Chapter 29 – A Trip to the Library

Chapter 29 – A Trip to the Library

“I’m sorry for judging you, Tom, you were right, that was awful,” Emily complains as she walks through the hall with Tom and Hester after class.Findd new stories at novelhall.com

“Told you so.” Tom grins smugly.

“Goddess, I hope the other required classes I have aren’t that bad.”

“What else do you have? We probably have more crossover,” Hester asks eagerly.

“Geopolitics, maths, and English. Oh and I’ve signed up for hand-to-hand combat, but that was a personal choice.”

“We have geopolitics and maths too. Are you literate?”

“Yes, why?”

“Then skip English. Apparently it’s a very basic course to make sure commoners are literate, so it will be completely useless to you.”

“Ah, I see, thanks.” Emily nods, grateful for Hester’s advice.

I’ll have to look into dropping the course later.

Reaching the transportation rooms, Emily says goodbye to the twins and heads back to her room. A couple of minutes after returning to her room, a system notification pops up.

̄ ̄ ̄ ̄ ̄

Chain-Quest failed: True Magical Genius #3

_____

Checking the time, she sees it failed exactly twenty-four hours after she left the classroom yesterday. Dismissing the notification with a nod of understanding, she swiftly returns to her spell-creation experiments.

A few hours later, Emily closes her notebook with a sigh.

“Maybe I was a bit overzealous: I still don’t understand what these lines and shapes do.”

Sitting back in her chair, she opens her status and stares at her progression page while biting her thumb.

Should I set this aside as a side project and focus on progression first? Maybe learning some magic knowledge will help, I’ll go to the library after lunch.

With a decision made, Emily moves to her bed and sits down cross-legged to meditate.

***

“Why do you have your notebook with you?” Hester asks while drinking a spoonful of her soup.

“I’m going to the library after this to do a bit of research. Wanna come?” Emily says, taking a bite from her wrap.

“Sure, I want to look at a few books on spellcasting too. I’ve made no progress so far.”

“I’ll come if I can I piggyback on your access level,” Tom says excitedly.

“Sure, but what do you even need it for?”

“I want to see what history texts are limited to nobles only!”

Emily stares at Tom with exaggerated surprise.

“What?”

“Nothing, I’m just surprised you gave an intelligent answer.”

“Hey! I’m not dumb!” Tom complains as Juliana and Hester laugh at Emily’s response.

Wiping tears from her eyes, Hester adds to the conversation: “He may look like that, but he’s actually pretty good at history. There’s a reason he was the one dad made give tours.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Ignoring the twins bickering again, Emily looks to the sulking Juliana and asks her a question.

“Hey, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing, I just wanted to go with you guys, but I have a stupid lesson after lunch.”

“Haha, you can join us after your lesson. I’ll be there for a while, even if these guys leave quickly.”

“Really?” Juliana asks, her eyes glistening with expectation.

“Would I lie to you?” Emily says with a grin. “Besides, I’m probably going to want your advice on what to research anyway so I’ll be glad for your company.”

“Yay!” Juliana cheers, bouncing in her chair with excitement.

How does she have this much energy?

“Hey Emily,” Tom calls over, finished arguing with his sister, “What are you going to spend your points on by the way? You got loads yesterday.”

[Magical Genius]

User is a natural-born mage.

-Grants instant comprehension of new magic [Knowledge]

-Mana strength increased by +50%

-Increased aptitude for creating new spells

_____

Does the instant comprehension of magic knowledge help me understand technical language or something? All these books seemed perfectly easy to read but come to think of it, Juliana did mention only using C-grade books so far, and all those C-grade elemental theory books seemed far too simple to me.

Blinking away the system with a new appreciation for her talent, Emily starts reading the books on magic circles. After sinking into her research for another hour, she is startled by a sudden voice over her shoulder.

“Whatcha reading?”

Jumping a little, Emily looks to the side and sees Juliana leaning over her with a wide grin. Letting out a breath and relaxing, she explains:

“I’m looking into magic circles because I was trying to create my own spell earlier but couldn’t understand what the lines and shapes within the magic circle were for.”

Juliana moves to sit on the seat beside Emily.

“I see. So you’re doing something ridiculous again.”

“When isn’t she?” Tom mutters quietly, barely looking up from his book.

“How is this ridiculous, isn’t it normal for mages to make spells? How else do you guys get all your spells?”

“Yes, but not normally first circle mages. We stick to buying spells from the information hub. After all, the spell creation course is intermediate grade for a reason.”

Emily quickly notes the name of the book she was reading, before getting rid of the stack next to her.

“What does the course grade have to do with it?”

“While it’s not enforced, most basic courses are for first circle, intermediate for second, and advanced for third. So, you doing something considered an intermediate course is weird!”

“I see,” Emily easily accepts Juliana’s comment before changing the subject. “Anyway, I’m trying to work out what subjects I should be researching at the moment because waiting for classes is taking too long. Can you help me work out the general topics I should be focusing on? Please?”

“Sure! I’ll do my best,” Juliana says happily while opening her notebook.

After thirty minutes of going over her notes and trying to split everything Juliana has learned over the past year into specific subjects, Emily is left with a short list in her notebook to focus on.

Natural mana formation

Elemental theory

Chants

Mana manipulation

Meditation techniques

Reagents

Arrays

Runes

“That’s pretty much everything I can think of,” Juliana says while leaning back and stretching. “As long as you have a working meditation technique and focus on your element though, quite a lot of that isn’t needed. But I hope it helps.”

“It’s perfect, thank you!” Emily says with a wide grin, giving Juliana a quick hug before turning back to the table to request more books.

I’m not sure if it will be considered a magic knowledge but let's look at meditation techniques first. I don’t know if what I’ve been using is any good: it’s just a random way of breathing Anna taught me to calm down.

“Five B-grade meditation techniques.”

Once more, a stack of books forms on the desk next to her, and Emily picks up the first one, ‘The Channels Within’, and starts to read. The book immediately grabs her attention as it goes into detail on the internal mana circuits each mage forms, and how to use a rhythmic flow within them to increase the amount of mana gathered and even passively compress mana before it reaches the magic circle.

Her notes are slowly filled with more information, with each book having slightly different views and opinions from the last. With every book she reads, Emily streamlines her notes and begins forming ideas for a new meditation technique.

Picking up the final book from the stack, Emily raises an eyebrow at the odd name, ‘A Study on Magical Beasts’.

Why did I receive this when I asked for books on meditation techniques?

Opening the book, she reads the first page.

Magical beasts are creatures who have been exposed to vast quantities of mana since birth. Unlike mages, their usage of mana comes naturally, and their development in power is completely passive.

Through this study, I aim to understand the methods beasts enact to draw in atmospheric mana even in motion, to supplement my own growth.

First, we shall start with a Blazing Salamander, a rare creature I found when travelling to the volcanic region in the south of the Lerus Isles...

Emily swiftly devours the book, before looking at the author and requesting any other texts they produced, along with more resources on general meditation techniques. With her focus fully on her research, time flows smoothly until a system notification interrupts her.