Character Information - Who is who?

Because I have created quite a variety of characters, I will now create little cheat sheets before a chapter for the characters who will appear in the chapter, but not for those who haven't. Please open the spoiler if you need some reminders. (Be careful, it can be a spoiler for the chapter!)

Marisia S. Leonandra (Wolf-kin)

* Lady of the Leonandra household

* A user of the wild-demon energy

* Mother of the MC

* Golden eyes

* Crimson red fur and hair color

Green (III) from the Forest of Fallen Wishes (Fairy)

* Messenger of the temple

* Head of a temple branch in the east of Moorgrel

* Teaches the MC magic

* Specialized in healing, herbalism, agriculture, and administration

* Light-green eyes

* Greenish hair

* Autumn-colored wings

Alexander K. Leonandra (Wolf-kin)

* Transmigrated from the Earth and the MC

* The fourth child of the current Leonandra household

* Golden eyes

* Snow-white fur and hair color

It was silent for the last minutes as the lady sat in her chair, holding her head in her hands while prompting herself up at the desk. The situation, described to her by the little fairy before her, was so ridiculous that she couldn't believe it.

Without looking up, she asked again for the twentieth time, "Are you sure this is true?"

Green tried to be as sensitive as possible since the lady looked like she didn't sleep for the last few days. Going by the demonic energy Lorient was letting out, it was a very realistic guess to assume that her daughter was being overly dramatic. There was also the notion of not pissing off an irritated knight who could snap her neck she wanted to avoid.

She smiled at her softly, "Yes, my lady."

Marisia leaned back in her chair and looked at Green intensely, "Who knows about this?"

Green sighed and repeated who knew this and who didn't. This was going on for the last two hours, and she was getting tired but wouldn't say it. It was severe that Alexander tried something so devastating, and if he had someone else as a magic teacher, it would be possible for him to get ratted out.

Marisia had the same thoughts, "I understand. What is your opinion as his teacher?"

In Green's mind, he didn't develop any common sense or know enough about the history of the empire and all the events that transpired. In combination with his talent, this was a time bomb that waited to go off at any moment.

So she told her, "I think... he needs to be restricted but in a manner where he could grow. This potential shouldn't be... no, restricting it would be against nature."

Marisia understood Green's ambitions and wouldn't be against them as they were very much in line with Alexander's growth and future. However, she was tired and needed a break.

First, Lorient attacked every guard on sight, so she needed someone who could restrict her without hurting her too much, and this could only she, Cross, and two other soldiers do.

Today Marisia also decided to put her under strict supervision and close her off inside one of the unused rooms as her aggressions became too much of a problem. The next issue was that she always released all her energy at once and destroyed every room for the last couple of days. Thus she was put into a side wing close to her old office.

Second, Alexander. He was, like Green said, a bomb about to go off, so she was very interested in how she could restrict him till he developed enough common sense and was taught enough history to better grasp certain situations.

So, why not reroute his talent while not hindering his potential? Marisia would be fine if he could grow like the world tree from Legends. In all actuality, she would truly appreciate it to not worry about her son.

She already feared daily that some idiot would give him a mana stone, and he would somehow create a bomb with it. But now came the next problem: He could develop something more devastating out of something much more mundane like insects. She needed a solution. Fast.

"What is the restriction we are talking about?"

Green smiled at her tiredly and tried to be as sensitive as possible, "An anti-mana collar."

Marisia raised an eyebrow, "Pardon?"

"Ok, wait. This sounded bad! What I mean is that there are training methods to increase one's abilities in handling mana, and one of those methods is to put on a low-level anti-mana collar while trying to use the skills through them."

Marisia sighed. She forgot all etiquette and rubbed the place between her eyebrows, "So, it is like wearable weight for warriors, right?"

Green was elated, "Right! Many mages do this if they are bad at certain mana skills."

Marisia looked at her like she was an idiot, "Fine, but what kind of anti-mana collar do we need to put on Alexander? Don't forget that you told me that he practically did something that only one with exquisite mana skills could do."

Green scratched her head in embarrassment, "I totally forgot it... but I guess something akin to what one put one war mages?"

Marisia laughed out loud as the ridiculousness of the situation and her tiredness overwhelmed her last sense of conduct, "Hahaha! Are you crazy? We have one such collar, but do you understand what it means if this doesn't work?"

Anti-mana collars worked by interfering with the internal mana when it became active. The stronger the mage was, the stronger the interference needed to be to have any reasonable effect. Usually, it was more than enough to put a low to intermediate-level anti-mana collar on someone. Yet, it wasn't the mana skills that were the reason for needing more potent collars, but rather the resistances from the mages that would deflect weak interferences.

However, if one really hated the mage, they put on a stronger collar on them, disrupting them while they were not using any mana skills. They would become disoriented and would not even know what is up or down anymore at all times.

Green frowned and needed to reassure her, "I understand your worries, my lady, but Alexander was almost on the cusp of unleashing a disaster. With this, he can keep growing while not restricting his potential."

Marisia waved her hand at her dismissively, "Fine, let's say that he agreed to it, which he probably would do if we just said that he could become better. How long will he need to overcome the first one?"

Green looked baffled as she didn't think about it. The lady was correct. If he started with a low-level collar, he would probably need no more than a month to use his mana skills like before, but here came the problem. The interference of anti-mana collars was not linear but exponential. If the lowest interference was on a scale, it would be somewhere between 1 to 10. The intermediate one would start at ~60 - 75 and go much farther, depending on the quality. There was nothing in-between.

Green looked at the lady and asked, "So... how strong is yours, my lady?"

Marisia frowned, "We are a knightage who was in many wars and killed many mages. What do you think? We have only a very weak one for the children of mages or crippled ones, but this one would hold Alexander for a week at most. I also never heard of the possibility of breaking the interference for training's sake. I thought that other skills mended the effect of the collar?"

Green shook her head, "Not break. It is like wearing two pairs of mittens while doing fine crafting like goldsmithing. Eventually, the metaphorical mittens will become thinner until his skills are like before. But don't worry, my lady, just use the very weak one while I procure a stronger one. Hopefully, it will buy us enough time to educate him on all the important things... maybe we should tell Ana this?"

Marisia screamed, "Guard!"

A guard from the outside came in, and she commanded him to get the collar. When he left, she looked at Green with a frown, "No, you don't know her, but there is a reason why she is teaching the crown's close retainers and subordinates with her ridiculous talent. Having her known this would be disastrous."

Green raised an eyebrow, "Why?"

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Marisia shook her head, "It is a secret, and thus, we will let her do her normal lessons while you try to teach him some history about disasters made by mages and scholars. Maybe some law? There should also be enough material for ethics lessons."

Green looked at her baffled and answered, already forgetting the little conduct they held to since the beginning, "But I...!"

Marisia held her hand up to stop her, "We will obviously pay you much more while also helping you increase your standing in the circle. I heard that the Twin-Acorn branch is gaining more power and allies through my husband, who babysits your colleague's children while overexaggerating their merits."

Green looked surprised and became nervous, "Excuse me?! I didn't falsify their merits!"

She knew she would be dragged before a tribunal if that came out. At the same time, the Leonandra household would at most get a clap on their hands since the lord was a highly prestigious druid because he killed wild demons, the hateful enemies of the nature-dwellers, daily and defended the border from their invasion. More merits could only be achieved if someone somehow reclaimed their old territory from the draugr in the far north.

Also, her new allies would become furious if all the merits were annulled, which would disgrace their households. Political isolation would be the least of her problems.

Marisia waved her hand lazily in dismissal, "Calm down. I am not blackmailing you. I said it only for you to know that you can increase your standing much more with our help, and the only thing you need to do is to help Alexander, who, as you can see, will help you even more in the future..."

Marisia opened her arms and smiled at her, "Why should I or our house throw such a great and trustworthy ally like you away? Let's thrive together. How about it?"

Green's frown changed to a wide smile. She banged on the table, "Great! I knew that you would be reasonable!"

Before Marisia could say more, a knock was heard. It was the guard with a little surprise, "My lady! I bring the collar, and Mr. Alexander is also here!"

Marisia sighed, "You may enter!"

...

20 minutes later

"So, you want to train me while I wear the collar? After what Green told you about my mana insects? I am not buying the training aspect."

Alexander sat in front of his mother while Green was on the side, drinking tea, eating some vegan cookies specially made for her, and listening to how the lady tried to omit some things to Alexander while coaxing him into this unorthodox training they agreed to.

Marisia looked at Alexander more intensely, "You are not allowed to say the words mana insects from this point onward. However, you are right. We don't want to harm your potential while training you long enough until your common sense reaches a point where the crown doesn't want to eradicate our family because you had the idea to create something insane."

Alexander thought about it and found it understandable. There was no reason to lie to him. If his mother wanted him to stop everything research related, she would just do it by force.

There were also some thoughts invading him that told him that he would need to change his approach as this world was vastly different from Earth. Mana in itself made everything more complicated, and he was a walking time bomb with ideas that could go very quickly sideways.

The insect idea, for example, was one that he held onto because he thought about breeding them in mass to use them as food. Of course, he would first research how mana-infused food affected the body. However, if it worked and he could introduce a nutritional food source, it would've eased one of the world's problems: Hunger.

Insect farms were cheap and needed little resources. Alexander also hoped that mana would contribute somehow to better food. On the other hand, he needed to stop now since it could go sideways quickly if his project caused famines that could ravish the territory.

He shrugged, "Ok, my bad in creating an apocalyptic resource, but... ok, fine, let me first try the collar. If I can increase my abilities with it, I can pause my research on other things for a couple of years."

Marisia raised an eyebrow, "Other things?"

Alexander nodded happily, "Oh yeah! I didn't start it at all, but I have written down all my ideas I wanted to test out after making the paper I promised."

Green included herself in the chat, sweating heavily, "What exactly?"

Alexander looked at her and happily told her, "For example, I know we have problems with monsters and that father is always away, but I know how to make a powder that explodes! With this, we can equip normal soldiers who can go out independently and do it themselves, hehe."

It was silent for a whole minute. The puppy appeared to Green like an insane madman. She knew that the crown had already invented and strictly regulated something like this. It was also used strictly only for larger wars.

Marisia asked him with a smile, "Did you have this written down somewhere?"

He nodded, "Yeah, in my office. Why?"

The lady looked at Green, who nodded back and flew quickly away.

Alexander understood but was confused, "Why? Is it illegal too?! But with this, we could exterminate monsters and demons much more quickly!"

Marisia broke out in hysterical laughter, "Hahaha! So? What would happen if our enemies got their hands on something like this? A full-out war would begin, and we, a knightage, can't hold onto such information. Alexander, we can defend against some spies, but everyone more professional could sneak into your office and steal everything. By the circle..."

His mother slid the collar to him, "Put this on. We will look at your other ideas later and see if you want to destroy our empire. Right, explosion-dust is now a forbidden word as well."

Alexander was perplexed but understood, 'Huh, somebody came before me... was it Merlin? If he came from Earth, even if he had no idea about chemistry, he only needed to give out some ideas that others could try.'

Gunpowder was a simple mix he could also make with what he already had. It would be troublesome but nothing too demanding, and the next project, after the paper-making, he wanted to realize.

He sighed and put the anti-mana collar on. He recognized that he couldn't flood the empire with his ideas immediately but needed to wait, and while doing it, he could put his time into training the weird method Green and his mother recommended.

What was apparent to him was that he had absolutely nothing to do. His servants did all his daily chores, and the skills eased the learning processes massively. All the entertainment he was accustomed to from Earth was also unavailable, and the books here were boring. He was also much healthier and had too much energy to spare, even with the mana item, which increased his weight.

The training with Lorient and Sarah helped in that aspect, but after some time, it became easier to the point where he could start again writing down his ideas and start researching things that could help the world. However, like now, he was not climatized enough to know enough common sense, thus almost destroying their household if any of his ideas landed in the wrong hands.

'Well, I will not mention the microscope I only designed to research viruses and bacteria. Mom looks like she is one step away from a mental breakdown.'

He needed something to put his energy and mind into, and the training with the anti-mana collar would be perfect.

When the collar closed like a magnet around Alexander's neck, he felt dizzy and almost fell from the chair. He needed a moment to reorient himself.

"How do you feel?"

He looked at his mother and was confused, "But I wore it when I had the disbalance. Why is it different?!"

Marisia smirked at him, "You are using all your mana skills passively, while back then, you weren't. Remember, even using them made you curl up from the pain you experienced."

Alexander remembered and stopped all his skills, and it became immediately better. He sighed, "Ok, it's good, and I train how exactly with it? The weight-increasing mana items made sense, but how do I train now?"

His mother shrugged, "This is a first for me too, however..." she looked at the clock on the wall, "We can find it out later, and right now, we need to go into your office and find more of your insights before it is my turn to keep watch over your sister."

Alexander nodded, and they went to his office. On this day, Marisia almost broke down in tears as they found many more ideas heavily outlawed or strictly sanctioned in the empire.

From this point, he was only allowed to research/write down his ideas if he presented them beforehand to his mother.

...

The title of Alexander's destroyed research were as follows:

Gun Powder and how it can help the general populace!

Created and destroyed because of the previously mentioned reasons.

Venom against venom, can the venom of mana spiders actually be a more versatile cure for stronger normal ones?

+Created because Alexander heard about Narsiz's incident from the past.

-Destroyed because it was actually forbidden to create special venom from animals/monsters who were poisonous and had a large mana/energy concentration. The underworld usually sold such things, and they were massively more potent.

Recreational drugs: a positive economic prospect for the fief!

+Created because everyone took some kind of drugs besides tobacco and alcohol. Such things could reach new subjects and boost the economy. He wrote down how to make LSD, for example.

-Destroyed because drugs were heavily regulated and were an actual revenue for the crown.

Nicotine chewing gum, fighting the harmful effects of smoking!

+Created because he saw many beast-kin smoking outside his mansion. Alexander assumed it had at least some bad side effects, like with humans on Earth.

-Like previously mentioned, destroyed because it was a sanctioned revenue by the crown.

Also, many of his political, sociological, and economic ideas were burned down as many things were considered sensitive. Like Anastasia said beforehand, a nice debate topic but nothing one should consider seriously, which Alexander did.

A plan to make a republic was such a thing and highly illegal. Alexander wrote down the democracies and their systems from different countries, like the UK, USA, Germany, France, etc., as he feared forgetting them with time. It was before he found out about the miraculousness of his memory. He could remember everything almost perfectly without needing to write it down.

Little to say, it was very illegal to plot such systems unto the empire. Even theoretically and especially by a noble. All of Alexander's notes and ideas he had worked on for the last years went up in flames, 'This sucks...'

This brought him back to reality, and he would need to be much more cautious in the future when he entered the noble circles, 'One step at a time, I guess, huh... how often did I say this already? My [Luck] attribute is really doing overtime.'

He didn't resent his mother or Green. He could clearly intellectualize that they lived in a system far from what even resembled free speech. Yet, this gave him much more data to figure out the state of the empire, which he couldn't otherwise or only after a long period.

He was enclosed in a golden cage without any chance of interacting with others. This led to him brooding in his own soup of ideas with barely any outside forces like his teacher, who warned him.

'Time to learn the law to use every loophole and start writing my controversial notes in English, I guess?'

Alexander's next step would be learning the law since he already broke it multiple times. He wanted to avoid anything too serious, but he also knew that even if he never broke the law, if the emperor wanted him to get sentenced, he would be.

Alexander needed to calm down before being strong enough to do anything drastic. If all wanted his head, no rule of law would defend him. This empire was built on aristocratic families, the crown, and the most crucial aspect: Might makes right.

He tapped his collar and became fascinated, 'At least I have something to do, hehe.'