"Ahh!" Rebecca Bailey screeched. Frothing from her mouth, her hands flailed around. By now, her neurons were probably being bombarded with all kinds of unknown sensations, causing her to shout in agony. Alec found it bitter that when random sensations were invoked in the brain, their mix averaged out to be insufferable pain.

As the woman kept shaking, her eyes started rolling back into their sockets. To be honest, the pain was enough to make a normal person faint at a moment's notice. It was akin to the spiciness of wasabi. You would expect it to end quickly, a "clean" pain. After all, how could something like this hurt for a long time? However, it lasted. And it lasted for quite long.

Alec didn't even think she could last halfway through the ritual. After all, if she had avoided taking the ritual all this time, her resistance couldn't be that high. At least that was his reasoning. As for how much of a truth there was to it, he would learn it pretty soon.

However, as time passed, all the people in the room realized a fact. Rebecca wasn't going down without a fight. In the end, a professor’s willpower was not underestimated. She had probably been through many things in her life, and this wasn't going to be one where she miserably failed.

After a few minutes of agonizing pain, Professor Rebecca finally lost consciousness and the ritual stopped. After all, she couldn't bear the pain the whole way through. Still, she had gotten 70% of the way through, which was better than Alec's expectations by a mile. The mana brain settled on her solar plexus and started gently rotating. It didn't take long, about a minute for Rebecca to wake up.

She breathed hard, profusely sweating from every pore. The memory of the pain seemed to linger, her face a frown... Alec and Ariel walked up to her side and crouched.

"How do you feel?" Alec asked.

"Not good."

"Can we do something to make it better?" Ariel said while looking at Alec.

"We can't. But she can," he nodded toward Rebecca's mana brain. "Pass the bad feelings to the mana brain."

"Isn't that cruel?" Professor Rebecca couldn't help but ask.

"No. A mana brain doesn't feel, it just processes. If you pass along the bad feelings, you will relax. There's no need to feel bad about it. I understand we humans have the tendency to attach importance to insentient beings, but don't beat yourself over it."

Alec had fallen into the same pitfall, but mana brains lacked what was called "intent", which confirmed their status as mere tools.

"I see..."

Taking a deep breath, Rebecca closed her eyes. She had to focus to properly utilize the mana brain. A short moment later, the frown on her face relaxed.

"Thank you."

"No problem. Your help will be of great importance where needed," Alec said. With what he had done, Professor Rebecca was technically under his orders. After all, Alec was the central figure of this "anti anti-memetic" team. Without him, all of these people would be completely helpless and mostly unaware.

"Mm," she nodded.

Alec and Ariel spent some time, about ten minutes talking before Ariel took her leave. Her staying in the library for too long was a bit dangerous.

The rest of the stay was spent with Alec teaching Professor Rebecca about the ways she could use the mana brain, such as an aide in spellcasting, a way to hide memories from herself, an ark in case she got mind-wiped, and an unconscious manipulator that could nudge her actions without alerting her.

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Although it would take some time for her to become proficient, she would manage.

Once done with that, they decided it was time to separate. Just as they were about to leave, Evan stopped Rebecca by grabbing her from the shoulder. Noticing this, Alec turned around and looked in confusion.

"What's going on?" he asked.

"Not much. I want to talk about something with her," Evan said. "You two can go ahead."

As per their agreement of unquestioning trust, Alec nodded and left with Iris in tow....

***

"7000..." Alec muttered under his breath. He was left gasping for air, crouched and one hand's palm resting on the ground. His hair stuck on his forehead from all the sweat, he took a deep breath and raised The Author's Pen once again.

[Quarterstaff]

Immediately, a particularly thick quarterstaff fully made out of iron hurtled out of the wall of the cave, settling in his hand. It was quite a sizeable weight. A normal person wouldn't have been able to swing it around quite like how Alec did.

Flourishing the quarterstaff, Alec dove forward and hit the dummy square on its head. With a clang, the iron quarterstaff bounced off. A number on the upper right of his vision went up by one, reaching 7001.

With one last bullrush, containing all the energy Alec had left, he managed to push his damage score up to 7050. He fell on his knees after the last attack. He had spent most of his mana and all of his stamina. He placed the iron quarterstaff into a little hole he had dug in a corner of the cave.

This was a tactic he had found in his previous attempts. He would place this quarterstaff for the times he didn't have much mana remaining. With the correct intent, he could summon the quarterstaff into his hands rather than actually create it out of nowhere, which would cause him to spend more mana. He could use gravity magic instead, but it would require more focus and mana than necessary.

Watching the timer on the edge of his vision, Alec realized that he had less than five seconds remaining on the clock, so he immediately shouted out loud.

"I concede!"

Suddenly, the timer in his vision lit up red and disappeared without ever reaching zero. This way, his score wouldn't be revealed. This was something he had thought on his own but had been discovered by the others too. For that reason, the uppermost parts of the list were filled with mildly successful students for now.

Once he was sure the quarterstaff wouldn't be discovered, Alec headed toward the exit.

'I managed to kill about 3000 monsters in the monster wave sequence before the time ran out. 7050 score in the damage calculator... Which makes up to about 2.1 million points. Multiply it by the 4x solo score amplification, 8.4 million. There's no way anyone has accumulated that much, right?' he thought. Then for a moment, he salivated about the amount of credits he would get when placed first. The first-place reward was 10% of the score so...

'Never mind. I should think about that later. I have to win first.'

Jumping the 5-meter height that was to the exit, Alec latched onto the hatch's edge and pulled himself up, landing without much trouble. He smiled and exchanged some pleasantries with the attendant and around to leave. However, before he could actually do so, he was approached by a familiar face.

"Douglas? What's up?" Alec asked.

"Not much man, not much. How is the exam prep' going?" The magic missile enthusiast asked. Since the time of Alec's excellence in the thesis defense, their relationship had become slightly weird. Alec didn't spend much time around Professor Andrew, as he was too well-accomplished to do so. Still, he was considered his assistant, so he was of the same rank as Douglas.

"Pretty nice, you know. Optimization and all that. What about yours?"

"Same. Anyway, Professor Andrew wanted to meet you at his place."

"At 'his place'? Are you talking about his special lab?" Alec couldn't help but question the wording.

"Nah. Not really. He wants you to go to his house."

"That's weird. Did he tell you what it was for?"

"Nope. He was all secretive and awkward about it. Honestly, I feel a bit betrayed."

"I- I see," Alec said awkwardly, not knowing how to answer. "I will head there then. Bye"

"See you."

Leaving the training grounds, Alec traversed the academy's complex layout. He walked through the forest separating the Professor's quarters from the middle section of the academy and started wandering around. He managed to find Professor Andrew's house only after searching for 15 minutes.

The place was pretty luxurious for the average person, however, "Professor in the Lation Magic Academy" was the least average title you could probably have.

The walls were painted a pearly white, and absurdly clean windows adorned the house. The place even had a second floor with a spacious balcony. Eyeballing it, Alec guessed the entire house to be about 350 meters squared, excluding the just as big – if not bigger – garden.

'Huh. This place is awkwardly modern. I wouldn’t be surprised to see it in the middle of a modern Earth city. Though, I wouldn't put it behind Professor Andrew. The man can be weird.'

Without further ado, he walked through the garden path and the wooden patio before knocking on the door.

The person to open the door was surprisingly not Professor Andrew, but Professor Howard.

"Come in, Alec."

"Uhh... Sure."

'What the fuck..?'