Author's Note: And it only took me around 40 chapters for Null to finally start training in transmutation circles from when they were introduced.
On a serious note, oh my god. How in the world do Chinese online novel writers write a chapter every day? I'm struggling with just this. Like seriously. How do they do it?
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Null logs in goes back to the hidden cave he found. He sits down to do some thinking.
'Now to think about what I should sell at the auctions. Paintings? That could work. My paintings do give great effects after all.' Null then shakes his head.
'No. Paintings do not go for that much the last I've checked. Maybe I should try alchemy. Yeah, I could try selling more of my exotic potions. That could work.' He then shakes his head. 'No. I'm in the mountains right now. I've looked around so far, but there is no suitable soil for me to grow the more exotic plants needed for the more unique potions. I really should find a way to raise my Gardening mastery.
Should I sell books? Maybe I could sell skill books. No, that's a terrible idea. There are very few librarians who stick around beyond level 25, and if a person named Null goes around selling all these amazing skill books, it wouldn't be too hard to put two and two together and trace it back to me.
Smithing?' Null then gets a look of realization. 'Yes! That's perfect! I'm currently in the region that's best known for generating minerals. I could sell the items I craft! Now that I think about it, I don't even have to smith. I still have the mana stones I received from that Alexander's depository and from the robots I defeated. I could sell them.'
Null contemplates whether or not he should sell his mana stones. He then shakes his head.
'No. I still need these mana stones for my new armor. However, this did make me remember that I have a book that teaches me how to generate mana stones. I could just sell the mana stones that I generate and not have to worry about building anything to sell.'
Null takes out the book that was given to him by Claris. He looks at the method to generate the mana stones. Not only will he need ingredients incredibly difficult to prepare, but he also needs to build a very complex transmutation circle array. Null knew from the get go this would be difficult, so he gets to work.
He copies and pastes all the circles on the ground. He then joins them together by copying and pasting the joinings in the book. Even with copying and pasting, it took him several hours to complete the diagram. It was huge, as it was around 70 meters in length.
'And to think that this is just the first step.' Null thinks intimidated.
Null then places his hands on one of the transmutation circles.
“Transmutation Circle Activation!” He yells out.
At first the circle looked as if it were glowing. However it soon shuts down.
'Huh?' Null thinks confused.
Insufficient level for the transmutation circle array. This array requires Intermediate level 2 in Transmutation Circle Activation.
Null frowns. 'Intermediate level 2? That's a bit daunting. It took me years in-game to reach intermediate. Well, now is a good a time as any to start my transmutation circle training. I was hoping to start it when I had finished my armor.'
Null goes inside his inventory and takes out the book titled, “Transmutation Circles for Dummies”.
Null reads the front page that says, “It would be best that you not read the book with people around. You would not want to be known by troublesome forces.”
'I agree with this.' Null thinks.
Null then turns the page. It reads, “If you're reading this book, congratulations! This means you now have the necessary skills in order to know about transmutation circles. Alright, so you're now a big shot who is now capable of making transmutation circles and want to know about them. What is a transmutation circle anyway?
Transmutation circles can do many amazing things, but at its core, transmutation circles are a remarkably simple concept. All transmutation circles do is move things. That's all. That lies behind all transmutation circles from its most complex to its most simple. All transmutation circles do is move different things.
Now we will move on to the basics. If you're reading this, your calligraphy skills should be high. The first step is to make a perfect circle using your Ink Hand technique. The outside circle is the base of the transmutation circle. It is what holds the mana that is used to fuel the rest of the transmutation circle. Make a perfect circle.”
'A perfect circle huh?' Null thinks.
He attempts to make a perfect circle and fails. He attempts again and fails. Again and again he tries, but Null finds it to be nearly impossible. He then finally succeeds in making a nearly perfect circle.
'This was just making the circle. How in the world will I practically make transmutation circles?' Null thinks daunted.
He then turns to the next page.
“Making a perfect circle is difficult right? How long would you have to take to get all your lines and curves right to just get your transmutation circle to work? Right?”
'No kidding.' Thinks Null.
“Well luckily, we have a solution to this. You do not have to get the figures inside completely right. When typically making a transmutation circle, people will first draw out the transmutation circle, then use the intermediate level Proofread skill to correct any errors. Since you are reading this book, you mostly likely have gotten intermediate in proofreading. At earlier levels, proofread only points out the mistakes you make, with more mistakes being found the higher the Proofread skill goes.
When Proofread reaches intermediate, you can use the skill to directly correct your mistakes to your preferred design. Be warned however that the more mistakes you make, the more mana you will need for the proofread, and the less mana you will have left to activate your transmutation circle. When first starting out, your transmutation circles will be simple, so you won't have to worry about that that much at first, but once your circles start getting more complex, the amount of mana being used for proofreading and activation will increase by a lot, so it's a good habit to make as few mistakes as you possibly can.”
Null then reads on. “Next thing we will talk about is protecting your transmutation circles. Although you can create transmutation circles because of your skill, Transmutation Circle Creation, other calligraphers are able to copy it without the need for the skill, Transmutation Circle Creation. All they would need is the skill, Copy-Paste. Since this is the case, people have protected their transmutation circles they created to keep from prying eyes. See this image?”
Null sees the fairly simple symbol.
“Always make a habit of placing this in the very center of your transmutation circle. It acts as a lock that spreads a film over your circle. This thin film protects your circle from being copied. It also keeps other calligraphers from changing and marking your circle. Keep in mind that this won't stop other people who have Transmutation Circle Creation as a skill from changing your circle. Now that we've got that out of the way, we will get to what you have been waiting for: Making your first transmutation circle.”
Null gets a little excited.
“As was said before, all transmutation circles do is manipulate things to go in different motions, depending on the transmutation circle used. The trick is finding out what you want to move, and what you don't want to move. See this circle below.”
There's a picture of a circle with basic shapes in it.
“This circle is simple. All it does is make whatever you drew it on move forward three inches."
Null takes a deep breath. He finds a rock around 0.5 meters across. He looks at the figure in the book and draws the circle. When he does transmutation circle activation on the circle, nothing happens. Null scratches his head. When he looks closely, he sees that a figure on the circle had a slightly different image. He then activates the circle again. Again, nothing happens.
When he looks closely, he finds that a shape had been placed in the wrong spot. Again, and again, he tests and corrects his mistakes. He could've done Copy-Paste to directly paste the circle on the rock, but that would've defeated the purpose of him learning about Transmutation Circles. Finally, after a long while of testing, when he does the skill transmutation circle activation, the outside of the circle starts to glow.
Null could feel his mana being drained. The glow starts on the outside circle and makes its way inward. When the whole circle glows, the rock moves about five centimeters forward. Null gets a rush of adrenaline in his chest. Whenever he finds something that he's interested in, he becomes completely obsessed with it.
There's no middle ground with Null. He's either obsessed or not interested at all. Null goes to another rock and places the same transmutation circle on it. This rock is smaller. When he does Transmutation Circle Activation on the new rock, he finds that less mana was consumed.
'Is mass what determines the amount of mana I spend? Lets try two experiments. One experiment will have two same sized rocks with one transmutation circle being larger, and the other experiment will have two of the same sized transmutation circles on two different sized rocks. Let's see which consumes more.'
When he does the experiment, he finds that the rock with more mass consumed slightly more mana than the larger transmutation circle. He also found that bigger transmutation circles take longer to activate.
'Looks I need to find the right size to work with. Too small, and I won't be able to do details. Too big, and I waste mana.'
He then tries changing the circle, experimenting to see how it works. He isolates the mechanism on the duration of the object's movement, as well as the direction in which it travels. After a couple of hours of running more tests, Null returns to his book and reads on.
“Sometimes when a transmutation circle activates, you do not want to do everything at once, lest you end up with a disaster. As you have probably already noticed, it takes time for mana to go through the ink of your transmutation circle. Here is a circle that moves in two directions. Create and activate this transmutation circle.”
Null does this. When the circle activates, the direction goes in the vector addition of the two directions. Null then read on.
“Your circle should have gone in both directions at once. There's a way to make one go before the other. It takes time for mana to go through your ink, and making a longer path will delay parts of the circle.”
Null looks at the diagram. One path leads straight to the shape that sets the circle in motion. The other path has a lot of ink taking up space leading to the second shape. Null followed the instructions and made the transmutation circle. It had first moved forward. The mana from the circle then stopped flowing to the forward diagram. It then moved to the left.
Seeing this, Null frowned. 'This delay takes up a lot of space. As I recall, I can now make my ink lines mana conductive or mana inhibiting. Maybe I can go between the two, calculating the properties based on how long the delay should be.'
When Null does the experiment, he finds that it works. He then remembers that he has the Free Paint skill, enabling him to change the color of his Ink Hand. He color codes his delays according to how long things have to reach. After experimenting for a long time, he turns the page. This page talks about isolating things you want to move, and things you don't want to move. It talks about finding different symbols to use.
Some symbols work for a lot of things, while some only work for specific things. Experimentation is needed to find out what goes where. Null finds this will be the longest thing he will spend time on. He turns the page. This one talks about nested circles, enabling the circle to become more complex. It enables each nested circle to do a single task so they all move in tandem towards a desired effect.
The next page talked about combining different transmutation circles together to form an array. Unlike nested circles, which work with circles of similar properties doing slightly different things to achieve an effect, an array combines completely different circles to create some desired effect. Some array combinations do not work, and it's up to experimentation to find what works with what.
A few more hours of reading, and Null makes it to the end of the teaching part.
It said, “So that's it! That's all you need to know when it comes to transmutation circles! You can now theoretically move or control anything!”
Null at first is excited, but then quickly comes to his senses. 'Yeah. This is just like saying in computer science that just because a person knows the different variable data types, inputs and outputs, loops, and conditional statements that you can now make any program ever. Although it is theoretically true, that's not really the case for anybody.'
He then gets exercises to do.
“Now it's time to test your knowledge. Using only transmutation circles, make a rock move through this maze design.”
Null finds a random large rock. He makes ink lines to serve as the maze. The trail the rock makes through the ground will determine if Null is successful or not. The first attempt, Null failed miserably. The second attempt, he did a little better, but it still veered off course. Over time, he finally got the result he was looking for, barely passing.
The next assignment was doing the same thing he did, but with a more complex maze. He eventually succeeded and moved on. The next few assignments afterwards were guiding rocks through mazes that got more increasingly narrow and complex. It even went into three dimensional maze navigation.
Null reads on. “Navigating objects through mazes isn't the only thing transmutation circles are good for. Now we will directly focus on manipulating objects themselves. Take out a piece of paper. Next, fold the piece of paper in two directly in the middle using only transmutation circles. The fold should be a straight line.”
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
'This one will be challenging.' Null thinks.
He messes up many times before he succeeds. The next assignments were similar, only making more complex origami designs. It got to a point where Null had to log off to find out how to make some designs in real life.
'Well, if I ever wanted to make friends. I could say it's magic and do tricks with origami.' Null thinks.
The next assignments had him only moving a certain thing when pasting the same transmutation circle to multiple objects. This also got increasingly complex. The amount of assignments Null had to do were seemingly without end. The projects he had to do became more and more difficult.
Once he got to Beginner level 1 20% mastery in transmutation circle activation and transmutation circle creation, the mystery book starts to glow. Null takes it out. It was then he noticed that the transmutation circle had changed.
'This isn't the same transmutation circle I had before on here is it?' Null thought. He does transmutation circle activation on it. An arrow shows up on it.
'Is this the path to Gnosia or something else?' Null ponders.
David gets out of the cave he's in. He wonders a long time before he makes it to another cave. David activates his Light Orb technique to see and proceeds further inward. He walks until he sees an empty area. There's nothing in here.
Null does Transmutation Circle Activation on the mystery book. It leads to the wall. However, there's nothing on the wall.
'Why did the book bring me here?' Null wonders.
It's then he noticed than there's a flake of dry ink on the wall. He gets a hunch.
'Why would this be here I wonder.'
Null places his hand on the empty section of wall.
“Book Repair!”
Book repair works as long as there is information written down with ink. A design slowly forms on the wall. When it's finished being repaired, Null sees that it's a transmutation circle far more advanced than he is able to create from scratch. As this transmutation circle didn't have any mana flowing through it, there was no film preventing Null from copying this circle. Null is excited, as he's never seen this transmutation circle before.
The transmutation circle is huge on the wall. Null does transmutation circle minimization, shrinking it down. He then does Copy-Paste, pasting the circle into the book. He then erases circle on the wall, then goes outside.
'It's a shame there isn't a Cut-Paste skill.' Null thinks.
He goes back into his cave. When he make sure he wasn't being followed by anyone, he closes the entrance. He takes out the mystery book and copies the new transmutation circle on the ground.
“Transmutation Circle Activation!”
Insufficient level. This transmutation circle needs Beginner level 5 in Transmutation Circle Activation in order to work.
'If I need beginner level 5 in order to activate this circle, then WHY THE FUCK DID THE BOOK MAKE ME FIND IT SO EARLY!?' Null thinks infuriated.
'Ptah is trolling me again. Let me get back to smithing. Before I begin, let me make a transmutation circle to get Miniature Smithing. I didn't think about it before, but my armor will be impossible without miniature smithing. I do not have the Tinkerer class enabling me to create the armor by system assist.' Null thinks.
He starts experimenting. Null is trying to make a transmutation circle that makes the iron ores more pure. He knows the isolating component of a transmutation circle, but he has to find out how to keep the things he wants and get rid of the things he doesn't want.
At first the circle started to repel different things. The circles Null created kept repelling rocks and random minerals. It took a long time for Null to find a specific transmutation circle that would keep the iron and repel everything else. Unfortunately, it also repelled some iron and attracted some unwanted minerals. Fortunately, the benefits outweighed the costs and had a net effect of 0.7% improvement in the quality of iron ores.
Null needed a lot of transmutation circles just to even get this effect. He uses the nested circles to try to combine these effects, but a lot of effects were lost trying to do this. Null then finishes. It's incomplete, but this is the best Null can do with his current skill level.
He travels to Narbuldor to see the blacksmith that promised to show the Miniature Smithing ability. Null shows the effect of the circle. The blacksmith looks on with wide eyes.
“Where did you get this transmutation circle?” The blacksmith asks.
“I found it.” Null says, lying.
“Hahahahaha! Good! Good! I might not be compatible, but I'm sure one of my apprentices is!” The blacksmith yells out with a smile. “It's not bad. As promised, I'll show you Miniature Smithing.”
The blacksmith then shows Null to his workshop. He lights up his furnace and starts to smith. Null watches and jots down notes. After a long while, Null thanks the blacksmith and leaves. He heads back to the cave and uses the skill Instant Forge. Null goes through the motions trying to get things right. After a long time, Null makes a successful skill book.
You have acquired the skill book, Miniature Smithing. Would you like to learn the skill?
“Yes.”
The book disappears and glows.
You have learned the skill, Miniature Smithing.
Miniature SmithingSkill typePassive/ActiveSkill ProficiencyBeginner level 1Enables a user to smith the small. The higher the level, the smaller a user is able to smith.
Null then gets started on smithing. He ends up creating a lot of different weaponry. After he's done, he places his weapons on his transmutation circle that increases the quality of iron by a small percentage. He then deposits his items in his storage system located in his pod. Null then logs off.
********
Null goes online on his personal computer as soon as he gets out his pod. Unlike computers in the past, personal computers have AI built inside that vastly surpass human intellect from long ago. AI had an explosion in growth with the introduction of quantum computing in the 2020's. Quantum computing is only good for solving certain problems, and AI happened to be one of them. The brain is good and running multiple things in parallel, and that's what quantum computing specializes in.
David's computer works in conjunction with his AR glasses, vastly improving his range and functionality.
David's computer speaks to him and says, “Hello David. Will you like to resume Big Boo-”
“Open main New Reality auction site.”
“Right away. What would you like to do with Big Boo-”
“Open main New Reality auction site!”
“As you command.”
David opens up the auction site.
“Would you like to register David?” The computer asks.
“Yes. Do not give out any information that could be pertained to me.”
“Alrighty.”
This takes a split second for the computer to do.
“Well, David. You said you do not want any information identifying you, but it says you either use the username that is assigned to your pod or you remain anonymous. What would you like to do?”
“Leave my name.”
“Okay David. You are now registered for the New Reality auction site. What would you like to do?”
“Unload all of the things I deposited to the pod and send them to be auctioned. How they will be auctioned I will leave to you.”
“Very well.”
A split second and the computer is done.
“Alright. I'm all done. The process of the auction is complete. Once your items start to sell, I will notify you. Would you now like to resume Big Boo-”
“*sigh* Yes! God!”
Afterwards, Null goes to sleep.
When he wakes up, he goes to the auction site. David finds that none of his items were selling. He is a terrible businessman.
'I knew it would be bad, but I didn't think that none of my items would sell. What should I do?'
David paces back and forth. He then gets an idea.
'Wait a minute. I don't have the Tinkerer class to help me build my armor. In order to learn about these things, I have to learn engineering! Not only will that help me sell items, but it will also help me in how to create my armor!'
Since, he's chosen to stay a librarian, he has no choice but to learn how to build armor on his own. He knows a lot about physics, but doesn't know anything about engineering. There are tons of free engineering videos online to help David go over the basics. David goes over this information while walking to class.
'Let's see. To engineer, first is to identify what you are trying to do. Bring water to your village? Trying to design a new method to transport supplies? Trying to cleanse a populated region with holy hell what the fuck fire? Trying to turn that aforementioned region into a snazzy new parking lot? Engineering will help you in that regard.
Okay, so first, identify the problem. Second, the cost of materials. If you have to spend a ton of money just to make a slight improvement, it's not worth it. Third, the laws of physics. If it's physically impossible, give up. Okay? okay.'
David wasn't paying attention to his surroundings. He accidentally bumps into someone. The other person falls down on their butt. David quickly takes off his glasses and says, “Oh. Excuse m-”
“EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!”
She ran away from David while flailing her arms.
'Huh? What was that?' David thinks surprised.
“Did you see that? He just bullied her!”
“What kind of monster bullies such a sweet girl?”
David gets annoyed. 'But I didn't do anything.'
David looks down and sees she left her bag. 'I better give this back to her or people would call me a monster for leaving her stuff or something like that.'
“Now look! He's stealing her things!”
“The nerve!”
'Ugh.' David thinks.
Sarah is currently running away flailing her arms while thinking, 'He was trying to kill me because I bumped into him he has heat sensors probably there's nowhere to hide and I will be the first to die when he takes over the world and its all over for me!'
“Excuse me.” A voice calls out to her.
She turns her head and sees David standing there.
“EEEEEEEEP!” She runs away while once again flailing her arms.
'Oh my god how did he get here so fast? Only one explanation: Rocket boosters! I'M doomed!' “EEEEEEEP!”
She runs until she finds an abandoned building. She decides to hide there until David goes away.
'He'll never think to look for me here.' She thinks.
She then starts to hear chains rattling. Her heart jumps. She gets up and tip toes around from there. She then sees a shadow out the corner of her eye. When she turns her head to look for shadow, it disappears.
She steps on some glass. Some steps could be heard behind her. She starts to sob quietly. There's a cracked mirror. She sees there's a person in the mirror that's behind her. She panics and turns around quickly. There's no one behind her. She turns back around and sees that there's nothing in the mirror.
More rattling are heard. Her heart starts beating faster. Tears start streaming down. She shivers even more.
“Finally found you.” A voice echoes seemingly coming from everywhere.
Due to the dim lighting, the light shines on David's face, making him look ominous. Due to the hood on his head, David looks like the grim reaper. David points to her, then points to the bag in his hand.
'Maybe if I point to her bag she won't run away again.' David thinks.
This action makes her shiver even more.
'That's must be where he keeps the souls!' She thinks, completely forgetting that that bag looks like her bag.
“You dropped this.”
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”
The girl promptly passes out.
'Wow.' David thinks scratching his head in confusion.
'Seriously. What the hell?'
He then gets a good look at her. 'She's really cute. Not in a pretty kind of way, but in a puppies and kittens kind of way. I've never met a more adorable person. Her personality is pretty interesting too. She looks so innocent, and doesn't look like the type of person who would like to do me harm.
Best of all, she's not pretty to the point of intimidation like someone like Cecile or Luciana. Wait. That's beside the point. Why would I care about those things? *sigh* Another troublesome person has appeared. I would carry her to the nurse's office, but fuck that shit. People will be assuming I'm going to do this or that I did that. I don't need all that. I'm just going to leave this bag here. Peace out!'
David places her bag next to her and leaves. She wakes up later on rubbing her head.
“Where, am I?”
She looks around confused.
“Don't tell me. Did David kill me!?” She says shivering in fear.
She then looks down at the bag near her. She smiles.
“Hey! That's my bag! I was looking for this! Yaay!”
She then smiles an innocent smile and goes to her class, completely forgetting the reason why she had lost her bag or had run away in the first place.
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Author's Note: That girl ain't right.