“What?”

“I said, I did the assignment,” Alec answered tiredly. He held about ten papers full of writings under his arm. If not for the ongoing stamina and mental regeneration potions, he would have toppled over and gone to sleep a long time ago.

“I’m sorry but I might be misunderstanding. You took the papers I gave you, and prepared more papers on them? Did you even understand what they were talking about?” Professor Andrew asked. To which Alec grumbled under his breath.

“Yes. It was a study to figure out more about a first circle gravity spell.”

“Huh…” Professor Andrew muttered under his breath. Thinking while looking at the ground for a second, he turned his head back up. “Who helped you?”

“Edward Spellson told me what the paper was about, but refused to help any further,” Alec answered honestly. In fact, it wasn’t that Edward didn’t help, but that he couldn’t help.

“Yes. He can’t. He is more focused on wind magic...” Professor said. He looked around the office speechless for a few seconds, then reached his hand toward Alec. “Let me read.”

“Hmm…” Alec hummed under his breath. He had a thoughtful expression on his face while looking at the hand Professor Andrew had reached out toward him. “I… Don’t know. I feel like you won’t keep your end of the deal even if I did. And you will probably steal what I’ve found.”

“You found something?” Professor Andrew asked, chuckling in the process. This was the first time Alec had seen this man show a positive emotion. ”Then why did you come here? Why didn’t you just share your findings with the academy authorities?” Professor Andrew asked, pulling his hand back and joining them together in front of his belly.

“Let’s negotiate,” Alec said. Throughout the night, he had deduced what he could from the system-prepared magic circle piece and watered down the contents to an acceptable degree. Although he was worried that his findings weren’t news to the experts, he still had to try his chances.

‘If I could go to the second level of the library, I wouldn’t have to worry about such a thing,’ he thought. ‘If I knew how much was actually known about the spell, I would be able to act according to that but…’

He could just go through the legitimate way of giving the papers to the authorities for a review, get them published, and receive a butt-load of rewards.

On the other hand, he would become a target. He still barely understood the power hierarchy of the world he was in. Most importantly, he needed the mana brain as soon as possible. He also wanted someone who he could use as a cover in his further endeavors.

He had asked around about Professor Andrew. The man was emotionally disconnected and very much profit-oriented. That was what Alec needed. Someone who would do whatever for money, and someone predictable.

“I won’t negotiate unless you show me the papers. I don’t even know what is written on there,” an answer quickly found its way to Alec’s ears.

“Let’s do it like this,” Alec answered. He lifted his hand and released a bit of intent alongside some mana. This caused a small magical circle fragment to appear floating above his hand.

The smirk on Professor Andrew’s face got ever so slightly smaller as he straightened up in his chair. However, before he could get a better look, Alec dismissed the circle, took out a single paper from his presentation, and threw it over.

“Here, this is the front payment,” Alec said. Professor Andrew took quite a bit of time to read through before he raised his gaze. He had the deepest frown Alec had ever seen so far. So much so that it made the Professor look about fifty years older than what he normally looked like.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

While waiting for Professor Andrew to finish reading, Alec sat down and crossed his legs with a small smile on his face.

“This is…” The Professor muttered. He switched his gaze between the paper and the stack under Alec’s arm. He closed his eyes and stood still for a few moments before opening them back. “You are lucky. And very reckless.”

“What reckless? Everyone knows the magic-prevention wards also work for the professors,” Alec said. Evan had a big mouth and liked talking. He had previously told Alec this fact amidst some other facts. “You wouldn’t dare steal. Especially on academy grounds.”

“That’s very insulting, Alec,” The Professor said while sliding the paper back to him. “I know that you have been asking around about me. Just because I am a greedy person, it doesn’t mean that I would hurt you.”

“But you would steal?” Alec asked. The funny thing was, he would probably beat The Professor in a no magic allowed duel if it came down to it. No class liked spending their points on status unrelated to their own. This Professor wouldn’t be any different as far as Alec knew.

“Ahem…” Professor Andrew coughed in response. “Let’s say I would… borrow. But that’s not our point, is it? I’m sure that you have already decided on your requests if you came here to negotiate.”

“I did,” Alec answered. Taking a deep breath, he started listing his requirements. “I require you to do two things as a down payment, and one thing after I give you the papers.”

“Tell me.”

“Firstly, I want you to inscribe the mana mind as soon as possible. I won’t hand over the papers if you don’t,” Alec explained.

“No problem. I will get it done. It should take me about half a day to buy all the ingredients,” The Professor answered. Once inscribed, a mana brain couldn’t be taken away unless that limb was cut off. This indicated that the Professor had been convinced by what Alec had shown so far.

“Good. Second is, I want you to take me in as your formal assistant,” Alec said. This time, The Professor took longer to decide. From what Alec had heard, Professor Andrew rarely, if ever, took in assistants. Because an assistant meant human interaction, which he didn’t really seem to like.

“That’s… Doable too,” he said. In the end, this request was both useful to Alec, who wanted someone who he could use as cover for himself, and to Professor Andrew. After all, if Alec could achieve such findings at this age, what would he achieve once he was more experienced? If he went on to become a legend, Professor Andrew would become a legend’s boss.

“Great. Then for the last one,” Alec said. “I want you to give me half of whatever rewards you are going to get from the papers.”

“No,” The Professor answered immediately. This was the first answer he gave Alec that was confident.

“Then forty percent,” Alec lowered the amount a little bit. These were obviously probe offers. From what he heard, this Professor didn’t actually care about the scientific aspects of anything. He wanted money, and that was it.

“Ten percent. No higher than that,” he retorted. Alec smiled in answer.

“Twenty percent.”

“Fifteen.”

“Sure,” Alec said as he reached his hand out. Professor Andrew sighed and pinched his glabella before getting up and accepting Alec’s handshake.

“You can leave now. I still have to gather the ingredients for the mana brain,” he said. Alec nodded.

“If you want to find me, I’ll be at the student council after classes,” Alec said. He had to keep his side of the deal with Edward, after all.

“Student council? You joined the student council?” Professor Andrew asked in confusion. It was usually not easy to get into the student council. “Huh… This deal might be more profitable than I first thought.”

“Whatever,” Alec answered tiredly. The potions he had going on were about to run off. If he wanted to stay awake until the end of the day, he would need to take another set.

Just as he was about to leave, he remembered something. He turned his head around and looked at Professor Andrew.

“By the way, who was I supposed to deliver this presentation to?” He asked.

“What presentation?” Professor reflected the question back to Alec.

“What..? These papers, didn’t you tell me to prepare a presentation?” Alec asked while taking a step back into the room.

“Did I? I was just trying to shoo you off. I don’t even remember what I asked,” the Professor answered as he kept searching for something under his table.

“But I… I even thought of a speech and all,” Alec muttered tiredly. He then sighed before turning around again and leaving the room.

Inside, only the rustling noises of papers being shuffled remained. The Professor only stopped after ten minutes. He had managed to create a list of the people he needed to contact for the ingredients.

On the table, in the right corner further away from him, was a framed photograph. Picking up the frame, a gentle smile appeared on Professor Andrew’s face.

“My beloved… Everything is going well. It seems like we are going to make some progress in gravity magic,” he said. His default monotone voice was nowhere to be found. Instead, it was filled with affection.

“It should be of great use in the war against the…” he muttered. However, he couldn’t finish the sentence no matter how hard he tried. “Against the…” He tried again. Shortly after, small sparkles of electricity appeared deep inside his pupils.

The next moment, he had already forgotten about the picture…