“This place should be good enough,” Alec muttered in a low voice. There didn’t seem to be anyone in this corner of the library that was encased with two walls from behind and two bookshelves from the front. One could only enter this small rectangular place through a gap between the two bookshelves, which Alec found pretty easily.

Bringing out the cup he had just found, he started writing with The Author’s Pen.

[Low Focus Potion]

He wrote. By now, his mana stat had improved quite a bit. He also had his entire pool stored, which made him confident in being able to create a “Low” potion instead of a “Very Low” one.

Quickly, his mana pool was drained down to one-third, making him feel dizzy at the sudden depletion of mana.

A turquoise-colored potion formed inside the cup. After sitting down, Alec brought the cup to his mouth and downed the potion in one go. It tasted disgustingly chemical as if he was downing concrete. Fortunately, he managed to drink the entire cup without his brain registering the taste.

‘Hmm... Does this count as me taking Ritalin or something?’ a thought popped up inside Alec’s mind. However, at his command, the thought immediately disappeared from his mind. ‘Huh. That was very quick!’

When he got up from his seating position, Alec felt clean. He had a single thing to do, and that was to go and study. His brain riffled through the library of memories in his head and showed him the path back to his previous seat.

Almost skipping in excitement, he backtracked his steps and sat down to study.

***

“Huff... Huff...” Alec did his best to catch his breath. He could feel blood slowly leaving his brain to rejoin his normal circulation. Every breath he took burned his nasal cavity, which in turn made his eyes swell with tears. If he had a mirror now, he could see capillaries dying his sclera red.

‘I shouldn’t have drunk it in one go!’ he thought to himself. Now that the effects of the potion were fading, he felt his mind getting sluggish, clouded even. ‘If the low version of the potion is this potent, what would the very high version do!?’

Momentarily resting his head on the book called Magic 101’s last page, Alec yawned. A small clock, embedded into the table showed the time to be 10 p.m., which made him frown. Hopefully, there wasn’t a curfew.

‘Fortunately, I’ve managed to finish reading and understanding both of these books,’ Alec thought. Both the Low Focus Potion and his now enhanced Mind stat seemed to work in tandem to help him in his learning.

‘Twenty mind stat sure is something. Although I can’t feel it very distinctly, there is no way I could’ve understood all these in less than a day,’ Alec thought before standing up. Just as he was about to leave, he noticed a small pedestal next to the table he was sitting at. When he walked up to it, he noticed a small, neatly written line of words.

[Please leave the books you have read here.]

Complying with the instructions, Alec squared the books by tapping them on the corner of the pedestal and placed them down. Shortly after, a transparent, barely visible magic circle appeared to lift the books four to five meters high. They then started gently flying in different directions. Although Alec hadn’t paid it any attention, there were also other books searching for their own places on the bookshelves.

“Huh... Neat,” Alec muttered. Then, he turned around and left the library.

The journey back to his dorm was pretty calm. The academy grounds were mostly empty, with a few students heading in the same direction as him.

When he opened the door to the room, he noticed the mana crystal lamps to be on. There were three students, one being Evan, sitting on the floor and seemingly playing a card game.

“Huh, is that fun?” Alec asked while walking up. As soon as his eyes fell on the cards with animated creatures, effects that jumped out of those cards, and self-moving pieces, Alec felt like he had found his calling. “That’s...”

“Yo! Huh? What happened to your eyes?” Evan asked. “Did you study too much again? Man, they should really do a study on you, you know. You would also do this to yourself before losing your memories. And you are still doing it!”

“I finished the first two books though,” Alec said with a smug smile on his face. Now that he was slowly adapting to the school, he felt a bit more relaxed around Evan.

“You did what!?” Evan said surprisedly. He then facepalmed and raised his hand toward a nearby desk, which promptly caused a copy of the book Magic 101 to fly to his hand. Quickly flipping the pages, he started firing one question after the other.

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“Discovery of Diag-”

“13th year of God Emperor.”

“Tsk. How to create a fractal-”

“Execute Deblic’s Formula on the rationalization stage.”

“The Tele-attractive force of iron?”

“It’s,” Alec was about to answer before he frowned. No matter how hard he tried to remember, he couldn’t think of an answer. “That’s... That wasn’t in any of those two books.”

“Fuck me...” Evan absent-mindedly said. Then suddenly, a cute little roar, similar to that of a baby kitten resounded in the room. One of the other student’s cards rose to the air and came crashing down on Evan’s cards, obliterating them and causing them to fall to the ground lifeless. “Noo!” Evan shouted. However, when the other occupants of the dormitory started knocking on the walls, he shut up.

“You didn’t actually lose your memories, right?” Evan asked. “You bastard, you are acting so you can make fun of us!”

Sighing at Evan, Alec walked up to the other two roommates of his.

“Hi! I’m Alec Greenwood. I’m currently suffering from amnesia and am hoping to get along well,” he said while reaching his hand out. The one to return his handshake was a young adult with green hair and green eyes, which made Alec immediately assume that he specialized in nature magic.

“It’s nice to meet you, Alec,” The green-haired guy said. His smile had an almost divine undertone to it. Although Alec was still getting used to the overall higher average of attractiveness in this world, he was still surprised when met with a face like this. “I’m Alexei. Alexei Lemke.”

Alec nodded and turned his head towards the other person. This person had black hair coupled with brown eyes, relatively unsurprising if not for his pristine clear face.

“I’m Thomas Hutchins... It’s nice to meet you... Again,” he said with a low voice. There was a gentle smile on his face, almost blinding Alec with its purity.

“We knew each other before?” Alec asked. He then thought briefly before continuing. “Of course we did. We are roommates.”

“We didn’t use to be actually,” Alexei noted. Alec’s ears perked up with curiosity. “You requested for a room swap with our previous roommate towards the end of the previous semester.”

“Huh? Why did I do that?” Alec asked. Thomas interrupted their conversation to explain.

“You muttered something about not wanting to be under scrutiny. Maybe your other roommates were a bit too... Restrictive?” he said. Alec nodded along, but couldn’t make much sense of the old Alec’s words.

‘Maybe he just got bored? Or did he have something to hide?’

Alec’s train of thought was cut in half by Alexei pulling him down to sit beside them.

“If we were to look for something positive in your loss of memory, it’s that you can appreciate the joys of learning Magikards, once again,” he said with an almost devilish smile on his face. Which made Alec have goosebumps. Looking at Evan for help, he noticed him to be deliberately ignoring him.

“I- Is that so?” Alec asked. In the end, he also wanted to give the game a try, as it seemed incredibly interesting.

“Yes! In fact, Magikards is the epitome of a mage’s fun. Especially if you are an apprentice mage!” Alexei explained. “You see, the Magikards is more than just a game, it’s a practice tool for all kinds of mages!”

“It is?” Alec asked while glancing over the cards strewn across the table. Compared to before, they were now lifeless. There were no signs of magical flashes or roars. They weren’t any different than normal, mundane cards.

“Yes, my friend!” Alexei said excitedly. He picked up a card from the bundle and showed it to Alec. It was called The Artillerist and was adorned with a drawing of a middle-aged, white-haired mage with red robes. However, the drawing was gray, and mono-chrome in its design, which made Alec confused. As Alec kept inspecting the card, Alexei’s hand flashed with a brief surge of mana. The card came to life as the drawing lit up with a plethora of colors. The red-robed mage was previously inside a non-descript darkness. Now, however, there were floating and actively rotating red magic circles behind him.

“That’s...” Alec muttered in awe. “That’s so cool!”

“It is, isn’t it?” Alexei asked with pride. When he let go of the card, it started floating in mid-air. Meanwhile, Alexei picked up another card and gave it to Alec. “Activate the card.”

“Ha?” Alec grumbled while taking the card. It was a ball of energy, simply called, Magic Missile. “How?”

“Inject mana into it,” Alexei said with a smirk on his face. Which made Alec ever so slightly frown. Closing his eyes, he tried to remember how it felt to use The Author’s Pen. He then scoured through the knowledge he had gotten from the book Magic 101. Inside his body, under his skin, he felt a tingling sensation. A feeling ever-present, but never noticed. When he did notice the feeling to be there, however, he felt it to be a familiar one. Similar to how it felt when blood rushed into a part of the body that had been starved of it.

Grasping that feeling, Alec nudged the flowing mana in his body to flow towards the card. It took him a good minute to do so. When, however, his mana finally reached the card by leaving his hand, he noticed that the mana tried to flow in a certain pattern.

At that point, Alec realized.

‘These cards help in shaping mana,’ Alec thought. If he wanted the card to activate, he had to energize it into life by distributing his mana in a certain pattern. It was a very, very simple pattern, but a hurdle for a first-day mage like him. At least, it should have been one. By sheer muscle memory, Alec’s mind perfectly nudged the mana into the shape necessary for the card.

In an instant, the drawing of the spell lit up, coloring the energy ball purple. The now blazing energy ball seemed ready to go at any moment, which made Alec smile with pride. However, after a few seconds of silence, the mana inside the card dissipated.

“Huh..?” Alec exclaimed dumbfoundedly. The other three of his roommates started chuckling, barely holding their laughter in fear of getting more complaints from their neighbors.

“You have to put intent into it, man,” Evan said while holding his belly. “The spell is used to attack, not to show off!”

His hand tightening into a fist, a murderous smile blossomed on Alec’s face.

“Is making fun of an amnesiac fun? Huh?” he asked. Slowly but surely, his roommates noticed his expression, which made them shut up one by one.

Grabbing and squeezing his left fist with his right palm, Alec’s hand made gentle popping sounds.

“So? Who wants to die first?”