A Budding Scientist in a Fantasy World

Before heading to the Library, Alice made a quick stop near another of the floating lanterns. She spent a few more minutes trying to observe how the metal hooks and the paired lanterns worked, before she finally nodded to herself and moved away. While she didn’t get any new ideas for the metal plates, she at least got a better idea how linked enchantments worked. She might try to make a few of them sometime in the future, just to see if she was understanding the theory behind it properly.

After that, Alice reached the academy library.

Alice’s first impression of the library when she stepped into the school’s library was that it was filled with books.

There were shelves and shelves of books scattered across the room. Alice was big fan of libraries. Even before leaving Earth, Alice had loved spending time surrounded by books, and had been inside public libraries many times in the past.

The library she was currently standing in dwarfed the libraries she had seen even on Earth. An entire floor of a building that took architectural design from a castle was a whole different scale from the libraries she was used to. And considering how expensive ink and paper were in this world, Alice was seriously impressed by how dedicated the academy library was to storing and accumulating knowledge. This library must have cost a fortune to build.

Illa’s ‘private collection’ of books had only amounted to a little over fifty books. This was the private collection of a woman who had founded a developing town, was well on track to getting her own inheritable nobility title, was a high level mage who had served in the military for years, and had a husband who was extremely successful as a [Merchant]. Alice hadn’t been sure how optimistic she should be about the academy libraries, though she had figured it would certainly be worth checking out. What she found, however, outstripped her imagination.

The library was filled with students. Free access to the library was one of the bigger Perks for students of the magic academies. It was one of the biggest reasons that Alice had put so much time and energy into accessing the academy, and clearly, it had a hand in the actions of many other students as well. Far from the partially deserted libraries she was used to at home, this library was busier than a market square. It also wasn’t quiet, unlike libraries at home. The place was filled with quiet conversation. Even though it wasn’t loud, compared to the silence or low buzz of noise Alice had been expecting, there was certainly a fair bit of background noise here.

At the front desk of the library was a trio of people, all of whom were quietly watching the Library, as well as the students inside of it. Each [Librarian] was filled with rainbow mana. The amount of mana each [Librarian] had was comparable to Illa, give or take a bit. There was even a small clump of rainbow mana that extended out of one of the [Librarians] and filled the rest of the library with small doses of rainbow mana. Alice had no idea what it was doing, since it wasn’t as clear cut as something like a lie-detection Perk. However, Alice wasn’t used to seeing Perks influence an entire area at once, so she was still quite impressed by it.

“Student ID?” asked one of the librarians, upon seeing Alice standing near the entrance in a daze.

Alice looked at the woman, not comprehending what she was asking for a moment.

“Your student ID. You do have yours with you, yes?”

“Ah. Yes.” Alice quickly flashed her student ID at the woman.

“Please repeat after me. My name is Alice Verianna. I am the person who signed up for this ID, and this ID is my posession. The information about me on the ID is correct and contains no false information or omitted information. I hold no intent to inflict violence upon any other people in the library. I hold no intent to sabotage the library. I do not possess a Thermal magic seed, or, if I do, I have no intention of using it while near the books. I do not possess any enchanted items or other items which can produce a flame of any sort – or, if I do, I intend to deposit them with the [Librarians] at the front desk. I will not start any fires in the library. I will also fairly and accurate report any damage that occurs to the books as a result of my handling, and will pay the fines associated with damaging the books before I leave the library. I do not anticipate any of these statements changing until such time as I leave the library.”

Alice was even more surprised than before. The truth-detected statement was much longer than the one she had needed to repeat just to enter the building. After realizing why security was so high, however, Alice repeated the statement.

The librarian smiled at her. “All right, you’re free to enter. If you leave the library with any books, we will require a separate lie-detection statement, as well as a few documents for you to fill out. All right?”

Alice nodded. She wasn’t intending to take any books out of the library today, though she would probably do so in the future. For now, however, she finally set foot in the library.

She spent the better part of half an hour familiarizing herself with the library’s organizing system. It was organized loosely by category, but the system was a lot more… loose than things like the Dewey decimal system, which was what the libraries back at home had used. Books that covered enchanting were in one section, for example, and books that covered kinetic mana were in another section. However, if a book focused specifically on kinetic mana enchantments, it seemed to be randomly sorted into one of two categories, without any real rhyme or reason. Alice couldn’t help but think that the organization system of the library kind of worked, but it needed a serious overhaul.

Luckily, the books did at least have a system that consistently returned them to the same spot each time. After observing the movement of the people around her for a while, Alice finally figured out what the Librarian’s Perk was doing. The rainbow mana covering the library seemed to notify the librarian at the front desk what was happening to the books at all times, and whenever a student placed a book in the wrong location or one of the return trays, one of the [Library Assistants] would be notified to grab the book and place it in the correct spot. Alice doubted that was all the Perk was doing, but considering how the mana lit up before one of the [Librarians] dispatched an assistant to fetch the books half the time a student put a book back on a shelf, Alice was pretty sure that was what was happening. The Perk also seemed to make the books rather resilient against damage, considering the fact that the books felt oddly sturdy when Alice touched them.

She shrugged to herself, before she grinned and headed to the enchantment section. Alice had a very, very wide variety of things that she wanted to investigate, from monsters to the System to the workings of mana to enchantments, but since it was her first day in the library, she decided to just explore what interested her the most. Right now, that was paired enchantments. She had a year here, so it wasn’t a big deal if she shopped around for ideas and ways to make money before doubling down on her primary focuses. After selecting a few books and walking over to one of the tables, Alice buried herself in her book.

* * *

About two hours later, Alice put the book back on the shelf. Due to the perfect memory granted by her Perks, she had an easy time placing the books she had borrowed back into the perfect positions. She quietly checked the page number and location of the book again, to make sure that she could get back to reading the book later on. It was a good book for getting an introduction to the topic, and had fairly detailed diagrams for how to set up basic paired enchantments. Since Alice had found a new direction to take her enchantments, she wanted to at least explore the idea a little more, since it opened up new possibilities for how to tell enchantments to target their surroundings Alice hadn’t considered before. After that, she began to stroll out of the library, where she ran into Arsi.

“Hey, Alice! Good to see you again,” said Arsi, giving her his trademark grin. “Where are you heading?”

“I have Morals in twenty minutes, and then I have Self Defense as my final class for the day. I’m trying to figure out whether I should head home to work on some enchanting or come back to the library after that. My other two classes are Tuesdays and Thursdays.”

Arsi shrugged. “I’m heading to Morals myself. Wanna go together?”

“Sure.” The two walked and talked, chatting about miscellaneous topics as they went. Alice was surprised to hear Arsi easily talk about Count Aethelred’s fourth mistress and how she had become a hot topic among nobles, as well other gossip such as viscount Scheiffer’s heir proposing to a talented female mage. Considering the fact that Arsi had introduced himself as a kid from the slums, Alice hadn’t expected him to know anything about noble gossip – she had assumed he would be as clueless as she was.

“I’m surprised to hear you’re so familiar with noble gossip,” said Alice idly, as the pair made their way to the fourth floor of the academy.

“It comes with being in a magic academy, you know? This is one of the places where commoners and nobles mingle most often. At least half of the Mages in the country try their best to get into one of the magic academies scattered throughout the country, because the teachers and teaching facilities are top notch for the Shil Confederacy in general. Combine that with the fact that there are some foreign mages and nobles mixed in as well, and the academies are a surprisingly good place to learn more about the rest of the world beyond Illvaria. Most importantly, plenty of nobles find excuses to mingle with the promising Mages of the magic academies whenever they can. Every territory that wants to function economically needs Mages, so if you want to get a job as a Mage, the easiest way is to find an employer while attending an Academy. Since I’m well above average, I have an easy time talking to nobles and getting to know what their circles look like.”

“[Nobles] poke their noses into the academy frequently?” Alice hadn’t noticed anything of the sort so far, although she had only been here for half a day so far.

“Well, a [Noble] having their kids attend is one way to get inside the academy. The school has opportunities for kids to bring their parents to school here and there – school dances, parent-teacher conferences, et cetera. So any noble with a kid talented in magic has a pretty easy time getting into the academy now and then to scout future talents and try to establish good relations, or hire them in advance. Then, there are also public dances and parties. Nobles that don’t have kids who won the magic talent lottery have a harder time wiggling into the academy, but they still have options. One of the ways they do that is by holding a public party in a residence they own near the academy. They just let any Mage or [Noble] who feels like attending join in, and mages who are interested in making connections or finding an employer show up and mingle. It’s a less formal system than actual Patronage, of course, but plenty of Patronage starts at a public party – and plenty of employment offers do as well. Finally, every year there’s an awards ceremony held by the academy that nobles can attend. Ostensibly, it’s so [Nobles] can ‘offer congratulations to the talented mages of the nation’ or something ridiculous like that. But honestly, it’s a recruiting drive for those who are talented.” Asir chuckled. “Well, those are the major avenues. There are other ways as well, like just sending a [Messenger] to directly ask a Mage if they’re interested in talking more. If you get an invitation, you can decline it without offending the [Noble] in question, though if you want to keep getting offers you should at least meet the person who sent the message once before declining. Well, [Messengers] are seen as kind of blunt by most people, so they’re a rare way of contacting Mages these days. But those are the most common ways to get in contact with potential Patrons or employers. If you’re interested, I could show you around. Not that you need a Patron, since you already have one.”

“You seem to know a lot about these things. Given your Level, I thought you would spend a lot more time focusing on magic and getting more Levels and Achievements.”

“My level? Ah, I guess I’ve hinted at it a few times, even if I keep some information to myself. I didn’t think you were that well informed though,” said Asir, giving her a friendly wink. “I’m currently on track to join the military, but that doesn’t mean I’m not open to other offers. I go to those events to mingle and see if anyone is interested in me and can make me a good offer. I’m entertaining an offer from Duchess Elva right now. She offered to pay for a year of my stay in the research academy, in exchange for accepting some monitoring from her [Butler] and sending my evaluations to her residence to be examined. If things go well and I impress her, I might also have a patron starting next year and no longer be on the military track. It’s up in the air right now, but I think it’s an interesting offer.”

“Is that so?” Said Alice, as she mused to herself. Parties and nobles, huh. She had been curious to know how exactly Mages got integrated into the rest of society after education, but parties with nobles certainly hadn’t been the answer she was expecting. However, it also meant that Alice’s chance of interacting with them was practically nil – which might be a good thing, honestly. Alice liked her current lifestyle, so she didn’t need to find an avenue to change it right now. She was getting levels, progressing her research, and getting access to bigger and more interesting knowledge bases. Even if she might need to change something in the future, she was content for now.

Finally, the two arrived at the classroom they would be sharing. Alice looked around the room, to see if she recognized any of the other members of the classroom, but sadly, the other three students she had met in her first class didn’t seem to be present.

This classroom was much larger than the introductory monster biology classroom, and was nearly filled with students. While the first classroom she had entered had perhaps twenty students in it at full capacity, this classroom easily had room for about a hundred. At the front of the classroom stood, not a high-level Mage who looked like they could go toe to toe with Illa in pure level like Alice had been expecting, but a petite woman in her late thirties. She had a decent amount of mana in her body compared to some of the students, but honestly, Alice found her level to be… lacking. Alice estimated that in a month or two, she would probably be at the same Level as this woman, who probably didn’t have a class over level 65.

Furthermore, the woman was too pretty. Since physical attractiveness was a literal Stat one could raise by working hard, the attractiveness of a person also gave a surprisingly good indicator about someone’s personality if you knew enough other information about them.

And this woman was one of the prettiest Mages Alice had ever met. While she didn’t reach the absurd, too-pretty-to-be-human levels of Allira, given the woman’s high attractiveness, unimpressive level, and below-average Thermal magic seed, Alice wondered if the woman had put any effort into her magic at all. The woman’s physical appearance would have made much more sense if she was a [Merchant] instead of a magic teacher.

Alice’s questions were answered shortly after the class began, however.

“Ahem. I am Professor Eidwiss – a representative of the Illvarian crown. All of you, for various reasons, have acquired the rare and extraordinary gift of magic. I heartily congratulate you! However, as Mages, it’s important to understand how to use your newfound powers in a way that benefits the country and people around you. I’m here to talk about how a Mage should conduct themselves…”

Alice twitched. The rest of the class, honestly, could have been summarized in a couple sentences.

‘Hurting innocent people is bad. With the power of magic comes a responsibility to help others. Don’t get arrogant just because you’re Mages, and be a good person.’

Alice quickly started to feel like the whole class was a waste of time. If her [Willpower] had been any lower, she probably would have nodded off halfway through the lecture. Some of the male students were still greatly interested in the class, but Alice was pretty sure they were paying more attention to the teacher’s looks than the content of the lecture. When Professor Eidwiss finally stopped talking, Alice heaved a sigh of relief.

Arsi, perhaps seeing her bored expression, laughed at her as he walked over to her seat at the end of the class. “Nice and excited about this fascinating, riveting class?”

Alice just snorted.

“It’s pretty commonly agreed that this class is the worst by most people, especially the ones who love magic and learning. Don’t worry – we only have it three times a week, for two hours a day each time, any time you’re attending magic academy for any reason…”

“It’s not just a year one thing?”

“Nope.”

Alice groaned, before she sighed and began trudging to the last class of the day. “That is… unfortunate. Are the test hard? If I fail them, am I going to get dragged away to the Gulag or something?”

Through training, you have increased a skill!

Rus@#$%@# (Language Proficiency): 0->1

“That was actually worth a point in a language proficiency skill? Seriously?” Alice said, looking at the notification.

“I don’t know what a gulag is, and I didn’t get any points in a language proficiency skill yet. But if you aren’t doing well in the class, that’s honestly kind of… impressive. It’s pretty easy to pass, just boring. Half of the grade in this class is pretty much just attending it. Well, if you actually do start to fail, the teacher has the right to pull you aside for some extra lecturing on what it means to be a good person. Which is very exciting and may or may not cause one to consider the pros and cons of banging your head against the wall until you pass out. But it’s not like there are any legal ramifications.”

Alice breathed a small sigh of relief as she and Arsi walked out of the classroom. Even if she had never failed a class before and had no intention of starting now, it was relieving to know that there wasn’t much on the line. As she was preparing to ask Arsi about Self Defense, her final class of the day, Arsi bid her farewell. Apparently, his classes were done for the day.

Alice arrived at the final class for the day. Luckily, in this class as well she was able to quickly find someone she knew – this time, it was Luka Frien and Laila. Since Alice already had two people she knew in the class, she moved to them and started chatting with them until class started. Since Alice had people to talk to, she felt no need to introduce herself to more new people, as a natural consequence of her below average interest in socializing. It could be said that if Alice had been born on this planet and not Earth, her [Charisma] probably would have never reached triple digits…

The final class for the day, Self Defense, didn’t end up drawing much of Alice’s interest. It was the first class to take place in an outdoors area, situated behind the school in a flattened area filled with weights, practice weapons, and other miscellaneous objects. The teacher was a man named Professor Tanmi. He was physically in his late twenties, and was much closer to the high level Mage Alice had been expecting to see – although that wasn’t all. His movements were fast and fluid, betraying his incredibly high [Dexterity], and since he casually moved heavy weights around the training ground as students shuffled in, he clearly had quite a high level of [Strength] as well.

Once class started, he introduced himself by displaying many different types of combat proficiency – including swordsmanship, bare-handed fighting, and even competence with a bow, before he moved on to showing proficiency with Kinetic and Organic magic as battle methods. Alice was more than a little bit surprised to see that the man used a combat style she had never seen before – apparently, the man had taken Perks that boosted the strength of his Kinetic Magic to extreme levels, but only worked when he was influencing objects very close to his body. If most Kinetic Mages could take objects and then fling them into the distance the way a cannon might, professor Tanmi instead used Kinetic Magic as something closer to a supplement for his already incredible physical abilities. In exchange for giving up a lot of his long range abilities, however, he could do things with his mana Alice had never seen before – for example, he could slap a sword that was swung at him and break it in half with his bare hands safely and reliably. Combined with the fact that he was using Organic Magic to boost his abilities even further, Alice was pretty sure that this Mage would be a nightmare to fight in close quarters combat. She had no idea if he had learned how to heal himself with Organic Magic, but if he did, he would be the nightmare of any [Spearman] or [Swordsman].

Alice hypothesized he had taken [Kinetic Brawler] as his class when he had evolved it from his lower-limit student class, or he at least had a similar class.

After giving an introduction to the man’s melee-magic proficiencies, he started getting the students to jog around the training classroom, before running through some other basic exercises. He then started… throwing objects at everyone while they ran, relying on his great physical strength and speed to make the soft objects hurt if one failed to dodge them.

Alice felt that professor Tanmi would have gotten along well with Illa.

After two hours of jogging, dodging, and other magic exercises, Alice crawled out of class completely exhausted. She had originally been debating going back to the library after class, but at this point she just wanted to go to bed. She dragged herself back to her inn room, before forcing herself to stay conscious long enough to spend her remaining mana enchanting objects to sell. Then she took a bath, laid on her bed, and almost instantly fell asleep.