Chapter 67

Chapter 67

Alice put on her new semi-formal dress before going to the meeting. The [Waiter] confirmed her identity before moving her to a private room, where an older man was waiting.The debut release of this chapter happened at Ñòv€l-B1n.

He had lower [Charisma] than Alice had expected. On Earth, people were born with their looks, meaning that people’s attractiveness tended to vary quite a bit. In this world, [Charisma] was a stat that was easy to improve if one put effort into it, boosting one’s physical attractiveness. Most people didn’t mind looking a little better, and since raising [Charisma] required doing things most people already enjoyed like hanging out with friends, most people in this world were physical attractive. Alice hadn’t seen very many people her age or older with less than 100 [Charisma], and Alice wouldn’t be surprised if [Charisma] was the highest average stat on this planet.

The Mage Alice was was meeting was certainly below 100 [Charisma]. He still probably had 80 or 90 [Charisma], but Alice could very quickly tell that he didn’t like socializing enough to raise it much. His teeth were slightly crooked, and his sitting posture wasn’t great. He had black hair and blue eyes, but both features were slightly mismatched with his face. He looked to be in his mid-thirties and had average rainbow mana in his body for a mage, indicating an average-ish level. He was wearing a semi-formal set of clothes; though they had some care put into them, they were slightly creased, showing a certain lack of awareness and care towards formal etiquette.

The man’s physical body was far more interesting. The amount of rainbow mana actively operating inside his skull made Alice think the man had six thinking Perks active every second. Since the man was only average level, it was obvious just how much time and energy he had devoted to acquiring and raising his research-related classes. The Mage simply sat at the table in the center of the room, lightly drumming his fingers as he stared into space. When Alice sat down, he seemed to jolt back into awareness before looking at her.

“Ah, Lady Alice, yes? I have heard that you acquired a rarity nine Achievement from your research. Is that true?” The man asked, giving her an intense and focused expression.

Alice felt slightly taken aback before she started to think more carefully about the person she was meeting. She thought that she had a better handle on this man’s personality now, despite having only seen him for ten seconds. At the same time, she was beginning to understand why Rupert had recommended him as a potential Patron. She felt herself relaxing a bit – she might be able to get along with this person.

“Yes, indeed. I’ve put a lot of time into researching the nature of mana and the intricacies of its interaction with the human body. I’ve looked into many related topics, of course, but I would say that my primary focus has just been trying to figure out the underlying principles of mana. At least in Cyra, I couldn’t find any books on the topic, so I had to start guessing and working on getting a baseline of knowledge myself,” Alice said before frowning.

She suddenly realized that the man hadn’t introduced himself yet. Alice was certainly happy the Mage seemed interested in her research, but she felt that introductions were still improtant. Right now, she didn’t even know this Mage’s name, and a little bit of extra information about who he was and what he had worked on in the past certainly wouldn’t hurt either. Since the man seemed like a pretty direct person, he probably wouldn’t mind if she just brought up the topic herself.

“In that case, what do you propose?”

Ezrien grinned at her. The smile was a little crooked, but it held a certain good-natured mirth. “I want to see how you think and approach new problems and ideas. So I want to hear one thing you’re working on as an experiment and see how you go about learning more about it. The experiment can take as much or as little time as you want, and I don’t mind even if the results end up being ‘boring.’ What I want to test is how you think about problems and how you go about solving them. If you manage to impress me, I will make you an offer. I personally lead a team of Mages and have made some small but valuable discoveries throughout my time as a [Researcher]. If you are willing to work with me on some of my passion projects and less critical work for my research team during your spare time, I am willing to pay for half of your tuition outright. While my money is kind of tight right now, I am also willing to loan another 20 golden crowns – on the condition that you are willing to work for me to pay for it during your time at a magic academy. One of the research assistants that I hired recently simply isn’t meshing well with the team, and if I can replace him, I would be able to cut down on some costs over the next year and pay off the balance of your loan. As long as you can make up the last five golden crowns on your own, you would be able to pay for your tuition. Are these conditions acceptable to you?”

Alice’s brain kicked into gear as she tried to think about the current projects she was working on. Replicating the System .... Obviously wasn’t suitable here. Not only was that a distant goal, even by her standards, but she had strictly avoided discussing her research into the nature of the System. There was no need to cross one of the few genuinely problematic lines she could touch. Alice loved learning about the nature of this world, but when it came to some of the deeper secrets of this world, she wasn’t going to publicize her results until she had a way to ensure it wouldn’t blow up in her face.

However, that was far from the only thing Alice had recently looked into. Ezrien had said that he wanted to see how she investigated problems. In that case, what could she use?

Alice felt a grin tugging at the corner of her lips. She had recently been thinking about energy sources and perpetual enchantments, and during her conversation with Ezrien she confirmed that the knowledge about ‘how Artifacts work’ wasn’t well-known object for most people. And nobody, at least as far as Ezrien knew, had bothered trying to figure out how System Enchantments worked through the lens of mana. She had found the time to briefly glance at some of the System-enchanted dresses for sale in one of the shops nearby, and she had confirmed that they were filled with rainbow mana, even if they had no normal-looking enchantments in sight.

There was something to investigate there, right?