Eli POV

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A few days after the troglodyte incident I headed towards the classrooms going over the problems I was facing in my projects as I partook in the morning ritual of walking to the classrooms. After replacing my mine staff I moved onto the plans involving metal and plant working. A mana issue was becoming a very real obstacle to getting anything done. I was constantly having to stop mid project when all of the surrounding mana dried up and worst of all it was getting so bad that I heard some people near the academy complaining about how their various magical items were struggling to take in enough fuel for their enchantments.

I had gotten so desperate I wasn't willing to wait on mother nature and started pushing the mana out of my body but that only did so much. Setting up the iron pieces and electrical equipment to make the magnets, twisting the copper wires and making the metal frame for radio communication while also growing the varying interweaving layers of the large vine suit parts was leaving me exhausted and sweaty when I went to sleep at the end of the day.

Another complication was that I'm definitely being watched now. A few men would stay around street corners looking over the crowd but how they went out of their way to not look at the silver-haired man in the crowd made it obvious they were looking at me when my back was turned. One day I came back from class and several of my personal items were not where they should have been.

Over the course of working with it, I found that metal magic could move metal as easily as stone could be moved by earth magic. The problem was changing the shape of the metal took far more mana than the other elements, which I guess made a certain kind of sense. I thought about asking the blacksmith to shape the items or making my own mini forge, but the former would basically be telling the people watching me that I was doing something interesting that needs investigating and the later would require almost as much mana to use since I couldn't very well start bringing in load after load of coal or wood for fuel. I couldn't keep going like this if I don't want an official investigation started. Any mages wandering by my side of the docks would take note of the differences in mana density if they came to this side of the town looking into the nobles complaints.

The only upside was that the parents were starting to leave me alone. Some of the kids were still unbearable shits, but the adults were gradually starting to back off. I guess Ryan was calling in favors and working angles to finish his end of the bargain, which was going to be another item on my plate soon.

Despite all of my gripes I actually had a lot more free time than the other mages-in-training. The need to acquire and absorb magical resources was like a dark cloud over everything they did. It was the conversation they had at the cafeteria tables, the contents of the letters they sent to their friends and loved ones, and the central crux of every interaction and deal they got into.

This constant grinding need for every little bit of magical monster parts was their lives as they took ever more risks on a never-ending series quests and treasure hunts. To give themselves even the slightest fractional advantage was an all-consuming task as they tried every day to find any shred of magically animated plant or animal parts that would help them absorb even the smallest additional amount of mana. Back in my universe, I had heard of universities that had a similar work environment but those generally came with less sex.

The stresses of university life must be severe enough that even the staff endorsed this stress relief. I knew this academy was part baby mill, but to have official rooms for the purpose seemed a bit much. One thing that seemed especially out of place was the lack of marriage bands and weddings.

I wasn't totally familiar with the customs of this world but here a woman symbolized being married with either a special gold hairband or ring while the man just got a ring. But despite the obvious pairings going on the women who did get pregnant remained unmarried as far as I could tell. Even without a wedding to attend, how the men managed to get anything done between school and fatherhood was beyond me. I had just kept to myself and did research over these past few weeks and there still seemed to never be enough hours in the day.

Speaking of research, what increasingly held my interest these days was the bags of holding. Such an item would prove invaluable for my current situation as well as an interesting source of experimentation. It was a higher level crafting item and I was only now allowed access to these higher crafting concepts as a mage-in-training.

When I finally arrived at the classrooms I immediately went to the now available advanced crafting section on the upper floors.

The other high-level recipes included alchemy, which was basically using healing magic in a soup of ' organic matter' to make healing potions with a few other less noteworthy potions as mana potions didn't seem to be a thing, there were even using special cooking combinations for magical meats and plants. The others weren't that interesting, just recipes for 'powerful' weapons and armors that wouldn't do shit against gunfire.

Going over the bags of holding recipe I now understood what made them so rare. It was a process where you had 8 casters, each of the 8 different elements and dual elements, cast a single interwoven spell. In the middle of this rather simple array of circles, triangles and squares was an empty space that one person had to send their spirit magic through. Once this spirit magic was pushed through you would then have to press this spirit magic against the inside of a bag or box.

Once that task was complete the hard part began. You had to fight to push outwards with the spirit magic in the limited space in the bag or box which would then expand that inner space to be larger than it was outside. Once finished, the inner circle was then molded to fit the opening of the container to clearly mark where this space expansion began and ended.

All of this had to be done while the area was saturated in enough mana to keep the spell going as the process of expansion went on. The mana costs were astronomical while the labor was considered equally expensive. But that was due to having 9 mages, 8 of which had to be one of the different elements. The fact that only one bag could be made at a time also made it hard to get members who would put aside their own personal interest to make the item for someone else. Maybe you could make it happen with a promise that they will get one eventually but that required a lot of trust.

No wonder they were such a rare treasure.

I went over the spell and the procedure again and again in my head. This was a special caster spell so there was no automating it. But that wasn't to say I didn't have a trick up my sleeve. The size of the array prevented one of the dual element mages from taking the spot of one of the base element mages as the arrangement of the mages put the dual element mages away from their two base elements. My advantage was that I could probably do it by myself if I was in the middle of the mana construct.

Was going through all of this really worth it? I thought about it for a while, until the answer came to me.

Yes, curiosity is always worth it.

I jotted down the spell on a piece of paper to study after the mana issue was resolved and while I made my way from the dorm's entrance a guard told me I was wanted in the headmasters' office.

'I swear I've probably spent more time there than most people do in a year.' I thought exasperatingly to myself.

When I came in I saw two men with two younger women who looked to be their daughters by them. These two pairs were standing on both sides of Tansen's desk. The headmaster motioned me forwards but apparently one of the men was determined to start this conversation.

"Listen, kid, stay away from our daughters if you know what's good for you." A skinny man to the left said, his blond hair combed over his otherwise bald head.

I didn't know what they were talking about until I looked more closely at the girls at their sides. They were the duo of women that wanted me to stay with them on the night of the raid. I looked around confused.

"I'm sorry, what exactly am I being accused of?" I asked, feeling defensive.

"Nothing, he did nothing." The blond girl said.

Her father put a finger to his lips and motioned for her to be quiet. She relented but pouted in silence and refuse to look at him.

"She's right," The other father said. He was deeply tanned with a red shirt and tan cotton pants. He had a strong chin with a scar running down it with deep brown eyes almost as black as his short hair.

"I know you're new here, so I want to try and make you see our side of it." He said as he stuck out his hand like he was pleading a case to me.

"I have..., we have invested most of our lives into our girls. Heck, we'll probably invest the rest of our lives into their siblings." The other father nodded at this. He gave his blond-haired daughter a loving squeeze on the shoulder, which caused her to blush and fuss at the attention.

"And the way the benefits are set up here, they will be afforded a far more comfortable life if they can get with a caster instead of a crafter."

"I didn't come onto them." I defended myself.

He squeezed his nose with his callused fingers like he was tired.

"I know, she told me. The problem is that things like that can hurt their reputation if people start getting the idea that their situation is so bad they need someone to latch onto, either physically or financially. Our family's reputation will also suffer as a result. Which in turn will make it harder for their siblings to get ahead.

I feel like a piece of shit for asking this after you probably saved them but I need to do what's best for my children. That's why we're asking that you not associate with them in the future." He asked.

So, despite all that I've accomplished I'm still just a crafter? Just by virtue of being casters all the caster men were better for their daughters than me by the measure of these benefits. I tried to reconcile it to being down to some box on a paper form being ticked but it still stung whatever my actual interest in their daughters.

Another sense of indignation came over me from a different source. I hadn't hung onto them like some lecher if anything they were the ones who should be getting warned. Why should I have to suffer?

But...

But damn if I wasn't a sucker for the 'I'm doing this for my child' routine. The father had shown a kind of raw humanity and concern that was heartwarming, no matter how much of it was going towards making my life harder or how insensitive it was to my position. Both of the men were clearly worried about my response as they looked at me with thinly veiled concern in their faces. The complex emotions swirled through my mind until I chocked it all down.

I sighed and put up my hands in defeat.

"All right, but if they sit by me in the cafeteria or study room I'm not going to be constantly inconvenienced by having to move. If they want to talk to me I will talk back to them but I won't go out of my way to meet with them." I said finally.

The girls looked a little put out while the fathers heaved a sigh of relief and shuffled out while looking at me appreciatively.

"You know, if I was in that situation when I was your age, they would have found me in between their daughters' legs as they went to kiss them goodnight sometime soon. Unless that's your hidden plan, you handled that way better than I could've." Tansen mused, sounding completely serious as he said something very not academy-head like.

"They just want what's best for their daughters," I said. But there was a more important bit of conversation we needed to have.

"What 'benefits' was he talking about?" I asked

Tansen grew visibly uncomfortable at this but he at least had the decency to give me a straight answer.

"They are a government program that gives a monthly stipend to mothers of mage sired children." He said firmly, but his apprehension told me this was a subject that involved me in ways that I was not going to like.

"Where would I go to find information about this stipend?" I asked.

"In the Fronts main office. And know that whatever your abilities you still have a great future ahead of you, Eli" Tansen responded mildly.

I must not have been hiding my inner turmoil very well.

"I am genuinely fine with my situation, I just wish I didn't have to be reminded of it every other fucking day" I said as I bowed and spun to go back out through the door.

In spite of the obvious aura of calm and serenity I no doubt emitted there at the end, I was actually quite bitter inside. I had come to the heights of what everyone thought a crafter could achieve and moved beyond even those limits. I had triumphed in the trials while my crafts overcame casters and scions, killed some of the fiercest non-magical creatures around, ones that even most caster mages wouldn't tangle with, and what did it count for as far as the rest of society was concerned?

"let's find out," I said to myself. I went down the stairs and towards the Front main office.

It had a central half circle desk flanked by a door on the left, a bookshelf to its right, and two tables on both sides of the walls with chairs. One had women going over their paperwork with a member wearing the Fronts symbol, a shield with the magical elements caricatures, on the shoulder of their blue and white staff gowns. The secretary helpfully directed me to the book holding the latest stipend rates which I took from the bookshelf.

Setting the book down on one of the tables I skimmed through it, passing over a page about some 'mandate' and eventually found the section on this stipend the father mentioned. Apparently, the women were paid a monthly wage when having a mages child. This section also had a chart containing the basis for what the stipends paid out each month. A crafter sired child paid out a single silver and 25 copper. A decent wage by local standards.

Children from casters paid out 5 silver, at 100 coppers per silver that was 4 times as much as a crafter. Scions children got a whopping 30 silver a month. But that wasn't the whole picture. Mages could also get the stipends for their children increased, and thus their desirability as partners, for committing good deeds. These fell into three categories: military honors, academic commendations, and exceptional civil service.

These also came in different tiers for the 3 classes with the higher classes rewards showing similarly increasing disparities between the higher classes from the lower. I didn't have the patience to go over them all so I just picked the information that answered the most interesting question for me.

Military honors for crafters who were killed in combat got their children's' stipend doubled. Doing the quick math in my head I realized that I would have to die 2 fucking times to get my children the same degree of comfort as the base pay for a casters child. Just to get to the same level as the caster who did absolutely nothing all day, every day. That wasn't even counting the prestige and social benefits either.

Well god damn, I really can't be angry at the fathers now.

The hardest part was I could see why it was done this way. As much as I loathed to admit it, Jeff was mostly right. Crafters were essentially gimped mages who couldn't even do their magic without a caster providing a mana construct, acting as living time savers for the 'real' mages as Jeff put it. The fact that casters and scions could still craft meant this disparity would still remain even with my future contributions.

Intellectually I could understand it, but that did nothing to quell the simmering pool of outrage in me. This issue now involved my children or my future children, at least. Having my own kids not be worth as much as a casters made the hair on the back of my neck stand up in outrage.

There were thoughts in me saying it was alright. That I was actually a caster, the best caster they would probably ever see so I shouldn't get worked up over it as I could just 'discover' a dragon or elemental corpse so my children could get the best possible start in life. And since it would be sometime in the future I'll probably be set up to defend my self from the malicious forces that brought me here.

'But people like Joey and John don't have that luxury. They have to live every day knowing that any children they bring into this world will be, by government decree no less, inferior. There's no super-secret magical powers or visions of grand industries in their futures. Just the constant grinding reminder of what they lack every day for the rest of their lives' A voice in the back of my head said

That this system made me feel something close to human empathy for Joey was perhaps the greatest offense. I could have some inkling of empathy for John's emotional state, but for Joey, who has been such an unrelenting ass to me since day 1, to be made sympathetic was too much. I stewed in these thoughts until I decided to go home and bury my bitterness in the workshop.

Sitting in my underground workshop, the only progress I could think to make was to rely on my internal mana generation to prepare as many mana crystals as I could for whatever solution to my mana problem I came up with.

I spent the next week crouched over, condensing my internal mana into the glistening hair-thin strands. The regular classes passed by in their usual paces, but my mind was always busy going over all the solutions. Maybe having a patchwork of leather crafts to absorb ambient mana in the forest? Well, even if I could hide them well enough the forests around here weren't exactly the safest. I didn't feel anywhere near well-equipped enough to be going out on long treks at night with just my current set up. Also, leaving a huge mana dead zone in the forest would attract attention eventually.

So I did the only thing I could think to do, which was store up as many mana crystals as I could in the meantime, which is what I was doing this afternoon. As I put the strands around each other they expanded slightly and came together to form a crystal. This was done over and over as the expanding crystal strands folded and meshed together like sand flowing into itself until it hardened into a solid crystal mass. The process of shaping it was extremely imprecise but for my purpose, it could look like shards of broken glass for all I cared. Fortunately, this process was a bit faster than when I first came to this world. It only took me till sundown today to make a small thumb-sized crystal.

Satisfied I called it a day and went to sleep. As I was sleeping in the hammock a noise near the front woke me up. Through will power alone I managed to only slightly open my left eye. There were three men barely visible in the starlight coming in through the front. The last one had gently bumped against the door.

I waited until they stopped to look over the barren cargo area to whip out the lava tube by my side and shoot one of them in the head. He didn't even get to scream. The other two sprang into action. They both charged up onto the dock area towards me so I used my water spray glove to cut along their shoulders and lop off their heads.

There was a moment when I seriously considered just laying there and getting a good nights' sleep. Surely people would understand me deciding to sleep in a room with three fresh corpses.

Dammit, I had a lot of attention on me for my trial achievements, I didn't need the kind of attention that sleeping with dead bodies would bring me. After a long battle of will, I dragged my tired ass out of the hammock. Making my self decent I then went out to the guard station by the bridge to get the authorities involved.