Please Note: Statements between % something in italics % are game system messages.

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Raka walked down deep in thought. His destination was the Magic Academy and his purpose, to meet with Lady Verina. And as he walked he kept thinking about his plans. He had learned as much as he could from Thelmova for now and perhaps, he should now plan to move to the fishing village of Fellon.

He had thought about it before, but not realizing when he would be able to learn the water magic, his plans did not have a timeline. Now he had to seriously consider when he should move out. So he started thinking about the things left to do in Thelmova. The top of that list would be learning the Herbal Medicine skill. Even though it was a discovered skill which meant he did not need to stay in the capital, he still needed the books. He had noticed other oddities.

There was a huge library but no book shops. 'Maybe printing was a problem?' Raka could imagine that printing presses would not have been invented yet. So buying or selling books would have been quite difficult. Though couldn't there be magical means to copy books? Looking at the missing book shops however, he thought perhaps that may not be possible or maybe very difficult. Which meant that most of the copies would have been created by hand, limiting the amount. It made sense to have libraries then. This way a lot of people could get access to such books without the need to own them. On the other hand, it made books exclusive to libraries. Which meant if there was no library at the fishing village, he would not be able to continue studying for his Herbal Medicine skill.

Ofcourse, lending out books should have been an alien concept at this point in time. There still remained another option, albeit a non ethical one. And right now, Raka was highly enticed to choose that one. Though his moral compass was creating doubt as usual. Which is why he was deep in thought.

'Speaking of oddities, there is religion but no priests or religious institutions.' On earth, every civilization, ancient or modern, had some kind of person who acted as priest. You know, the link between man and God. They may not have a particular building like a temple or cathedral and they may worship one or many Gods and Goddesses, but they always had a priest. Based on that, the religion on Ilmentia was weird, or maybe it was another oddity with mysterious explanations.

Thinking this and that, Raka reached Cassian's office. He knocked.

"Please come in." Lady Verina's clear voice sounded out. Raka entered.

"Ah hello Raka. You are a bit early aren't you."

"Only a bit. They said you were in so I came up. I was half expecting you to be with someone else."

"Hah...yeah it's been busy lately. I am sooo tired. My head hurts. My body hurts. I am so sleepy. In fact I would have dozed off already, if you hadn't come. When will all this be over?!" Lady Verina complained with feeling.

"Good work then, holding out for so long. If I can help out, let me know." Raka said.

"Hmm...ah no, it's mostly talking to nobles and diplomats and stuff like that so you won't be any help. Thanks for offering though. Wait a minute...you can help!" Lady Verina suddenly brightened up.

"Please give me a massage! I really really need it." She batted her eyes.

Raka sighed. "All right please lie down......"

A few minutes later, wherein Raka ended up all sweaty, most of which was not from the labour involved and Lady Verina ended up content and serene though blushing for some reason, they resumed talking.

"Ahh that felt good...I sorely needed that. Thank you Raka." As Lady Verina stood up and stretched her arms with a yawn. "And now it's time for a good nap!"

"......" Raka simply stared.

"Alright alright, jokes aside. Actually I couldn't think of a deserving reward for your help. So I decided to do this." Saying that Lady Verina took off a ring from her left hand and approached Raka.

'Eh! Ehhhhhhhhhhhh!'

"This is not an engagement, is it?!" Raka's throat had suddenly dried up like he was in a parched desert. He gulped loudly.

Lady Verina froze. She blushed and closed her eyes. And then started trembling. She waved her hands and Raka could not move anymore. No, he literally could not move. She had just done the same 'Bind' magic once done by Cynthia, but she had managed it without a word. And then,

(slap)(slap)(slap) "You" (slap)(slap)(slap) "are" (slap)(slap)(slap) "a" (slap)(slap)(slap) "Million" (slap)(slap)(slap) "YEARS" (slap)(slap)(slap) "TOO" (slap)(slap)(slap) "EARLY!! IDIOT!!" (slap)(slap)(slap)"

Not that Raka could say anything.

%

Swollen face! Your face has become swollen. Slight speech impediment for the next 3 minutes.

%

You have just suffered the effects of a violent action initiated by a person having high intimacy with you. Due to high intimacy and lack of ill intent, no loss of Life or other attributes will occur.

%

'Thanks for letting me know!' Raka thought wrily.

A bit later Lady Verina calmed down and undid her magic.

"Bi bem borry!" Raka started to speak.

"What?" and Lady Verina lifted her head and looked at Raka's face. Then she burst out laughing.

"Sorry sorry, did I do that? Well you deserved it, you know." Lady Verina said unabashedly.

"Hah" Raka said. Thankfully the duration was not long and soon his face started resembling his face again.

"I said I am sorry. But did you have to hit that hard?" Raka winced feeling his face returning to normal.

"Yes. Any less would not get through your thick skin. Anyways I am giving you this ring though I am in half a mind to not give it now." Lady Verina pouted.

"Thank you very much." Raka decided to take it before she could change her mind.

He looked at the ring. It shone in a shiny silvery light reflecting the white light of the lamps. It was plain looking but it had some kind of design etched on to the metal.

"Um...is it valuable?" Raka asked.

"Yes it is. But more than that, I think you will find it useful." Lady Verina replied.

"Eh. What's it do?" Raka was curious now.

"It is a low level magic ring. It can store energy temporarily."

"What?" Raka sounded as confused as he looked.

"Ah you wouldn't know. Just like I said, it is used to store energy. When you transform energy, don't you collect it first? And then you have to apply the magic. In your case it takes quite some time, doesn't it?"

Raka nodded.

"Well you can use this to store energy that you collect. Due to the nature of it's material, it can store that energy for quite a long time. And then when you want to do magic, you already have the collected energy to just transform."

"Wow. This is awesome!" Raka was clearly surprised. Most of the time in the colorful world was trying to gather the energy required to transform. But with this ring he could skip that step completely. It would significantly speed up his magic process.

"What is it made of? How much does it cost?" Raka had to know the source.

"Hmm. How to explain this? You know that everything is made of energy, right? But some places have a higher concentration of energy and some places less. It is easier to do magic in the places where energy is concentrated. In the magic training hall, we try to artificially increase this energy concentration using certain magics and materials. But then, there are natural areas around the world where there is much more concentration of energy than usual. Things in those places sometimes develop a high capacity to absorb energy. This ring is made of metal found in such a place."

"Is that so! So where would those places be?" Raka asked.

"Wouldn't we like to know! These areas move around. Energy like weather is not a fixed thing. The concentration of energy keeps changing all the time due to external influences. Just entering such an area will disturb it's concentration, its so volatile. Only in rare cases and when the energy has not been disturbed for a long time, we find stones or ores which have developed this ability. In addition, these areas are extremely small. Like one or two hand's length, if not smaller. It is very difficult finding these places and even more rare are these materials. Which makes them very very expensive. In fact, a material from a high level magical site could go for thousands of gold."

"Oh so there are high level and low level sites?"

"Yes. I think there are seventeen levels of such sites depending on the concentration of energy and the quality of the materials found in them. I don't know much about the levels but this ring is supposedly from a level 1 site which are more common. It's made of silver though which raised it's price a bit. I bought it for 3 gold during one of my travels long back.

'Hmm this sounds like something I have heard before. But first let's check it.'

"Identify"

%

Low level Magic Ring (Rare)

Class: Accessory/Ring

Energy: 0/35

Options: Energy stored for 1 day

Weight: 2

Durability: 200/200

Made of silver and found in a Lvl 1 magical site, this magic ring can act as a temporary store of energy. After 1 day the stored energy will dissipate.

%

"Do the magical bones have something to do with this?" Raka asked.

"Ah you know about them. They have the same principle. The concentration of energy within a magical creature is higher than usual. But, because the bones have been part of the magical creature, they become limited to certain types of magic only, unlike the ring. There are other differences but it would be better to ask the ones who deal with them about it."

"Hmm...thank you again for this ring." Raka said. And then he remembered. "Ah I would also like to give you a gift to show my appreciation. As I will be heading to Fellon soon, we may not be able to meet for a long time so perhaps my gift will help you in remembering me. But I haven't made it yet. I intend to send it by pigeon once I have made it."

"Really! I will wait eagerly for it then." And Lady Verina flashed a wonderful smile.

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"I will need 200 bricks of size 92X57X203 mm. Cement to bind. Wall height needs to be 8 feet, with a gap for windows 2 feet from the edge....." Swamy instructed.

He was giving the exam for 'Virtual Reality' subject. It was deemed very difficult to take a written exam on a subject which is like a combination of imagination and reality. Not that people hadn't tried but then had realized their futility. It was like combining something like civil engineering with interior design in the same subject!

So a different kind of test was devised.

Most virtual reality worlds are developed from something called the virtual reality construct programs. Swamy did not understand it fully. He wouldn't have been able to explain it considering he was still a first year student. But basically these construct programs were like blank canvasses. Here, developers develop rules and train the AI on those rules. Rules such as construction rules, physics rules, weather rules, terrain rules, magic rules, etc which would be used to create and eventually govern the new virtual reality world.

As these rules depend a lot on the kind of world being developed and cover so many varied areas, the governing of any virtual reality world by human hands is nigh impossible. Hence the need for training artificial intelligence. For example some worlds may consider north to be extremely cold and south to be extremely hot. Other worlds may go the earth route, that is north and south are both extremely cold and the equator is hot. As the world varies, so will the rules governing weather, terrain, wind, etc. There would also be changes in the flora and fauna, the type of animals, etc. Some may have magic, some may not. Some could have two moons. Even developers would put in different building structures or characters or races making it different.

Each virtual reality world would be governed by unique rules and therefore have a unique AI. And because of that the construct programs are complicated and too expensive. In fact the University of Bangalore could only manage to buy 10 copies of it. Thankfully these construct programs could be matched with any gaming capsule.

The way a construct program worked is by observation. You make a building, the AI understood how to make a building. You make a boat, the AI understood how to make a boat. Ofcourse there are a lot of things which have become common in most virtual reality games. Things such as gravity, physics, maths, etc. Already configured rules are available on the internet which can be downloaded and can be used to train the AI, like patches in software programs. It makes life much easier for virtual world developers.

Swamy's construct program AI had already been trained in the rules of construction. The exam was to build a room using that. Some additional rules were that the room will not be a standalone room but as part of a house. Which meant you could not put windows on all sides and had to consider someplace where the room would join with the rest of the house. Also you had to make the things which would decorate inside the room as well. Tables, chairs, etc, whatever caught your fancy. Other than that it was up to your imagination.

Points were being given for the accuracy of the construction that is how close to reality they were. Then there were points on your creativity. It was a super fun exam with people doing all sorts of crazy stuff. Electric fan stuck to the floor, check. Archway doors, check. It may not be a habitat for a human but weirdness was welcome as long as the things were as real as possible.

An hour passed and Swamy's turn was over. He stepped out of the capsule and let the next batch get in. Thankfully the construct programs had a reset function. So that any weird rules learnt during the previous attempt would not affect the subsequent people taking the exam.

Swamy sighed and went back to his seat to look at what the other people were doing. The ten construct programs were connected to ten screens hung in the room and people could watch the genius or the weirdness of their fellow classmates. The atmosphere was almost festival like, with loud talks and laughing going on all corners.

'Definitely the best exam ever!'

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Sophie Aldcott looked into the mirror in the rest room. She had come in to take a break from the hectic crowd at the exhibition. She had been smiling all day and was kinda tired.

"A couple more hours. Come on.. you can do it." Her reflection responded to her. She quickly adjusted her shoulder length blond hair and the light makeup and looked around her business suit once more to see if everything was in place and stepped out. 'Shit! Its still so crowdy.'

Sophie did not like crowds. She lived in a small house in Switzerland with her parents and she liked it there. She loved the weather and the sounds of nature. No one could say that the country had lots of people. In fact Swiss authorities were still stingy with any form of immigration. But her parents had managed to move there. As a result she was born, a mix of her German father and her French mother, maybe their best parts. She was not very tall. About 5'8''. She had maintained her fine figure through rigorous excercise. In fact she loved swimming and had one time even aimed to join a swimming team.

Unlike India which was turning out to be too hot, too uncomfortable and filled with too many loud people for her taste.

But she had a job to do. Even though she was young, almost 19, she had chosen to actively participate in her father's small company which made small and light weight lifting machines. Not having completed her studies, her father did not give her a management position. His specific words were, "to run any business you first need to meet with the customers." And so Sophie was included in the team coming to India for this exhibition.

Her job was to attract people to their stall and explain things about their new product. Well, the other people could also do that so it was mostly to attract people. And her good looks had attracted a lot of them. Too many for her comfort.

And yet she smiled as she saw a group of three heading towards the already crowded stall.

"Welcome! Are you interested in our new product, the lifting machine T2X11?"

The taller guy came forward and said,

"Hello I am Christopher. Our company is intending to buy the T2X11. Here is my card. Would you kindly give us a demonstration?"

"Certainly. Please wait a bit. We only have one sample so it is taking some time. In the mean time you can see about the machine in the brochures." And Sophie handed one to each of them. As she tried to hand one to the person standing next to Christopher, the guy refused to take it. Rather, he did not even move and simply kept staring at her. Sophie felt a little creeped out but she had met many who were like this and did not let it show on her face.

"Sir, would you like to have a brochure?" She asked insistently. Finally the guy comically raised his hands like a robot and took the brochure, still standing stuck in that position. Sophie almost giggled but stopped herself.

"Ah I have a question regarding this....." Her attention was then taken by Christopher who started talking about some stuff.

Meanwhile the guy with the robot arms, Swamy just kept staring at the beauty in front of his eyes. 'She is beautiful', his thoughts were kinda stuck on that like a broken record. It was only when someone nudged him hard that he awoke from his trance.

'What the hell am I doing!!' as memories of the past few moments crashed back in his mind.

"She is cute, isn't she? Look at Christopher laying his charms out. I bet he already knows all about their machine. I should try talking to her too." Amit, his colleague, whispered to him. Swamy nodded. But after the fiasco of the past few moments, he doubted he had a chance. Not that he could compete against the sheer handsomeness of the guy he was with, Christopher. He was tall, pretty athletic and had his own business card. Most of all he could talk to her while Swamy had been frozen stiff.

Truthfully though, Swamy did not think that even Christopher had any chance. He sighed.

A bit later,

"Ah the machine is free now." The pretty blond girl spoke in a nice accent. 'Wonder where she is from.' thought Swamy but then smacked his head to clear it. She was probably from the same country as the company which makes the machine. He could easily look it up later. Right now he had to focus on the machine and give his feedback, after all that's what he had come out to do in the first place.