Darrick was striding towards his room. Today he came here for the test but he gained a lot more than just test results. Not only that but also the fact that Professor Zelkrat is not to be messed with.

She knows a lot of things, a lot more than I can even begin to imagine. She must be one of those old monsters of the world who lurks in the shadows. The way the important information was dropped in so casually, must be the side effect of knowing too much top-tier info that all this looks common knowledge to her, or maybe she was hinting at something? Dunno, couldn't tell. Sometimes it looks like she could see through me but I think I managed to fool her to an extent.

He believed that he somehow diverted her attention enough to not give out anything too important about himself. He suspected her to have caught onto his abnormalities but he dismissed the idea partially because judging by her body language, there were obvious signs to say such a thing concretely.

I got a basic idea of how magic is supposed to work, I found out which magic path is meant for me and the best out of all there are different worlds.

There was a big smile on his face now, his heart was beating fast. This was the second biggest thing he heard here. The existence of different worlds, his world could also be one of them. The fact that people know there are different worlds here is an indication of the existence of something that can help him return to his home.

I don't doubt for a second that Professor Zelkrat knows the way to travel to the otherworld but she may not know about all of the worlds, like some obscure worlds. Maybe my world was really obscure for these people. As far as I know, there wasn't any kind of magic there.

He was happy to find some clue but he knew he was not ready, there were some really strong beings here around him that may get pissed off by his very existence like the hand that attacked. To weave through whatever comes for him he has to be ready and that is by getting stronger currently his path to the peak was decided on the road of magic engineering.

The brightness of magic engineering was no less than any other path. That was what Darrick believed, and he was not proven wrong yet. Humans were imperfect and they created tools to perfect themselves. A really strong human with a really strong tool would do the impossible possible. That belief was further solidified by what he saw.

'Eltracom' holy moly! This is so good and it's not even its best form. My System recognizes it to be important. The system identified the artifact automatically. The bare functions and the benefits really show why it caught the attention of the system.

Eltracom:

Epic(current) Legendary(unsealed)

This is an artifact from the silver era. This has gained a rudimentary level of consciousness, it can recognize its name.

Currently, this artifact can measure the state of the soul in detail. In its unsealed form, it can find and identify the beings whose even just a little trace was faced to the artifact. It can work in different spaces but cannot track people in fragments.

PS: The system can absorb this artifact to expand its 'Identify' and 'Map' functions.

That's a really neat option to have. Imagine an ever-growing almost perfect 'thing', I thought the system could only consume the other two pieces of 'Flames of Creation' but it turns out it can eat whatever it deems necessary.

The identification was of Eltracom but the system was also identified a bit. It was a lot more flexible than what seemed to be the case first. The growth would bring changes and that will bring more growth. The vision had shown the true capabilities of creation, it was creating weapons and tools out of nothing and that was barely scratching the bottom.

Not only did I find out there are different worlds but I also think my system has a way for me to return home. I think the system will pave a path for me to reach the peak but I haven't started walking on it yet. Logically I won't be strong enough to go back home in a short time and the system is definitely my only hope before I lose everything that I call mine. I have to finish the preparations before I set out on the system's path.

He started contemplating the future in which he was the saviour of the world and he would get a grand goodbye when he was about to return. It was silly but a man could hope, right?

I'm sure I wasn't bought here on a random whim, there must be something that would need me, logically there was no need to bring me here if whatever the disaster coming here is going to be easy. They brought me from a different world to do them some favors. Yes, that makes sense. I will definitely be basking in glory as a great mechanical hero or something along those lines but for now, I should check what the report card said in detail.

He stopped his daydreaming for a while to find out what his report card said. The paper used for this report card was so much better than the pages of his diaries. The words were printed on them with black ink. His name and some of his personal details were there at the top and the bottom half had a few lines saying what was his soul ratio numbers and such things.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

She summarised everything, not just important parts. Now that it is confirmed I'm magical, I just have to select my electives tomorrow. I already had in mind what I wanted to choose but this just made it clearer.

Mathematics, History, ME, Spellcraft, Magic sigil studies and Geography. Now I'm all set for the next two years. After that, I'll drop out and will find my way to return home, only if I don't gain anything from Professor Zelkrat after a whole two years. Now I have to be quickly in the room before I experience burnout.

In a few minutes, he was lying on his bed in his room. He had counted when the burnout would come so he was anticipating it when his counting hit the exact fifteen-minute mark, the burnout should have started, he would have endured the pain but he felt nothing.

"Nothing happened! Maybe I'm just built differently."

Maybe it's because of transmigration or maybe it was a system, but it doesn't matter, I'll go read something at the library.

But unfortunately for Darrick, he was indeed not built different from others, it was just a miscalculation of time, and it had hit him on time, maybe not on time with Darrick's count.

Darrick's body did not have any sensations, he didn't even feel whatever strength he was applying to his body. Nothing but his mind was in his control, He tried getting up again but realized that his body was paralyzed.

"...."

Fuck! I can't even talk anymore. I just talked a few seconds ago and now I can't talk anymore. Is this the effect of burnout? She did not say it would be like this. I expected some kind of pain or burning sensation but fucking paralysing? Nope, I never wanna be paralyzed again.

While paralyzed he could not do anything for the time being, so he was left with his thoughts and those were at the start just some weird ideas like what if someone came in and started tickling him. Would he feel those tickles or not? And many more silly things.

Then the thoughts started becoming more and more dangerous like what if there was no way back home or he was on the verge of reaching his home but gets eaten alive by something on the doorstep. What if his family was already dead or thought he was dead because he had not come back for decades?

Then it became something else like what if his body was being eaten by the millions of ants now when he was paralyzed and couldn't fend for himself? Thoughts started spiraling out of control and his condition seemed to worsen somehow and he lost consciousness.

***

Darrick was now returning from Professor William's office after selecting his classes. He had his schedules in his hands. The schedule was perfect there was a lot of free time for him in the weeks compared to how many classes he chose and no classes overlapped with each other.

Except for spellcraft which had three classes per week all other five subjects had two classes. None of them were interrupting any other class of his so Darrick had no problem with the setup. The classes were going to start after two more days on Monday.

On Monday there was a small entrance ceremony. Professor William was in a hurry so he only mentioned the entrance ceremony in the passing it certainly did sound like the ceremony was important but there was nothing around the campus indicating that.

I don't know how they do it here but it should have been pretty big if they were welcoming the young geniuses from all over the world. Or maybe it works with minimal decorations. I can't say honestly.

As he stepped inside the central garden he encountered Leon, his next-door neighbor. Leon was the one who approached Darrick first and initiated the conversation.

"Yo Darrick, Fancy seeing you out of your room," Leon said sarcastically.

"Hey it's not like I was cooped up in my room, I was really busy with some small works here and there. It's actually me who was outside a lot and I did not see you."

"Now you are just twisting the truth buddy. You are trying to reverse it all on me now? So what were you doing actually?"

"Hehe, well I actually was busy but after that task, I got too tired to even stand up so I just went straight to sleep. Yesterday I was out of commission because of burnout from the magic test."

"I think you told me you are about to take that exam?" Leon's brows furrowed trying to remember. He was trying to remember if Darrick really mentioned it or not.

"Yes I did and I took it yesterday. The results were satisfactory. I had perfect ratio for the ME."

"68:32. That's awesome. Mine is 93:7. I got one of the best ratios for spellcraft but only spellcraft though."

"That's really something. I'm a bit jealous now that you said it." Darrick expressed his opinion in a joking manner.

"So where are we headed?" Leon asked as they were cutting through the central garden aimlessly.

"I don't know, I was following you."

"We are walking side by side. How are you supposed to follow me? I just wanted to roam around the campus for anything interesting."

"You will find a lot of interesting things here. The campus is enormous. The Library is over two kilometres from our dorms and we are not even close to the actual centre of the campus but if you want me to help you I can guide you around." Darrick answered with a smirk.

"Why are you smirking over something like that I can easily find whatever I want on the campus. I'll take you with me if you want to come look around the campus. There is no fun in going alone at all after all."

"Ya ya, I totally believe you. It must have been someone else who got lost in the 'central path'. I completely believe you." Darrick gave a thumbs up to Leon.

They both laughed at their stupid argument but before that could end they opened another topic to continue.

"I almost forgot to ask but is the entrance ceremony always this bland, for the lack of a better word." Darrick tried clearing his doubt when he saw someone who could answer it.

"Not really. Every year it was a lot grander than this, at least ten times at minimum. But this year there was some kind of celestial event after one month so they want to make the entrance ceremonies grand celebration and celestial event celebration on the same day."

"What about the classes till then? Are they going to be cancelled or does it not affect anything?"

"I'm not too sure about that but won't we know about it in the entrance ceremony? No need to worry about it now anyway, right?."

Darrick shrugged in response. With that, they continued their campus tour with some casual talk. Not knowing what awaited everyone one month later in this very place.