After Alice had adjusted used to her classes, life began to settle into a stable, but hectic, rhythm. The rest of the week passed quickly as she adapted to her new daily schedule.

In mornings, she would work with Ezrien’s team to perfect the kinetic plates, slogging through different builds and ideas as they tried to make each plate easier and cheaper to make without losing any functionality. Alice had originally thought that the team’s goals were interesting, but a bit too ambitious. After all, it wasn’t easy to make a better product with fewer materials, especially if one also wanted to make the product easier to make. Also, producing a set of instructions to mass produce an object was a heck of a lot more complicated in this world, since everyone had a very different set of Perks. This threw an extra layer of complications on the already difficult process of making more with less.

However, surprisingly, the team was making progress. It was slow, but steady. Alice had been part of the team for several weeks now, and the kinetic plates were still nowhere near becoming a viable replacement for kinetic mages in construction. However, at the start of her time in the team, it had been so incredibly far off that the kinetic plates barely worked at all if one didn’t have a hefty amount of Skills and Levels backing them up. It would have been basically impossible to just hand the recipe to an [Enchanter] and have then churn out working copies of the plate. It would take hours or even days of fiddling with the smaller components and enchanting materials to get a working copy, and a few mistakes might make the whole product totally unable to work.

Now, an average level 50 enchanter could, at the very least, probably make a functioning version of the kinetic plate within a day once they wrapped their head around the blueprint. The team had eventually decided to try making some of the enchantments that ‘sensed’ objects a little bit simpler. The product had a slightly higher chance to pick the wrong object to start floating around now, but the enchantments related to sensing objects became several times easier to make as a result. Since the kinetic plates had a working ‘off’ switch by this point, it wasn’t a big deal if they starting lifting up the wrong object: the operator could just turn it off, move the wrong object out of the way, and try again. Even though the product was worse, it became far more easy to mass produce once the team starting cutting down small but complicated details like this one, which meant less time and effort for the average [Enchanter] to make a copy of the product. Which, ultimately, was the whole point of the team’s research.

After spending her mornings on enchanting the kinetic plates, Alice would go to the library and study. She had decided that after she finished reading the book about dual enchantments, she wouldn’t keep looking into ‘random topics that interested her.’ It was time for her to return to her major topics of study.

Which led Alice to a startling revelation.

Right now, Alice had way too many different goals and research topics. Most of them still kind of complemented each other, but Alice was starting to feel a pressing need to refine her area of focus down a little bit. For now, she decided to focus on a few directions.

First, she needed to boost her enchanting abilities. Right now, enchanting was the primary method she used to feed herself. She wanted to boost her enchanting skills more, so that she would have the money for new research projects. Enchanting and research materials weren’t cheap, after all, and Alice was running dangerously low on basically everything. Since she had started education, her free time had, rather inevitably, dropped to practically nothing, and she had been forced to temporarily abandon her newfound hobby of carving and making board games to play with her friends. She hadn’t even gotten around to repairing the die she had cracked during her last game with Cecilia and Anne yet. She was also having a hard time keeping up with her enchantments for Cecilia’s shop. As a result, Alice’s funds were starting to shrink, albeit at a very slow pace. Since Alice didn’t have much money to begin with, this concerned her. However, if Alice didn’t spend as much time as she could in the library and in classes, all of the time and suffering she had poured into getting admitted to a magic academy would have been for nothing, so Alice was determined to find a way to make this work. She just needed to focus a little on boosting her funding sources in the near future, or she would run out of money to feed and clothe herself.

Second, she wanted to explore mana fractals and any historical changes to the system. She didn’t see any mentions of the former in the library, but given its somewhat confusing organization system, Alice was hoping maybe there was a mention of it somewhere in the shelves of books that she simply hadn’t come across yet. Regarding the history of the System, Alice was able to find all sorts of historical studies detailing how and when the System had made specific changes. Apparently, classes, Perks, and Skills were nowhere near as static as she had first assumed. Sometimes, a Class would change a little bit here and there, with the level requirement for Perks going up or down by a small margin or a new class getting ‘discovered.’ There was all sorts of debate about whether these classes had always existed and were simply discovered by chance, or whether they were actively created by the system to meet people’s needs, but there was no decisive conclusion. Alice found this to be both fascinating and relevant to her interests, so she intended to read up on this academic debate when she had more time.

Third, she wanted to see if anyone else had explored topics related to how mana and the human body interacted. This was one of the bigger cornerstones of her research, and she needed to see if there were easy ways to boost herself past some of the awkward first experiments and tests she would need to do to establish a working base of knowledge for herself. She might still need to redo some of the experiments, due to her ability to see System mana while others couldn’t, but that wouldn’t make all of the experiments she might be able to find completely worthless. Since she could share ‘memories’ with Cecilia and Cecilia was still interested in sharing Alice’s research, she would have a second set of eyes to go over her results, and that was good enough for her.

Finally, she wanted to learn more about magic seed creation. Her failure to create a working magic seed without the help of the System was frustrating to her, and the cooldown for {Broken Seed} was nearly over. Once that happened, she would have another two chances to try to make a magic seed on her own without accidentally killing herself in the process.

Unlike the study of mana and the human body, Magic Seed creation was very well researched. So much so, in fact, that one could find a theory that conflicted with nearly every other theory about how and why magic seeds were made.

Luckily, most of the Mages in this world understood that theories without tests to back them up were often worthless, and the mage library had a fair number of studies on people trying out different methods of forming seeds for the sake of Science. Seed slots were precious, but plenty of bright Mages in the past had tried ‘improving’ the technique of seed formation. Some of them had even succeeded. And, for the sake of future Mages (or because they wanted to boost their level in [Scholar]), most of these attempts were recorded in great detail. Alice was sure she could figure something out if she started looking through these studies.

Therefore, after Alice finished reading her book about double enchantments, she temporarily shelved her study of double enchantments and other topics of personal interest. She only had a week and some change before her next attempt at forming magic seeds, and she wanted to be more prepared this time. She started reading through other people’s attempts to improve the process of forming a magic seed, to see what their thoughts were.

Apart from Alice’s time with the academy’s library, she continued attending her classes. She didn’t make any new major connections with her classmates, because she was already starting to feel seriously stretched for time. However, she was at least able to make smalltalk with most of the students in her smaller classes and greet them if she saw them walking through the halls. She paid a bit more attention to her connection with Erkki, Arsi, Laila, and Luka, because they were fellow Mages who had shown her some level of goodwill and Alice wasn’t opposed to getting to know them better. Especially Erkki and Arsi – Alice was able to talk about bizarre and eclectic magic topics with them and have interesting conversations about them, which made her value their conversations a fair bit more than the smalltalk she shared with her other classmates.

The lessons slowly, but surely, let Alice start building a better idea of what ‘normal’ Mages thought about mana, magic, and the world around them.

In her organic magic class, they studied more about human biology, with the teacher promising that in a few weeks promising students would be allowed to test for special licenses that would let them treat basic, nonlethal conditions under the supervision of more experienced healers. Professor Felissa also promised that the top five [Students] in the next test would be allowed to tag along while Professor Felissa visited one of her friends who ran a clinic if they were interested.

In monster biology, they started learning about the weaknesses of monsters. Vinebears and spidercrabs seemed to be the early focus of lessons, though the teacher did also briefly mention Lurkers, a type of plant-like monster that crawled along the bottom of rivers and could influence ‘weight’ with magic. Alice vaguely remembered that this monster had nearly eaten her during her flight to Cyra, all those months ago…

She also started to wonder how monsters got around the problem of influencing other living creatures with magic. Monsters couldn’t access the System, so they didn’t have Perks that let them ignore mana resistance. How did they deal with the problem?

When Alice asked the teacher about this question, Professor Esaiyas had no clue. Alice mentally filed it away as something to check out in the library when she had the time.

In Theory of Mana class, the class went on to discussing the theory of ‘mana vents,’ one of the current leading theories about why some areas of the world had much denser mana than others. It stated that some parts of the earth, for various reasons, emitted mana as a kind of… energy source that then slowly spread across the rest of the world. Honestly, Alice wasn’t too impressed with the theory. It was overly simplistic, and seemed to have no idea whatsoever why there were a variety of odd little variations in mana density from area to area. She was, however, relieved to know that this world had at least put some effort into figuring out where mana came from, even if this theory didn’t really seem like a good answer to that question.

In Morals class they did… nothing, really. Alice considered this class to be a bigger and bigger waste of time every time she showed up to the class. She had never skipped a class before, but for morals class she was seriously starting to get tempted…

However, on Friday Alice was surprised by self-defense most of all.

“All right, we’ve learned at least a bit about some of the more vital skills a Mage needs in order to survive. {Dodge} is a skill that improves your ability to react to sudden attacks and to avoid getting hit, obviously, and it’s one of the most important skills you have if you don’t want to either wear armor at all times or die during a sneak attack. However, just having a high {Dodge} skill and lots of levels in your classes isn’t enough to fight something. I first have a question for you. How many people here have killed a monster before?”

Perhaps three quarters the class raised their hands. Alice joined them.

“All right, a little lower than I was expecting, but I still figured most of you would have the Achievement for killing a monster by now. For those of you who haven’t gotten it yet, this is for you.

“Normally, as all of you know, Mages are one of the biggest specialties of Illvaria. They are the backbone of the Illvarian military and economy, and it isn’t wrong to say that Mages have directly shaped the nation of Illvaria as a whole. Plenty of people even claim that Illvaria is the magic capital of the Shil Confederacy, which isn’t exactly wrong.”

The students nodded.

“Well, starting this year, the Crown has decided that [Students] need to get a little more in shape – IF they want to. Self Defense class is mandatory, but for those of you who are interested in more practical lessons, by order of the crown I am now going to be offering extra classes for free at certain timeslots, which are written down on this piece of paper at the front of the classroom. You can join in on one of them, or all of them, or none of them as you see fit. It’s up to you. These lessons will involve joining a group of your fellow classmates to hunt some carefully vetted monsters or small groups of monsters together, after some assessments to see what you’re capable of.

“The first thing I want to make abundantly clear is that this is NOT mandatory. You don’t have to join in if you don’t want to. I honestly figure that most of you have already killed monsters before, so this is more of a way to keep your skills sharp than anything else. It’s meant to be a controlled form of practical combat training, but if you don’t have the time or don’t want to take any risks, that’s perfectly fine. The second thing I want to say is that this will be slightly dangerous, although not greatly dangerous. The [Spies] and [Scouts] of the crown carefully vet target monster areas before you join, so if you do decide to join in, there won’t be something shocking like an alpha leading a swarm suddenly popping up and ravaging the group. There will also be a few high level [Knights] keeping watch over groups to make sure nothing bad happens, and some of the Organic Magic teachers have also volunteered to tag along as healers if something goes wrong. As long as you don’t instantly die during these extra classes, you will be healed free of charge, and we are taking every measure we can to protect you during that time.

“That being said, even if it’s a very controlled fight against monsters, a fight is a fight. Accidents happen. It’s unlikely, but not impossible for you to die. I will say that we’re borrowing from the military’s pool of [Spies] and [Scouts] that find bandit groups for Mages who join the military to kill, in order to get their first bloods. Their track record, so far, has a less than 0.3% fatality rate across the last decade. So your odds of dying are pretty darn low and you should be safe.

“Those that are interested, you don’t have to say anything. Just check the timeslots at the front later, and come if you’re interested.

“Oh, one more thing. Due to some shortages in manpower in the Illvarian army recently, the benefits for joining the military track are going to be formally increased starting this year. The monsters of the south are proving to be more troublesome than expected, so the military is upping the benefits for joining the army. There will be a more specific set of details later, so stay posted if you are either in the military track or thinking of joining. Anyway,” said Tanmi. “The extra lessons will start next month. In the same vein of thought, in two weeks we’re going to begin sparring with other classmates as well. Something to keep an eye out for.”

Alice frowned, thinking it over.

Truthfully, her first instinct was to reject the idea of the extra classes. She was already stretched for time, and she also didn’t like fighting very much. This world also wasn’t overly violent. There weren’t crazy murderers and monsters around every corner of the planet – it was surprisingly ordered and neat. Humans were a very adaptable species, and humanity in this world had adapted to suit its environment well. Civilization was a relatively safe and stable place. Even though it didn’t quite match up to the rule of law in her previous world, with the help of the System the world was still mostly safe and peaceful.

However, even though she originally felt like rejecting the extra classes would be for the best, after some thinking she realized that she wasn’t in the same position as ordinary residents of this world. Even if she hadn’t seen them yet, the Society of Starry Eyes still posed a potential threat to her. Sticking her head in the sand and hoping that they never found her might work out, but it was a solution that relied entirely on luck and hoping for the best. Keeping her combat abilities up to date wouldn’t be an awful idea, and these extra lessons were one of the few ways she could do so while maintaining some semblance of safety.

She tapped her chin in thought, before she turned to the other classmates she knew in self-defense, Luka and Laila.

“Are the two of you planning to join in?” asked Alice, hesitantly. She had already mostly made up her mind to join, given how threatening the Society could be if it ever noticed her existence, but she was still a little hesitant. Having some people she knew along for the ride would make it easier to stomach being exposed to danger when she could hide away from it.

“I don’t think I’m going to,” said Laila, shrugging. “I’m honestly not too interested in fighting, and my family said I should avoid it in case I get hurt. I’m a Mage, but I’ve never really been terribly interested in… you know, Magic. My family mostly pushed me to join the academy for the prestige of having a Mage in the family, and I don’t really want to push my luck in this kind of thing.”

“I’m definitely going to join,” said Luka, grinning at both of them. “It’s a good opportunity to make connections, and it’s also good training for the future. If I’m going to serve under my brother as one of the head Mages of the territory, I shouldn’t be lacking in combat experience. I’m probably going to be weeding out monsters all the time in the future, and I should keep my skills steady. Are you joining in?”

“I’m thinking about it,” said Alice. “I haven’t totally made up my mind yet, but I’m leaning towards joining in.”

“Let me know if you decide before the extra classes start next month. We can go together, if there’s a day that works for both of us. I’ll ask Arsi and Erkki as well.”

Alice nodded.

Duels in a few weeks, and maybe monster subjugations after that, huh? Alice felt a nervous shiver run down her spine. She wasn’t exactly looking forward to it, but she was quietly resolving herself for the future.

* * *

Somewhere far away, a group of people sat in a research base. An Immortal sat together with four other men and women, who were discussing something in hushed tones.

“So you mean to say that the oddities are increasing?” Asked one of the women, looking at one of the other researchers.

“Yes. The way that it’s increasing is very… strange, as well. I can’t quite put my finger on it. But the way that mana itself is behaving recently seems… odd.” Said the other assistant, a male who looked to be in his late thirties.

“Do you have any data to back that up? I haven’t noticed anything in my day to day usage of mana.”

“If you take a look at the mana series of experiments, the recent studies of case 44, 46, and 47 have all produced abnormal results that don’t seem consistent with any of our earlier hypotheses. Furthermore, when we re-tested experiment mana-42 in a few different labs, the results were abnormal, diverging significantly from the first few times we ran the test. In the first tests we ran, people who suffered odd symptoms as a result of mana deprivation recovered almost immediately from the symptoms after being placed back into a normal mana-rich environment. However, as of now the streams of mana take a couple extra seconds to reconnect to their body properly. This isn’t a big deal in and of itself – in fact, if it were just one or two, we might have assumed it was just the result of a few Perks screwing with things. However, for all of the tests to suddenly have slightly different results is very odd indeed.

“Furthermore, I’ve recently learned that one of the child test subjects we purchased from the Sigmusi has unlocked the System despite only being four. Children don’t get access to the System until the age of six, but we have run him through seventeen different Perks that all acknowledge the fact that he is four. This is the first time I’ve heard of a case like this… ever. The child has acquired the [Experimental Subject] and [Slave] classes already, and we have confirmed that after running more tests on him, his flesh is getting harder and his body is getting harder to injure. Just like someone’s [Endurance] stat increasing. For a four year old to do this should be impossible, but it’s somehow happening right now.”

The Immortal who was standing at the head of the table frowned upon hearing this news.

“A four year old with levels? Have you checked to see if there’s some sort of… odd discrepancy between his biological and chronological age? If he were born a mage, he could be 20% older than his biological age claims he is, which would still make this odd, but…”

“The child’s biological and chronological age are confirmed to be four. The boy is a non-mage, and there seems to have been no particularly unusual circumstances in his upbringing up to the point where he was kidnapped and sold as a test subject.”

“Bring in the boy to the primary labs for further inspection. Also, we need to find some other four year old children and see if we can find out what caused this oddity. Are there any good ways to acquire some human children on short notice?”

“We’ve bought some from the Sigmusi slave trade, but their supplies are running now,” said the other female assistant. “Apparently they’re running into supply problems. A crackdown on the central continent is happening because for once the church of the System and the church of mana managed to put aside their differences and jointly denounced the Sigmusi empire for practicing barbaric and backward practices such as slavery. They put some pressure on the republic to do a better job of maintaining their borders, and as a result [Smugglers] aren’t having an easy time kidnapping and selling people to the Sigmusi Imperia right now.”

“Irritating,” said the leader, frowning. “Recently, dimensional abnormalities have also been increasing. We haven’t quite gotten a centralized notification system up yet, but field agents have recently detected evidence of three dimensional cracks having appeared in the past twenty years. This is far cry from the original one we found that started the Society of Stars, and the one we found after uniting the Society of Stars and Society of Eyes. While it could just be a fluke, this isn’t the time to lose our test subjects. How can we procure more?”

“I have a couple ideas, though most of them will have long term repercussions if something goes wrong,” said the final [Assistant.] He stood up, before grabbing a piece of paper and pushing it to the center of the table.

The other four members of the meeting grabbed the piece of paper, before they began to slowly pore over the contents. Finally, the Immortal spoke.

“I think raiding a few smaller groups in Illvaria is for the best. Their military is already starting to lack manpower, since they’re trying to launch their recolonization effort and they’re also trying to keep up the maintenance of their armies on the western front as well, in case the Sigmusi are crazy enough to launch another war. They’ve mostly relaxed their guard against the northern border, since the nomads are focused on their civil war right now, which means that there’s a big opening in their norther territories right now. Illvaria just doesn’t have the population and wealth to cover all of their territory right now, and because their roads aren’t in the best shape it will take them a lot of time to shuttle their manpower back north, even if they discover a problem. I feel that with their lowered security, we could probably procure some test subjects from there, as long as we are careful and stealthy. Does anyone else have any thoughts?”

“I think that we could also target a few other countries in the Shil Confederacy. Norwick and Eldren are at each other’s throats right now, and while two of the big five countries in the Shil Confederacy probably won’t go to war while tensions with the Sigmusi are ramping up, with those two countries it’s never quite possible to tell. They’re already starting to skirmish with each other again, and that will waste a huge amount of their manpower and military resources. I think those two are also good targets,” said one of the female [Assistants].

“It’s not an ideal long-term solution, since it might give those countries a way to actually attack us, but we need to be paying attention to changes in experiments and the behavior of mana right now. Something about all of this makes me feel… off…” said one of the male [Assistants]. “I don’t know, it’s just a hunch. I know those aren’t very reliable, but…” he shrugged. “I feel like something big is about to happen.”

“I think it’s a reasonable course of action to take,” said the Immortal, after considering the input of the two. “All right, start contacting the bases and manpower near the region to see if they can procure more test subjects. Focus on the poor and criminal elements of society, wherever possible. They’re the ones that won’t be easily missed. If it’s possible, disguise some of the disappearances as failed mana baptisms. Plenty die to that every year anyway. The countries in question will catch on sooner or later, but we can maybe buy some time that way.”

The meeting was adjourned as plans were set into motion.

* * *

Somewhere far to the north, an Immortal and his servant grinned. They hadn’t finished clearing out all of the monsters in their area yet, but they were getting closer. Soon they would be done.