Emily returns to the dorms and spends the rest of her evening relaxing with Juliana and filling her in on the planned expedition. The next morning after breakfast, she sits at her desk ready to start her preparations.

Reaching around the back of the desk, she pushes in a small loose panel. After hearing a light click, she moves to the front, pulling a key out of her robes and inserting it into the keyhole on the bottom right drawer. Twisting it sets off a series of clicks and thuds, and after waiting for five seconds, the sounds stop and she opens the drawer. It slides open to reveal her notebook, surrounded by a series of mechanisms and a few compartments: one filled with black powder; another with powdered fire crystals; and the last with a rough mix of the two.

Emily smiles with satisfaction as she admires the booby trap she set up to protect her ideas after Kyle attacked her for the Claws. The fight made her realise it was a bad idea to carry around a notebook containing all her ideas, not to mention a more advanced knowledge of physics than anyone else seems to have.

Guess I’ll never get to find out how big the explosion would be. I wonder if it would have vapourised the desk or my entire room.

Since she has acquired all her knowledge about raw powdered crystals from textbooks and talking to Ivor so far, she doesn’t have an accurate guess of the power of her makeshift bomb yet. Closing the drawer carefully on the explosives, unwilling to test such a dangerous mix herself in the small room, she lifts the notebook out and places it on the desk before opening her system, navigating to the new blank sub-system.

How do I write in this? Maybe through focusing on it and thinking about what I want to write? This would be a lot easier if I could physically interact with the system.

Lifting her hand and swiping through the window with irritation at that thought, she is pleasantly surprised when the window moves with it.

“I can touch this one?!” she excitedly cries out.

Grabbing the corner of the window to confirm, Emily tries moving the window randomly and finds it responds to her touch. She can’t feel anything, the window remaining a projection within her mind, but the fact that she can physically interact with it at all intrigues her.

Now if only I had some way of changing its size and shape.

The moment the thought occurs, the window freezes in space and, as her hand keeps pulling the corner, it stretches.

It responds to my thoughts? Of course, the rest of the system does too, so why am I surprised?

Grinning, she sets about testing the usability of her new ethereal notebook. Through a mixture of thoughts and gestures, she finds herself able to easily manipulate the window. By resizing and duplicating the window, and creating folders for different notes, she forms the sub-system into a virtual suite for notetaking, spell notation, and blueprint design. She’s even able to overlay the virtual notebook on top of her physical notebook to write into both at the same time. With the ability to instantly copy down anything she sees and add to the notes with a simple mental command, the plethora of features leaves her completely satisfied with the new addition to her system.

After setting up the notebook to her liking, she copies all her current physical notes into a folder, then rips them all out and burns them to a crisp with a quick cast of burning hands. For the sake of comfort, she quickly machines a piece of iron into a small pen that perfectly fits her hand. Testing it, she overlays a virtual page on her notebook and starts writing with the iron pen. Words appear on the virtual page and she gets the feeling of writing normally, but the actual notebook remains blank.

Perfect! Now I can take notes normally if I want and no one will be able to see them.

Pleased with her new toy, she clears the page and begins planning.

“What do I need for this trip?”

Tapping her chin with her pen, she starts considering the destination.

“I probably want some more equipment, maybe I can use this as a chance to make some of the E rank machines for my progression.”

Placing the pen to the page, she starts writing a few ideas down.

Boots?

Armour?

Explosives?

-Bright light for disorientation, was effective against people

Ranged weapon?

Second circle attack spells

Better detection methods for in dense foliage

-Thermal vision? Spell or machine?

Method to remain guarded against Oscar’s friends at night?

Placing the pen down, she stares at the list thoughtfully.

This is all I can think of for now, maybe I’ll ask Jules for other ideas later.

She grabs the note off the page, placing it in the air before her and splitting each line to form new notes within a folder labelled ‘Expedition Prep’. Picking randomly, she selects explosives to develop first.

I can either go purely magical with fire crystal powder, purely physical with black powder or stay with a mix of both. First, though, I should probably test the potency of each to see what I’m working with.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

She fishes out a few small pouches from one of her drawers and goes through the process of safely opening her security drawer again. She fills the pouches with the assortments of powders before closing the drawer, tying the pouches to her trousers belt loops, and moving to her workshop area. Grabbing a few small empty metal cans, cloth rags, and pure alcohol, she leaves her room to head towards the training rooms. On the way out she runs into Juliana in the corridor, returning from her morning lesson.

“Hey Emi,” Juliana chirps, pulling Emily into a hug. “Where are you off to?”

“I’m starting my prep for the expedition with a bang, I’m going to the training rooms to test explosives.”

“Haha very funny,” Juliana responds dryly. “What about starting with something to prevent yourself from getting killed?”

“Don’t worry, that’s on my list,” Emily says with a grin, already confident in The Clock’s ability to keep her alive. “Do you have any other suggestions though? I’ve got defence, offence, and detection on my list already.”

Juliana pauses to think for a few seconds. Emily watches her face scrunch up cutely as she does, resisting the urge to pinch her cheeks.

“Have you thought about cleaning? You said you were planning on staying for up to a month, right? I can’t imagine going that long without a shower,” Juliana finally says with a shiver.

“Good idea!” Emily smiles, adding ‘cleaning’ to her notes. “Thanks, Jules.”

Giving Juliana a quick kiss, Emily starts walking away backwards.

“I’ll see you later. Let me know if that cute little head of yours comes up with anything in the meantime.”

Juliana sticks out her tongue in response, though it doesn’t stop Emily from noticing the slight blush on her cheeks. With a small skip in her step, Emily makes her way to the training rooms only for her mood to come crashing down when she finds them all occupied.

“Damn it, I’ll have to come back later.”

Grumpily she turns around to leave, but as she exits the B-grade training room hall, she bumps into an unexpected face.

“What’s got you upset? Did your training not go well?” Oscar asks cheerily.

“No,” Emily says with a sigh. “I wanted to test some stuff but the training rooms are full, so I have to come back later.”

“Oh?” Oscar’s grin grows. “I just so happen to have a spell here with your name on it and I’m on my way to a training room now. Would you like to join me and do your testing there?”

He touches his delicate necklace, suddenly producing a full-sized scroll and offering it to Emily, who is more interested in where it came from. She quickly scans Oscar’s jewellery with her system.

¯¯¯¯¯

[Dimensional Storage Necklace]

[Rank:] D

[Description:] A finely crafted necklace holding a lesser space crystal engraved with a simple storage spell.

[Effect:] Creates a one-metre cubed pocket dimension, accessible through the holder’s will.

_____

I want one of those.

She reaches out and takes the spell scroll without noticeable delay, thanks to her mental processing speed, and tucks it into her pocket for later.

“Wait, do you mean to say that you can bring other people into your training room?”

“I wouldn’t have offered if I couldn’t. So, you interested?”

Emily stares at the proud noble as she considers.

Should I do my explosives testing in front of him? I don’t want it to become public knowledge that I’m the one making my weapons since the Mandragos may hear and ask for some too… But he’s shown distaste for them before, so I don’t think they’re allies. Maybe I could sell him some creations in return for money and contribution points. I’d have to swear him to secrecy; let other people think I gave up my source? Can I trust him? It would be a good way to gather money…

“Sure, but only if you can keep a secret,” she says deciding to rewind this day if it goes poorly.

“Of course, I swear on the Salvia name that nothing I see henceforth shall be spoken of to a living soul,” he says dramatically, placing his hand on the family crest resting above his heart.

Emily rolls her eyes.

I wonder if his inflated noble pride actually means anything.

“Come on then, lead the way.”

He smiles and obliges, leading her to a nearby door, deeper into the corridor than the B-grade rooms. Stepping through a phasing door, they find themselves in a long, grand hallway, with high ceilings and a plush red carpet.

“How do they even fit this stuff into The Dome?” Emily mutters in disbelief.

Oscar looks at her with a brow raised.

“You don’t know? The Dome itself is only a fraction of the facilities. The rest of The Isle is an underground complex spanning most of the city.”

Emily opens her eyes wide in realisation.

Of course! Why wouldn’t they spread under the city when even the black market does?

“Oh. I’m honestly slightly embarrassed I didn’t work that out,” she says sheepishly.

Oscar chuckles lightly and continues guiding her down the hallway. After a few hundred metres and only a couple of doors, they reach a door with ‘Salvia Family’ boldly embossed in the centre.

“Here we are, come on in.”

The door vanishes as Oscar approaches, allowing both of them to pass into a cavernous space. Unlike the dull white void that makes up the B-grade rooms, the room that greets them has smooth patterned stone flooring. Surrounding them are large stone pillars stretching up to the high ceilings above. Hanging from the ceiling are several large chandeliers coated with glowing dots of bright warm light.

“Fancy!” Emily mutters with a small, impressed whistle as she looks around.

“Really? It’s quite empty right now,” Oscar comments with a sly grin, clearly enjoying showing off.

“Ha, yeah, it’s empty,” she says with a dramatic eye roll. “But it’s ten times the size of the B-grade rooms. They really spoil you, don’t they?”

“Indeed, they do. The A-grade rooms are directly sponsored by the family that owns them. My family paid an exorbitant amount of resources to have this room so it better have enough space and features to make it worth it. Now, go ahead and test what you want to, I’m curious now that you’ve made me swear secrecy.”

Emily nods, walks into an open space between the pillars, and crouches down. Pulling the first pouch from her waist, she opens it and pours a small palmful of pure fire crystal powder. Placing the powder on the floor, she walks back twenty metres and calls Oscar to her side.

“Stay back, I’m not sure how volatile this will be.”

Pointing a finger at the powder, she quickly double-casts air blast and burning hands, focusing both spells on just the tip of her finger. A small orange and white spark forms and quickly flies out, soaring through the air and landing in the centre of the mass of powder. Instantly, the powder reacts to the mana and explodes, releasing a searing wave of heat.

“What was that?” Oscar asks her.

Ignoring him completely, Emily quickly walks over to view the aftereffects of her test. Upon closer inspection, she finds the floor cracked at the epicentre and only lightly scorched towards the edges of a three-metre radius. Adding the results to her notes, she moves to another empty spot and measures out a palmful of black powder.

Returning to a safe distance, she repeats the process of firing a small spark at the pile and watching for the results. Instead of an explosion, the pile simply ignites and violently burns for a few seconds before going out. Grinning, Emily pours out a handful of the powder mix, already predicting the results.

This time, the moment the spark hits the pile, it explodes in a fireball, flinging burning powder out and scorching everything within five metres. Noting the results again, she places three metal cans on the floor and pours the same amounts of the powders into each. Taking a cloth rag, she sends a spark of machina into a Claw, activating the magic crystals embedded and shooting the blade to full extension.

“Do you always wear those?” Oscar asks, surprised.

“Wouldn’t you?”

Oscar thinks for a moment then nods.

Emily uses the blade to slice up the cloth and dips each strip into alcohol before laying them over the lip of each can, ensuring they touch the top of the powder mixture within. With another small spark of machina, the Claw’s blade vanishes back into its housing. Closing the cans’ lids, she uses burning hands to weld the cans shut other than a tiny gap for oxygen to reach the rags within.

Smiling at her prototypes, she looks up to see Oscar staring at her in awe.

“You made your weapons yourself, didn’t you?”