With a soured mood, Modak was led through the Magic Tower. That encounter with those mages wasn't particularly 'fun' in any sense of the word. It started out alright, but the moment they heard that Modak didn't have any mana, they looked at him with this weird mixture of disgust and curiosity. They were treating him as a biological marvel; something that shouldn't even exist, acting as if the absence of mana inside of him made him some sort of animal, if not lesser than that.
And it wasn't just those three mages either. The guide himself became cold, and began to cut his explanations down to the lowest possible degree.
"Here we have the central library. You may come here whenever you need to look up anything for your research. You are also allowed to use it privately," the guide said without even looking at the young orc. At the very least, Modak was able to ignore it this time. This place was an absolute marvel; a monumental hall filled with hundreds of thousand if not millions of books. It was by far the largest single library he had ever seen before; the university's library couldn't even compare to something like this.
"Now, let's get to our last stop."
Not giving Modak the opportunity to let the sight sink in, the guide turned around and headed straight back to the large door that had led them into this hall. A bit dejected, Modak followed the guide, and they made their way through the tower back to its main entrance. But on the way, Modak could feel that the atmosphere had changed considerably.
At first, he thought that it was nothing and that he was imagining it, but before long it was obvious that people were staring at him. Whispering. And he could overhear some of those whispers, or at least one word that came up again and again. 'Mana'. So everybody knew about it now?
'Well, fuck me...' Modak thought to himself, following the guide out of the main tower. Silently, he was brought to one of the nearby buildings; it was one of the most modern ones, and Modak could guess what this building was for. It was the building for the Magic Engineers, so he would most likely be spending most of his time here.
The guide led him inside, quickly bringing him to one of the labs. It was a small one in the corner of the building, but there was a small sign on the right side of the door.
> Modak Stonebreaker - Magic-Based Audio Storage Research
Just seeing that on there was making Modak's heart skip a beat. He turned to the man next to him confused.
"Why is my name on there?"
The guide glanced at him with an expression that said he felt bothered he even needed to answer something so obvious, "You're the lead of this project, aren't you? Of course your name will be on there."
"No, no, I was told I was allowed to use the resources of the tower to do my work, but not that I would be getting my own... Alicia didn't tell me about this at all, I-"
"Alicia? What, do you believe yourself to be on a first-name basis with the Mistress?" the guide asked, and Modak flinched back slightly. He was so used to Runar and Ryan speaking about her with her first name that he had maybe gotten a bit too used to it.
"That's not the point, I-"
"There were clear instructions that you are to be given your own laboratory to do your work without interference. A research assistant has been assigned to you as well."
Being told that confused Modak even more, "Research assistant? I only just finished my first semester at Uni, I'm 18 years old! What do you mean 'research assistant'?"
"Clearly, Miss Boreard has some high expectations for you. You better not betray them," the guide said, already turning back around, "The tour is over. Feel free to ask your assistant about any other questions you may have."
Modak watched as the man disappeared without another word. With a click of his tongue, the orc pushed open the door to the lab with his name at the front, quickly stepping inside. It was a relatively small space, but even at a glance he could tell that it was well-equipped with tools leagues above the university's Magic Engineering tools. They were so dazzling that Modak almost passed over the more than three-metre tall Cyclops sitting in the centre of the room, currently reading a book.
The moment she saw him step inside, she jumped up from her seat, "Oh! You must be Mister Stonebreaker, right? I'm Margaret Latch, feel free to call me Marge! I'll be your assistant on this project!"
A bit taken aback, Modak looked up at her. She was at least thirty years older than him, and she was supposed to be his assistant?
"Please, no, call me Modak. It's a pleasure to meet you," he said, stretching out his hand to shake Marge's, and she quickly did the same.
"In that case, don't mind if I do," with a smile, Marge placed her book onto the table next to her, "So you came up with that wonderful idea for mana-based cassettes?"
Slowly, Modak nodded his head, "Yeah... but it's nothing all that special, really. I feel like this whole thing is a bit overblown..."
With a laugh, Marge shook her head, "Who knows what sort of practical benefits this could have? I'm sure Miss Boreard had her reasons for hiring you and making you the lead of a project like this. And speaking of..."
The cyclops quickly walked over to one of the tables that had a computer setup. On the screen were all the notes that Modak had taken and sent to Alicia in advance.
"The detail that you put into this is impressive. The way you wrote this made me think you were going to be twice your age. But turns out you're younger than my kids, huh?"
Modak's heart anxiously skipped a beat, "I-If you're not comfortable working with me on this project because of my age, I can-"
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
"No, no, that's not what I meant," Marge laughed, "As I said, it's impressive! It actually makes me just that much more excited to work on this. Actually, I already had a couple of ideas that could help us improve the base data-storage cassettes."
With a sigh of relief, Modak took off the jacket of the suit that he borrowed from his dad. It looked like he would be here for a while longer than he thought he would be, so he might as well get comfortable.
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"Ah-ah-ah, hold on! Hold on!" Ryan said, staring at the face of the stone wyvern in front of him. The elemental opened her mouth slightly, as if anxiously waiting for something. The flames behind her brick fangs were waving back and forth.
And then, Ryan threw the piece of metal in his hand into the air, as the forge elemental quickly jumped at it, catching it in her mouth. Immediately, as though she was excited, she looked over at Ryan who was already closing in. With a grin, he rubbed the underside of her chin with a wire brush.
"Good job, girl!" he said in an excited voice, as the elemental leaned into his brushing.
"She really took a liking to you, huh?" coming up toward the old smithy, Runar raised his brow, and Ryan quickly turned toward him with a smile.
"I guess so."
With a light scoff, Runar crossed his arms, "But really, teaching her tricks now?"
"Well, why not? She seems to have fun with it. Not like she gets to do much of anything down here," Ryan pointed out as he slowly pulled away from the forge, as the wyvern let out a loud yawn. She turned back toward the wall that she usually stood against, carefully placing her body into that spot for a post-meal nap. Ryan turned back to his uncle, "So, did you need something?"
"Not really," Runar replied, though he had a broad grin on his face, "I just figured I'd let you know that the new garden is ready."
Ryan raised his brow, "Seriously? Already?"
"Not like it was a massive upgrade, you know? Though I agree it was pretty fast. And I think they did a great job, too," Runar pointed out, as Ryan quickly looked inwardly at Gaia, who also seemed to be incredibly excited about these news.
At first, Ryan had hoped that she would be able to just make an area down here her garden, but the only real reason why there were any plants down here in the first place was because of the dryads that had settled here. Gaia didn't seem comfortable taking any of the space away from them, plus, Ryan wasn't down here all too often. He only came down here to take care of the forge elemental, since she really did seem to like Ryan quite a bit.
They quickly made their way up the stairs back to the café, and Runar turned around a few times to check on his nephew, "You alright? With how much you're working out I thought you'd be in pain all over at this point, but you're even more energetic than normal."
With a grin, Ryan glanced at his left arm, "Tiar's doing a pretty good job at helping me out, clearly."
"Looks like it," Runar scoffed. It didn't take much longer until they had made their way up to the flat, quickly stepping out on the balcony. Gaia quickly stepped out of her domain and looked around. Just here, the space had already been changed quite a bit. The cheap pots that were standing here before were replaced with large, high-quality planters. But this wasn't even the highlight of it all.
Next to the door now stood a stairway reaching up to the flat roof that had been fully renovated into a rooftop garden. Not only were there regular-sized steps here, but also a few smaller ones for Gaia with her stout legs to walk up, and even smaller ones for her small assistants that she could split off from her body.
Quickly, Ryan and Gaia made their way to the new rooftop garden. In front of them not only stood fairly large, flat plots of soil, but even a greenhouse taking up about a quarter of the space. Next to it was a small shed that seemed to be filled with soil, fertilizer, and a bunch of tools that were not only the perfect size for Gaia, but also a bunch that Ryan could use to help her out here and there however she needed. Pots in a dozen different sizes were stacked up inside there as well. They had apparently even set up a faucet so that it was easy to get water here in the garden.
Clearly excited, Gaia looked around the garden, wanting to get right to work. And that was when a message popped up in front of Ryan.
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[Gaia's Garden has been expanded]
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Since that seemed to be taken care of as well, and Gaia could properly use her skills on this space, Ryan felt that everything was perfectly set up to let them get started. With a smile, Ryan pulled out the three seed packets from Gaia's domain. Since they wanted to wait until the rooftop garden was ready, they hadn't planted them yet, but there was no reason to wait any longer now.
Ryan quickly handed the seed packets to Gaia, who excitedly took them over to the greenhouse to prepare them properly. The workbench there was perfectly her height, though Ryan would need to help her reach the higher shelves, but he didn't mind. He quickly grabbed whatever she needed, like some small pots, soil, and a spray-bottle that he quickly filled with water.
But looking at the spray-bottle, Gaia quickly shook her head as her two sub-golems split off her body, reaching out to grab the bottle from Ryan. Curiously, he followed them to see what they were about to do. They quickly pointed at one of the large plastic buckets and then at the faucet, so Ryan quickly filled it up with water and put it down. One of the sub-golems had, by then, opened the fertilizer bag and grabbed a small amount of it, quickly throwing it into the water. The sub-golems then pushed over a stick to Ryan, and he quickly understood what they wanted.
He stirred the fertilizer into the water to make a mixture. It looked like the fertilizer would last for quite a while like this. Once it seemed properly dissolved, the two sub-golems, climbing on top of each other, filled the spray-bottle with this mixture instead, and quickly brought it back to Gaia while Ryan closed the bucket up and put it into the corner of the shed for now.
"Already pretty busy, huh?" Runar laughed a bit, and Ryan shrugged with a smile on his face.
"Seems so. I'm glad, though. Gaia looks like she's having fun," Ryan pointed out, looking in through the glass of the greenhouse. There, Gaia was preparing small pots to let the different seeds germinate.
"Ah, wait, I bought something for today," Ryan said with a smile, quickly rushing back down the stairs. He made his way to his bedroom, quickly grabbing a box that he had prepared. Runar curiously took a look.
"What's that?" he asked, and Ryan quickly opened it up. It was filled with even more seed packets, though these seemed to have been bought from a store instead of being provided by Gaia's class.
"Some cabbage, carrots, corn, cucumbers... a bunch of different herbs... Oh, and watermelons and pumpkins. I also have like a dozen different flowers here. Just a bunch of stuff, really. Figured it might make a good surprise gift for her."
Runar raised his brow, "Surprise? But you're always together."
"I mean, they can't see what I see when they're not in my domain, so I just ordered them online and unpacked them while she was on the balcony the other day," Ryan replied as if it were obvious, quickly walking up to Gaia with the seeds in hand. Watching as the Golem enthusiastically grabbed them, Runar let out a slight laugh and leaned against the newly-installed railing. He pulled out his phone and snapped a picture, though he was fumbling a bit. It ended up with Ryan a but blurry, but you could still tell it was him.
With a smile, Runar sent the picture to Ryan's mother, Mary, adding a quick message to the photo, 'You raised a hell of a good kid'.
He pushed his phone into his pocket, and shouted over to Ryan, "I'll be heading back downstairs. Let me know if you need something."
Ryan turned around and smiled, "Will do! Thanks for this, by the way."
"Don't even mention it."