldn’t be certain it wasn’t an oddly shaped moon crashing into them.

The ship was massive and oblong, like a pointed egg in shape and it was slowly descending towards them.

Over the course of ten minutes or so the ship descended down towards the ocean, many kilometers to the side of where they sat. The ship docked itself at the end of a large pillar connected to the mainland by a land bridge. The land formation so perfect, it was hard for Felix to believe it wasn’t fabricated, a common theme on this planet it seemed.

As it lowered, Felix saw the ship wasn’t quite as massive as he had thought but it was still gigantic. It was as thick as a sky scraper was tall on the outer edge and only grew thicker towards a dome in the center. Though its shape was slightly odd to Felix, he had trouble estimating just how many standard sized people the ship would have been able to hold.

The ship had docked, still floating in the air but partially touching the waves below them, on the far side of the land bridge which allowed Felix and Melody to watch as the passengers disembarked.

Even from their distance, Felix could see a ridiculous procession of what looked like soldiers exit the ship and line themselves up. Once they were all in position, a small group of four stepped out and walked between the soldiers, completing what resembled a complete royal procession.

Though he couldn’t identify them from this distance, it quickly became clear to Felix that this was a student arriving at the school. Three of the four spoke to the last of them in turn, some offering gestures of affection others offering only stern expressions. After a few short minutes, the student walked off towards the campus as everyone else boarded the ship and it rose into the air.

Felix turned to Melody, “Any idea who that was? They must be pretty important right? Also… why not just portal in?”

Melody smiled, “No idea who that is, I don’t care nearly as much as my mother wished I did. Why not portal? Cause then they wouldn’t be able to show off their big bad ship and how clearly superior they are.”

Felix scowled, “Seriously?”

She fell back giggling, “Man you’re reaction was better than I had hoped. If you thought that was ridiculous, just wait. The later the time slot… well, it means more people will see them so…”

“They get even more ridiculous?”

“Oh yeah.”

“Does everyone arrive on a ship like that? Were you and I the only one’s on campus before?”

She shook her head, “Nah. The winner of the application tournament is around here somewhere. Haven’t seen her though. Everyone other than you and her were accepted ahead of time though so they don’t need to arrive until later.”

“Then why are you here when no one else is?”

Melody pointed off towards the land bridge in the distance, “I ran away because I did not want to show up in one of those.”

“Wait, you would have arrived in a ship?”

“If my parents had gotten what they wanted. In total, there’s me and two of my half-brothers that were accepted this cycle so its a big deal for them. They want to show off all three of us walking off the ship at once, make it seem like they’re better than everyone else for having 3 from the clan accepted and all that.”

“I take it three is a lot?”

She shrugged, “It’s abnormal but… he was just lucky.”

Felix made a mental note that she had said ‘he’ instead of ‘we’ or ‘they’ but didn’t question her about it, “So how long until the next one arrives?”

“Should be here in a few minutes. They have time slots so they don’t hit each-other and I think they’re every 20 minutes at first. Later time slots get a bit longer though.”

Sure enough, just a few minutes after the first ship disappeared above them, another massive starship descended into the ocean next to the land bridge. This one was bigger in every dimension and Felix was honestly astonished it managed to land at all. It looked like it didn’t belong anywhere outside of space itself.

The procession was equally as ridiculous for something as simple as seeing a child off to school to the point where Melody laughed at them.

The third ship was even bigger but this one, thankfully, didn’t descend to the planet instead opting to have a smaller ship dock at the land bridge. The main ship did however lower itself until it was completely visible above them, ensuring everyone on the planet could see its gargantuan size.

The processions continued and as they did, the grandiosity mounted. The processions started to include vehicles and large magical displays to announce the arrival of their students.

The ships also got more interesting, rather than just bigger which quickly became impossible.

The later ships were a mix of small sleek vessels and larger ships. Some of them opened a portal to dock, others teleported in without a portal at all, something Felix didn’t even know was possible. A number of the ships were also evidently spatially expanded which was impressive in its own right.

Many hours into their spectating, a sleek ship with two parallel hulls connected by a cockpit soared down towards the dock at a ridiculous speed before slowing to a stop rather gracefully.

“There they are. Sprung for a later slot this time…” Melody shook her head.

Felix turned to look at her, “That’s your parents ship?”

“Dad’s, yeah.”

Felix watched with anticipation as an impressive, but less flamboyant than some of the other, processions disembarked from the ship. They presented two students to the planet, a man wearing a long bear pelt cloak and a proud looking Drakene.

“Those are your… half-brothers?”

Melody nodded, “Yup.”

How… a Drakene… not sure I want to know actually.

“How close are we to the end?”

Melody reached her hand out to the side and a fruit fell right into it, completely distracting Felix, “Another few hours or so. Mostly just factions left. The processions will be less interesting because they’ll be sending off more people, which is impressive by itself. No need to embellish.”

“By factions…”

“Edras, Holy Mother, Rhonan, The Giants, Akaroth, Archons.”

“I thought Rhonan was an Archon?”

“He is. His people sponsor some students themselves while the Archons sponsor some students collectively. They arrive separately.”

“How many factions are there?”

“That’s kind of a silly question because technically the followers of every god and demi-god is a faction. I was just naming the factions that most commonly have students here.”

“What about your parents then, are they part of a faction?”

“Well, technically they are a faction but only kind of? He prefers to keep it in the family, they don’t sponsor non-blood.”

“Ever?”

“Nope. Never has he ever and never do I see him ever doing so. Family is big enough as is.”

Felix nodded and watched the next procession with her. Trying to make the most of her knowledge, Felix started running through his most important questions, “Is there anything I should know or be worried about here? Do I have to worry about someone outright trying to kill me?”

“Not… probably not? It’s easier because you aren’t associated with any big faction yet so there wouldn’t be any retaliation. On the other hand, it’s difficult to actually kill people here and you’d get banished from the school if you managed to do it. On the planet, you’re as safe as can be. It could happen off planet but… it’s not likely.”

“What do you mean it’s difficult to actually kill people here?”

Melody shrugged, “The planet would protect you.”

Felix quickly shook his head, “What?”

Melody smirked, “You haven’t realized it yet? The planet itself is sentient, sapient, a being.”

Felix looked down at the ground beneath him and frowned.

“That’s how the library works, the fruit is always ripe, all the animals on the planet are nice and gentle. The plants can be grown in specific shapes, in specific places. Buildings can be trivially constructed and repaired. The planet also protects everyone on it by shielding them with rock and healing them if necessary.”

After taking a few seconds to process, Felix frowned, “How fast can a planet create a shield of rock to do that?”

“Not very so, it will act prematurely in a lot of cases. For classes they use The System instead which will intervene instantly and can restore you from almost nothing.”

“That makes sense. Back to the whole planet thing though, can you talk to it?”

Melody shrugged, “Sure.” Looking at the ground, she patted the grass with her hand, “That’s a good planet.”

Felix snorted, “You know what I mean.”

She giggled and reached her hand out to the side again, another fruit falling right into it a second later, “Sort of. You can’t really talk to it but you can ask it for things and it understands us. Same way the library works. At least, it won’t talk back to you, no conversation or anything like that.”

“Does it control the animals or are they just trained to be gentle?”

She shrugged, “I don’t know. I think it controls them because… watch.”

Holding her hand out once again, Melody waited a few moments then a small blue bird flew down and landed in her hand.

“You can give the birds messages to deliver for example but you can also just hand the planet parchment and it’ll move it.”

“Was the planet just like this? Was it created?”

Melody chuckled, “Nobody really knows. Lots of theories like, it’s the founder of the school, it’s an old god, it’s a primordial…” She shrugged.

Felix was lost in thought thinking about planets that were actually creatures as one of the larger factions arrived, delivering over a dozen students to the school.

He was interrupted by Melody lightly tapping his shoulder, “You still there?”

Felix shook his head and returned his focus to the present, “Sorry.”

“Can you do me a favor?”

Felix shrugged, “Sure. What is it?”

“Say my name.”

“Melody?”

She nodded, “Is that a word in your language?”

“It is.”

“Can you use it as a word in a sentence?”

Felix hesitated for a moment, “You hummed a beautiful melody just a few hours ago.”

“It was much more than a few hours ago. Thanks though.”

Felix quickly checked the time.

How have we been here that long. I thought it had just been a couple hours, not a whole day.

“How long are days here?”

“30 hours on this planet. One of the rare planets that’s different from the standard 24.”

“Wait… why’s that a thing, standard 24?”

“The System likes to keep time consistent for convenience sake.”

“So it manipulates the speed at which planets spin?”

“Yup. For a lot of them. Some it isn’t possible like really massive planets so, it prioritizes. Am’Dorez, the planet housing Telviras is massive but high priority so it’s synced anyways. The giant’s home planet is super massive but low priority so the days are only a few hours long.”

That is… ridiculous just for convenience sake. I wonder if there’s another reason?

Felix nodded in acknowledgement, “What was that whole name thing about?”

Melody smiled, “I was named after a word in my mother’s native tongue. Sometimes The System translates names if they have meanings or are hard to pronounce. I was just curious what it sounded like in your language.”

“Wait, what does it sound like in your native tongue?”

“Do you know how to disable The System translation?” Felix’s face answered her before he could open his mouth, “Just will it disabled.”

Disable translation.

Felix nodded to Melody and she said her name. What he heard was not something he thought he could pronounce at all.

Enable translation.

“I don’t think I could pronounce that.”

She chuckled, “Yeah you’re language is very… different.”

Looking at the time, Felix started rattling off other questions he had that were high priority, “How do I find my classes and know my schedule?”

“In your dorm room there will be a schedule and map waiting for you. It won’t be complete though until we go and get sorted into combat classes.”

“Like based on combat ability?”

“Yup.”

“When is that?”

“In… 14 hours… ish? I haven’t checked the exact schedule yet.”

He asked a handful of other mundane questions including where to find food before deciding he didn’t care to watch the rest of the processions. They had all become very similar after the first 10 to 20 or so.

“Ok, I’m going to head back to campus. Thanks for… answering all my questions.”

Melody rolled onto her side towards him, “Was it worth it?”

Felix shrugged, “The first few maybe, after that…”

She nodded and smirked, “But you got to spend time with me, that should be well worth it on its own, right?”

Felix didn’t bother answering and jut started flying off back towards campus. Right as he left, he heard her giggling over his shoulder.

As he flew back, Felix saw many more people all over campus. Students and professors all darting around, some in small vehicles others flying and some even running faster than he could follow.

Landing in front of the dorm building, he had to navigate through a small crowd around the doorway that mostly consisted of people socializing. He was pretty sure a few tried to stop him to introduce themselves but he pretended not to notice them and continued to push through, flying over their heads where possible.

He flew up through the center of the staircase up to his floor, a very common method of getting up and down in the building it seemed, and headed into his own dorm room. Inside he let loose a long exhale of pure relief that he didn’t have to share his dorm room with roommates then sat down in the sitting area on one of the couches.

On the table in front of him, lay the schedule and a paper map of campus with recommended routes to get between the classes. He was surprised to see his schedule was laid out in such a way that he had exactly one class per day with two days off per dekad. In fact, each of the classes were at the exact same time too, which was highly suspect to him.

How is this so… perfect?

As Melody had mentioned, the combat classes were tentative times subject to change based on placement but even still, it seemed too perfect overall.

He didn’t think about it much though.

Felix thought about diving back into some of the books he had scanned but decided instead to try something else. First, he identified his robes to see if the name had changed and he was pleasantly surprised.

[C - Legendary] Robes of the Wandering Wizard

[Regenerative]

A set of robes custom designed and tailored for use by the Wanderer and Ascendant Prodigy of Mana, Wizard proficiency. Designed to be enchanted and disenchanted with ease and crafted with the highest quality materials, this set of robes is of peak quality in the C grade without enchantments.

Supply the robes with mana to regenerate it, simultaneously destroying any severed pieces. Enchantments inscribed into the fabric will also be remembered, as a function of the Memory Crystal threads.

Guess that confirms Wizard is a proficiency then. Doesn’t have numbers though. Anyways, back to that other thing, why should Reaper’s Mantle be limited to just cloaks? Doesn’t seem to be any reason I couldn’t stick all of this in there, right?

Instead of just feeding the robes to the skill directly, Felix started experimenting with scrap cloth he had purchased to make portable wards among his enchanting supplies. He simply tied it around his waist as if it were a belt then fed the chunk to his Reaper’s Mantle.

At first, nothing happened. The skill was tailored to cloaks alone and didn’t seem to want to work for anything else. He knew exactly how the skill worked though so he manually grasped the ribbon and stowed it in the skill’s Soul Space. Then, he resummoned it onto his body, which he had already done a few times with his main soul space, so he managed it on the first try.

Ding You have altered the Innate Class skill: [Legendary] Reaper’s Mantle (Novice IX => Apprentice IV)

Woah… that’s a jump. Show skill description.

[Reaper’s Mantle (Legendary - Apprentice IV) This skill is innate to your class. The reaper’s mantle is the sum of all equipment the reaper wears. It is both a set of items and a part of the user. The equipment can be equipped and stowed at will and their enchantments and durability are dependent on the material summoned. The cloak may be manually modified to use a different material or enchantment by modifying the base equipment. All modifications become a part of the mantle. Upon destruction, the mantle may be resummoned so long as the user remains alive. Its durability will scale slightly with the user’s endurance. This skill will not prevent enchantment interference.]

Wait a second… the scaling is… worse? Is that because I fed it a material so it uses the material instead of scaling on my stats? What is the base cloak made of then? I’ll look into it some other time I guess.

He briefly hesitated then fed the rest of his robes to the skill, relatively happy with his large increase in understanding and proficiency with the skill. With that done, he moved onto the next item on his todo list, reading.

The first class on Felix’s schedule was Mana Structures so he shifted his consciousness into his Memory Palace Library to start reading those books to get ahead. As soon as he appeared in the library though, Grim appeared in front of him.

“You’ve got all this space outside the library now.”

Felix shrugged, “Yeah, what about it?”

“I was in here reading while you and Melody watched the ships go by and I noticed the weather changing along with your mood, thoughts, sensations.”

“Just like my Soul Garden, so what?”

Grim smirked, “Well in your Soul, you don’t really do anything with experiences other than store and relive them. In your mind though…”

Felix almost smacked himself in the forehead as he realized what Grim was implying, “You process your senses and form thoughts. If this really is a Mental Construct, I should be able to create other buildings with different purposes.”

“Exactly.”

“Any ideas on what to start with?”

“A few actually. Two that I’m more confident in and one that’s a long shot but worth trying nonetheless. First, what about an observatory.”

“To see the outside world, see what I’m seeing? That alone is fine and all, but what do I do with that? What about a command or surveillance center? An observatory with attached facilities to process the information.”

Grim didn’t respond but followed along as Felix darted outside and started trying to lay everything out.

“It should probably be separated from the rest of the buildings in the area because if they become too tall… wait, I can just make the observatory itself really tall.” Felix was talking mostly to himself.

Grim chimed in anyways, “Also it’s a mental construct, I don’t think physically blocking the telescope will actually matter.”

Felix snapped his fingers, mentally generating the appropriate sound, “Right, forgot.”

Choosing an area near the library, so they had easy access to the memories, Felix started projecting out his vision for what the building would look like. He made sure not to actually construct it, just visualize it, like an illusion.

Once he was satisfied with the large block of a building that had a massive dome peeking out from the middle, Felix willed the building into existence.

Excitement and curiosity overcame him so Felix rushed into the building to see if it had worked. The inside was exactly as he had intended it, a large lobby area with infinite, non-Euclidean offices around the outside. Right in the middle of the building, where the dome and telescope was located, there was a series of screens on the surrounding walls along with various models of Felix’s body and their systems.

Currently, the skinned mannequin that was creepily accurate, had large glowing sections on its butt, thighs and back with a dimmer glow randomly throughout.

“That’s cause I’m sitting right? The rest is from the clothes?” Felix already knew the answer and was asking the question more so he could voice his enthusiasm than anything.

“The screens will likely show what you’re seeing too once you open your eyes.” Grim called out from the entry.

Felix nodded excitedly then willed himself back into the, now slightly less empty, field.

“What’s the next building you had thought of?”

“No idea what it would do but you should probably have a town hall or something, right?”

“Yeah, I guess.” Felix shrugged and quickly imagined a governing building, placing it far away from the other buildings. It very closely resembled Atalus’ City Hall because that was the governing building he was most familiar with. It had no need to access his memories or senses for its current function so he he kept it separated to make room for other buildings.

“Alright lastly, not so sure on this one but if you want to increase your Intelligence… something to process information, like an office building or something?”

Felix shook his head and smiled, “Even better, a server farm- no, a supercomputer.”

Picking a spot right near the library and the observatory, Felix imagined a large boring block of a building and quickly constructed it then darted inside.

The building was empty on the inside but that was exactly what Felix had intended. He made the building infinite, just like the library, then started constructing a series of sleek servers that extended outwards in rows and columns in every direction.

Mostly as an aid, he then wired them up to the ceiling and ran cabling all the way back to a central switchboard, which were daisy chained to support the infinite number of servers.

Felix then ran cabling from that switchboard through the ground and into the library and observatory.

Realistically, all the cabling was completely unnecessary, at least he was pretty sure it was unnecessary. It did help him visualize, organize and figure out how things should be connected though and he was hoping that at least somewhat translated over to the structure of the brain-computer thing in his head.

Satisfied with everything he had put together, Felix returned his consciousness to his body with Grim in the observatory to test and see if everything had worked correctly. As soon as he opened his eyes though, a screen appeared.

Ding You have upgraded the General skill: [Special] Memory Palace (Initiate IV) => [Incomplete] Mental Ghost Settlement (Novice II)

Skill description.

[Mental Ghost Settlement (Incomplete - Novice II) Using a combination of mental and soul projections, you have crafted a city within your mind. By adding buildings to the city, you can create connections, automations and functions you may not have had before. This skill can be upgraded. The functions and capacity of the settlement are determined by the buildings within it. Some functions can be lost should the building dedicated to it become damaged. INCOMPLETE: As this skill is currently modeled on a settlement with populace but has no population, it is considered incomplete. Some aspects of this skill may not function as intended.]

Wait… what? No population… in my brain? How the hell am I supposed to fix that?

You could always not model the buildings after human buildings. The computer seems to function just fine but the observatory is modeled after a manned observatory rather than a… satellite for example.

Right, I don’t mind doing that… does this imply it’s possible to have a non 0 population… in my mind? Do you count? Do I count?

Maybe?

Do I actually want that? A network of unmanned buildings seems more appropriate with a super computer running everything. Humans running between buildings aren’t exactly fast…

Grim sensed his hesitation, But?

Well… they wouldn’t be humans. It also makes things less… rigid? I don’t want to be a robot, I want to be a living creature. I guess my mind is already made up then. So, how do I… create… people?

Maybe ask one of your professors?

Yeah, I’ll wait a bit till I have more classes. You said the computer was working though?

Check your status screen.

Name: Felix Kade FREE 0 Innate: Ascendant Prodigy: Mana (Wizard) STR 34965 Class: [D - Legendary] Reaper (Lvl 778) DEX 134804 Race: [D - Unique] Wanderer (Lvl 885) AGI 43443 Profession: [D - Arcane] Mana Engineer (Lvl 992) PER 88676 Health: 795,270 / 795,270 VIT 79527 Mana: 79,451,830 / 79,451,830 INT 358653 Energy: 2,304,880 / 2,304,880 END 57622

Felix stared at the screen in complete disbelief, That’s… that can’t be right…

I guess the whole mental representation thing finally let you tap into the computer thing.

Huh. Well, there goes my whole rule of 5 thing.

As Felix dismissed the screen, his consciousness focused on on his vision instead of the mental System screen and he immediately felt wrong. He could feel the lag of his eyes as they refocused and moved around. His first instinct was to close his eye lids and lean forwards, his hands covering his eyes.

That proved to be a huge mistake as he could see and feel his eye lids moving in slow motion not to mention his body.

He had experienced a much lesser version of the same effect before, mostly noticing it in the middle of battle. His body would move as he commanded it to but it still felt like he was watching things in slow motion.

Now, it seemed he had surpassed a breaking point, likely having completely smashed through it considering just how bad the effect was now. While he had had stats at lower ratios than his perception was currently, those stats didn’t seem to matter as much or the effect wasn’t as harsh. His Perception and Intelligence were just too intertwined to be this far apart though.

Unfortunately for him, the classes that he thought had the best chance of having answers for him, were on the third, fourth and eighth day of the dekad. In the meantime, he was either going to have to learn to cope or slow down his mind temporarily.

He opted for trying to adjust himself to it first so he could try to avoid nerfing himself.

As he patiently waited for his body to react, Felix started to take in as much of his surroundings as he could. He was essentially stuck staring at the same thing for far longer than he wanted and so he focused in on all the aspects of his periphery.

Once he got bored of that, relatively quickly, he tried to stand up and while he could do so, his dexterity was still pretty high after all, it was confusing at first.

He could feel and process his muscles contracting before they really had a chance to do anything. From Mihto’s training, he felt the urge to adjust on the fly but his body lagged behind and its response time to his brain was too low. He ended up overcompensating with his adjustments and watched in slow motion as he fell to the floor, not bothering to catch himself for fear of causing even more harm.

From there, Felix very carefully pushed himself off the ground, ensuring not to micromanage his body as he carefully rose to his feet.

Considering my strength is even lower, I should probably limit how much I push too so I don’t risk tearing a muscle.

Felix took a cautious and glacially slow step forwards followed by another.

I’m pretty sure I can get used to this enough to attend classes except… I have combat class on the second day of the dekad. Schedule?

Day Class Time 1 Mana Structures 8:00AM 2 Group Combat 8:00AM 3 Constructs & Elementals I 8:00AM 4 Soul Manipulation, Reading & Cultivation 8:00AM 5 6 Spell Formation 8:00AM 7 Solo Combat 8:00AM 8 Animancy 8:00AM 9 Mana Control 8:00AM 10

That’s convenient. Anyways, there is no way I can fight like this. Maybe I should try and track down my professors ahead of time. First, learn to walk again.

It took him just over an hour to finally get to a point where he was actually able to walk around somewhat normally. Luckily, as he got bored and started practicing his casting, he realized that was completely unhindered. His Mana Senses seemed to be tied to something other than his Perception and so he could cast and feel the spell formations perfectly.

In fact, as he cast spells, he could now process just as fast as they formed and watching them form in slow motion was hugely beneficial. It allowed him to tune the spell as it was forming, determine where he was slowest and where he was sloppiest.

He decided to risk trying to fly and found that much easier to deal with. His body didn’t have to move at all so all he had to deal with was his low perception and now that he was mostly accustomed to it, it wasn’t debilitating.

Best bet is… Constructs? That class is about creating… not people but close enough. Alternatively Soul Manipulation or Animancy since this has a lot to do with my soul… Constructs prof first though.

Now that there was less than a standard day until classes started, Felix could actually find most of his professors on his map. Luckily his Constructs professor was not one of the rare ones that were still missing so Felix headed out of the dorm building, completely avoiding the other students for fear of seizing.

Referencing his map again, Felix frowned. His Constructs professor was luckily on the planet but he was nowhere near the main campus. His map didn’t show a globe but he was the equivalent of a few continents away.

Felix really didn’t want to fly there so he flew over to the portal room to see if he could hitch a ride.

The portal building was the only one he had encountered with an exterior door and knocking on it, he got no response. He tried again and, a few seconds later Ellie appeared next to him.

“Felix, right?”

Felix carefully nodded once, not risking anymore than that.

“What can I do for you?”

“Ieedoeeyonstressor.”

Shit. I didn’t try talking before.

Felix held up a finger, gesturing for her to wait a second and pulled out Grim and faced the pages towards her then had Grim display the message for him.

She read it and nodded in understanding though her confused expression remained as she opened the door and started activating the portal.

Grim, ask her if I can portal back here from anywhere on the planet.

Ellie quickly read the message then nodded, “As long as you have the ring equipped, you can step through a portal directed here. Here’s the anchor for this portal.” She handed him a sheet of paper that he gently grabbed and stowed.

After a few moments of tapping away at some screen, a portal filled the frame in the room, the spell still far above Felix’s understanding, and he carefully floated through it.

Felix wasn’t sure what he was expecting but it certainly was not a massive industrial workshop on the side of a mountain.

Knocking on the door with a spell, just to be safe, Felix waited for a few seconds before the door creaked open revealing a tall and lanky alien.

[?] Kedrolir: Professor of Constructs & Elementals (Lvl ?)

The professor was around 8 feet tall with completely blue skin, an extra joint in both their arms and legs and a head that was both wider and further elongated when compared to a human’s. Their face also sported three eyes but overall, seemed rather friendly, if a little confused.

“Good morning. What can I help you with?”

Felix lifted Grim up in front of the professor and had him explain his predicament without giving too much away, I made some modifications to my body which were a huge success, greatly increasing my Intelligence. Unfortunately, my other stats can’t keep up because the skill is Incomplete. I was wondering if you could give me a crash course on creating a person.

“Creating a person? What does that have to do with your Incomplete skill?”

I’d rather not give any more details but this seems like the most promising avenue for me right now.

Kedrolir nodded, “Are you registered for my class?”

Yes.

“Excellent. Call me professor Ked or just Ked, it’s much easier for everyone.” Ked reached forwards and grasped Felix’s shoulder then guided him in and to a chair, fully recognizing how difficult it was for him to move on his own.

With Felix sitting, Ked stood in front of him and lectured to a class of one, “Without going into depth, a person is defined by a combination of a few things. First there is the core soul which holds their personality and core experiences. There is the mind, typically a brain which contains their unique arrangement of connections, pathways and neurons. Finally there is the body.”

Felix nodded once just to show he understood and was following.

“With constructs, we are not creating a person. We do not even get close. Instead, we bind a soul that is not dense or complex enough to be a core soul to a body we have created. Lastly, a mind is implanted which can either be an inscribed mana computer for robotic thought or a biological implant for emotionally aware creations.”

Felix held Grim aloft, facing Professor Ked, Theoretically, could we create a core soul?

“Theoretically, yes. Realistically, it is nearly impossible. The complexity that goes into a core soul is completely beyond us. Gods and primordials have both attempted and failed to create core souls. The density problem can be overcome with some persistence and powerful machines but the complexity problem is more than we can overcome at the moment.”

How close can we get then?

“Not at all. We couldn’t even recreate an E grade animal’s core soul.”

There has to be some way around this then? Is it just not possible to have unique and interesting constructs?

“You can get around this by borrowing a core soul. Yes you could use necromantic techniques to steal one but you can also create a soul but instead of having a core, you replace it with a specially engineered soul seed.”

Wouldn’t it just be identical in personality to whatever soul the seed is bound to?

“This is where a lot of the artistry of soul bound constructs comes into play. From there, the binding is surrounded by a soul layer that effectively filters experiences in order to create personalities.”

So they’re all just based on the base core soul then?

“Correct. The more complex the filter, the closer the personality will be to being truly unique. Though, it never actually will be.”

What about the brains. You mentioned Mana Computers?

“Yes. They tend towards robotic thought but it is possible to make them more organic. In theory, a mana computer could perfectly match a brain. If created correctly, it can be an analog computer with weights, much like an organic brain that can form malleable connections on its own.”

How important is a body, what if you just didn’t have one?

“The issue would be how does it exist in that case? Where is the brain stored and what is the soul attached to? Even attaching the soul to a computer would necessitate a housing. In that case the box would be the body.”

But theoretically it’s not necessary?

“No? If you had a spectral computer you could theoretically attach it to a remnant I suppose…”

Thanks professor. I think I have everything I need.

The Professor gestured for Felix to wait a moment, “How in tune with your soul senses are you?”

Very.

Ked nodded then walked off into another room and returned a few moments later with a small gem, carefully handing it to Felix, “This is an artificial core soul bound to mine that I will be using in my next construct.”

Felix took the object and didn’t dare try to move it, instead reaching out with his soul senses and feeling out the inside of the gem.

There, he found exactly what Professor Ked had described, a soul seed wrapped in a layer of anima that would corrupt and distort everything coming from the seed within. Felix silently thanked his luck that the Professor had the foresight to show this to him because without having seen this, he was certain he would have made trivially simple filters.

While not an issue necessarily, it would have resulted in a lot of Felixs in Felix’s head. Ideally, he wanted some variety in there. All of them should generally agree on the big picture items but he didn’t want them all being identical in almost every other way, that would likely create more problems than it solved.

Handing the gem back to the Professor, Felix rose to his feet, his speed reminiscent of a geriatric nursing home patient, and he walked over to the door. The Professor looked at him with worry but when Felix pulled out a portal spell mold, Ked’s face relaxed a little.

Felix quickly cast the spell then replaced the anchor with the one he had been given for the school and stepped through the resultant portal. Felix heard Ked’s workshop door close just after he stepped through then he nodded to Ellie who was still there and started his flight back to his dorm room.

Lowering himself onto the couch, Felix immediately got to work. His first order of business was to create a new layer in his soul. The new layer directly surrounded his core soul and was essentially a blank ocean. He tried his hardest to completely clean it of anything and everything as he compressed it down as far as he could manage.

Ultimately, the layer still wasn’t nearly as dense as his own core soul but it was the densest anima he had seen outside of that.

With the layer complete, he got to work creating soul seeds, healing the wound with anima, then wrapping the seeds in filters and placing them in the new layer. For the filters, he just randomized everything as much as he could but didn’t let anything stray too far.

The process was relatively fast because he didn’t complicate the filters and so after just a few hours of work, the new layer of his soul looked like a pond with a few hundred tadpoles swimming around.

Before he dedicated the rest of his free time to it, Felix entered his Mental Ghost Settlement to test if it had worked or not.

He was just hoping they could use his computer or brain without him having to manually attach them all but realistically, he had no idea if that was possible. He also had no idea if his filters would work correctly considering how lazy he was with them. His assumption was that it would be fine, he didn’t see any obvious flaws with them but he couldn’t be sure just yet.

Looking around, Felix’s Settlement was still a ghost town but he hadn’t given up hope just yet.

For people, or personalities, to actually live here, they need to have houses to live in.

After choosing an appropriate section of land out in the fields, Felix imagined a beautiful mansion exactly as he would want it then constructed it. Initially he was worried about having all the personalities live in the same non-Euclidean house for logistical reasons.

They would all have their own house when they opened the door, almost as though it was a portal into a parallel dimension. The issue was that they would all end up walking into each-other as they tried to enter and exit.

To remedy this, Felix simply didn’t include a door at all. He didn’t see why his new personalities wouldn’t be able to move around at will like he could. If they shared that ability, they wouldn’t need a door.

As soon as the mansion was in place, Felix became aware of a number of presences behind him. Turning around, he found himself face to face with a bipedal lion.

Damn. I may have gone a liiiiiittle too far on the random filter thing.

Behind the lion, Felix saw penguins, elves, dwarves, monkeys, snakes and even a Dragon.

Yeah definitely too random.

Felix tentatively looked up at the bipedal lion closest to him, “Hello?”

Scratching his own chest, the lion looked at Felix almost apathetically, “Felix. I Leo.”

Felix sighed, “Of course you are.”

As they were a part of him, Felix knew all of their names and sifting through them, he found they were all some form of completely uncreative.

There was Gwen the penguin, Drako the dragon, Hugh the human, El the elf and Doge the dog.

Is this a reflection of my lack of creativity?

Grim chimed in after lightly chuckling, More likely a reflection of the fact that… you didn’t complicate the filters much so they don’t have the most unique personalities and, do you really care?

Felix thought about it for less than a second, Nope, not even in the slightest.

Felix nodded, “Are you intelligent enough to direct yourselves?”

Leo nodded, “I work in observatory.”

“Works for me.” Felix shrugged.

Leo slightly bowed then vanished, reappearing in the observatory.

A small number of the crowd followed but most of them remained.

Gwen the penguin approached Felix and he winced as he realized they were wearing sunglasses and a suit that blended in with their body, “I build new building?”

Felix shrugged, “Sure. How about you have to get Grim or I to approve them first. If everything works out, we’ll see about changing that later.”

Gwen nodded then disappeared along with a the rest of the crowd as they all went to plan out new buildings to fit into the settlement.

Satisfied with how everything was turning out, Felix returned to his body and was happy to find a notification waiting for him.

Ding You have upgraded the General skill: [Incomplete] Mental Ghost Town (Novice II) => [Incomplete] Mind City (Novice V)

Skill description.

[Mind City (Incomplete) Using a combination of mental and soul projections, you have crafted a city within your mind. The buildings in the city dictate the connections, automations and functions the city provides. The personalities in the city allow functions to be automated and run in parallel to your mind’s main functions. This skill can be upgraded. The functions and capacity of the settlement are determined by the buildings within it. Some functions can be lost should the building dedicated to it become damaged. INCOMPLETE: As the city’s population is still miniscule, it is considered incomplete. Some aspects of this skill may not function as intended.]

Well, that is better than before.

Felix refocused in on his soul and continued producing personalities in his second layer, feeling them appear within his head almost immediately as they were created.

As he streamlined the process, Felix managed to create personalities very quickly and around fifteen hours in, Felix was greeted by the notification he had been waiting for.

Ding You have upgraded the General skill: [Incomplete] Mind City (Novice V) => [Epic] Mind City (Novice V)

Skill description.

[Mind City (Epic) Using a combination of mental and soul projections, you have crafted a city within your mind. The buildings in the city dictate the connections, automations and functions the city provides. The personalities in the city allow functions to be automated and run in parallel to your mind’s main functions. This skill can be upgraded. The functions and capacity of the settlement are determined by the buildings within it. Some functions can be lost should the building dedicated to it become damaged.]

Alright perfect. Not that it helps with letting me move normally though.

As Felix dismissed the screen though, he immediately noticed an improvement. His eyes at least felt far smoother. Checking his status screen, his perception had only marginally increased from having the observatory up and running so he wasn’t exactly sure why it felt so much better.

Grim, sensing his confusion, chimed in with an explanation, It isn’t a permanent fix but we’ve adjusted things so it’s at least manageable.

Wow, this is awesome. Thank you.

We couldn’t really figure out how to fix the body issue though so that one you’re probably just going to have to deal with.

Standing up, Felix found that moving his body was just as slow as before. With his eyes moving more fluidly than before though, it was much easier for him to focus on his body alone.

With that all figured out, Felix finally took a look at his mana pool. With his massive jump in Intelligence came a massive jump in his available mana pool. The question was why.

Theoretically, he had replaced his mana pool with a mana core and yet, every time his Intelligence increased, so did his mana pool.

Having his mental snapshot of his mana pool from earlier, Felix focused in on his mana core holding the snapshot in his memory. Comparing the two, he immediately noticed a drastic difference.

Why is it denser? It’s solid mana but… even the gaseous and liquid mana are denser now than the solid mana used to be… I’m an idiot aren’t I? The phase of mana is independent of its density. I’m almost certain mana isn’t made up of tiny particles, so why would it be bound by the same rules as matter?

To test the theory, Felix pulled out a few points of mana in a gaseous state then solidified it without changing its density at all. With a solid cube of mana that was less dense than most gaseous mana, he then expanded it slowly until it simply fell apart.

So there’s a limit on how light it can be, what about how dense?

Taking the very same cube he had just created, Felix compressed it down as far as he could, the cube going from a small box in size to a fraction of a millimeter per side.

Mana isn’t matter. Mana isn’t matter. Mana isn’t matter. I wonder if there are other assumptions I’ve made about mana that just… don’t apply. Maybe class will help, in the meantime, time to fix my mana core.

Looking inwards, Felix could see his mana core currently pushing the bounds of the space his mana pool could hold. Realistically, there was still plenty of room above and below it but it was pushing on the edges laterally.

Felix took hold of it and slowly started to compress it as evenly as he could. He ended up having to focus on it in layers because he couldn’t hold all of it at once. Compressing the core most section, he quickly found there was a limit to how far he could compress it. On top of that, he reverted it from a solid to a liquid with the exact same density.

I wonder if that’s an actual mana limit or a limit on my current abilities.

Once he was finished, Felix scoffed at his past self when he looked at his status screen.

Name: Felix Kade FREE 0 Innate: Ascendant Prodigy: Mana (Wizard) STR 34965 Class: [D - Legendary] Reaper (Lvl 778) DEX 134804 Race: [D - Unique] Wanderer (Lvl 885) AGI 43443 Profession: [D - Arcane] Mana Engineer (Lvl 992) PER 88676 Health: 795,270 / 795,270 VIT 79527 Mana: 120,000,000 / 120,000,000 INT 358653 Energy: 2,304,880 / 2,304,880 END 57622

I’ll have to look into compressing it further as I get stronger. Maybe I can also get an actual extradimensional space so my mana pool can be effectively infinite. In the meantime, I also have an energy core…

Going through the exact same process with the energy suffusing his mana core, Felix increased his energy pool by a moderate amount to 2.5 million.

Ok now I really need to upgrade all my spells. I don’t have Spell Formations until the 6th day of the dekad though. I should probably focus on mana structures as it’s my first class… Meh, it’s the first day. I’ll have combat class placements on day 2 so I should probably prepare for that.

The best preparation Felix could think of at the moment was to just practice using his body. He didn’t have Mihto’s course and simulating it in his Soul Garden did nothing to help him adjust to his stat difference.

Felix walked out of his dorm, instead of flying, and headed through the mostly empty lobby down to the open grassy area outside.

Rather than being completely empty now, the campus almost felt like a normal school campus on earth. There were groups of people loitering about, socializing and many of them showing off.

It seemed as though people were trying to attract attention to themselves as casually as possible and completely failing. It was obvious they were trying to make friends or allies of some kind or just establish themselves in the social hierarchy. Felix scoffed at them and completely ignored everyone as he paced back and forth through the greenery.

Once he had relearned to walk, Felix started running back and forth, carefully integrating in spells and jumps until he got used to using them.

While it required him to relearn how to properly control his body, the fact that his Intelligence was so much higher than his agility came with other benefits.

He could actively feel the mistakes he made instantly. His own mind analyzing his movements along with his Studious skill, echoing relevant instruction from Mihto. As he readjusted to his body, Felix genuinely felt like he had made massive improvements to his movement.

After around 5 hours of learning to move, the greenery started to clear out as people headed towards their first classes. Felix had just started practicing with Phantom Step again, jumping and catching himself in the air, changing directions instantly. Once he got used to using that spell again, he figured he would be mostly ready for the combat evaluation.

There was still half an hour until the class was scheduled to start but seeing everyone else disappear convinced him to start heading towards the class himself.

He had already confirmed the class’ location and that he could get there relatively quickly so as he walked towards it, he began stomping on the ground and flexing his muscles.

Can you do the right leg again? Grim directed Felix as they calibrated how far he could push his muscles.

His Strength was his lowest stat but they already knew the side effect of it being so far below his Intelligence, he risked tearing his muscles by overexerting them. His brain was capable of pushing them harder than they could handle and if he did so, he risked completely tearing them or avulsing them.

Luckily, the solution was simple.

Together with Grim and the residents of the city in his brain, Felix carefully calibrated how hard he could push his muscles and they put in place artificial limits. He wouldn’t even be capable of pushing his muscles beyond what they were capable of without tearing them down.

As simple and elegant as it was, it was a temporary solution at best. He really needed to improve all his stats to bring them within the same realm as his Intelligence. Until then though, this was the best he could do.

As for his Endurance, they hadn’t determined what the effect would be of it being too low. His Vitality risked having his brain misdirect the resources to heal his body, over allocating or pushing his systems harder than they could handle. That was also easily remedied and with his ridiculous awareness over the individual cells in his body, easily mitigated. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .