It was said that Lucian had never felt this confused ever since taking over his predecessor’s body, and that was the truth.
Even when he awoke to find himself in a new world, with a new body, it wasn’t confusion he felt, but curiosity.
However, this time was different. Something had happened to him that not even his wealth of scientific knowledge could explain, and it annoyed him the more he thought about it.
He knew he didn’t hallucinate what just happened, and he suspected that Professor Kaldor had something to do with it. But there was no way to go about asking about it, or searching for answers.
For one, if he went back up to Kaldor and asked what he just did to him, how would he react?
Would he simply just explain exactly what Lucian wanted to hear? Would he react with surprise but explain calmly? Would he reel back in shock at the fact Lucian was able to not only detect such mental stimuli, but also defend himself against it? Would he report him to the principal, or whoever was in charge? Or worse, just dispose of him himself right then and there?
The answer was unclear, and that was precisely why Lucian did nothing. At least he would keep it that way for the time being.
What he experienced was odd, and an uncomfortable experience even for him, who was so open to trying new things and gaining new knowledge. Preferably, he wouldn’t like to experience such a thing again, unless it was for his own experiments of course.
When he learned more about that mysterious phenomenon that took over his mind, he wouldn’t mind taking another crack at it or two to satisfy his own curiosities.
[Analysing external stimuli… Analysis complete! A strange existence was found to have invaded the host’s mind, but the host quickly took care of it himself.]
‘AI?’
***
Lucian was rather startled when walking back to the classroom, as something he never expected to see again, let alone in this world, had appeared inside his mind after his encounter with Professor Kaldor.
It was something he knew quite intimately, but he was also quite wary of it. The AI chip.
Back in his previous world, everyone had one of these, and if they didn’t, they simply couldn’t function as a normal human in modern society.
The best way to describe them would be the next generation of technology that came after the handheld computerised devices, commonly referred to as ‘Phones’, ‘Smart watches’, ‘tablets’, ‘Laptops’ etc in the late stages of the fourth industrial revolution.
They could do everything, from surfing the internet, analysing basic data, speeding up thought processes, enabling a deeper control and understanding of the host’s own body and much more unfathomable feats.
But one of the things they specialised in was the analysis of the human mind. This was why Lucian was so shocked when the the thing first appeared, as it could be the closest thing he could get to an answer of what just happened to him.
And the fact that it appeared after that strange appearance gave him more confidence that it would help him with this.
Lucian found it a little hard to believe though, and even began to suspect that maybe he was hallucinating all along?
He was 100% sure he wasn’t after that first strange encounter with Professor Kaldor, but this was not only the second strange encounter he was having that day, but also the second time he was genuinely confused in one day.
Normally, he only became this confused about something every once in 6 months or so, let alone twice in one day.
‘How is it here with me in this new world and body? Is this another unexplainable phenomenon, just like the fact that I reincarnated?’
Lucian racked his brain, but was unable to find an answer.
‘Interesting…’
However his confusion and surprise at its initial appearance quickly turned into excitement. He was always welcoming to more interesting topic he could research.
‘That’ll have to wait though, right now I have a class to attend.’
Pushing his rather exciting but distracting thoughts aside, Lucian strode back to the classroom, mimicking the movements his predecessor did after skimming through the memories a little. Walking was something people did daily, unless they were disabled, so he didn’t exactly have to search hard to figure it out.
“Ahh Lucian, welcome back. I trust things are all sorted on your end now?”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
The teacher stopped his lecture and turned toward the back of the classroom where Lucian stood in the doorway the moment he heard the door hinges start to creak. Ever since Lucian’s little… episode in the middle of his class, he had been rather peeved with the boy for disrupting him mid speech.
But as a good teacher, he was more concerned with whether Lucian was okay or not, and seeing as he was already back in his seat now, eyes facing the front and ears perked up to listen to the lesson, he assumed he was correct in this assumption.
The nurse wouldn’t have sent him back already if he wasn’t.
Unknown to him though, Lucian never even made it to the nurse’s office. First he was stopped by an old nemesis of his predecessor’s, and then Professor Kaldor directly after.
Although his head still throbbed slightly, after the combined effect of his memories being reinstated, and his mind being invaded, some instinct inside of him told him that he was fine, and didn’t need any external help to recover.
If there was something Lucian could place 100% of his trust in, it would be his instincts.
They had never failed him in his 35 years of life before, so he had no reason to suspect that would start now.
Well, it was a new world and a new body, so maybe he would place 99% of his trust in his instincts instead of the full 100%
Even now, if that remaining 1% distrust turned out to be right, he was in the presence of the classroom, with the teacher at the ready to help him or call the nurse for him at any moment’s notice.
***
Lucian wanted to find out what else his AI could do in this world, in his current body, but he had to focus on the class for the time being. As far as he was concerned, he had all the time in the world to figure out the specifics later, as he had to continue fitting the persona of his predecessor, and that meant adhering to his schedule like normal.
“Now where was I…?”
The teacher continued speaking, but couldn’t quite manage to pick up where is previous memory trail left off.
“You were just about to introduce to us the political outlook of the world… sir.”
It took a student sitting in one of the front seats reminding him for his thoughts to come back to him. And once they did, it was practically like he never had to pause at all.
“Oh yes! That’s right. Ahem, so the lands we occupy, as I’m sure most of you are aware of already, are called the Barren islands. We are but a small place, with no established kingdom to rule over us. Right now the strongest ruling power is Count Nessus, who’s son sits right amongst us as we speak. Anyway…”
‘I didn’t know that…’
Lucian had a frown on his face as he pinched his chin and pondered over what he had just heard from the teacher. The smartly dressed man said that everyone should know about the Barren islands, yet there was no recollection of such a place in his inherited memories.
It wasn’t like there was a missing piece to the puzzle either, it was simply that the knowledge was never there in the first place.
‘How the hell did this kid Lucian manage to weasel his way into this academy without first knowing such a basic fact?’
Even for someone with such lack of emotion like Lucian, it was almost laughable. It was clear that his father didn’t raise him to be a smart boy, which was evident enough from the fact he was sent to a knight’s academy, rather than to normal school to become a scholar — a much more respectable occupation in these ‘Barren Islands’.
But to not even know this? Things were clearly dire in the Vernon family.
“… Outside of these Vernon Islands, many other islands and continents exist with established powers dominant over each one of them. It can be said that compared to each of them, we are nothing but ants standing under an elephant’s foot. At any moment this elephant could take a single step and crush us all to smithereens!”
Some of the young student’s faces turned pale white after hearing what the teacher had to say, it was clear that this information was too much for their young and inexperienced minds to handle. Yet, to Lucian, this was all fresh and interesting knowledge that he was fully absorbing.
Learning about the outlook of this world was one of his primary goals after finding out he had reincarnated into this place. It seemed his choice of returning back to the classroom instead of following the teacher’s advice and heading to the school nurse was a good one.
‘Once I’ve learned all that this academy has to offer, I should get out of this backwards place before it’s too late.’
Lucian started to make plans in his mind regarding his next steps. Learning that he was placed smack bang in the middle of nowhere wasn’t exactly what he wanted to hear, but he could find ways to make it to these so called ‘elephants’ the teacher was talking about.
“Though, many speculate that the lack of future prospects and resources on our Barren Islands is due to our lack of Mages. For those of you who don’t know what Mages are, go ask your parents. They’ll probably remember the last time they came to visit this place…”
‘Mages?’
Lucian’s ears perked up when he heard this word. It wasn’t an unknown word to him, but it was to his predecessor. Back in his previous world, Mages were something of fiction — a type of scholar similar to scientists who study the magic arts rather than the real, fundamental laws of reality that make up the universe.
Mages were a rather popular concept among the youth of his world, and there were countless video games created surrounding that concept worth billions, but as a scientist he was never interested in the world of fiction.
So, why was something known only as fiction mentioned here in this world, and spoken about with such reverence and fear like these made up concepts were real enough to haunt them?
Lucian had to dig deeper into this. He had to learn more, to satiate his ever growing curiosity. If it weren’t for the fact that he had to continue living the persona of his predecessor, he would have ran straight to the library to read up on this topic.
“This world is filled with all sorts of energies and laws, but unfortunately for us the Barren Islands with which we occupy are the place where they are the weakest, and least dense. It’s said that for one to become an Apprentice Mage here, it would take up half the wealth of an entire County to succeed! And that’s just the Apprentice stage, you can forget ever becoming a Mage here!”
The teacher was very exuberant in his rambling, it seemed like telling stories was his passion, and working as a politics and history teacher was his medium of fulfilling this passion.
Though, it was unfortunate he worked in a preparatory Knight academy, where most of the students couldn’t care less about the stories and histories he told. Though, this particular class was always the exception to this.
The young and energetic students always loved to hear the tales about the far away lands and the feats of the elusive Mages.
For them, these were more than just stories — they were myth, ones they could relate to.
It was the goal of every noble child on the Barren Islands to become a Mage one day. But for one particular child named Lucian, he felt entirely out of place in this classroom.
‘Just what is a Mage in this world…?’