[Ascension]

[Solstreus Magic Academy: Principal's Office]

In the principal's office, a man that looked like in his thirties sits in the sofa, holding an envelope in his hand.

Frederick Revior Erstalt, Human race, Lv8 Sage, the principal of Solstreus Magic Academy.

Even though he looked like he was in his thirties, his actual age was much older. This year, he had reached the age of 85, but thanks to absorbing the energy from Sage's Stone, his body was rejuvenated and his appearance changed to his current self.

Not only that, his Jobclass had also advanced from Scholar to Sage.

"Yes, this is undoubtedly Mr. Dalmagna's handwriting."

After confirming the handwritten of his old friend, Frederick opened the envelope and took a letter out of it.

The letter itself looked like a piece of blank paper at first, but then, he used an unknown spell to the paper. But since the spell was performed without chant, there was no way of knowing what the spell itself was except for the caster.

This was due to his passive skill, Mind Chant, belonged only to Scholar and its advancement Jobclasses. It was a skill that allowed people to chant incantations mentally rather than verbally, thus rendering their opponent unaware of what type of spell had been cast. 

Shortly after he cast the spell, the paper absorbed his mana and then, the mana formed into words in Neberl language, the unified language of the Human race in Ascension.

It turns out that the letter was actually a secret letter!

Frederick reads the letter in his hand with great interest.

'Hou, Skill Resonation...? Interesting.'

He put the letter out and then looked at the girl sitting in the other sofa in front of him.

This girl seemed to have asked the security guard about Frederick's information, saying that she had a letter to personally deliver to him. The security guard informed him with a communication artifact, and in return he ordered that the girl be ushered into this room.

Thus the current situation.

From what the secret letter says, it seems that this girl has accidentally found a new concept, called Skill Resonation.

No, calling it new would be incorrect, as this concept has existed in the past, especially in the era of the ancient Arcadia Empire. It's just that nobody bother to give it a definite name.

"Hecate, is it? Can you show me the skill information? The one called Mysticallurgy."

"...Okay."

He then asked the girl to show her the skill mentioned in the letter.

The girl, Hecate just simply nodded and showed him the skill information window.

'Archwitch's Magicallurgy and Blacksmith's Metallurgy. Resonated and transformed into a brand new skill...'

Seeing the information window with his own eyes, Frederick was deep in thought.

♦♦♦

 

Two or more compatible skills or spells has the tendency of empowering each other.

For example, a tier-2 fire spell, Fire Ball and a tier-2 wind spell, Storm. Both spells that released nearly at the same time on an enemy will cause more damage than if the two spells were cast one by one. Elemental skill arts such as Fire Cross and Triple Wind Strike also follow the same principle.

Another example is the Crusader skill Holy Slash and the Priest/Priestess skill Smite Evil to dark-type creatures.

Of course, to activate more than one skill or spell at the same time is not easy for one person, because normally they can only use or cast 1 spell/skill at a time. Though, there are some exception that allows people to do the trick, such as the skill called Parallel Casts that allows people to casts multiple spells simultaneously, or the use of Spell Scrolls that have no cooldown.

There are also Passive Skills that also meet this condition, such as Alchemist's Brewing Mastery giving some positive effects to the Assassin skill Create Poison.

Frederick still has some examples in mind, but none of them seemed to match what the letter said.

♦♦♦

 

Frederick had some old friendship with Dalmagna since he was young.

At that time, Dalmagna was still working as the chief of Royal Smith, who was in charge of weaponry and armor development of the empire. His hands have crafted countless items, not limited to swords to kill enemies, but also tools to make everyday life easier.

Unfortunately, there is an idiotic faction called the Human Supremacy faction. This racist faction led by the third prince thinks that the Human race is a chosen race created by Goddess Norn, superior to other races. As a result, they had several conflicts in the court and in the end, Dalmagna left the empire.

Dalmagna also has his contribution share for crafting a lot of proto-artifacts, the prototype of artifacts that had yet to become real artifacts, until they were inscribed with glyphs by Artificers. More than half of the artifacts in this academy actually came from the proto-artifacts crafted by him, and it was mostly Frederick who inscribed those proto-artifacts into real artifacts.

Therefore, Frederick never doubted what Dalmagna said, and he knew very well that the old Dwarf never lied.

But, from the previous skill examples, neither of those skills ended up turning into a single skill. However, this girl seems have overturned his common sense. She was the first to cause her two skills to merge, and there was no precedent.

And about this girl, Dalmagna had already stated in his letter that she was an existence called Player. The resident of the higher world that was invited by the Goddess Norn to this world.

"It's no wonder Mr. Dalmagna sends you to me."

"...Hmm?"

It wasn't that Frederick had never met a Player before, but just by looking at her that he realized how absurd their existence was.  The young girl who looked like she was about 12(?) years old, very young but had already become an Archwitch.

Not only that, she had even reached the Legend state, something he himself was still far away from achieving!

"Nothing... I understand the situation more or less from your teacher."

Frederick paused for a bit before continuing.

"Miss Hecate, are you willing to enroll as a student in this academy?"

"What? Enroll?"

From the letter, Dalmagna asked him to teach Hecate some of the Artificer skills and be done with it.

This request, Frederick didn't really mind, because his current job was the academy principal. Teaching knowledge to students is what his workplace do. But because he is the academy principal, then of course teaching must follow the way of the academy.

...or, that was the excuse.

"Yes, enroll. Starting for the next term, you can enter to this place as a student."

"Ehmm~"

"Here, you can see a variety of cutting-edge knowledge that cannot be obtained anywhere else. Our library has a number of skill manuals from various Subclasses, collected from various places on the continent. I wouldn't say that we have every Subclass covered, but we have Blacksmiths, Artificers... Well, there's a lot to list. You'll see for yourself later."

Dalmagna seems only want to raise this girl's Blacksmith skills to the top by incorporating other Subclass skills. But for Frederick, this is just a side goal and what he is aiming is far above that.

For what reason did this girl manage to "resonate" her skills while the others didn't?

Perhaps the resonating skills had to exceed a certain standard, or there had to be some other condition that had to be met. Frederick was curious about the mechanization of this so called "Skill Resonation" and would love to study it closely. With her cooperation, perhaps he could even discover the secrets of this world!

After all, the duty of Scholars is to pursue knowledge and the truth, right?

And this girl,  the value of her existence is insurmountable. Since her existence as a Player, the residents of the higher world, was probably the existence closest(?) to the truth that he sought.

But of course, it wasn't that easy to kidnap... ahem, entice this girl to became his student.

"My apologies, but I..."

Unsurprisingly enough, Hecate expressed her refusal.

Regarding this, Frederick was not too surprised and this was not enough for him to give up. If this girl wasn't enticed, then it meant that the benefits provided weren't enough.

"Are you worrying about the tuition? You don't have to, since all of this is free of charge."

"No, that's not it."

The tuition to study in this academy is about 90000 per month, and of course it is expensive from Natives' point of view.

This expensive tuition fee is due to offset the high cost of maintaining artifacts at the academy, as well as a watershed to monopolize knowledge from the commoners. After all, knowledge is more valuable when it is monopolized.

But it seems this amount is nothing in front of Players.

"Ah, I see! Speaking of Players, I noticed that most of you prefer dangerous exploration... ahem, I mean practical activities over studying in class. Do you know about Palama Labyrinth in the east district of this city?"

The Palama Labyrinth is actually the former residence of Palama Snorchilde, a mad Sage who lived about 300 years ago.

It was said that something went wrong during his experiments and caused a huge explosion that destroyed an area of about a 20km radius with over 10,000 fatalities. And the center of that explosion, his residence was transformed into a dungeon in that disaster.

A labyrinth-type dungeon filled with construct-type monsters that nobody was able to conquer yet.

"Well, of course. But I heard that to enter that labyrinth, a special permit is needed. Oh, I see..."

Hecate seemed to notice something and paused for a moment. Seeing her understanding expression, Frederick just let out a gentle smile. This girl is really smart and quick to understand.

"I think I can guess the direction of this conversation."

"Yes, it's precisely as you think. If you join our academy, you will also gain the permit to explore not only Palama Labyrinth, but every dungeon under the management of this empire. Now, are you interested?"

This time, Hecate didn't immediately refuse, but closed her eyes thought about it deeply.

After a few moments, she opened her eyes and said.

"Your offer is very attractive, Frederick principal. I'm very interested, but... I still had one more problem."

"Oh? Please say it."

"My nationality is in the Rosenweil Kingdom and I am already affiliated with one of the guilds there. I can't stay long because I only applied for a week's leave to deliver this letter. Once I finish my business here I plan to return to my guild."

"What?! Guild? So are you going to the battlefield?"

"Yes... So, once again, I'm sorry but I have to refuse this offer."

STAB!!

Once again, Frederick forgot that this girl was a Player. His sense of value as a Native cannot be applied to her.

Frederick realized that the guild Hecate was talking about wasn't the kind of guild like the Adventurer's Guild or Tailor's Guild, but a Player guild that wasn't too different from a bunch of suicide squads. They were actively entering monster nests, reclaiming land, and conquering dungeons without regard for their safety.

Usually girls her age(?) should still play and learn happily with her friends, growing up steadily in a safe environment, away from battlefields or other life-threatening situations. But she was a Player, the resident of a higher world who possessed immortality, she doesn't need such things. The danger in the eyes of the Natives was no danger in her eyes.

However, Frederick didn't want to give up recruiting her, especially since he saw a clue towards the truth on her.

"In that case, it would be simple."

Although this looked a bit forced, he could only raise the benefits again.