We barely made it to dinner yesterday. Thankfully our first instinct upon seeing the labyrinth of a library was to look for the fabled pathfinders of paper and ink. Librarians. With a professional at hand, we expected to get the loot and bail within minutes… if only the services of the librarian didn’t demand a hefty price.
The old lady kept on talking for almost an hour about the importance of books, the history of the library, and all the special codexes and stuff the Emperor himself gifted to the collection. I swear she walked slower on purpose and sat down every now and then to tell her stories in depth before showing us the few bundles of paper we were looking for.
We could’ve just been done with our excursion and enjoyed our evening right after realizing the trap we walked into. It would’ve been rude but that’s sort of my speciality. However, her never-ending speech mentioned one crucial secret…
Most lectures aren’t just about a professor walking in a winging the whole thing, there’s a script to their lectures. Books of old or even their own works like notes to guide the lessons.
Of course, the revelation wasn’t worldshaking, or an omniscient ‘now you don’t have to study’ solution but it does give us a little edge when it comes to taking notes and paying attention at the same time. We also got a proper guided tour of the library in case we need another visit and we didn’t really have anything better to do so… Yeah, that’s about it for yesterday. An unusual adventure that did not involve fighting or burning anything alive for a change.
Weird how accustomed I got to that compared to my reluctance when I was little. Good old times…
Anyway, I slept like shit.
Worse even than after a night, lying on the cold hard ground and waking up all sore and grumpy. I couldn’t help but get antsy about today's lectures. A quick shower didn’t help, double-checking everything didn’t help, and even a hearty breakfast failed to lighten my mood.
Currently, I’m stomping down the corridors all alone – if we ignore the hundreds of other students around me – hopefully going the right way otherwise I’ll take this entire damn maze down. I’m heading for a lecture I only picked because Savant is missing something. It’s like when you have all the ingredients for a soup missing only water…
Water in this case is something much more vile. It’s math.
Trajectories, volumes, mass, velocity… Savant tries to make me understand it all in a grand framework I can even touch.
Upon arriving at a lecture hall matching the number and description I was given I check one last thing to confirm I’m at the right place.
[Artisan lvl 71]
[Merchant lvl 67]
[Merchant lvl 62]
[Merchant lvl 70]
[Artisan lvl 64]
…
Oh yeah, no doubt this is the place.
The seats are in the common half-moon arrangement and the podium in the middle stands empty, waiting for the professor. It’s not that different than the room where I slept while Martha talked her mouth ragged, only a lot bigger, and quite a bit cleaner.
Irritatingly, the sound of small talk, the like you hear when merchants have some free time at the marketplace fills the hall to an absurd level. Purchases, supplies, profit margins, and other useless topics assault my ear as I take a seat toward the back.
And use some subtle air magic to minimize the noise.
To pass the time I brood over the blueprints we made yesterday on the realistic-deployable-dummy. Yeah, that name needs some work but the concept is solid, although I hardly understand most of it.
My head remains buried in papers until movement on the podium catches my attention and I disperse the sound bubble around my head.
A gnome… what did I expect?
I think this one is a woman, although the two genders look and sound almost the same. She walks over to the blackboard on the large wall straight across and pulls a ladder over I didn’t even notice before,
Don’t laugh Eli, it’s rude and she might hear it.
Before drawing anything she drags a stool to the podium and slams her stuff on its surface.
She really is trying me to see how long I can hold back. “Good morning students. I’m surprised so many of you realized you can’t leave every fine detail up to your Skills and that mathematics is the key to defining the world around us. Be that your wealth, the number of troops, logistics, or even the quantity of mana spent on a single spell.” I see her eye flicker my way specifically before returning to the paper in her hand.” Today we’ll talk about linear equations and…”
Oh Gods above, help this poor mortal in the face of her upcoming trials…
***
“... Similarly you can use the equation to calculate mana expenditure. All you need to do is take into account the passives and their output coefficient, the estimate of distance, your Focus adjusted according to the soft boundaries, and the nature of the element. It’s quite straight forward really.”
No, it is not! I want to tear my ears off and poke them through my eyes. I’ll need to look for a general Skill to help me study. It’s too boring and I can hardly concentrate.
The gnome lady moves on. “More on that next week when we’ll also look into the mana consumption of different inscription variants.” The tiny demon of Laplace hops down from her stool and bows. “That’s it for today.”
And she leaves just like that. Efficient, minimalistic, gnomish.
I hop up and flee the room like a snail running from the forest fire because my head feels like all its contents had turned into soup during the three-hour-long cooking session that was The Art of Numbers.
I think a piece of me died in the room. That wasn’t education, it was torture. I don’t even remember how many pages I burned through during the three-hour-long lecture where the gnome just kept going without even taking a breath.
There were basic stuff like multiplication, graphs, and then some weird linear equations. What the fuck do numbers even have to do with lines?
Forget it, don't… don’t even think about it Eli, just eat something and preserve your strength.
I came prepared. I knew I wouldn’t have much time between lectures to return to the dorm and have a proper meal in peace so I smuggled some of the best parts of breakfast to help me get through this before the long break, before my last torture session.
After gobbling down the sandwiches and cookies I folded into a few napkins, crumped up and saggy, I make my way to the next classroom. Because of course, I have to navigate through half the main building just to get to my destination.
A hall stacked with seats again, only this time there’s a huge flat square instead of a podium in the center. I guess all the students arriving here are mages or something really close to it. Mana Theory is basically the bread and butter for anyone actively using magic in earnest.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
[Mage - lvl 68]
[Mage - lvl 68]
[Mage - lvl 75]
[Warrior - lvl 71]
[Artisan - lvl 72]
They should be some kind of Spell Sword and Inscriptionist if I had to guess. Cute little levels.
“Attention students!” A refined woman walks in wearing a frilly white dress yet moving with military decorum apparent in her steps. “My name is Ingrid Morgan, former imperial mage and your professor this trimester. You speak when spoken to and will call me Ma’am or Professor whenever you address me!”
Her sharp blue eyes flicker over us, assessing and judging us in seconds. When it's my turn to be scrutinized our gazes meet and I feel like looking into the eyes of a cold calculating predator seeing me as nothing more than a cut of meat instead of a person.
Still, I don’t avert my gaze because the sensation is one I’m quite familiar with.
A small, nearly invisible smile flashes across the professor's face before continuing with her inspection. Her blonde hair is cut short as it is advised in combat to not get in the way and her build, despite being covered by a white dress, is that of a seasoned fighter. Lean, powerful, and built through pressure instead of empty exercises.
There’s clear confusion on many faces due to the sharp militaristic turn in the presentation, something I’m personally more used to than the sweet old storytelling type of lecture. A wave of murmur washes through the hall as my fellow students chit-chat about the teacher like students usually do. Grave mistake.
The lady snaps her finger and a rumbling explosion silences everyone. “Silence! I won't be repeating myself.”
I like her, she reminds me of Martha a little.
“Today’s topic will be the cornerstone of all magic, mana.” She pulls out a raw piece of Hadron crystal to represent pure magic. “We could dive into lengthy discussions about what mana is and how it came to be… We won't.” A cold smile climbs onto her face. “People more well versed than me and far outshining any of you had tried to answer the question and could merely scratch the surface. It’d be a bootless errand and time is precious. Instead of talking about what we don’t know, let us assess what exactly it is we’re working with.”
What is mana… Such a simple yet complicated question. I myself have often pondered on it but found no answer.
Mana is an energy of some sort... Then again what kind of energy? Kinetic, electromagnetic, thermal, all of them at the same time? With Skills mana can be converted into any of them, however, it's not true in reverse…
It's even less tangible than simple energy and is just part of reality, like time. It is somehow drawn to the soul and the will residing within, like a moth to the light. It is influenced by the surroundings and vice versa shaping its environment, convertible and intangible yet… somehow so easily wielded.
It wouldn’t even surprise me if mana turned out to be alive or guided by someone.
“... every second we breathe mana in the air, eat the residue mana in our food, or even take a…” She stops herself from naming a third example and I can guess why. It would’ve been about stuff coming out of us. “The reason why we can shape the mana has something to do with our bodies, more specifically the mana vessel, acting like channels and floodgates we can consciously open and close.”
That does sound a little dumbed down. According to the theory of the Grand String, the inscription is unable to perfectly replicate magic executed by the living mainly because the mana vessel is not static. It moves and readjusts itself according to our needs.
“The same part of our being is also responsible for producing a specific element from the mixture of mana we absorb from the surroundings. I would love to tell you about the how or the why except every time we dissected a creature we found no evidence of this so-called mana vessel and can only theorize on its existence.” Professor Ingrid explains.
To sum it up; we use something we don’t know almost anything about to complete a process we don’t understand only to change the world in a way we have not yet explored.
Is this really a lecture I want to attend?
To be fair, Savant or not I also understand very little of what arcane is. All the talk about breath it being the Breath of Aelion or the power of Gods or a spark of life and none of it has been proven for thousands of years.
Of course, Laplace and the other Gods refuse to part with that particular knowledge no matter how much people prayed or whatever they offered. Just like wherever we tried to make them spill the beans about the Journey Guide.
Those Gods are so damn stingy.
***
“... but discussing the mysteries of the world is another topic for another professor to share.” Professor Ingrid finishes another monologue while I’m preoccupied thinking about stuff. “Inherent mana density in nature is quite the fascinating subject I have to admit. You must all be aware by now that the difficulty of influencing objects highly depends on the amount of mana residing in them. In the case of living beings, you have to multiply that by their Endurance. It’s a nightmare.”She huffs and I can attest to that. “It’s almost as if mana had mass, don’t you think? Just another irritating property that makes identifying the arcane all the more troublesome.”
That’s the tricky thing about armor and weapons. Blacksmiths usually saturate the material with mana in the process of shaping the metal by using their Skills making gear off limit for us Mages to mess with. Worse even every weapon user normally has a Skill binding their equipment to them and flooding it with even more mana…
Wresting for the equipment is just a waste of energy.
“Lastly a snack for thought; why does the capacity of a Hadron crystal grow exponentially along with its size? Shouldn’t one plus one simply become two? Prepare your answers, we’ll see each other in two days.” She grins slightly before giving a curt nod and leaving. “We’re done here, dismissed!”
Sneaky old hag, that question has gone unanswered for thousands of years. She wants to mess with those who came in here unprepared and make them waste their time just for a simple shrug and guesswork.
With that said, maybe it’s like gravity but for mana. The greater the density or mass the greater the pull…
After sitting through two cruelly long lectures I already feel exhausted and there’s still the third one later in the evening. I followed Martha’s advice and chose only a few courses so I’d have plenty of free time to enjoy the Academy… Yeah and yet here I am, walking absentmindedly as my legs carry me towards the workshop instead of my bed.
Traitorous legs.
***
After being stuck in the workshop for hours upon hours Valka had to swoop in and drag me away else Melana would have had to do the same. Her little scare was enough to make me think twice about pissing her off.
It’s just… we were so close. Making a hat that acts like a barrier, repelling water on rainy days while also regulating light is quite complicated to make, and… is it useful? Maybe. I don’t need one but perhaps some rich folks do.
“Brilliant, you finally showed up.” Melana welcomes us, even though we aren’t even last to arrive. “Come, today the training will be more personalized. We’ll be focusing on things you suck at.” What a nice way to put it.
“He’s not around, right?” I ask, scouting the surroundings for the crazy old man.
“He better not be or I’ll cut his junk off.” Melana growls.
I’m too tired and not in the mood for another crazy bout with some walking corpse of a mentally ill wizard.
“Since I’m not proficient at being a damage sponge,” She looks at Val. “Or a sneeze of natural disaster I had to call in some help. Go and warm up or something, beat each other up for all I care just finish it in ten minutes.”
A little sparing is all we do. I go up against Kayla first without her pets and only using her flower… tree… root stuff to fight against me like some sort of land octopus. Not an outstanding challenge to be fair, even without using fire to just burn it all to the ground. But that particular Class of hers is still quite weak and mostly for defensives.
Then I square off against Victor where we mostly work on our reflexes and try to anticipate the opponent's next moves multiple steps ahead at times. It’s quite enjoyable since we’re both outstandingly petty and enjoy messing with our opponents.
Finally, the thunderous clap of our wolfish teacher signals a stop to the time we waste fighting in a half-assed manner. We gather in front of her with a few dozen other adults at her back.
“I called in some professionals to impart their knowledge and experience on you according to my observation.” Melana’s aloof behavior takes a U-turn now that other adults are around. “I beseech you to work diligently to ensure their time is not wasted and bring out the maximum of their guidance.” She glances at the gathering of veterans. “If you may.”
They spread out, all of them homing in on a student or two like predators, grabbing their target and dragging them away to a separate section of the arena. A halfling appears next to August and drags him away by the leg, an old woman clad in flames walks slowly towards Kayla who backs away like Fluff fled from the panther while Victor… he’s struggling as nothing but thin air is dragging him away.
Ah, the good old fight against an invisible opponent.
Valka is the least fortunate of us five. The hulking bear beastman approaches her like a walking mountain of fur… and kicks her away out of the blue. He dashes after her and gives her no breathing room in the face of a relentless assault akin to a rockfall.
Brutes… typical.
I glance around warily, having learned from observing the others get kidnapped by their new teachers and really not in the mood to get thrashed around like some of them. This type of rough love is something I’d absolutely expect from the Fist but definitely not the Academy. Especially since most students around are silk-skinned pricks.
No matter how hard I look, listen, or scan with Mana Perception… nobody is coming for me. Then that specific conversation I had with Melana on my first day barges into the chaotic pond of my thoughts. It all comes down to my weakness and manoeuvering…
Then hands grab my shoulder and all I can mutter is “Shit.” before they carry me off my feet, away from everyone else, and out of the area entirely.
This is definitely not what I meant when I told Melana I wanted to fly.