System Scribe Academy Book 1 - Chapters 56,57,58,59,60 (Patreon)

Chapter 56

A Proposal

Officially, all the students were currently on vacation. That did not mean that those students were inactive though. Many of the pupils belonging to Gale House took this time to improve the skills they lacked in order to press forward. The first month of classes might have been brutal for those who had a weaker class or were otherwise unprepared for the rigors of the academy. But Ethan had found them to be quite simple.

He didn’t need to catch up, because he hadn’t fallen behind.

When passing or failing meant participation in things outside of class, Ethan excelled. That wasn’t to say he was the top of his class. He was now barely in the top 100 for Gale House students in the first year, and couldn’t even hope to touch the top 1000 for the entire house, let alone the academy. Yet, despite his relatively bad ranking, he was one of few students summoned to meet with Headmaster Vesper. Even still, it meant going to a city called Barg.

Whoever named that place should’ve been expelled from the entire sector.

Before heading into his impromptu meeting with the headmaster, Ethan took his time in the central city. He didn’t care for it much. The entire place seemed too manufactured for his liking. But the one thing they had a lot of over here was monster meat. That meat, the scribe had learned, turned out to be an incredible boon for the development of one’s body and soul. The technique for enhancing himself came from the B-1 system. If anyone could call themselves Ethan’s teacher, it was Luna from the Radiant Mana Sect.

Ethan took a bite of some mystery monster meat, feeling as the energy flowed into his body. He fought against the tsunami of power, wrangling it and doing his best to add it to his growing system. At the moment, all his attribute rings were either at the second phase of development or close enough that he could tip them over the edge at any moment. But having a second skill slot on any of those was not as important as deepening his affinity ring. With what little time he had this morning, he did his best to employ the cultivation techniques, forcing energy into that ring and keeping concepts of depth and a new ring in mind. Nothing happened, but he felt as though something twitched. And, of course, the bracelet gave him a few more impertinent electric shocks.

Heading to the headmaster’s office wasn’t as much of a bear as Ethan had expected. Although he had expected a man of his station to be intimidating, he instead came off as an excited student of the world, ready to learn anything there was about everything. They had signed a contract, meaning that the headmaster couldn’t spill the information related to the scribe’s class, and it made him laugh. Ethan had shared that information freely with Amelia and Barry. There was no contract that bound them other than the contract of friendship and camaraderie.

After waiting in a lobby for a while, Ethan was eventually allowed entrance into Headmaster Cassius Vesper’s office. It had a decent view of the city below, but the place had become messy with missives, tomes, and various artifacts strewn about the desk. Vesper looked up with a tentatively excited look on his face and invited Ethan to have a seat on the opposite side of the broad table.

“A dragon, huh?” Vesper asked, shaking his head. “I thought you’d wait until your second semester to get into that kind of trouble.”

Ethan could only offer a weak shrug. “What can I say? I made a very, very stupid move.”

“Indeed! I got the report from Fangbrand, and the dragon wasn’t happy about whatever you stole. It attacked their outer defenses, but do you know the most curious thing? It stopped. Just about the time we detected the presence of divinity in Gale House.”

Ethan raised his hand, a sheepish smile still playing across his face. “Yeah, that one was me, too.”

Vesper let out a deep sigh. “Do not get involved with the gods. I don’t know if anybody has told you this yet, but do not. Ever. I know the people over at Luminarium would tell you that making a contract with the local gods is nothing at all, but they’re wrong.”

“I had no plans to.” Ethan shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Is this information covered under our contract?”

The seriousness on Vesper’s face evaporated. “Of course it is. Anything related to your class or your little misadventures is covered. I will die a terrible death if I decide to share that information.”

“Good to hear. In that case, I’ll tell you the short version, which isn’t that short.” Ethan retold what had happened, and Vesper nodded along. Eventually, the scribe extended his hand for the headmaster to inspect his bracelet.

All concerns about the dragon and summoning some extremely powerful gods to the world vanished in an instant. Vesper became obsessed with the bracelet, withdrawing several strange magical devices to inspect it before he finally pulled back and released a heavy sigh.

“Why do you young ones get the best stuff? For once, I want a celestial artifact to attach itself to me. Okay. Well, what I can tell you first is that I cannot inspect the item, not just because it doesn’t belong to my system, but because it’s protected by its status as a celestial item.

“So, you don’t know what it does.” Ethan felt the disappointment race through his mind. This was the headmaster of Gale House, not some magician

“Oh, I know what it can do.” Vesper rubbed his hands together. “Do you know anything about mana circuits?”

“Not a thing. I was going to go to the library before classes started again, but…”

“Right. I summoned you here.” Vesper looked around for a book, tipping over a few stacks before giving up. “Mana circuits are most commonly used by artificers. They’re an incredibly advanced form of magic that allows the artificer to impart a series of instructions. The fact that this showed up on your bracelet likely means that the bracelet itself is creating those instructions to do something specific. This is a more advanced form of spell arrays, and they’re devilishly hard to get working correctly.”

“A series of instructions?” Ethan asked, offering a sharp laugh. “That’s kind of what I did back on my home planet. We used electricity and computers, but it sounds like the concept is the same.”

“So you’re familiar with it. Perfect. I believe the artifact is observing you. It’s seeing what you do and what your class can do. Once it’s ready, it will have something special for you. Maybe a spell effect or a series of effects. It’s impossible to say. It will create whatever is best for you.”

What Ethan needed was a library of information or something that helped him sort through that information. Basically, he wanted anything that would help make his job easier, and he didn’t expect that Headmaster Vesper had brought him to his office just to recommend something about the dragon. If the dragon was there, it was there. Maybe it was only a matter of time before it attacked Fangbrand House. More than likely, the headmaster had something else in mind, something more akin to work.

Remembering his manners, Ethan thanked Vesper before moving forward. “As always, your wisdom is appreciated.”

Vesper laughed so hard he almost fell off his chair. “You’ve been hanging out in the Infinite Ocean Academy, haven’t you?” He waggled an accusatory finger. “Gods, you’re getting good at flattery…”

“Anyway… I figured you brought me here for some other reason. The dragon seems to have sorted itself.”

Vesper nodded, drawing his mouth into a tight line. He rifled through the papers on his desk and finally found the pile he was looking for. “For quite some time now, a few people have suspected there was something wrong with their system. I personally never put together that there was a connection between the various mana anomalies we’ve seen throughout the planet and the inconsistency people have in their system. But I’ve taken the liberty of putting together a list of spells and abilities within your range that you might be able to fix.”

Ethan opened his mouth to say something else, but Vesper held up a silencing finger.  

“I know that you don’t work for free. Don’t worry,” Vesper said. “The Academy is willing to compensate you handsomely for your work. I believe you’re already being compensated for solving the anomalies.”

“That’s right.” Ethan felt slightly uncomfortable being called out like that.

Vesper cleared his throat, standing and folding his arms behind his back. He turned and looked out the window, not facing Ethan again as he spoke. “You’re likely feeling rather strange. You’re a first-year solving problems nobody else can fit. You’re in a class all your own, but not because of sheer power. When most people advance through the ranks, they grow from being able to throw a tiny fireball to sending out beams of fire that could melt through the strongest metal. Your power comes from something else. You have the power of change. That’s a burdensome weight to carry.”

Ethan found himself at a loss for words. He didn’t disagree with the assessment but had never considered the weight he carried to be burdensome at all. If anything, he had only ever focused on the excitement he felt when he was solving one of those small puzzles. That had been his entire life. He had fought hard through college to avoid being diverted from his track as a software engineer. But fate on Earth, like on this planet, seemed to have other plans for him.

Vesper turned back, smiling at Ethan. “You don’t have to accept these jobs, of course. Your responsibilities are only with your academic progression. As long as you’re in good standing with the Academy, you have a spot here, as is the law of this world. But I’ll just remind you that the things you do outside of class have an impact on your ranking. Discovering a celestial artifact and surviving a dragon attack have boosted you considerably.”

“There’s a problem.” Ethan took the top page of the jobs, shaking his head. “I’m… not really good at this.”

“So, get better.”

Ethan smiled at that comment. He was kinda good at getting better at stuff. “I’ll need to sift through which job is a dead-end, though. Maybe some of these are errors on the system’s part, but it could just be a quirk. I’ll have to run them through some tests, but…”

“But…?” Vesper’s voice was high-pitched, as though he didn’t want to know what the next part of the thought was.

“But I’m very familiar with the X-13 system, and you’ve given me all Rank 1 problems.” Ethan nodded, his resolve doubling. He held a secret motivation in his heart, grasping that as he considered accepting the jobs. “But I want a pay increase. And something more, but I don’t know if you can make it happen.”

Vesper laughed again, hard enough to force himself back into his chair. “I’m the Headmaster of Gale House. There’s few things I can’t get done.”

Ethan shook his head. “So the pay isn’t a problem?”

“No, of course not.”

Thinking about it, tracking down the anomalies had been annoying. Not because he had to look at the list given to him by the Anomalous Materials Group, but because he had to go there to get an updated list. Even then, there was no guarantee they were giving him the full list. It wasn’t as though he didn’t trust them, but…

“I need something to keep track of the anomalies. Well, I need a way for reports of anomalies to come to me.” Ethan shook his head. Only when he spoke the words did he finally settle on his convictions. “Going to the Anomalous Materials Group’s room in the Silver City every time is annoying.”

“Absolutely doable. You’ll understand any list I provide you is based on reports, and not the actual list of all anomalies.”

“Yeah, obviously. Such a device exists?”

“Indeed. I’ll assign someone to transcribe the reports of the anomalies for you. Don’t worry, I’ll deliver the tablet to your house.” Vesper seemed very pleased with himself. “Actually, I can add those reports to the mix, if you want.”

“Yeah, you don’t mind if I keep these, do you?”

“Not at all.”

“And that pay increase…” Ethan trailed off, wondering how far he could push it. “I want that for both the normal anomalies and these class issues.”

Vesper seemed to consider that for a long moment. Ethan knew this might be a longshot. Headmaster Vesper was the headmaster of Gale House, not the entirety of Tariat Academy, and certainly not a benefactor of this world.

“I’ll see what I can do about that. I can also contact the Anomalous Materials Group and have them give you a more appropriate position.” Vesper scooted his chair closer, placing his elbows onto the desk. “Personally, I can’t wait until you advance. I’m absolutely certain the Rank 4 version of Fireball doesn’t have a large enough explosion.”

“You mages and your fireballs…”

“We’re all pyromaniacs at heart,” Vesper said with a wistful sigh. “Anyway, care for some lunch? I’d like to hear that dragon story again.”

Although Ethan had already eaten too much monster meat, he nodded. This felt like the next chapter of something very important. He wanted to savor it before classes started again. He just hoped the fallout from the Anomalous Materials Group wasn’t too bad.

Chapter 57

Bracelet

Although classes were fast approaching, Ethan did little to prepare for them. After his meeting with Headmaster Vesper, he lingered within the City of Barg for quite some time. The goal was to price out the monster meat, and familiarize himself with the quality‌ so he could buy some within Gale House City. Although what he learned about the monster meat was minimal, he was now confident that he couldn't afford to eat it every day. It was simply too expensive, and with his newest plan forming in his mind, he would need every spare coin he could get his grubby little fingers on.

Ethan took a lazy path back home. He walked through Barg City for a while before taking the portal and returning to Gale House City. Instead of taking his normal straight path to his cottage, he headed directly for the coast and lingered near the sea as his thoughts gathered.

It took him a while to figure out why he wanted to do this next part of his plan. At first, he thought it was pure altruism that made him want to help Barry, but he eventually realized it was a pragmatic move. The man would eventually create some extremely powerful devices. He had, after all, made a motorcycle in a month after coming to this world. That kind of mastery didn't come easily, and it meant that his potential was nearly limitless. Ethan could think of a few hundred magical devices that would make his life easier, not unlike the tablet Headmaster Vesper had promised him.

So, the plan to buy Barry a property where he could establish a workshop came from a partial place of both selfish greed and unbridled charity. Could two conflicting concepts like that exist at the same time? The scribe shook his head, unwilling to consider it much further. And yet his unique station enabled him to do this at all because Ethan could rely on a detailed list of the anomalies within Gale House. He could also pick the ones that centered on properties and pull the same trick he had to purchase his house.

Since no one else could permanently fix the anomalies, it was basically free real estate. Add a ghost, and it was actually free.

Ethan winced as he felt his bracelet send another electric shock through his body. He shook his head. Maybe there would come a day when he would get used to the way the bracelet had a propensity to electrocute him every five minutes, but today was not that day. He was not the kind of masochist who could endure endless pain in exchange for progress, but at least the salt air of the sea distracted him from it, if only a bit. On a whim, he inspected the bracelet and found something interesting.

Circuit:

Memory Block (1 Unit), Building…

Processing Block (Rank 1), Building…

Learning…

The bottom section had changed. Ethan’s brows knit as he read and he was unable to stop the laugh that came to his lips. The bracelet wasn't joking when it said that it was learning. Only hours ago, he had had a discussion with the headmaster about how mana circuits sounded like computers back home on Earth. Now the bracelet was creating a block of memory and a block of processing. He couldn't know exactly what that meant, but it sure sounded like the basis of a computer to him. But what would a computer bracelet do exactly? If the purpose of the thing was to serve him in the best way it could, then the best thing it would become is something that helped him keep track of the myriad information he was expected to know.

“Laptop on my wrist?” Ethan scooped a shell from the sandy shore, rolling it over in his fingers. “Don’t mind if I do.”

Ethan walked the length of the beach and was completely unsurprised to find a few very simple anomalies there. They were water magic anomalies that were in such a stage of infancy that upon repairing them, he received a single coin as a prize and such a tiny trickle of breadth and depth for his attribute rings as to render it completely ineffectual. It revealed something interesting, though. Anomalies grew. What would happen if they continued to grow?

Once Ethan was done with his contemplative sulking on the beach, he headed directly for the library. There was enough time in the day for him to skim through a few books on the gods and figure out what was going on. Tomorrow, he would have to attend Ritual Foundations 1 with the weird chihuahua professor. He didn't expect much from the class and planned to give it exactly zero preparation.

What he found about the gods was interesting.

Before Ethan even began his study, he had asked an attendant where he could find books related to the gods. That attendant was quick to admit that Gale House's stock of pertinent texts was thin, but it would be enough to get him going. The most important thing to know about gods in his new life was that everything depended on scope.

The local cluster of planets was called a sector. That sector contained planes. On the lowest of the planes was the Anchorworld of Iaredin. That’s where new life existed, and it represented the mortal existence of the sector. Above that was the Middle Realms, consisting of Erradon, Tero’gal, Tol’bak, Khahak, and Tal’vengar (the world Ethan currently inhabited). This is where information grew sparse. Above that were the elemental realms, which were apparently more conceptual things. And above that? The realms of the local gods. Local, because there was apparently a whole other level to the whole ordeal.

Of those gods, two reigned supreme. The Lord of Death and the Lady of Light. The bulk of the information Ethan could dig up was related to these two figures, who had apparently risen to prominence four to five hundred years ago during a schism. They had formed an alliance and perhaps a romance, depending on which scholar was penning the book, and were quick to exert their power over the other gods. But there were still some other notable figures. There were Fate and Omen, twin gods who could predict both the future and disaster. There was Shadow, who was the undisputed patron of anybody interested in assassination, sneaking, thievery, and so on. Then there was Void, a mysterious figure about whom no author of educational religious texts had any information.

Yet, according to those very same texts, all these powers paled in comparison with the primal gods. There was no information about them other than that they existed, were distant, and exerted such power that it was unimaginable.

“Cool, I wanted to end the day with an existential crisis.” Ethan sighed, leaning back in his chair and staring at the ceiling.

Perhaps it had all been educational, but Ethan now knew why people told him to avoid the gods. Their meddling was legendary, and although they could only technically act through avatars, the impact they had was vast. He was allowing his thoughts to wander when he stumbled on an errant memory. The scribe shot up, pulling his mouth into a tight line as he remembered a figure he had interacted with. Was it a little too obvious for Thread to have been the avatar of Fate and Omen? He mentally marked that person as someone to actively avoid.

“I need to get a life,” Ethan said, snapping the book shut and looking at his pile. He sighed, rushing off to find a cart before returning each tome to its home.

It became difficult not to obsessively check the bracelet on his wrist. Both the memory and processing block were still building themselves. Apparently, they needed to give him a sharp shock every 15 minutes to build it, but that pain seemed to lessen as he got more used to it. Perhaps it was just the anticipation of seeing what this thing would create, but he did not mind it as much.

Planning to grab a snack at home and avoid dinner entirely, Ethan spent his walk back to his cottage planning his next moves. His primary goal was to solve as many anomalies as he could to build up the funds required to get Barry's workshop. Of course, there were secondary and tertiary goals in solving the anomalies. He also needed to increase the power of his rings and obtain interesting sigils because, while it was fun to take the abilities of others, it was even more exciting to master abilities no one should have access to.

Ethan considered his rings in order of importance. It went: Affinity, Mind, Vigor, Agility. Those were the ones he planned to focus on. Endurance, Dexterity, and Strength might have their uses, but those were the ones he needed to put all his effort into. If any of those rings were to get a second level, Affinity had to be the first. Being hamstrung by having one spell at his disposal, if he discounted the idea of manually casting spells, anyway, was sickening. It was time he changed that.

When Ethan returned to the cottage, both Barry and Emilio were outside going over the motorcycle. He stopped with them, chatting for just a few minutes before they revealed that a package had arrived earlier. The scribe dropped the conversation entirely and rushed to the front of the house. Of course, in the small dining room, Avalara was standing over the table, pointing at the paper-wrapped package with a broad smile on her face. 

"I figured you'd come running when they told you it was here." She had a devious grin on her face that wouldn't fade.

Ethan wasted no time in ripping the package open. What he saw was a palm-sized rectangle, maybe a quarter inch thick and brimming with magical power. Although he had no idea how a magical computer would work in this room, he allowed a small amount of mana to flood out of his mind ring and into the device. It flickered to life immediately. The screen illuminated, information appearing at the top. It detailed that it was connected to some kind of magical wireless network. After a moment of thinking, it populated a list which he could search and sort. Of course, that list was filled with anomalies and the issues people were having with their classes.

There was even a section where he could send a message to whatever authority was in charge of this, informing them he had completed an anomaly. "Oh, yeah, I know what I'm doing tomorrow," Ethan rubbed his hands together as he flicked through the list. There were thousands, maybe tens of thousands of anomalies here. "How did they get these digitized so quickly?"

“Magic,” Avalara said in a bored tone. “And this isn’t even the greatest crafted magical item I’ve seen. It pales in comparison to what is possible.”

“Don’t steal my thunder,” Ethan said. “This thing is neat.”

"Yes, yes. The simple information tablet is neat. I'm sure it makes your life better. But more importantly, I noticed the change with your bracelet."

Ethan held the bracelet up for her to see, the stupid smile still painted across his features. “This old thing? Yeah, speaking of computers… It looks like it wants to become a computer. Maybe some kind of storage or processing device. Hard to say.”

“Well, that sounds useful. Better than keeping physical notes, right?”

“Exactly.”

Ethan’s concentration was broken when the door swung open. Barry crossed the room, wrapped his arm around the scribe, and dragged him back toward the door. “Dinner time, baby!”

“I was just going to get something here.” Ethan barely managed to squeak the words out.

“Nonsense! You gotta get big and strong. Like me.”

“That’d be a sight.” Amelia snorted a laugh, following behind as the big man dragged the little one. “You can’t survive on snacks forever, Ethan. To feed the mind, you must feed the body.”

Although Ethan grumbled at first, he still had possession of the tablet. He could scan through it while they ate.

Chapter 58

Necromantic Threat

Not all anomalies were created equal. And neither were flying, teaching chihuahuas. Although Professor Eggs had an interesting class planned for today, Ethan had a difficult time paying attention. It didn't help that Oak Building 18 was particularly stuffy today, providing warmth that made him want to either fall asleep or crawl into his tablet and research more anomalies. However, Eggs had strictly forbidden him from bringing it out during the lesson.

With their break over and the basics of the original foundations one class covered, the professor took an interesting direction. According to her, they had officially covered all the material for the entire semester, which was a shock since most within the class had handled that material without much issue. The key was that they were going to go back and refine the basics endlessly until the semester ended. That gave Ethan a thought.

Why the hell did the education system back on Earth work in a linear fashion? He found all the tiredness in his body gone after Professor Eggs made that announcement. He was bright and perky, ready to go over the foundations of rituals again so he could drill in those concepts until they were second nature.

“This beats the way we do it back home,” he said, elbowing Barry to get his attention.

“We don’t have academies.” Barry shrugged before putting his finger to his lips. “Shush. She’s gonna shoot another fireball at us.”

“Another fireball, you say!?” Eggs shouted, a hovering mass of liquid flame appearing before her floating form. “Who wants it?!”

The class was silent and the professor went back to teaching, allowing the flames to vanish.

Although the topics of basic ritual work were easy to approach, the depth they presented when examined with a more scrupulous lens was immense. Ethan had no trouble following this class when it first started, even if he had missed the official first lesson. But now, he felt himself being dragged behind, unable to keep up with the advanced topics Professor Eggs was discussing. At first, it was enough for them to form the ritual circles anyway that worked. Now, the professor wanted them to do it within a margin of error.

It was the first time that those who hadn’t struggled with the material before felt the weight of the lesson. Professor Eggs was quick to say that if they mastered the intermediary application of what she was teaching, they would easily get her passing grade for the class. But she encouraged everyone to push as far as they could since ritual work could be a lucrative future for them, even if they didn't go into combat. Applying large-scale magic for commercial, agricultural, or even private use was a decent way to make money in the wider universe.

When the class was over, Barry and Ethan walked side by side, both with their shoulders slumped and heads too filled with information.

"Did I just get assaulted?" Ethan looked around, feeling the sluggishness of his brain catching up with reality. "Feels like she just turned the class up to 11."

“Not sure I signed up for this.” Barry grumbled, rubbing his forehead. “Damn, is that gonna be all our classes?”

Ethan winced. “I hope not.”

Instead of leaving each other’s company right away, they instead headed to the nearest park and went over the material. Professor Eggs’ weekly assignment was the same as the first week. They had to create a ritual circle, but this time it had to be good. That’s when Ethan learned that he was actually pretty good at making them. Yet it wasn’t the construction of the circles that was the problem. It was the endless details. Perfect angles for every turn, sigils that were embedded in the lines, and the exact strokes of each sigil drove him crazy.

“I’m not getting out of this alive.” Barry sighed, falling back onto the green lawn. “Just kill me now.”

“How would you like your death?” Ethan thumbed through his list of spells. “I think I can recall the Fireball sigil from memory, if I try hard enough.”

“Yeah, give me one of them.” Barry closed his eyes, ready to leave this world. “Right between the eyes.”

Ethan finally withdrew his tablet with no intention of murdering his friend. He had a few anomalies he wanted to check out, but they were pretty far away. A lot of the anomalies within Gale House were weak. The Anomalous Materials Group had taken care of them, reducing them far enough to render them harmless. But on the edge of Gale House City, there were a few flavors of magic that were equal parts concerning and interesting.

“You’ll have to ask someone else to kill you today.” Ethan checked his Ring slots, ensuring he had everything he needed to do some jumps. He took in a deep breath, topping off his mana. “I need to see if the rumors of the necromantic magic are true or not.”

“Necromancy? That sounds pretty cool.”

“Yeah, just meet me in Galbred Town.”

“Where’s that?”

“About a week-long walk north.” Ethan flashed a wry smile.

“Meh.” Barry fell back onto the grass. “I broke something in my rig, so I’ve gotta fix that. Have fun raising the dead.”

Ethan flashed one last smile before flooding his Agility Ring with mana. He coiled on the spot, judging his angle and taking off into the sky. The sensation of soaring through the air was equal parts exciting and horrifying. Reaching the top of the arc was always extremely fun, but coming down was hard. He steered himself, relying on the Gravity portion of the spell to soften his landing. His first touchdown was on the roof of a home and the structure groaned under his weight. Only slightly at first, but it protested more when he took off again.

As Gale House was exclusively a magic-oriented school, nobody paid much attention when a student soaring across the sky. Ethan felt as though with each jump he was getting better at the act. But it all came down to a matter of steering himself on the downward trajectory. As long as he could aim for something that was relatively open or high up, he could handle it. About an hour of strenuous jumping later, he was out on the open fields outside of the city. He could have taken the portal there, but getting more experience with this ability was necessary if he wanted to master it.

With all thoughts of the floating dog and rituals out of his mind, he searched for anything that looked evil. It didn’t take long. Galbred Town was a tiny collection of shacks on the horizon when Ethan first spotted it. As he approached, he could feel the sting of necromantic magic in the air, and was quickly flagged down by a group of guards below. Steering was a pain, but he circled back with another jump, and linked up with the group of five.

"This area is strictly off limits." The lead guard was a man wearing something of a cross between robes and armor. He had a spear that radiated with magical power. It didn't take long for his eyes to drag over Ethan's badge. "Even with that, I wouldn't recommend handling this issue."

"What's the situation?" Ethan could sense the magic in the air, but it was too distant for him to get an exact read on it with his powers. He would need to get closer if he hoped to fix it.

The lead guard shared a concerned look with his companions, eventually shaking his head. "Dense accumulation of low-rank necromantic power. It looks like it's the reanimating kind, so we also have a few stray undead in the area." Folks from House Luminarum have been by, but they can only clear the area. They can't stop the source of the power.”

“How low-rank?”

“Rank 1 or lower.” The guard shifted uncomfortably on the spot, gripping his spear. “Exposure to the outside of the field is… not good. We’ve noted necrotic effects, including blood poisoning and… Let’s just say it isn’t pretty.”

Ethan had learned his lesson dealing with dense pockets of magical energies before, and he wasn't exactly eager to manipulate the dark energy he felt. If he took it into his body to process, there was a chance that he could somehow poison himself, but he knew the problem would only get worse. Instead of rushing forward unprepared, he went into his tablet and swiped around until he found the entry. He put a special note in there requesting assistance from those clerics who could clear him a path. He asked that they inform him once it was clear enough for him to get to the center. Then he could work on solving the anomaly itself.

“Thanks for the warning,” Ethan said with a quick nod. “I see we have another anomaly in the area… The type isn’t listed. Got any information on that?”

The guard stood at attention, the expression on his face changing from concern to excitement. “Oh. Really? I expected you to head in there despite my warning… Mages, you know?” Both the lead guard and the others let out a hearty laugh. “Right. That one is only a few miles northwest. It is not within any population centers and is situated at the bottom of a gully. We made our rounds over there just last week, and the anomaly had grown in size, but we still cannot identify it.”

“Any notable features?” Ethan asked.

“Spatial distortion, but that’s normal for most of these things we encounter.” The lead guard shrugged, as though he was disappointed he couldn’t offer more information. “Typically, we just report what we see without investigating further. Collections of magical energy in the wild can be strange. Sometimes, it just means the start of a new dungeon. Sometimes, it can even signal a new tower. We just report.”

After Ethan's misadventures, he was more willing to accept an excuse like that. These things could get extremely dangerous, and the approach to solving them mattered just as much as the anomaly itself. The necromantic anomaly, for example, was particularly dangerous. He had to clear the excess mana out in the area before solving the system-based issue, and even then, the risk of getting necrotic damage was high. If the second anomaly was completely unknown, then that made it even more dangerous. Although he proceeded, he would do so with caution.

“Thanks for the information,” Ethan said, coiling on the spot. He flooded his Agility Ring with mana. “Keep up the good work, fellas. And lady. And… I’m just gonna jump away before this becomes more awkward.”

“Good idea.” The lead guard waved as the scribe took off into the air.

At first, Ethan thought that the spatial distortion the guard was talking about was the way that mana tended to appear as something of a heat shimmer in the air to normal people. Of course, those with magical senses could peer through that veil and see the exact nature of the mana. But as he sailed through the air, spotting a series of gullies that cut a scar through the landscape, he could see even from his extreme height that it was not exactly what the guard was talking about. He put his hands out after the peak of his arc, steering himself through the low gravity effect as he landed on a hill far away from the anomaly.

Although the field around the spatial anomaly wasn't massive, it was strange. It wasn't the ordinary heat shimmer he would expect, instead appearing as weird fractals in the air. It was as if a place in space was split, then moved an inch, and then put back the next second. It was like reality itself was glitching out. Observation was the first part of the job, and Ethan did good work sitting on that hill. He traced the outline of his Affinity Ring with his Celestial Pen, focused on the concept of depth as he made attempts to spawn a new ring.

Nothing happened, but over the course of hours he observed enough of the anomaly to get some measure of its quality.

It wasn’t just that the thing he was viewing produced effects that made space warp. As he tasted the flavor of the errant mana, processing a bit of it in his soul and Mind Ring with the Lesser Mana Siphon ability, he realized it was exactly how it appeared. This was a proper Spatial Anomaly; a collection of Spatial magic.

A smile spread across Ethan’s face. Spatial magic was some seriously advanced stuff. If he could get his hands on a sigil, he could get paid and create a spatial spell.

“Let’s do it.”

Chapter 59

Memory Shortage

Ethan was happy to be such an absolute bookworm. He didn’t recall everything about each school of magic that existed, but he knew enough to know that Spatial magic was really cool. He also knew enough about it to know the difference between it and something like Teleport, Portal, and Gate magic. While each might exist in the same relative family, that was like saying boiling water was close enough to a bonfire. Although the two things were hot, they weren’t remotely similar in any other way.

While Teleport, Portal, and Gate magic were the abilities to manipulate space itself by moving vast distances, Spatial magic operated on a different principle. It functioned by taking areas of space and expanding or contracting them. There were also crossovers with time magic, but that was so advanced that none of the books in Gale House's library held much information on it. And since Ethan had turned over a new leaf about rushing, having longed to do things he didn't completely understand, his plan today was simple. He was going to study the anomaly and do light experimentation with processing the latent mana using Lesser Mana Siphon.

Unlike the prospect of interfacing indirectly with Necromantic Magic, dealing with spatial magic wasn't difficult at all. Ethan skirted along the edges of the gully, probing the vague orb shaped space the anomaly seemed to occupy and siphoning out a bit of the mana. He started with tiny amounts, barely activating the ability in his Mind Ring before stopping to see if it had much of an effect on him. It didn't make him occupy a larger or smaller space, which meant that the effects were mostly harmless. “Mostly” was the operative word here though, because any time too much mana of a certain alignment occupied the same space, bad things happened.

The big change with Ethan’s process was that Lesser Mana Siphon had the effect of taking latent mana of any type, and instantly converting it to a type he could use. There was only a fraction of a second where that aligned mana was in his body, and the Spatial mana didn’t disagree with him. The scribe sat on a cliff’s edge, looking down at the anomaly as he studied it. He witnessed the entire gully become small enough to fit in his hand, then expand out large enough to occupy a few blocks in Gale House City.

Thus was the danger of the Spatial Anomaly.

Ethan couldn't even imagine the kind of damage this magic could bring if it were allowed to ascend beyond rank one. He didn't even want to consider a Rank 5 version of this thing. For hours, he took notes and hummed to himself as he drew mana from the massive anomaly. He affected its size, but not enough to get to the center. Only then could he break it down, emulating the broken system and applying his patch. For now, he was content to muse.

“Now, how much did I reduce you by?” Ethan asked idly. He almost fell off the cliff when an unfamiliar, ethereal voice echoed over the barren hills.

“Spatial Anomaly size reduced by approximately 20%.”

For a few long, tense moments Ethan just sat there. He had his Agility Ring ready in case he needed to jump away. Jumping away was always the move, as the dragon had shown him.

“Hello?” Ethan asked, looking around. He eventually clicked his tongue, looking at the bracelet on his wrist and frowning. “I should’ve figured it was you. Is this the interface you gave me? Speech control?”

After a few moments of silence, Ethan shook his head. “Give me a report of your processing power and storage capacity…. Please.”

“Memory Block capacity: 75% full. Processing Block load: 100%. Constructing additional Memory Blocks and Processing Blocks to relieve condition. Current condition: Overload.”

Ethan scratched his chin. So his brand new computer sucked. That made sense, he couldn’t imagine the amount of data the bracelet had to process to reach the conclusion of the anomaly reducing in size. “Can I help you speed the process?”

“Introduction of dungeon cores, monster cores, power crystals, unaligned mana, and processed celestial mana all speed the process of block construction.”

“Are you sentient?” Ethan asked. He could feed the bracelet mana all day, but needed to ensure Skynet wasn’t currently on his wrist.

“No.”

Breathing a sigh of relief, he leaned back on the hard ground. He gazed up at the sky, watching as clouds drifted lazily past. The fear had subsided, and now he was left with a sensation of excitement. This was big. He had a laptop on his wrist that he could customize. As far as remembering stuff went, he wasn’t the best. His memory was okay, but nothing superhuman. But if he could get a few more Memory Blocks and some more processors… And what other functions could he add? The possibilities were enough to make his head spin.

Ethan pulled half the mana from his soul, allowing it to snake through the unseen channels and into the bracelet. The metal surface shimmered as it accepted the pure mana. It drank deeply before giving a report.

“Progress on Memory Block (2) has increased from 1% to 2%.”

“That’s it?” Ethan asked, releasing a heavy sigh. “You just drank half my mana.”

“Consider employing a siphoning technique, using the anomaly as a… Processing capacity error. Reducing load.”

“Yeah, don’t think too hard, buddy.” Ethan laughed, tapping his Mind Ring to suck up more energy. Once it touched his soul, he sent it directly to the bracelet.

“Progress on Memory Block (2) has increased from 2% to 3%.”

“Can you run another parallel processor?” Ethan asked. “Or even one in sequence. Just more processing power.”

“Unable to calculate.”

Ethan scratched his head some more. Until the bracelet finished upgrading, he doubted he would get more answers out of it. For now, he estimated the time it would take to get back to Gale House, and fed the hungry little artifact. Once he had enough information, he took to the skies. There was the unenviable fact that he needed to work on his ritual magic. Which meant, if he wanted to stay ahead this week, he had to do that work today.

Landing roughly outside the dining hall, Ethan groaned. His muscles were sore from jumping around too much, and his brain felt like mush. The good news was that his bracelet was half-way done working on another Memory Block. Perhaps then it could help him understand the best approach to the Spatial anomaly. But that could wait. Right now, it was chow time.

Barry was nowhere to be found. But Ethan spotted a bedraggled Amelia from across the hall, waving her down after grabbing a plate of… something. He got his normal fruit, but also some unidentified poultry. It had a sweet-smelling sauce, so that’s all he needed to grab it from the buffet line.

“That sucked.” Amelia was the first to say it after they found a seat. Her forehead slammed into the table, the resounding sound echoing. “I knew it was going to get hard, but…”

“Right?” Ethan tossed a cut piece of fruit in his mouth. “Oh, check it out… Hey, bracelet. What’s your progress?”

“Progress on Memory Block (2) is currently at 58%.”

Amelia lifted her head from the table, a confused look on her face. “Ritual magic isn’t that hard, is it? Did Professor Eggs zap your brain?”

“What?”

“You’re talking to your bracelet.” Amelia pointed between the bracelet and Ethan’s face. “Which makes me think you’re going insane.”

He should’ve realized that the monotone voice he had been hearing was in his head. No one around him could hear a thing the bracelet was saying, which was likely a good thing. But he was still talking to his bracelet like a crazy person. Which meant he had to explain how the artifact worked. It was a task harder than he had expected, seeing as she didn’t have a baseline to understand how computers worked. At least she knew what mana circuits were.

“That’s interesting, but… An artifact?” Amelia seemed confused about that concept. “Artifacts are normally insanely strong. Powerful enough to skyrocket a person to power.”

“The growth,” Ethan said, snapping his fingers. “Anything that can grow is powerful, right? This thing just started being a thing. Imagine what it can do when I flood it with enough mana. Just the processing power is impressive. And once it finishes the current process, I can ask about other Blocks.”

Although Amelia looked skeptical, she nodded. “I suppose you won’t know until it grows… Perhaps you can use it to cheat.”

“I can absolutely use it to cheat.” Ethan waggled his finger, which was currently covered in a thin layer of sweet sauce. He finished chewing the bit of chicken before continuing. “How bad do you think the other classes are gonna be?”

“You have two foundation classes. I wouldn’t worry.” Amelia scoffed, cutting up the entire steak she had picked for dinner before taking a single bite. “You’re already pretty good with arrays, so Array Foundations shouldn’t be an issue.And, despite your shaky start, your mana control is pushing past the low-end of Rank 2. That’s a free class for you.”

“Which means I only have to worry about Ritual Foundations 1, and Array Foundations 1. Sweet.” That put Ethan’s mind at ease. Now he only had to worry about a sprint to master those two classes and reach the minimum the professors expected from him. Other than that, his focus would be completely on the anomalies. “Oh. I found a pretty interesting bit of magic out near… What was that place called? Ah, Galbred. Necromancy.”

“Ew. Don’t go anywhere near that. You’ll die. Like, seriously. Leave it to the church-goers.”

Ethan nodded, withdrawing his tablet and finding an update from whoever was in charge of updating these things. “Speaking of. Luminarum agreed to send some people to start on the energy. That’ll open it up for me to debug the anomaly.”

Amelia sighed, giving him a concerned look. “Aren’t you going too hard?”

“Yeah. I’m going to take at least a day off this week.” Ethan chomped down on a few more bits of fruit. “Honestly, the adventure was pretty fun. I might do some more.”

Amelia shook her head at that. “A mage’s place is in the library, not the field.”

Ethan flicked through his tablet as he chatted with Amelia. Fortunately, she wanted to talk about the research she had been doing during the break, which was more interesting than speculation about if his artifact was only useful as a chunk of metal attached to his wrist.

There were only a few properties in town with anomalies bad enough to condemn the building. They fell into a strange slot of places that had horrible afflictions that weren’t taken care of by the Anomalous Materials Group. That meant the anomalies had appeared at a relatively high rank recently, and the group simply hadn’t been by to take care of them yet. Naturally, that’s where Ethan came in. The only issue was that he needed the capital to purchase the building.

Barry never showed up to dinner. Amelia claimed he was busy working on his War Rig, so all they could do was hope he got something. Once the conversation had run dry and the food was done, the pair parted ways. That was fine with Ethan, he had a bracelet to shove an absurd amount of extremely potent mana into. Even when it was done building the Memory Block, he had no plans to stop there.

As it turned out, Barry was in the backyard of the cottage. Ethan greeted him, but the mechanic was too deep in his work. So, the scribe dragged a chair out into the yard, ensuring he could see the fading sun glittering against the waves of the sea, and he flooded mana into his bracelet.

One way or another, he’d make sure the artifact he had been so lucky to get would be useful.

Chapter 60

Sequential Processing

The idea that Ethan could “stack” rings had been around for a while now. It was within Bantari Building 1, during a lecture from Professor Marsh, that he had the idea. Although it had been a vague thing back then, now the only thing the scribe could think of was an exact mechanism to make it happen. He sat in the classroom, prepared to hear the wise words of the short lizard-person. The early hour of the class did nothing for his concentration.

Before class began, Ethan had been joined by Barry and Amelia. It was hard to tell if either planned to keep the class forever, but it was their right to audit it, even if they didn’t have it count toward their semester total. Neither seemed willing to commit to it one way or the other, but the usefulness of Array Foundations 1 was undeniable. And so, Professor Marsh began their speech.

"And so starts the next leg of our class. While the uninformed may be curious about the way this works, I'm sure those with more of an appropriate background know what comes next." Professor Marsh marched back and forth, passing behind the lectern and vanishing from view every time. “Our first stretch in this class was dedicated to covering everything you need in order to technically pass this class, but there are grades of passing.”

Those in the uninformed section of the crowd began murmuring, but Ethan held his concerns. This was the exact same thing that had happened in Ritual Foundations, so at least he had some baseline for what to expect.

"If you consider the material we covered in the first leg of this class and you felt as though it was easy to master, then congratulations. You likely have a passing grade. At the end of the semester, I will be administering exams to each of you to ensure you understand at least something that we went over. From this moment on, we'll be starting at the beginning and delving deeper into the topics we covered before as well as a few others. Now you may ask yourself, why? Well, the answer is simple. Earning a passing grade means that you are acceptable in the topics this class teaches, but to earn my seal of approval means that you're ready to take Array Foundations 2."

Professor Marsh let the words hang in the air. Everyone who wasn’t at that “passing” level let out a groan. That just put a broader smile on the lizard’s face.

“The grades are thus: fail, pass, Professor Marsh’s Seal of Approval.” The professor beamed a sharp-toothed smile at the class. “Failing is bad. Don’t fail. But passing isn’t bad either. Perhaps you’re not cut out for Foundation classes, in which case, I recommend you move to a more academic line of work. For those of you with the stones to push forward, you’ll make some of the best adventurers, archmages, master artificers, and so on. Now. Shall we get started?”

A few concerned whispers spread through the room, but it wasn't anything that concerned Ethan. He was fairly confident that he could cover all the topics from now until the end of the semester. If it was just the things that they had covered already, but in a more complex form, he could handle it so long as he studied enough. That just meant he had to balance this with his extracurricular activities. Truly, it wouldn't be that hard, would it? As Professor Marsh went on, the first topic of discussion was dissecting the lesser barrier spell, which, of course, led to a situation where the professor talked about a recent unexpected change to the spell. Only Amelia and Barry cast their eyes toward Ethan, each holding a stupid smile on their face. As the professor talked about cosmic forces and the will of the gods.

“Will of the gods my ass,” Barry said, jabbing an elbow into Ethan’s ribs. “Will of my boy!”

“Mister… what was your name?” Professor Marsh asked, looking moderately annoyed.

“No surname!” Barry shouted back as though he hadn’t just disturbed the class.

“Let’s keep the excitement to a minimum. Well, perhaps this is a good time to talk about the scoring system!” Professor Marsh rubbed a pair of slightly damp hands together. “Everyone knows they have a score. You gain points for doing things. That might be research, feats of valor, discovering items, and getting a pass or a seal in a class. In our class, we only have two people in the expulsion zone.”

It wasn’t hard to tell who that was. The two in question sucked in a sharp lungful of breath just as the words were uttered.

“Indeed, you too need to buckle down and begin working on extracurricular activities.” Professor Marsh walked along the stage some more, looking as though they were ready to pontificate further. “If we examine the current spread of points between this class, we have an upset. Currently it's a tie between our man without a surname and Ethan Walsh.”

“Huh?” Barry and Ethan said in unison.

Barry raised his hand, and was immediately called upon. “Yeah, did you hear the part about how he escaped a dragon attack?”

Professor Marsh nodded, waving some papers in the air. “Indeed. And it earned him a nice stack of points. You on the other hand, created a complex machine in your first month at the academy. So complex that a team from Feyhammer had to come over to evaluate it. So, you see, getting chased by a dragon isn’t very interesting. Ethan is quite fast, but is being fast something we value here?”

The low murmur in the room continued. The students were partially shocked that Ethan had escaped from a dragon and equally confused as to why he wasn't well above the top of the class because of it. The more the scribe thought about it, the more it made sense. He had run away from a dragon using basically a single spell. It wasn't as though he had created a breakthrough for magic or, like Barry had done, assembled an insanely complicated magical machine with basically scraps.

Although he felt his face burning from embarrassment, Ethan was offended that Barry's discovery didn't rocket to the top of the entire group of first years. His hand shot up, and he was quickly called upon. “Barry only got that many points for creating his war rig. Doesn't that seem like too few?”

“Indeed!” Professor Marsh shouted. “I’ve seen it in action myself, and I’ve gotta say. You got screwed on the points, Mister No-Name.”

“Agreed!” Barry shouted, thumping his fist on the table.

“But then you consider that you’ve done almost nothing else.” Professor Marsh now leveled scrupulous eyes onto the big man. “Take Feinwreigth for example. A fine short-statured gentleman like myself, coming in at fifth in the class through only experimentation. The sheer volume of experimentation is what brought him to his spot.”

Ethan nodded and clapped along as the class broke into a scatter of applause. It was truly impressive to get so high on a contribution list. If the only thing they did was experimentation, the short-statured gentleman in question belonged to a race Ethan had seen before. It was the same race Alex belonged to. They were potbellied with pointed, elf-like ears. They were always fierce and intelligent in equal measures and just about as short as they came.

Instead of focusing on the lesson for the day, the class broke into a discussion on how they could earn enough points to offset their own inadequacies. That, of course, eventually led Professor Marsh to finish with the lesson and turn it over to a practical session. They focused on the basics they had covered in the first days of the class, but instead of breaking off into small groups, everyone clustered around the two students who were in the expulsion zone and began a rapid-fire tutoring session.

Ethan should’ve been the best at creating arrays. He wanted to be the best. But he wasn’t good at creating the arrays for the X-13 system. It might’ve been the one he was most familiar with, but he just didn’t have the knack. If this were a class about decomposing a spell into a System Sigil, he’d be the best. Instead, that title went to either Barry, Amelia, or the well-experienced short-statured gentleman Feinwreight.

That was the thing about Gale House, though. Ethan wasn't sure how it worked in any of the other houses, but in the one focused on magic, a community of knowledge was more important than anything else. Individual accomplishments were still measured, but uplifting those who were struggling seemed to be just as important. And with the class ending before noon, Barry volunteered to take the failing students off for some private lessons. Amelia was simply too busy with her extra stuff.

“Sure you don’t need help?” Ethan asked one more time.

“Come on. You suck at this stuff.” Barry joked, but it was true.

Ethan had a lot to study if he wanted to keep up and take Array Foundations 2. Since he wanted all his classes to be Foundation-style classes, he didn’t have a choice. Yet there was one hope he had left to help him through both his job with the Anomalous Materials Group and his classes. The random shocks the bracelet gave him had become just another thing. He got used to them, as odd as it was, and now it was close enough to creating the second memory block.

“What’s your progress on the second block?” Ethan asked.

“Memory Block, second unit, is 80% completed.”

Rubbing his hands together, Ethan could only think of one thing. Perhaps this session in the park wouldn't lead to the benefactor of this world coming to intervene. He worked his way through the streets, judging the amount of time he had left and partitioning that time off. He needed to research spatial magic, increase the strength of his bracelet, work on getting that second ring for his affinity ring, and also practice both ritual foundations and array foundations.

Settling in on the bench, he began his work with the bracelet. Lesser Mana Siphon was the biggest boon when it came to dumping a huge amount of mana into the artifact. And it needed a lot just to create a single block of memory. He feared that creating another Processing Unit to run in parallel with the first would take a far larger amount. But at least with some more memory, the artifact could actually function. Right now, it got bogged down with the simplest of operations.

Siphoning vast quantities of mana into his bracelet meant that anybody with magical senses nearby kept their distance. That was fine with Ethan. He split his time between flooding his bracelet with mana and working on the concept of creating another ring. During breaks, he flicked through his tablet and marked anomalies that would be easy enough to clear, but would still pay him a decent amount. A few hours after he started, something finally happened with his bracelet.

“Memory Block completed.”

“Thank god.” Ethan breathed out a sigh, slumping in the park bench where he sat. He pulled up the circuit, and nodded with approval.

Circuit:

Memory Block (2 Units).

Processing Block (Rank 1).

Learning…

“Nice. So, what else can you do?” Ethan asked.

“During the learning phase, functionality will increase. Currently, you have access to the creation of Memory and Processing blocks. Would you like to create a new Block?”

“Not right now.” Ethan tried to lower his voice. He was getting some looks from nearby people. “How much text-based information can you store? And do images, more specifically spell arrays, consume more space.”

“Spell arrays consume significantly more space than plain text. Each Memory Block can store several million words of text, depending on the length of those words.”

Ethan scratched his chin. That wasn’t a lot of memory at all. What was that? Only a few megabytes, if he had to guess. He was basically working with the computer from the damned moon lander.

“How long would it take to make a new Processing Block, and can you run them in sequence?”

“Define sequence.”

“Can you use them to speed up a task, or do you have to use them separately?"

“Either scenario is possible.”

“And how long would it take you to make a new block?”

“The length of block creation depends on how many of that block are already in use. The time increases dramatically the more of one block you create.”

Ethan gritted his teeth, but nodded. “Start working on another Processing Block. But be ready to stop the operation to help me remember some stuff.”

With that, Ethan felt the electric shock as his bracelet got to work. Then, he headed for the library.