That night, a thought occurred to Alice.

Why were there 143 Mariums of Kinetic Energy mana inside of her magic seed if there were only 67 Mariums of mana inside of her? That… that didn’t make any sense did it?

Granted, the first time she had measured the Mariums instead of her body, it had been after a training session with Illa, so she had been nearly empty on mana. However, she was suddenly consumed by a strange thought. What if the two didn’t match up? She had spent around 6 hours reading after she had returned from Cecilia’s shop, fully finishing the fifth book in Illa’s library, and that should have been enough time to regenerate about 15% of her mana, right? Surely the amount of mana inside of her body should have changed by an appropriate number of Mariums, right?

Alice took another look at herself using the {Precise Mana Measurement} Perk, trying to figure out how many Mariums of mana were inside of her body right now.

It was currently 69. She had gone from nearly completely out of mana to around 15% full. She should have gained around 21 Mariums of mana inside of her magic seed, but the amount of Mariums in her body had only increased by 2. Something was definitely wrong here. What was happening? She was measuring the amount of Mariums inside of her body – the Perk didn’t account for ‘density’ at all, and instead just measured the number of Mariums in a specific, defined area or object.

In other words, the Perk wasn’t just telling her that there were only 69 Mariums per square meter or something inside of her body. Even though she should have 21 more Mariums inside of her body, and she could feel that her Magic seed was far closer to ‘full’ than it had been earlier, there were only two more Mariums of mana inside of her body. Alice had also gained a point in Willpower earlier, which should have increased the amount of mana in her body by an unknown amount as well. That meant that having over 20 Mariums of mana in her mana seed might increase the amount of mana in her body by as little as zero mariums, or as much as… two.

What?

Alice pulled her covers away from her, jerking out of bed. She put her clothes back on before quickly striding out of the room, looking for Illa. She had to test something, right now.

If Illa was still awake and wasn’t busy, at least. If not, Alice would find another way to figure out what the heck was going on, or wait until morning. Even though she wanted to know now, she would respect Illa’s schedule.

The customary maid wasn’t there when Alice exited the room, but that was fine. Alice headed towards the training room first, just because that was where she was used to seeing Illa. Illa was not there, because the training session for the day had already ended, but there was a maid there, repairing some of the training equipment. Alice had to wonder what the heck Illa’s job description for ‘maid’ looked like if it involved repairing metal weights, but she brushed that thought aside for now.

Alice focused on the maid, and quickly measured the number of Mariums inside of the maid’s body. 419 Mariums. Alice tried to figure out what the woman’s stats might be, but had a hard time figuring it out – in the first place, Alice would have needed to know what the average amount of mana each ‘stat’ gave, and how much mana each level and Skill gave as well. Since she didn’t know those things, the information she was currently getting wasn’t particularly useful. Alice did note that this maid was different than the one that usually served her breakfast, but didn’t spend more time thinking about it.

“Excuse me, do you know where Illa is?” Asked Alice, twitching in impatience.

“May I ask why you wish to see Lady Illa?” Asked the maid, her voice oddly toneless and emotionless. Alice took a closer look at the Maid’s face, and noted that it seemed to be oddly… stiff. However, even the maid’s seemingly emotionless exterior didn’t quite prevent the maid from looking at Alice like she had lost her mind. Underneath her exterior, there were still little hints of emotions here and there.

Alice… ignored her expression completely. She had more important things to focus on.

“I want to check something involving mana. I noticed an oddity in the way one of my Perks measures things, and I was hoping Illa would be able to explain what’s going on, or might have some ideas,” said Alice, practically bursting with impatience.

The maid looked even more confused as she stared at Alice, as if Alice had suddenly grown another head. Then, strangely enough, her facial expressions suddenly switched off completely, as if someone had just unplugged her emotions. “Follow me.” Her voice was clipped and cold. Not hostile, just… detached.

Alice didn’t notice this, though. She was still far too caught up in trying to figure out what was going on. She needed to know!

The maid led Alice through several rooms in the mansion, before she arrived at a particular room. The maid softly rapped on the door twice, and then waited. Alice waited as well, absently using her Perk on herself over and over again to confirm what she already knew.

The number of Mariums of mana in her body was 69.

69 again.

Still 69.

Her head was starting to hurt from using the Perk over and over again, and her eyes were starting to sting. It was a strange sensation, similar to putting salt in an open wound, except for the fact that Alice didn’t actually have any open wounds on her body right now. Finally, she stopped. If the Perk was going to be a strain to use over and over again, she would need to save some uses for when she measured the number of Mariums inside of Illa.

Alice was practically humming in impatience when Illa came out. Her usually prim clothing was a bit messy, as if she had hastily thrown it on a few seconds ago. Alice could still see a hint of Illa’s nightclothes poking out from one of the sides of Illa’s white and green dress.

“Well? What is it? It’s unusual for you to be disturbing me at this time, right? The sun has already set. I expected you to be reading in my library or something – that is your usual routine, yes?” Illa’s voice was a bit bleary, but her eyes were still sharp and focused. And she looked at Alice… as if she was looking at a particularly exotic creature that had just grown an extra head in front of her very eyes.

Before saying anything, Alice used her Perk again, this time on Illa.

823 Mariums. Something about the Perks feedback felt more vague than usual, though – Alice wondered if the Perk was having a hard time measuring the woman’s mana precisely? However, Alice didn’t feel like the Perk feedback was entirely wrong – just a bit more ‘off’ than usual, perhaps by a few Mariums.

Alice’s eyes were starting to hurt more. But that wasn’t the important thing! She just needed to use it a few more times anyway, so it wasn’t a big deal!

“Illa, how many Mariums of mana do your magic seeds provide?”

“That’s a very personal question, Lady Alice. May I ask why you want to know?”

“It’s because the numbers don’t match!”

“Huh?” Illa gave Alice a dumbfounded expression. Realizing she had jumped ahead a bit in her explanation, Alice tried to rewind a bit.

“I got a Perk that lets me measure Mariums of mana inside of my body, and my magic seed produces way more mana than I have inside of my body. Something about the math is off!”

“And so your first thought was to come to me in the middle of the night and ask me what was going on, instead of just waiting until our training session tomorrow morning?”

“Yes!” Alice was confident that she had made the correct choice. Science needed to be done.

Illa sighed, and pressed one of her palms against her forehead. Alice distinctly thought she heard the woman mutter something about ‘this child’ before Illa finally looked back at her.

“All right, fine. How many Mariums of mana does it say there are currently inside of my body, great [Scholar] Alice?” Alice didn’t miss the tinge of sarcasm in Illa’s voice, but for now, if she had someone willing to help her experiments, it was fine!

“It’s currently making the claim that there are 823 Mariums of mana in your body, although I’m getting the feeling that the numbers might be a bit more ‘off’ than usual when I use the Perk on you.”

“Is that so? It might be... Hmm.” Illa squinted for a moment, staring at the space in front of her eyes with a zoned-out expression. A moment later, she turned back towards Alice. “Try now.”

Alice used the Perk again. This time, she didn’t get the feeling that something was off with her numbers.

826 Mariums. Unlike before, the numbers felt solid. Precise.

“826 Mariums now.”

“Is that so? How shocking.” Illa’s tone was flat. And she had repeated the phrase ‘is that so’ twice in this conversation now. Alice was starting to feel a few warning bells creeping up on her, but she was also excited about what she might figure out.

“Usually {Contest of Range} also obscures the amount of mana in my body almost entirely from lower-level Perks. Let me try…” Illa extended several tendrils of mana out of her body. For a moment, Alice felt like she was looking at an Octopus – the tendrils of mana extended out of Illa’s body and filled the room, touching practically everything at once. Illa rapidly pushed out a huge quantity of mana, and several objects in the room shifted slightly to the right and then back to the left, vibrating in place. The objects in the room shuddered left and right over and over again, rippling and making the entire area look like it was going through a small earthquake.

If Alice was in her normal mood, she might have been awed by the casual display of magical prowess. However, she was too caught up in her own ideas to properly focus on Illa’s extraordinary mana and skill.

Then, suddenly, the objects completely stopped. “How about now?” Asked Illa, looking back at Alice.

“822 Mariums? But you just spent a lot of mana in the surroundings…” Alice frowned. If Alice had to guess how much mana Illa had just spent, it had to have been at least the amount of mana Alice generated in an entire day. For the amount of Mana inside of Illa’s body to only decrease by 4 Mariums of mana was… ridiculous. “So are Magic seeds… not part of the body or something? I was calculating the number of Mariums inside of a person, but maybe it’s not counting the mage core? Is that even where magic seeds are stored?”

Illa, who looked increasingly annoyed at the fact that she was still awake, still gave Alice a proper explanation. “Most [Scholars] suspect that’s where magic seeds are stored, but it’s pretty hard to get a good look at what’s going on inside of the mage core. It’s just as, if not more, complex than the brain, and [Scholars] have been trying to figure out the specifics of both for centuries now. However, [Scholars] and mages alike have detected that there are large quantities of mana passing through that small core located behind a mage’s heart every minute. Usually, the amount of mana is far greater than what is contained in the rest of the body – and only mages have it, obviously. Furthermore, if it is destroyed or seriously damaged and the mage somehow survives, they are usually unable to use magic at all unless they get it healed somehow – usually an Immortal who specializes in [Organic Magic] or some sort of super-specialized Perk. Of course, it’s pretty rare for things like that to come up – since the mage core is located so close to the heart, it’s rare for it to be damaged without the injured person also getting a fatal injury and dying.”

“I see…” Alice trailed off, lost in thought. This just seemed wrong. Something was very wrong. She couldn’t figure out how it all made sense, but it felt like there should be a way this all fit together, and…

Oh.

Oh.

OH!

Alice had a sudden flash of insight. There were two main ways she could think of that would resolve what she was looking at.

1) Somehow, mana seeds weren’t part of the body, or her Perk couldn’t see inside of a mage core.

Alice thought this was actually entirely possible. The fact that [Organic Mages] still hadn’t figured out exactly how Mage Cores worked was good evidence for this, actually – many [Organic Mages] often complained that even most regular Perks that let them see inside of human bodies when they needed to diagnose or heal patients, it was nearly impossible to look inside of a mage core. However, even though this was an entirely plausible theory, and one that could very well be correct, Alice felt that there was something off about it. She couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was, and she wouldn’t discount the theory entirely. However, she had another idea.

2) Magic seeds stored broken mana.

This was something Alice had been wondering for a while. What was broken mana? Why was a little bit of broken mana produced every time someone did anything? Illa and Alice both produced little speckles of broken mana every time any amount of magic was used. What was broken mana though? Why did Dimensional magic produce such a weird overflow effect?

However, perhaps Alice had been failing to understand what Broken mana was.

What if Broken mana wasn’t something ‘uniform’ at all? What if, instead, Broken mana was just mana that had taken on some sort of ‘pattern?’ And what if her Perk was just failing to take into account the ‘broken’ mana inside of a body, and only measured ‘pure’ mana or had some other specific setting?

Alice had never tried to intentionally produce broken mana instead of pure mana, but part of the amount of broken mana produced was based off of whatever mental image and understanding of whatever subject she was trying to manipulate. Alice intentionally threw every single thing she understood about kinetic energy into the trash can and tried to perform a bit of magic, intentionally messing up as much as possible to produce more broken mana.

Several wisps of broken mana were dumped outside of her newly formed mana tendril. Alice didn’t manage to use a totally incoherent version of kinetic energy – after all, it was impossible to totally ignore everything she understood about the concept. However, the Broken mana pushed out the ‘pure’ mana in a very small area, and Alice immediately used her Perk to measure mana in that very specific patch of air…

And came up with less than a Marium of mana in the patch of air she was measuring. She tested it on a similarly sized clump of air halfway across the room, and came up with about seven Mariums.

Her Perk did not seem to factor in Broken Mana. Illa stared at the massive patch of broken mana, before turning to Alice and frowned. A moment later, Illa stuck a mana tendril into the patch of broken mana and closed her eyes. The broken mana quickly began to evaporate, seeming to turn directly into nothing on contact with Illa’s mana tendril. She turned back towards Alice and opened her mouth, getting ready to ask questions, but before she could, Alice started asking questions.

“Illa? What exactly is the current theory for what Broken Mana is?”

Illa seemed more and more confused by Alice’s questions, but perhaps realizing Alice wasn’t going to let her sleep until she knew the answer, she still answered clearly and concisely.

“Until about a century ago, people referred to ‘broken mana’ as ‘corrupted mana’ instead. It was thought to be the sign of monsters and evil, since humans react so poorly to it, and it was considered cursed. A century ago, the idea that perhaps Broken Mana is simply the natural effect of using magic and monsters were simply better suited to deal with it than humans came about. However, nobody is really willing to put much time or money into studying the substance further. The fact that it has a chance of causing a second mana baptism in mages and requires a much lower concentration to force a baptism means that not many people are willing to study it.”

That was… fair. Alice could see why people wouldn’t be willing to mess with the highly lethal and dangerous toxic kind of mana that was likely to kill them. It was probably similar to how people on Earth might think about doing experiments with radiation, or how people might react if you asked them to walk around Chernobyl with no protection for a while to see what happened. Especially since, at least according to Illa’s library, even [Organic mages] seemed stumped by the question of how to make Mana Baptisms safer, and had a very long history of failing to make the process anything remotely close to ‘safe.’ Since there was no way to protect yourself from the dangers inherent in a mana baptism, it was natural people weren’t too interested in risking one if they weren’t desperate. Mages who had already gained access to magic, were doing research, and had a promising future were the exact opposite of being desperate enough to do risky research that might result in a second, far more lethal baptism.

“Does that mean that people don’t understand Broken Mana very well?”

“That is exactly what it means. It’s one of the bigger holes in modern magic. However, due to the risk inherent in the field and the occasional catastrophe involving broken mana escaping testing facilities and killing people, it’s a field of study that remains chronically understaffed and underfunded. Not much more to say about it, really,” said Illa.

“I’ve been thinking… what if broken mana is just mana that has adopted some sort of… identity, for lack of a better term? Mana itself seems to be some sort of gas-like substance that reacts to thoughts, right? That’s my current understanding of it, based on the way Magic Seeds work. In that case, what if Broken Mana is just mana that, instead of being ‘neutral,’ has adopted some sort of ‘idea?’”

“I’m thinking… that this could wait until morning.” Said Illa, looking at Alice.

“It’s just that I was wondering what Broken mana was for the longest time. And why dimensional magic caused some sort of strange overflow of broken mana. However, what if the idea of ‘dimensions’ or whatever Dimension seeds work off of just have some sort of… way of transferring their ‘idea’ from one chunk of mana to another? In that case, it could work like some sort of virus, hopping from one patch of mana to another and ‘infecting’ large amounts of mana. It was… just a thought I had,” said Alice.

“Plausible. Is that all?” Illa looked towards Alice.

“Well, I kind of wanted to ask you-”

“Lady Alice. Do you think that perhaps you could take a piece of charcoal and a wooden slat and then write down these questions?”

“Erm… yes?”

“Good. Please do that. I will see you tomorrow for our training session.”

Alice paused for a moment. Then, she turned towards Illa and nodded. “Yes, Lady Illa. Thank you for your time.”

As Alice began to return to her room, she could briefly see Illa and the maid conversing out of the corner of her eyes. The maid’s facial expressions returned to normal, as if someone had plugged her emotions back in.

“Such a strange new Student, Lady Illa.”

“My [Teacher] level is going to shoot through the fucking roof just based on how fast she’ll level [Scholar].” Illa paused for a moment, before she added. “If I don’t throw my mansion at her first.”

“My lady, if you throw your mansion you would need to rebuild it. Again.”

“I have the money for it…” Illa’s voice sounded both absentminded and drowsy again, as if she was gradually drifting off.

The rest of their conversation was lost to Alice as she returned to bed for the night.

You have leveled up!

Scholar: 15 -> 17

Scientist: 9 -> 12