thomasdarkrose
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Vol. 3 - Education - Chapter 27
🕑 Added 2019-02-02 09:30:38 +0000 UTCFulin looked over the students in his class for a moment and when he saw no one else seemed to have any additional questions he spoke, "Alright, we will end class here today. Tomorrow we will start with learning and practicing the Earth element. Thomas, stay behind so I can give you that book."
Thomas just stayed in his seat as the other five students rose and left the classroom. A few of them started chatting with each other as they left, discussing what they'd learned. For them, a majority of it was just confirmation of things they already knew or a different aspect that they'd just heard. Nothing new or earth-shattering was revealed to them. Once they had all left, Thomas climbed to his feet and made his way down to Fulin.
Fulin looked Thomas over and lifted his hand while a thin book appeared in it, "This is the book I mentioned. It shouldn't take you long to read it but it will cover some of the basics you will need to know about casting spells. Though you have learned basic spells for the four primary elements already, you should still read and review it to make sure you understand it properly."
Thomas accepted the book from Fulin and stored it in his ring. Frowning at the ring he asks, "How can I learn inventory magic?"
Fulin shrugs his shoulders and reaches out to place the tip of his index finger against the center of Thomas's forehead, "Just hold still and don't fight what you feel. Inventory magic is one of the few that it doesn't matter if you're taught it directly without learning Space magic beforehand. Once you learn Space magic you will be able to expand your capacity."
After Fulin finished speaking, Thomas felt a small surge of mana flow from Fulin's finger into his brain. It felt like Fulin was carving the knowledge of the Inventory magic spell directly into his brain. It didn't hurt though, it was more of an itchy feeling. The process only took a few moments to complete and when it was done Thomas instantly knew how to create and open his inventory. With a thought, he saw an area similar to the inside of his storage ring appear within his mind. He knew he just had to touch something and he would be able to store it inside of his inventory and retrieve it with just a thought. Putting something in or taking something out would cost an amount of mana related to the size of the object he wanted to store or retrieve.
It was hard to judge exactly how big his inventory was just from looking at it, but he instinctively felt that it was about five cubic meters, five times the capacity of his storage ring. Thomas sighed and shook his head, this would have been so much nicer to have from the very beginning. Fulin watched Thomas for a moment then smiled and held out his hand palm up, "That will be one hundred gold."
Thomas gave a start and looked at Fulin, "Is that the standard price?"
Fulin just smirked and continued to hold his hand out. Thomas felt like he was getting completely ripped off and would eat his boot if learning it from a standard teacher cost more than half that. Thomas wanted to argue or try to whittle the price down a little with negotiating but he felt like Fulin might just use it as an excuse to kick him out of his class. Fulin seemed to be looking everywhere for excuses to kick any of his students out and Thomas didn't want to risk it. With a sigh, he pulled a hundred gold coins out of his storage ring and dropped them into Fulin's outstretched hand, "You know, it's a better business practice to state your prices before fulfilling a service."
Fulin snorted, "If I did that I couldn't overcharge you."
Thomas felt the distinct urge to punch Fulin right in the face for blatantly admitting to ripping him off. He held back the urge and instead stored the small book inside of his brand new inventory. Fulin smirked and turned to walk away from the classroom, "You shouldn't complain. I may have charged you a bit extra, but your inventory should be bigger than the one granted by an average trainer in the city."
After Fulin left, Thomas was all alone in the classroom. He opened his character sheet and noticed that he had a new ability. He was a little confused by it though.
Inventory // Rank 5 // -/- Exp
Thomas was surprised to see that his Inventory ability was already rank five. He was also confused for a moment that it had no listed experience requirements to rank it up. It took him a second to remember that Fulin had said it would only increase as his understanding of Space magic increased. So until he learned and ranked up Space magic he wouldn't know what it would take to increase his inventory capacity.
Thomas dismissed his character sheet and made his way out of the classroom. It hadn't been that long since lunch had finished so it wasn't nearly time for dinner yet. With time off he decided to head back to the library and continue his search for books relevant to his 'Transmutation' ability. He made his way over to the library and found himself back in the relevant section. With a deep sigh, he selected the next book in line and started to flip through it while looking for relevant information.
He couldn't help but feel a little frustrated with his 'Transmutation' ability. He felt like he'd gotten the short end of the stick. He clearly understood how powerful something like transmutation would be when he got it to a high rank and knew how to use it well or even mastered it. Right now though, he just wished he had a much easier ability to learn to use. The same went for his 'All Seeing Eyes', except that one was even worse because he couldn't even research it in a place like a library! He would have to figure that one out all on his own. He didn't think he was doing so bad, but in over a month he had only learned two uses for the ability.
Thinking about 'All Seeing Eyes' and the second ability he had unlocked, the ability to darken his vision in the presence of bright light, he wondered if the opposite was possible? Could he brighten his vision in darkness to see in the dark? Thomas pondered over that for a bit and realized he didn't even need to think about it. He focused on activating his 'All Seeing Eyes' with the intention of brightening his vision. The library wasn't exactly dark, but it wasn't brightly lit either. It relied on sunlight coming in through windows so a good portion of it was shrouded in shadows. No idiot would have torches in a place filled with paper.
As he focused on wanting to brighten his vision while activating his 'All Seeing Eyes', the world around him grew brighter and brighter until he felt like the light level was similar to standing in sunlight at high-noon. He could feel a small stream of mana flowing into his eyes. It was working! Thomas smiled to himself and started to browse through the books again. He could still see in color and it was like he'd just turned on a nice light, it made his reading a lot easier and he started browsing through the books faster.
Thomas spent the next four hours searching through the various books looking for things that could be helpful to him. Unfortunately, the only thing he'd managed to find so far was what he already knew, purification. Still, this proved that some of the books would contain information on transmutation and he found it encouraging. After he put the last book he'd checked through back on the shelf and deactivated his 'All Seeing Eyes', he memorized where he was up to and left the library.
As he walked he checked his mana consumption and found that brightening his vision was rather mana efficient, his mana capacity hadn't even dropped down past ninety-five percent after using his vision for so long. He opened his character sheet to check the progress on his experience gain for 'All Seeing Eyes' and wasn't surprised to see that it had not advanced very much at all. Looking at the minimal progress he'd made with 'All Seeing Eyes' and comparing it to some past experiences, Thomas came up with a theory.
He believed that when it came to magic abilities, the more mana he spent the more experience he gained from using it. When he had practiced his 'Mana Control' and 'Serenity' together they had made amazing progress, much more than he had gained in the past. He now attributed that to his vastly increased mana pool from increasing his Magic attribute to sixty-seven. The last time he'd really used 'Serenity' to recover lots of mana was when he was working on his Alchemy profession. Back then his Magic attribute had only been twenty, now it was over three times higher. This meant that when his mana pool was near empty and he used 'Serenity' to recover the spent mana that 'Serenity' was having to do more than three times as much work as before. Looking at it from that angle, it made sense that it had progressed so fast.
If his theory was true, then when it came to magic casting a single massive high mana consumption spell would gain more experience than casting several smaller less mana intensive spells. He wasn't sure exactly what the ratio would be but it seemed like it might be true. He would have to experiment with it in the future and see if he could figure out exactly how it worked. For now, he made his way to the cafeteria so he could get his dinner.
The cafeteria was once again filled with a lot of people and the ever-present buzz of many voices overlapping. As he waited in line to get is food he looked around the room to see if he could spot anyone he knew. He'd prefer to find Serena and eat dinner with her, but anyone in his class would work just as well. Except Brao. He wanted to avoid that pretentious kid. Unfortunately, he didn't see any students he recognized. Once he had is food he made his way over to one of the long tables with a few students sitting on benches around it. He gave them a polite smile and had a few returned, but no one spoke directly to him.
Thomas ate his dinner in silence and once he was done he turned in his tray and made his way to the men's dorm. It was starting to get dark and he still had one more book to read before he could go to sleep. It was a thin book so it wouldn't take him very long to read. After stepping into his room and locking the door, Thomas activated his new 'Bright vision'... No that sounds stupid. 'Night Vision'? 'Dark Vision'? Night Vision! He activated his 'All Seeing Eyes' and used the new night vision mode to see in the relative dark of his room.
With the night vision mode of his 'All Seeing Eyes', Thomas felt like he would be able to see just fine even in perfect darkness. Which, honestly, fit with the feeling that an ability named 'All Seeing Eyes' gave off, so he honestly shouldn't have been so surprised by that. He changed into his sleeping clothes and made his way into his bedroom to climb into his bed. He wasn't going to sleep just yet, but he'd been standing on his feet for four hours in the library to look through those books and he wanted to be comfortable while he read the book Fulin gave him.
After making himself comfortable he pulled the book out of his inventory and felt just a tiny bit of his mana drain as he did so. He looked over the cover of the book, it was rather plain and simply titled, "Beginner magic for kids". If he had been a kid he would likely have been excited to be holding this book. As an adult, he felt embarrassed. Still, he wasn't someone who liked to remain ignorant so he cracked the book open and began to read through it.
The book was written in rather simple language and explained many of the things that Fulin has said to the class earlier in the day. Especially the parts about Earth, Water, Fire, and Air being the four elements of life. The book also included rather nice drawings depicting the basic bolt spells for each of those four elements. He'd gotten the Earth and Fire bolts right, however, his Wind and Water bolts had been incorrect. For wind, he was supposed to compress a lot of air tightly together and fire it at the target. When the wind bolt hit the target it would explode and cause minor damage due to the explosive force. For the water element, he was supposed to fire a high-pressure stream of water with the intent of drilling holes through his targets.
The book was short and simple, but it gave Thomas guidance on how he should work on at least two of the primary elements so it was still helpful. The book ended by hinting at the things that someone who mastered the elements would do, many of which Fulin had mentioned previously. It also spoke about how one should never push their limits or attempt to modify the forms of spells without proper knowledge. It hinted at disastrous consequences and he decided to ask Fulin about those consequences tomorrow. He was satisfied with the book and stored it back into his inventory so he could return it to Fulin tomorrow. He was looking forward to tomorrows lesson on the Earth element and seeing what he could learn about it.
He snuggled into his bed and let his mind go blank so he could activate 'Serenity' and fall into a nice deep sleep. He hoped tomorrow would be lots of fun.
Comments
Cody S.
Me too. Could take forever to find what you needed if you didn't know a specific book title. Old school man. Ugh. Painful memories.
Erik Zorger
I still remember when I was younger I would go straight to the card catalog to look for books using the old system.
Cody S.
Sadly, no. You have to remember that before modern systems, such as the Dewey decimal system, libraries were not very organized and information was not super easy to access. The books in the library are somewhat organized by sections where related texts are stored together. IE a section related to alchemy, a section related to enchanting, ect ect. Unless a librarian has read a specific book that contains what you're looking for and remembers it, they're only going to be able to point in the general direction of the information desired. Thomas will have to search the section to find what he wants book by book.
Raymond Alderman
Perhaps the library is like learning "Inventory" in that there is some basic, everybody knows how to find stuff by subject way of doing things that MC is missing? You need to use a hired guide/librarian for cash in advance perhaps?
