Alec kept fading in and out of consciousness as he lay down on his bed. He saw images of his past, strange writings on the walls, a sharp pain in his arm, and people talking next to him. Still, strangely, all of these were comforting to him. He felt like he hadn’t rested well in a long while. The murmurs a lullaby, his sweat a cool blanket, Alec woke up hours later screaming.

“Wake up!” He shouted as he jumped in his bed and sat straight. He was in his dorm room. All his roommates were doing their own thing. Or at least they used to, as their gazes had all shifted toward Alec.

“Bad dream?” Evan asked. Alec noticed his breathing to be rough. His heart kept beating as if it was trying to jump out of his chest. He tried remembering what he saw in his dream, but couldn’t do so no matter how hard he tried. Shifting his gaze, he looked at the clock hung slightly above the room’s entrance. It showed 10 p.m. He had either slept a long afternoon nap or had been in a few days-long coma. He would much rather have the first choice, as he still had a mana brain to get engraved.

“Yeah… I think,” Alec muttered as he grasped his chest. He had changed into his pajamas at one point. He didn’t know how it happened or who did it, but still appreciated it nonetheless.

Then, his heart skipped an anxious beat. What had happened to his potion stocks? His friends wouldn’t have seen them, right? Still, he calmed down quickly after remembering that he had already gone through his entire stock, leaving him with nothing but a mana potion. And that didn’t mean much.

Turning by placing both his hands on the bed, Alec let his feet land on the ground. Whatever uncomfortable symptom he had, possibly from the potion overdose he had gone through, was gone. The fog in his brain, the tiredness in his body, all was replaced with vigor.

And hunger. He needed to eat.

“How do you feel?” Evan asked as he walked up to Alec and went down on his knee. He looked into Alec’s eyes and noticed the red, pulsating veins in his sclera to be gone. His pale face had also regained its luster. “Huh… That’s strange.”

“What’s strange?” Alec asked with a frown on his face. It was obvious Evan was trying to diagnose him.

“Everything… Is gone. You seem perfectly healthy,” Evan muttered. He reached out and forced Alec’s eyelids open with his hand.

“Where did you even learn all of this?” Alec asked. From the fact that Evan was a CQC mage, Alec had presumed him to be more brawn than brains. But surprisingly, Evan was one of the most knowledgeable magelings around.

“CQC mages need to have quick thinking and a lot of knowledge,” Evan said as he kept searching for signs of discomfort on Alec’s face, but couldn’t do so no matter how hard he tried. “A long-range artillery mage can take out a book to search for information. I can’t. I’m always face-to-face with the enemy. I have to memorize many things.”

“That makes sense…” Alec muttered. Evan’s explanation was perfect and made him question the trope of braindead close combat mages from the web novels in his previous life. Although his knowledge of web novels sometimes came in handy, so far, they had more than occasionally made him have wrong assumptions or stereotypes about other people.

The hard part was the fact that he got mixed results from his approach to this new world. If he was wrong all the time, he would forget about web novel tropes altogether and would start treating this new world like his previous one. However, like the time he had to duel with Iris, it still came in handy from time to time.

Sighing, Alec watched Evan get up and go back to his seat in defeat.

“So? Am I okay?” he asked.

“More than okay, you seem almost perfect,” Evan answered. “It’s as if you are a full-on warrior student who has a high health stat.”

“Huh…” Alec exclaimed. He shifted in his place uncomfortably. ‘That’s somewhat true,’ he thought to himself. His bodily health was beyond what a mage could achieve with simple training. Not to mention, the health stat was the hardest stat to improve naturally. It was more of an intrinsic quality, and could only be trained to a trivial level by repeatedly wounding oneself.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

‘Wait...?’ Alec noticed something strange in his thought pattern. ‘So, why was my health stat that high when I first arrived in this world?’

Alec squeezed his eyes shut to remember the exact amount of health stat he had back then.

’22… That’s not a natural amount at all,’ he thought to himself. Then he sighed and rubbed his forehead with the palm of his hand. ‘I wish I had a more concrete way of learning more about the actions of the past Alec. Unfortunately, he seems to have been acting really secretive, both after and before the sudden change in his personality in the middle of the previous school year.’

“Oh, by the way,” Alec changed his line of thought. He had more imminent problems to deal with. “Has anyone come to look for me while I was asleep?”

“No,” Alexei answered. He pushed aside the textbook in front of him and turned his head. “We were waiting as you have said. No one has come yet.”

Before going to sleep, Alec had strictly explained the situation about Professor Andrew. At least as much as his friends needed to know. Learning that he would get a mana brain engraved, they agreed to wake him up in case The Professor sent someone over to call Alec.

Just as Alec was about to nod in confirmation, a knock was heard on the room’s door. Thomas got up from his seat and opened the door.

Outside was a relatively familiar face.

“Hi. I’m Douglas Burton,” the student said. Douglas was the student who had been one of the upper-classmen who was challenged during the opening ceremony duels. He had fought against Phoenix Chambers and had won by a hair’s breadth. He had also had a small chat with Alec in the waiting lobby, which made him leave a lasting impression on him. “I’m Professor Andrew’s assistant. I was sent here to take Alec Greenwood with me.”

As Thomas stepped aside, Alec got up and greeted Douglas.

“Hi Douglas, give me time to change, I’ll be out quickly,” Alec said. Although he wanted a shower because of all the sweat, it was better to get done with the mana brain first.

“Oh, it’s you! Great duel out there,” Douglas said. He then waved without waiting for Alec to answer and closed the door.

After changing, Alec bid his friends farewell and walked to the door. However, before he could leave, he was stopped by Evan.

“Now that you are better, we are awaiting an explanation once you get back,” he said. Alec nodded. Although he didn’t know what he would say, he would figure it out when the time came.

Douglas was waiting for him, leaning against a wall with his arms crossed and eyes closed. When he heard the room’s door close, he opened his eyes and walked up to Alec.

“I didn’t know Professor Andrew took in assistants,” Alec said. Douglas gestured for Alec to follow him and turned around. He answered only after walking for a short ten seconds.

“We were too similar in personality, some stuff happened, and he took me in. Surprising? Indeed. But not unreasonable,” Douglas answered confidently. Alec thought as his gaze passed over Douglas for a second.

“What do you mean ‘similar’?” he asked. Douglas turned to look at him with his brow raised. Alec went on to explain his question further. “By similar, do you mean… Thrifty?”

“Haha!” Douglas laughed loudly, making Alec uncomfortably look around. It was already late, and plenty of people had gone to sleep. “You are one funny fellow. No. We are both obsessed.”

“Oh. That makes sense,” Alec answered. He had previously watched a little bit of Douglas’ duel with Phoenix. The guy was obsessed with magic missiles, learning tens of different variations of the same spell. Not only that, but he had a very good grasp on what to use and when. He could probably fight every type of mage and never run out of options regarding magic missiles.

Need to penetrate an earthen wall? Needle variant missiles!

Need to block a fireball? Blast variant missiles!

“The thing I’m curious about is,” Douglas suddenly said. Alec turned his head to look at him as they started descending the stairs. “How did you manage to convince The Professor to take you in? I have heard that he has officially applied for you to become his assistant. I was pretty sure I would be spending the rest of my school years as a loner.”

“That’s…” Alec tried thinking of a cover-up story. Then he realized that he didn’t really need to answer. “I would rather not talk about it.”

“That’s okay, I understand,” Douglas answered as he threw a glance at Alec’s direction. The rest of their journey went by quickly and without any chit-chat. They walked through a small path through the forest and arrived at a group of buildings Alec hadn’t visited before.

“You might be surprised,” Douglas said. “These are the buildings where the teaching personnel live. Normally, a student wouldn’t need to come here. You are a bit of a special case, I guess.“

They walked for another minute and a half before they stopped at a grandiose building.

“This is one of the buildings that house the Professors' special labs. I won’t be coming with you further, as I have some stuff to do. You can ask the receptionist where Professor Andrew’s lab is. They’ll show you the way,” Douglas explained before turning around and leaving.

Looking at Douglas’ back slowly getting further and further, Alec turned his head and studied the building closely. It felt somewhat threatening as if it was emanating an invisible aura.

Taking a deep breath, Alec stepped in.

‘Let’s see…’