After whatever the hell had just happened, Alice realized she was missing something. An incredibly critical piece of equipment that Science needed, and that she had been lacking up until now. It was, indeed, what one might consider critical to [Scientists] and scientists. Beyond a place to scream and cry for a while when experiments took a turn for the terrifying, at least, even if this hadn’t been intended to be an experiment at all.

Shakily, Alice got up and looked around. Her room’s door was still messed up, but nothing else was broken or damaged. The horrifying heat that had leaked out of the core behind her heart... The way everything touching her hands had broken and melted like putty… all those were gone. For now.

And, luckily or unluckily, nobody had noticed the melted and splintered chunks of door yet. Alice would have to tell Illa what had happened during their training session later today, but she had a few hours to decompress and figure out why she had suddenly almost burst into flames. Alice shakily got up and began walking out of her room. Her footsteps were unsteady, but she managed to get back to the room where Illa had stored all of her old teaching equipment.

Quietly, Alice looked through the piles of lesser enchanted items. A few textbooks that Alice had already looked through, a variety of enchanted materials used for teaching exercises that Alice couldn’t do yet… and a few notebooks in Illa’s own handwriting, long since abandoned.

Alice grabbed one of them and flipped through the pages for a while, until she found one that was only partially up. Paper was expensive, and Illa hadn’t given any to Alice – but the empty pages here were fair game, right? Almost half of the book was still available, although the first half of the book was filled with lesson plans for how to improve Skills once they reached the first growth reduction at level 50. Alice ignored that – [Kinetic Manipulation] was getting close to 50, but it wasn’t there yet.

Alice could use charcoal in place of ink for now – there was a small fireplace in her room that she could use to start a fire if needed, not that Alice was particularly worried about temperature with her [Vitality] as high as it was and her Perks and Achievements boosting her resistance to the cold. Still, there were a few chunks of ash that she could use as basic writing materials, for now.

Alice had noticed that it was getting too difficult to remember everything she wanted to investigate and everything she had observed, and Alice was beginning to realize that even with {Enhanced Memory} things were starting to slip through the cracks of her mind.

She tried to suppress the trembling in her hands as she began writing. She needed something to focus her mind on, though. Something to deal with the crippling fear until she could process it some more…

She started out with a single page.

Observations:

- Mana surges towards people whenever they gain an Attribute, Skill, or Level. This occurs before a System notification pops up.

- There are a lot of plants and animals that closely resemble those from Earth.

- Broken mana has a lot of different colors associated with it, and this seems to correlate to the ‘concept’ inside of a chunk of mana? (note: May need further investigation to confirm – more of an untested hypothesis for now.) My Perk also cannot pick up the mana inside of a broken mana seed, and also cannot record ‘broken’ mana. Magic seeds may possibly store some sort of broken or partially broken mana inside of them, rather than ‘pure’ mana?

-Hunch – maybe broken mana is mana with some sort of imprinted ‘identity’ in it? If so, why do some seeds produce more ‘broken’ mana than others? Very odd. Look into further.

- It is a well known fact that monsters die when separated from mana for long periods of time. Humans have also been observed to grow weaker and feel lightheaded when separated from mana (similar to asphyxiation? Figure out how to investigate further – seems odd to me).

Alice’s hands started trembling for a moment, before she recorded what she had seen an hour or two ago.

- Some mana seeds cannot be formed, especially those using some of the knowledge of physics from Earth. No Atoms, Lesser Nuclear Force, Strong Force, etc. can be formed into a seed, even though books claim any idea can be made into a Magic seed. Very, very dangerous to interact with – do not mess with until a much clearer idea of what I’m messing with is obtained. Dangerous.

After writing that down, Alice noticed something.

Where had the mana gone? Her Perk for measuring mana in her surroundings had definitely decreased. She had eaten through a huge amount of mana in the room every time she had nearly formed a new seed, and even though it had rapidly been replaced from the mana outside of the room, it was obvious she had eaten through a pretty significant amount of mana.

No new Broken Mana was created though. And as of right now, Alice had created one new seed and failed to create several dozen – and the total number of Mariums in her body was 71. Considering how many hundreds of Mariums she had eaten through trying to make mana, that made no sense. It was like someone had just taken the mana and… deleted it. Come to think of it, Alice had also noticed a similar phenomenon when Illa had removed the Broken mana in the room last night.

Last night, the Broken mana hadn’t been ‘replaced with mana.’ It hadn’t been ‘purified back into regular mana’ or something either. It was like someone had just selected all of the broken mana and hit the delete button.

Alice frowned, before she wrote down another observation.

-Mana seems to be literally getting deleted at some points. Does mana… not follow the idea of conservation of energy?

If it didn’t, Alice… wouldn’t know how to respond to that. The idea of something not following the law of conservation of energy was simply absurd to her. On Alice’s earth, energy could not be created or destroyed. It simply changed forms. However, she also had no clue where all of the mana or broken mana she should have observed had gone.

And if mana really had as little regard for conservation of energy as it seemed to…

It would have staggering implications. If Energy was being created or destroyed by mana, what did that mean? Was mana just ignoring energy conservation entirely? Did it obey the laws of Thermodynamics? She had no clue if she was just incorrect, or missing something obvious, but she was certainly interested in testing it later.

Unnoticed, Alice’s hands had finally stopped shaking. Even though she was still terrified of what she had seen happen earlier, at the very least, she had something to take her mind off of things for a while.

Finally, she moved on to the next part of her notebook.

Possible Experiments to perform

- Check to see if someone else is also able to see mana surges before Stats or Skills are gained – the heart of science is replicating things over and over again and proving something isn’t just coincidence.

- Possible sub-idea: See if others can get any sort of Achievement for discovering how mana and Stats are related? If they can, possibly a good idea to ‘sell’ this to people.

- Sub idea of sub-idea. Maybe see if I can use this to pay Cecilia for some of my lessons. People in this world like Achievements, right? Maybe she would be willing to trade the possibility of getting an Achievement of unknown rarity for some of my education. May also serve as a way to verify experiment ideas as well. Ask later.

- See if there’s a way to nail down how much mana each Stat, Skill, and Level gives – if there is any consistency in them. (Maybe not – something to check later on).

Alice frowned, tapping her clean hand against her check as she tried to think. What other experiments did she need to perform that would provide her with more information?

- Check to see what happens if I am separated from mana for a long period of time. Get someone to check over me so that, if the experiment proves to be dangerous, someone can swoop in and stop me from dying or getting hurt. It seems odd to me that mana would be ‘fundamental to life’ because there was no mana on Earth (as far as I know), so I need to know whether some sort of fundamental change happened to me whenever I got a Status Screen, or whether something else is happening here.

Another thought occurred to Alice, one that she hadn’t noticed before.

Why were humans so bad at dealing with mana?

It was a well known fact on this planet that monsters didn’t fear broken mana, and they also didn’t fear ‘dense concentrations’ of mana. In fact, almost every kind of monster on the planet had the ability to use magic, as well. Only the weakest species of monster, like spidercrabs, didn’t use any sort of magic, and survived mostly due to the absurd reproduction rate of those species. By contrast, humans underwent mana baptisms whenever they were exposed to a high enough density of mana. That density changed some from person to person, based on their Attributes, Levels, and other factors, but the fact remained that, seemingly unlike monsters, humans had a 96% chance of dying on contact with one of the most common airborne substances on the planet.

That… did not seem like a logical way to evolve for a species. And that wasn’t even including the fact that monsters could universally consume broken mana as nutrition. To them, broken mana was just another form of food. None of them showed any particular caution when it came to consuming broken mana at all. And, unlike monsters, humans had a much higher chance of dying on contact with universal mana.

Why?

After a moment of thought, Alice wrote out another potential experiment.

- Grab some monster eggs or something and see if there’s any sort of ‘mana baptism’ process monsters go through. Maybe use Spidercrab eggs and throw them in a cage, and see what they look like? May need to check what ‘mana baptism’ looks like in humans first. Still, the survival rate of the eggs would at least give some level of indication about whether I’m on to something or not. Humans having a 96% fatality rate when dealing with mana seems absurd. If monsters just go through the mana baptism process as eggs or something, maybe it makes more sense, but if almost all of them survive, something weird is going on. Maybe?

-Think more about this experiment later. Probably missing several things to make into a proper experiment.

- Maybe grab some eggs during the expedition. Spidercrabs lay eggs during late spring and early summer, right? Investigate further in the future. There might be a few spidercrabs that lay eggs early or something. Keep an eye out.

Alice paused, trying to think about if there were any other pressing questions she had that she could actually test and answer. After a moment, the question about mana came back, but in a slightly different form.

- Where does the mana inside of my body come from? The mana my body absorbs was my original ‘best guess’ for where the mana in my magic seeds come from, but that seems like it’s linked to my Stats and Skills instead. While they might still be related, it seems strange to me. I have noticed most of my food has mana in it. Maybe check to see what happens if I stop eating food with mana in it? Does my ability to use magic decrease or go away? If I can safely stay inside of an environment without mana, check to see if I can still use magic even if there is no mana in the air around me. Worth investigating.

- I still currently have no way to cut myself off from mana in the air around me. Need enchanted materials for this. Buy? Make myself? Worth thinking about.

* * *

A few hours passed after Alice started writing in her new notebook. She had calmed down enough to read a bit after making her list, which helped get more progress towards the {Bookworm} Achievement she had marked as a good Achievement for her to pick up in the future. Apart from that, she tried to destress for a while. Even though she had pulled in a lot of mana from her surroundings, nobody seemed to have noticed. Alice didn’t find that entirely unusual though - in the first place, the only person in the mansion besides Alice who could see mana was Illa, and Illa wasn’t always at the mansion. If she was out of the area, it was totally natural nobody had seen Alice burning through the mana in the area.

Finally, it was time for the training session for the day.

When she stepped into the training room for today, Illa regarded Alice with a stern expression. There was a chilly look in her eyes, and when Alice looked at her right hand, instead of the usual dry beans, there were little marbles in her palm. Even if they wouldn’t cause any damage, they would probably hurt a fair bit more if they hit her…

Alice finally remembered that last night, in her excitement, she had woken up Illa halfway through the night.

“I apologize for waking you up – I should have waited until morning,” said Alice, after a moment of hesitation. “I would also like to note that during an experiment this morning, I accidentally melted the door to my room – it is… erm… liquified?”

Illa’s expression, which had previously looked like she was considering the best way to make Alice’s training hell, calmed down as she regarded Alice.

“You melted your door? How the hell did you manage that?” Illa’s tone held no reproach – only curiosity.

“A lot of the books in your library detail the conditions for forming a magic seed, yes? I saw a lot of them saying that a Magic Seed can theoretically be formed from any idea, and the less they need to interfere with reality, the less broken mana they consume. In my former world, we had a lot of ideas about the fundamental nature of reality, so I tried to form some mana seeds based around those ideas… and broke everything.”

“Broke everything? Wait, what do you mean?” Illa frowned, and gave Alice a much more appraising look. “Like what?”

“Erm… one of the bigger ideas at home was the idea that all of reality is actually comprised of lots of really tiny objects called atoms, and they’re supposed to be much, much smaller than cells. I tried to form a magic seed based off of that idea…”

“And?” Illa frowned, looking at Alice. Then, seeming to come to a realization, she nodded. “If you formed a good magic seed based off of it, I would be willing to trade for more details on that knowledge. And you don’t have to worry if you accidentally melted the door experimenting with it – the wooden doors aren’t that expensive, and while replacing them is a pain, a good magic seed is more than worth it. We can talk – “

“It failed to form.”

Illa frowned. “Wait, what? That’s… that’s impossible, right? Even if your idea of reality is ridiculously wrong, you should form a trashy magic seed, like a seed of hope or something that basically just spews out broken mana and doesn’t do anything useful. To fail to form one entirely….” Illa frowned. “I have never heard of that. I’ll send another inquiry north…” She turned back to Alice. “What happened next?”

Alice described the process the rest of her morning had gone through – the panic, the melting of the door, and, after some hesitation, the strange System messages she had seen. Alice didn’t know Binary well enough to remember what the System messages had said, especially since she had barely seen the messages before they had disappeared, so she was only able to describe the oddity in the messages themselves – the fact they had deleted themselves without Alice acknowledging them, the way the mana in her body had started to spin out of control before suddenly settling down.

However, by the end of Alice’s explanation, Illa was giving Alice an even bigger frown. For once, Illa even looked anxious.

“That sounds… really familiar, but I can’t quite put my finger on why. It feels like something I’ve heard before…” Illa frowned. “But I can’t put my finger on it. Damn.” Illa shook her head.

“I’ll contact some of my acquaintances and see if anyone knows anything about why forming multiple seeds would cause problems, and speak with Friedheim about the System messages. I don’t… think there’s anything in the contents of that experiment that would be problematic if someone else found out, and he would be the one to talk to about System messages. All right?” Illa looked at Alice, the marbles fanning out and orbiting her hand almost completely unnoticed.

“If you think it won’t get me in trouble, I don’t mind talking about this one. The results were… scary,” said Alice, after thinking for a moment.

“I would recommend you keep them quiet if I thought an experiment or observation would get you in trouble. Religion-wise, this is a case of you getting saved by the System, or at least that’s what it sounds like, so there’s no problem theologically. If anything, the church might trumpet their horn a bit before moving on with their life. And I’m incentivized to protect you anyway – [Teachers] can get some pretty serious exp penalties if they willingly put their students in danger, or fail to protect them. It’s almost like – ah.” Illa’s eyes widened.

“Illa?”

“I finally remember why your case sounds familiar.” Said Illa.

“Familiar? Do you mean it has happened before?”

“Not recently. In fact, not within the past several thousand years.”

Alice frowned. That was… a long time, especially because she didn’t know how long written records, or Immortals, had been around. How reliable was information from thousands of years ago? Despite Alice’s doubts, Illa continued.

“Thousands of years ago, supposedly, humanity was at the bottom of the food chain, and the System had yet to reveal itself to the human race. At that time, according to church theology, there were mages that helped the humans to survive in environments where most humans were devoured by monsters if they were found. However, the church’s theology also claims that most mages died of a variety of strange problems afterwards – their bodies melting, their internal organs cooking themselves… among other things. You described your body heating up unnaturally, and you melted my door, no? It sounds… similar.”

Alice frowned. Suddenly, the Church seemed FAR more interesting to her than it had a moment ago. She hadn’t thought very much about the Church’s historical records before, because she was used to history being recorded in books. However, she recalled the Priest mentioning something about a time before the System. Maybe there was a lot of information buried in those records of the church?

Suddenly, it seemed very much worth checking out.

Illa didn’t seem to have anything else to say on the matter, so Alice’s training session resumed. Today, Illa had a penchant for pegging her face with marbles. Alice could somehow feel the woman’s frustration in each marble…

And thus, the rest of the training session passed with Alice continuously getting beaned with marbles. Illa seemed to particularly emphasize spots that wouldn’t actually hurt Alice while still stinging like crazy. Alice could see the woman’s mirthful grin after most of the session, and she could tell Illa wasn’t going to keep harassing her over Alice’s attempted late-night experimenting. Still, the marbles definitely hurt way more than beans did.

Absently, she rubbed her forehead. It still stung.