The Librarians silently pointed to a pile of loose paper that was labeled “for student use.” Beside it sat a cup full of similarly labeled pens. “Ah,” Jeb said, grabbing a small packet, “thank you.”
The Academy took him to what seemed like the same space in the Library, though Jeb could not say for certain. The second time around, Jeb took a little more time to look and notice a few details that he hadn’t during his first time in the space. Even though the hallway he’d walked down had been completely dark, the desk was bright. Looking around for a source for the light, though, Jeb ran into another thing he’d missed the first time through. The stacks of books appeared to go on to infinity.
There was a ladder next to the desk that appeared to go as high as the books did. Jeb debated the wisdom of climbing up an unknown ladder in a space that apparently knew where he was. Of course, he did not start the debate until the desk was nothing but a spot in his vision.
“Huh,” Jeb said. Whatever he was going to say next was stopped by the strange way that his voice echoed in the space. It did not die out immediately like it had while he was standing at the desk. Instead, it bounced around, changing tone with each bounce. As it kept bouncing, Jeb became more and more sure that it was changing tone to the voice of whichever author had written the books.
As he came to that realization, Jeb started looking more closely at the books around him. Unlike the books on the first level, which had all been neatly bound in red leather with a number indicating where they should be shelved, the books this high up almost all seemed at best hand bound by an amateur. Half seemed to be nothing more than sheets of paper that had been stuffed into a folder. As the echoed “huh,” kept moving and changing, Jeb began climbing back down the ladder. This seems like the sort of thing that I should come back to later, he said, making a note to explore the ladder again when he had more time.
Back at the desk, Jeb guiltily looked at the book that Kaitlyn had given him. It was not covered in red leather, but was still clearly mass produced. Shrugging, Jeb opened it and began reading about how energy was discrete, rather than continuous.
By the time that Jeb’s stomach was growling loudly enough that he couldn’t ignore it any longer, he had filled five sheets of paper with notes and derivations. The idea of energy as individual packets with some size apparently came from a few Theoretical Enchanters. Jeb was tempted to find out what Theoretical Enchanting was, but he forced himself to focus. Unlike when he was at home, he knew that he could not stop traveling each intellectual path when a more exciting side trail opened up. He proudly ignored the sheet of paper that he had labeled “areas of study to spend my free time on.”
Early Theoretical Enchanters had found, obviously, that making an Enchantment smaller meant that it used less Mana. Of course, that was only true given a number of constraints, which the book clearly spelled out. To the Enchanters’ surprise, there was a limit to how small any given Enchantment could become. It was different depending on what character or string of characters was used, which led the next generation of researchers to discover that each of these smallest possible Enchantments used the same amount of Mana. Since then, no one had been able to find a way to use a smaller amount of Mana.
For whatever reason, it took people another few centuries to find that there was no Enchantment that used more than one thaum and less than two. The lack of anything between two and three thaums came quickly after that, and so on until it stopped being practical to measure them. At that point in the book, Jeb learned that a single point of his Mana, after following all of the charts for Tier, his Statistics, and his Mana pool size, was somewhere between ten to the fiftieth and ten to the sixtieth thaums, depending on where he ranked Wizard on the Class scaling. Suddenly the fact that he had never noticed Magic being at all quantized made sense.
Gathering his notes and the paper, Jeb called out to the Academy, “I would like to go to the cafeteria, if it is still open. If not, I suppose that I would like to go to my room?” Down on the ground, he could hear only the faintest echoes from his voice. Even they quickly faded.
Jeb quickly walked into the darkness of the stacks, trusting once more that they would lead him where he wanted to go. Since he had not planned on spending his entire day studying, there as a part of him that wanted to leave the books and his notes at the desk. From what the Librarians had said, Jeb was fairly certain that no one else would be going into the space. He just wasn’t entirely sure that he would be taken back to that desk again, if it even was the same as the first time he’d been in the stacks. Jeb had written down the numbers on the books so that he could compare the numbers the next time he went in. When he saw that the books changed numbers every time that he looked down and back up, though, he gave up on that idea as being helpful.
After a few minutes of walking in darkness, the smells of the cafeteria started drifting towards him, even as the room grew lighter. Jeb picked up his pace, nearly jogging by the time he could see the food. He hadn’t realized how hungry he was until he grabbed a plate. After eating half a dozen plates filled with food, he started slowing down.
As the food settled into his stomach, Jeb suddenly became incredibly tired. “Sorry,” he said to his lute, “I don’t think that I’ll be playing you today.” Leaving the cafeteria, he sent his will to the Academy, asking it to take him back to his room. Inside, Jeb took one last glance at his notes and went to sleep. Tomorrow was the first day of the term, and he did not want to miss a single moment of it.
The next morning, Jeb woke up and searched his room for a clock. He hadn’t considered the fact that everything happening on a schedule here meant that he would need to know what time it was at all times. Without the aid of the sun slowly moving across the sky, Jeb realized he had no idea how many days he had actually been in the Academy. He knew that he had studied for multiple nights and days before without noticing, and that was when he was somewhere that even had a window. Despite all his searching, though, he could not find anything to tell him the time. Rushing out of his room, he hoped that he had time for breakfast.
When the Academy doors opened to the smell of frying eggs, Jeb breathed a small sigh of relief. The clock on the wall told him that it was a little before five in the morning. Checking his schedule, Jeb saw that his first class was at nine in the morning. “I guess I didn’t need to panic,” he said to himself a little sheepishly.
Jeb took his time and walked around the room, considering all of the options before him. The novelty of having so many choices for breakfast food still hadn’t worn off for him, and he wanted to make the most of the day. Eventually, he settled on a small loaf of bread that smelled incredible, a small jar of some sort of red berry preserve, and a boiled egg. Fortified for his first day of classes, Jeb asked the Academy to take him to the Enchanting class he was in.
When Jeb opened the door, he was a little surprised to see no one else in the room. Seeing that the clock on the wall said that it was just a little past six, though, he shrugged. Even taking his time, he knew that breakfast was not going to be a four hour ordeal. With nothing else to occupy him, Jeb realized that he had not finished the first chapter of the Enchanting textbook yet. He quickly flipped it open and began to read from the beginning again.
Now that he knew about the thaum and the experiments that had proved its existence, the opening paragraphs made significantly more sense. He was unsurprised to see that Kaitlyn had been correct, and the book very quickly moved past all of the hard theoretical mathematics to instead speak about what it claimed were the five fundamental runes in Enchanting. Of course, it was quick to note that they were not a unique set. There were, according to the book, at least, an almost infinite number of base runes that one could use to construct a coherent system for Enchanting. The five that the author had chosen was apparently a less common set. It had the benefit of only requiring five base runes, as opposed to the seven in a standard fundamental set.
Exactly what the benefit of a smaller set of fundamental runes was, Jeb was not entirely sure. The end of the chapter contained a number of small test questions to check understanding of the material in the chapter. Without an answer key in front of him, Jeb could not be certain how well he had done, but none of the questions felt particularly difficult. Almost as he put down his pen from the final question, a loud bell tone rang throughout the room. Looking up, Jeb saw that the room had steadily filled with people.
“Well, then,” the man at the front of the room began speaking. Or, at least Jeb assumed that the being in the front of the classroom was a man. Between the bushy white hair that covered the entirety of their face and the brightly embroidered fabrics that were layered and constantly shifting over the Professor’s entire body, Jeb was only partially confident in his guess. “My name is Professor Bearson, and I will be teaching this semester’s Intermediate Enchanting Theory.”
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Jeb had the sudden feeling that the Professor was staring at him. “You in the back,” Jeb looked behind him, already knowing that there was nobody sitting behind him, “what is your name?”
“My name is Jeb,” he replied hesitantly.
“I did not see you in Introductory Enchanting Theory.” There was an unasked question in that statement, but Jeb couldn’t guess what it was.
After waiting a few moments, Jeb responded, “you did not.” The silence reigned for a few more moments, until Jeb had the distinct impression of a smile coming from the head shaped ball of hair.
“Well, welcome to the Academy! Tell me, what did you make of the author’s choice of fundamental runes?”
“It seemed reasonable. I don’t have any experience with other sets of fundamental runes, though, so I couldn’t say whether it is a better choice than anything else.”
The Professor cocked his head. Or, at least, the almost-spherical puff of hair appeared to tilt to the left. “What is your background in Enchanting?”
Jeb shrugged. “I learned a few Enchantments and made a few modifications to some of them.” This time, he had understood the unasked question, “I think that my experience in studying Glyphs might have carried over to the part of the entrance examination on Theoretical Enchanting.”
The Professor nodded, head still cocked. “Right, I remember now.” With that, the lecture began in earnest. The Professor had clearly expected everyone to have read the first chapter of the book, and went deeper into most of the concepts than the author had. Even so, there was no discussion of the mathematics that the first few paragraphs had gotten into. At the end of the class, a student raised their hand.
“Professor, will there be a syllabus for the class?”
The robes stopped shifting for a moment. “I knew that I forgot something.” A hand came out of the Professor’s voluminous robes, though Jeb could not grasp exactly what the hand looked like. It began quickly etching lines of glowing runes on the air. When it had finished, the lines flashed and disappeared, and each student suddenly had a packet of papers in front of them. “If there are no other questions?” the room was silent after that display of Magic, “then I will see you next class.”
Jeb’s Status Sheet at End of Chapter:
Jeb Humdrum Human Age: 16 Class: Wizard Level: 3 Experience: 775/204
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Total Statistic Load: 623 Physical Load: 228 Strength: 52 Dexterity: 53 Endurance: 54 Vitality: 55 Presence: 14
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Mental Load: 395 Intelligence: 78 Willpower: 85 Magic Affinity: 84 Mana Depth: 74 Charisma: 74
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Mana: 1755
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Glyph Attunement: 31 Least Shape Earth (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Hold Earth (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Create Earth (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Destroy Earth (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Shape Earth - Efficient (Modified) Tier 3 Spell Lesser Shape Earth (Modified) Tier 3 Spell Least Shape Water (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Shape Water - Efficient (Modified) Tier 3 Spell Lesser Shape Water (Modified) Tier 3 Spell Least Hold Water (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Create Water (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Conjure Water (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Conjure Water - Efficient (Modified) Tier 3 Spell Least Destroy Water (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Move Air (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Hold Air (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Create Air (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Destroy Air (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Move Fire (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Hold Fire (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Create Fire (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Destroy Fire (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Create Mud (Modified) Tier 2 Spell Attune Earth Mana (Modified) Tier 0 Spell Attune Water Mana (Modified) Tier 0 Spell Attune Water Mana - Efficient (Modified) Tier 2 Spell Attune Air Mana (Modified) Tier 0 Spell Attune Fire Mana (Modified) Tier 0 Spell Attune Sand Mana (Modified) Tier 0 Spell Least Create Sand (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Attune Sand Mana - Efficient (Modified) Tier 2 Spell
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Bard Songs Known: 1 Lute Enforcement
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Skills: Meditation Spell Glyphing Gift of Gab Identify Soil Savvy Animal Handling Fertilizing Lute Playing Singing Musician Pollination Brewing Distilling Smithing Wood Identification Woodworking Soil Improvement Glassblowing Magic
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Achievements: Focused Meditator Student of Magic Glyph Specializer
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Quests: Major: Slay the Dragon of the West (Progressive)