Today Darrick woke up on time to get his breakfast. After his daily routine and breakfast, he left the dorm. His destination for now was the library. He had to get some information about classes he was about to take.
Darrick was going for the central garden to check out the route to the library and he was reminded of his system. The map function was made for this kind of thing. He muttered 'Map' under his breath so no one could overhear him.
The map was a 3d model of every building and structure around him. In the 1 km radius, every building was visible. It could not be used to spy inside buildings but you can find the building with it. It could also find people, only if you mark them and they are inside the range.
Just any physical contact is enough to mark them. That's neat. It would be useful someday.
He checked the map. When he first arrived here he did not measure the distance from the main gate to the dorms but now that he checked it, it turns out it was 856 meters. The library was 356m far, that is if you you consider the displacement. The path was not straight, there were many turns so the distance would be around 500m.
This is really a big ass academy, even on 'map' I can't see the whole campus. How much would someone have to walk to clean everything? Does it take days or do many people clean different parts to be done with work? Maybe the second one, this academy looks really rich. Must have hoarded astronomical amounts in the last 2000 years.
If they couldn't even make some good money then it's really a waste to be such a big organization with a history of thousands of years. From oldest to newest buildings, all of them are luxurious. That alone must have cost a lot and then comes the salaries, management funds etcetera. Well, whatever.
The goal was to learn some magic and get strong enough. He did not plan to spend any more time here in the academy than needed. The Caladric Academy was only the first step to his final goal.
As Darrick was contemplating his plans for the future he reached the grand library. It was a magnificent structure like the main campus. It was also built around the same time as the central buildings.
Darrick walked inside the library, his eyes were scanning the rows and rows of books. There were hundreds of thousands of books present here. He was eyeing in every direction. His love for reading never diminished in him since he was a child. The more knowledge he gained the happier he was.
At the receptionist's desk, there sat a woman maybe in her mid-20s. She did raise her head from the book she was reading. She did not utter a single word. She pointed him towards a board which showed book classifications and where they were in the library.
The one needed now was the academy section. There was a full section with six racks. The one Darrick urgently needed was magic section books. The curiosity about it was killing him.
He picked most of the basic-sounding books on magic and sat somewhere around there. The library had books on the subjects that were given as a choice in the elective. The difficulty of the books here in the library varied from beginner level to advanced level.
The one most needed right now was the book on magical engineering called 'The Enchanting Innovations: A Guide to Magical Engineering' but the spellcraft book was so much more attractive. 'Magic is magic but flashy ones are real ones' was his new motto since finding out there is magic in this world.
'Basic understanding of mana', I guess magic needs some channelling medium or maybe it's fuel. I'll just look up some basics and if I can't understand it then I can learn this from teachers with proper guidance.
The book felt like some gibberish at first glance. The process of utilizing mana and creating magical phenomena was described in a lot of flowery language. There were many metaphors to help imagine better but for Darrick who is from a different world the native metaphors were unfamiliar.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
The process of sensing the whole body was a lot harder than he expected. And all of this body sensing was just basic for something else which actually helps to perform magic. Whatever that something was Darrick couldn't imagine what it was.
'The Chimsel flowers release a substance, this substance reacts differently with every petal and gives them different properties like fragrant, poisonous and many more but to release the substance in the first place every petal needs to be touched gently. If you put too much force the inner glands that contain the substance break, if it's too soft then it won't be stimulated enough to release the substance. Like this, you must conduct your first learning of mana.'
What the hell is this? How do they expect anyone to understand this? Only a few lines were describing some magical flower, Nothing here showed anything about the body. How am I supposed to become some fucking flower? Am I supposed to release some substances or what? This makes no sense.
Darrick huffed angrily. The lack of any meaningful wording on the first page itself was infuriating.
Am I supposed to touch myself? That sounds so wrong. That 'substance' doesn't even have a name. Argh… Hopefully, teachers know how to teach us.
Darrick wanted to yeet the book across the hall but managed not to do anything stupid. He picked up the book on magic engineering. It was so simple that the hate towards the author of 'Basic Understanding of Mana' intensified.
The first few lines gave a quick briefing on magic engineering and Explained it by separating the words. An engineered mechanical device powered by mana is a common artifact and the art of creating it is magic engineering.
The book was pretty small. Only a few hundred pages. It explained the history of ME, the ancient artifacts dating back to the mythical era, the lost technology of the mythical era, the origin of modern ME, the first modern artifact creation, a brief look at the evolution of modern ME technology etc. The book did not give too much information as it is a basic book but gave a quick look at the potential of magical engineering.
I have already fallen in love with this. The importance of ME in this world is insane. Normal devices do not survive most supernatural encounters so most of the world is dependent on them. A monster encounter is a pretty common occurrence, to survive it the artifacts are essential for normal citizens. It looks like all of the cities have some kind of artifact to protect them.
After finishing the introductory magic engineering book he wanted to read some on the same topic but then he would fall behind in his study of all other subjects so he picked Alchemy next.
Just by reading the introduction chapter Darrick understood that it was all magic chemistry but it created some extraordinary phenomenon. Alchemy was the study of the rules of this phenomenon. It could differ from creating magical drugs and medicines to creating new materials with magical processes.
Even though it was good Darrick did not like chemistry as much as other subjects. Focusing on a single production skill was enough is what he thought. Now there were three more left. Fundamentology, spirit arts and magic sigil studies.
Fundamentology was the study of natural laws in correspondence to mana. Physics was just the study of natural laws, it does not take mana into account. It was really interesting but it did not look like something Darrick wanted to study for now.
Next by reading the book on spirit arts, Darrick got more information on spellcraft than the book dedicated to explaining spellcraft. The spirit arts were a form of magic in which you could use the magic by becoming a medium.
In spellcraft, you have to invoke the spell, fuel it with your mana and more importantly you have to hold the sigil on yourself but in spirit arts, you only need to fuel it with mana, it can be expensive to use than normal spell but the power is lot more than spellcraft of the same level.
Basically, you are using the spell of another being you made contact with so the invocation time and cost are also high. Here there is no permanent sigil to bear as you are not the rightful owner but just a contractor.
Spirit arts sounds cool but... who are these beings who we make contact with? I think that could be a problem if the contact somehow is messed up so I'll just think about it for next year. If I take on too much at once then it won't go well in any of them.
The last on the list 'magic sigil studies' was the most important of them all according to Darrick. He reached this conclusion by finishing the book on it. It was the base of all. None of the magic could be performed without the magic sigil.
It was a mark on the soul that channels mana in certain forms and shapes to create the so-called magic. It was a very important subject for spellcrafters but nothing much for the spirit artists as they couldn't do much tinkering with their temporary sigils. Both alchemists and magic engineers can go about it with the basics of their sigils which they use to work but they can learn more about it to specialize in their craft.
The magic sigil studies looked pretty useless for someone whose main focus was going to be magic engineering but Darrick wanted to learn about it and he made his choice.