Christopher was listening to the droning voice of the teacher of his latest class, which was held in a very ordinary lecture hall in the Underground. This class was called constructs of Soul Force and was very difficult to follow. Some teachers could clearly make the most interesting topic dreadfully dull, and he had managed to find one of those teachers. The teacher was a rotund woman who had no inflection in her voice to speak off. She also seemed to take pleasure in using the most confusing terminology, which often went over his head. The same seemed true for the few other students that retained some attention on the lecture, judging by their pained expressions. Christopher did not understand why such people insisted on using such professional lingo when simpler words would get the point across much better. Who were they trying to impress?

The teacher spoke about the mental component of establishing an efficient Soul Art. Some of the points were helpful. She talked about the value of visual thinking, which was creating scenes and visual images in your mind. Christopher already did this, but her recommendations on techniques gave him some new insights on how to improve. He had to cram as many concepts and visuals as possible into a synergistic whole. This was apparently a task that could be improved over a person’s entire live, making the Soul Art increasingly efficient with experience and contemplation.

There were just as many points that he did not really agree with. A lot of her advice on forming the mental construct involved religious imagery, but his experiences so far suggested that an accurate scientific construct would do a lot more work. He would probably drop this class, there should be teachers that were more engaging on the subject.

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Christopher had been trying to keep a low profile at the Academy, and he was kind of failing miserably. He had made a positive impression during the Soul Frost demonstration on his first day, but that was where his excellence stopped. During most of the other classes, he was like a toddler taking his first unsteady steps. This received some attention, everything from scoffs to chuckles.

Christopher was not that bothered with the negative attention. They would not kick them out for poor performance, he had checked to be sure. So why should he care if some people thought him slow and talentless. The others had almost certainly started their first forays into magic when they were a child. Christopher knew that he would only get better with time. For now, he simply observed and explored, not seeking much contact with his teachers and fellow students. He did not really want to socialize for a little while. Maybe he would make more of an effort on the next loop.

Christopher had now attended several lessons, getting some useful guidance to improve. Still, the lessons had mostly been a mixed bag, and there were no shocking discoveries that had elevated some of his Soul Arts to the next level yet.

His favorite class had been the class on the fundamentals, which was taught by a younger professor called Fulla. She wore her long brown hair loose behind her back. Her hands were covered with metal plated gloves. He judged her to be no older than her early thirties, which was quite young for a professor at the Academy.

He had been especially enamored with one particular exercise that she taught them, on how to achieve more with the same amount of Soul Force. The teacher was very set on reducing as much Soul Force Leakage as possible. She taught them that the blue Soul Mist that could be seen when they channeled was wasted Soul Force and could be considered a failure of control, meaning that the imbuing of the materials was inefficient. She advised them to work hard at eliminating this leakage.

This exercise required them to keep the mist clinging to their bodies for as long as possible. She recommended they focus on their hands, although any part of the body would do. When the young professor demonstrated the technique herself, it looked as if the Soul Force was worn as a pair of gaseous gloves around her hands, clearly visible as a blue glow. She said that she could keep the Soul Force there for extended periods of time, long enough for all the Soul Force in her body to regenerate. She managed to keep the effect going for the entirety of the class. Christopher had asked the teacher what the applications were for this technique, but she simply told the class to ask again when they could do the same as her.

The exercises he was shown bolstered his ability to turn raw Soul Force into his Soul Arts, but also to improve his manipulation of Soul Force. He had clearly skipped some beginner lessons, leaving his imbuing sloppy in many ways. Now was the perfect time to correct those mistakes.

Christopher had kind of gotten obsessed with Soul Force clinging exercise, and he was thankful for his new skill [Mana Sense], which was a great help in monitoring his own leakage. It might have taken ages to make any progress otherwise, although even now progress was slow. With even the slightest break in his concentration, the Soul Force dissipated and was lost. For the teacher to use the technique on her hands while also teaching a class was crazy to him. He was able to make the Soul Force cling to him slightly longer with his practice, but the going was slow. He still could not stomach using his [Mana sense] for extended periods of time, but he believed that he was getting used to it a little. Activating [Mana sense] at its lowest level did not overwhelm him as much anymore, it just made him incredibly nauseous.

The lesson he had attended for his Soul Light Art was a bit disappointing. The teacher dedicated a large portion of the class talking about light itself, but the explanation was filled with holes and inaccuracies. He held demonstrations with everything from prisms and mirrors but Christopher often felt that his own knowledge was superior to that of the teacher. Not that he could hold it against the teacher, the man’s knowledge was likely still on the forefront of this world. The discussions and the few exercises did allow Christopher to think of the problem from new directions, so it was still useful in that regard. His progress with the training tool was still slow.

The fact that such a large part of these classes was not helpful to him made him consider another approach to selecting classes. Christopher considered signing up for a few that had almost no active students.

The Academy was interesting in that it allowed anyone to sign up for a teaching position. Once they were in the teacher register, they would show up in that register for students that were selecting classes. Eventually, this led to certain teachers moving up in the popularity rankings, allowing them to make it a career. The best teachers would build a name for themselves and always have full classes due to their credentials and word of mouth. That did not mean that there were no decent teachers at the bottom of the register. New entries would need time to build their reputation, and amazing teachers with terrible personalities might also not gain any traction. If Christopher could find some of those people, then he might have a source of amazing private tutoring on the subsequent loops as well. Teachers got paid based on the number of long-term students that they managed to acquire in a Semester, which meant people that attended a minimum number of lessons.

Christopher thought that it was kind of funny that even a first-year student was allowed to sign up in the teacher registry. Even he himself could theoretically sign up for such a teaching position. He would likely not survive on there for long though. Students could lodge complaints, and teachers that gained no new permanent students would eventually be kicked out of the register. Christopher found the system rather interesting; It would certainly lead to a chaotic learning environment. He heard that it also bred a lot of animosity between the members of the faculty as well, all of them competing for the same students. This competitive element of society was clearly a cultural characteristic of Lumen, and apparently the country of Venaria.

His own needs for tutoring would change with every loop, so he could benefit from teachers that could adapt their curriculum to his actual level of advancement. This might effectively give him a private tutoring opportunity without paying a premium.

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Another unexpected development was that he had gained access to a whole array of tools that could bolster his training. The training tools at the Academy were on loan with a library card like system. You could keep them for a certain time after which you had to return them or ask for an extension. They also had tools to train Soul Light, which meant that he had wasted a silver on buying his own. Christopher did not let that bother him overly much. He was just happy to have the training tools included in his tuition. It seemed that they had a wide range covering at least the basic Soul Arts. He assumed that the more personalized later Arts would be harder to train with existing tools.

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Spending his time in the library of the Academy Underground always served to make the hours pass as if they were mere minutes. Part of him felt guilty about taking this much time for his reading, but he reasoned that gathering information was important. How else was he going to make decisions that made things better instead of worse? He would need to understand this world well if he wanted to make any progress.

The books he read on the Blight provided him with a lot of useful information. There was helpful information on the creatures of the Blight, even including detailed drawings on many of the creatures. The variety was astounding, and he learned from the books that the monsters changed with location and even time. It was as if a factory of horrors was spitting out new abominations on this world every few decades. Some illustrations in the book were truly terrifying, making him think of eldritch horrors. The monsters he had seen so far seemed much more in the normal bound in comparison. Sin had made a valiant effort in trying to teach him and the trainees about their enemies, but the illustrations and detailed analysis in the books increased his understanding further. It should help him if he encountered any of the monsters. He even started to think of some preventative measures for the city based on creatures like the Flesh Ripper and the Sand Impaler, but that was proving difficult. Then again, smarter people than him had surely tried to think of such solution already.

But his research was also incredibly frustrating. The books seemed to lack any information on some of the more mysterious aspects of the Blight. It was clear after a few hours of research that the omission of information on the Turned and the Blights Essence was deliberate. It was just as Sergeant Coley had suggested. It was key information that he needed in forming a strategy to defeat the Blight. Christopher was sure that such books were available somewhere, but he doubted he could get access on them that easily. He needed to find someone that could help him on that front. In the meantime, he kept reading about everything else with true interest.