[Kyoto Academy Virtual Space]

Shortly before 7 AM, Ruri's student avatar appeared at the Transfer Gate.

Many students of different grades also came out of the gate, making the place crowded. They were not only from the high school student division, but also from the university student division.

"As expected, the school at this time is very crowded."

This is understandable, because soon there will be final semester exams. So students, especially Slackers who have not yet achieved the target score, must hurry to achieve it before the exam starts. Naturally, they had to prepare for the said exam as well.

And the academy's VR Space is a convenient place for them to complete their goals.

By spending a certain amount of AP on the holographic billboard screen in the main hall, they can download video recordings of previous lectures to the present day. Of course, the length and rating of the video being downloaded will affect the amount of AP that must be paid.

There's also the academy's Virtual Library, where all the information and knowledge collected by the academy stored.

"Ah, yes... I should visit the library later."

It had been a long time since her last visit to the library. There must have been some new books and information added since then. It won't hurt to visit there after class is over.

Suddenly, she felt someone hugged her from behind, as well as a familiar soft sensation hitting the back of her head.

"HE~ CA~ TE~ CHWAAANN~!!"

It didn't take her long to figure out who the voice was coming from.

"Rena..."

"Long time no see, Ruri-chan! I miss you so much, you know?"

RUB RUB RUB RUB RUB

Rena, who was finally reunited with Ruri happily rubbed her face into the loli's hair, ignoring the warm gazes of the people around them. Her embrace became tighter not allowing Ruri to move at all.

The interaction between the two inevitably attracted the attention of the nearby students.

• • ♂ S1: "Isn't that the rumored little fairy? She's kinda cute..."
    • ♂ S2: "Yes, she is Yasaka Ruri, one of the top 10 beauties in our high school division."
  • ♂ S3: "Too bad, she only goes to class on this side (VR), and also, not very often."
    • ♂ S4: "Yeah, because of that, there are rumors that she is a Slacker."
    • ♂ S5: " No way! She got a good relationship with that Rena-chan, so she's definitely not(?) a Slacker."
    • ♂ S3: "Who cares about that. Anyway, seeing 2 beautiful girls together is quite a feast to the eye."

Naturally, high school loli were rare existences, so it was understandable that Ruri has some fame among the students.

Coupled with her friendship with one of the school beauty, there was no one that doesn't know her name. Rena herself has been well-known because she was an active student who has promising academic scores.

It was also from her mouth that Ruri's name was spoken frequently, and she was always boasting about how cute and adorable her loli friend was. But, because Ruri only attended class through VR, there were still many students who attended class through reality who had never seen her face directly.

Still, the person herself cared nothing about this.

"Rena, release me. We're going to be late for class." (Ruri)

"Don't wanna! I want to feel your body warmth a little longer!" (Rena)

Ruri could only be speechless and let Rena do whatever she wanted for a while.

What body warmth? It was just a virtual avatar with a normal human body simulated temperature.

Hecate had only been away on vacation a week and Rena was already this crazy. She couldn't help but wonder what Rena would do if one day Hecate betrayed the guild.

"I'll be back at our base this noon, you can continue this later." (Ruri)

"Really?" (Rena)

Rena reluctantly let go of her embrace, allowing Ruri to move.

They walked together to the classroom while talking about the situation at the guild in Hecate's absence. It was mostly miscellaneous affairs that didn't have much of an impact.

This was of course thanks to the excellent guild management system implemented by Astrid.

Her management system was able to look after the guild from an economic and security perspective, while ensuring good relations with the Natives, especially the nobles of the Rosenweil Kingdom.

"Speaking of A-cchi-senpai, she has something important to tell you. Be sure to talk to her later." (Rena)

"Hmm? What did she want to talk to me about?" (Ruri)

"Well, it's inconvenient to talk about it here..." (Rena)

"...Okay then, I'll talk to her later." (Ruri)

Ruri didn't bother asking any further and just agreed.

Judging by Rena's happy expression, she definitely knew what Astrid wanted to say but didn't want to reveal it right now. Ruri felt that it should be a favorable discussion, so there was no need for a worry at all.

"Well, I'll be going over here. See you later, Ruri-chan" (Rena)

"Yeah, see you later." (Ruri)

Not long after, they separated and went to their respective classes.

♠♠♠

 

 

Ruri spent around 2 hours listening to the lecture before going to the library via the Transfer Gate.

Inside, it was a large room with many shelves filled with VR Books, as well as a reading area containing several tables and chairs. Of course, these books can be picked up and read like normal books, and if they are picked up, the empty space on the shelf will automatically be filled back with the same books.

However, not many students did that, because there was a more practical way.

In the reading area, there are many large holo-screen that students can use to search and download the book they want to read. The downloaded book can be materialized, so they don't have to go to the bookshelf themselves. In addition, most of the advanced knowledge are not available on the shelves and can only be downloaded from the screen, and they are not free.

Ruri walked to the reading area and touched one of the holo-screen there.

♦♦♦

 

The information and knowledge in the library was divided into two types, free section and paid section.

The things in the free section are mainly knowledge related to compulsory courses and other basic matters, which students can access and read at any time for free. On the other hand, the things that are in the paid section are patented advanced knowledge, contributed by researchers and alumni of Kyoto Academy, as well as those shared by the government.

Students must purchase the access permit of the content they wish to access in the paid section with AP, which will be split, 60% to content author, 30% divided equally for each author of the references used, and the remaining 10% goes to the academy.

Once the students paid the access permit, they will be allowed to read that content indefinitely. Paying for one access permit is not a big deal, as most of them cost around ~1000 AP on average. Such amount can easily be obtained by scoring at least a C on an exam. Of course, it was still far from enough if they want to read everything in the paid section.

But, in addition to permanent access permits, students can also pay for a free reading pass, valid for one day for every 10 AP paid. During this duration, students can read all the information in the paid section at will.

♦♦♦

 

As Ruri had expected, a lot of things have been added since her last visit few years ago.

Though, most of them were not in the field that she studied. And theoretical studies in her favorite field of engineering have yet to achieve any substantial breakthroughs worth trading for.

But still, there are many new blueprints that look attractive to her eyes.

'Fortunately, I finished cramming my subjects long time ago, with the help of EXP Potions!'

Shortly after she left the hospital a few years ago, Ruri had crammed all her necessary course materials.

She finished cramming her related subjects in the free section in less than a week, then spent 30 AP buying the free reading pass for 3 days, and she completed cramming her subjects in the paid section within that time.

As such, she was able to save a considerate amount of AP.

Looking at the amount of AP in her holographic ID card, Ruri pondered.

'Well, with my current AP, it should be enough to buy a lot of blueprint access permits in the library.'

Ruri intended to use her AP to buy a lot of access permits for various blueprints in the paid section.

Of course, it was possible for Ruri to buy a reading pass and memorize all the blueprints for cheap price. However, those blueprints in the paid section were patented, and using the pass wasn't enough to allow her to legally use them.

With a sweep of her hand, she selected several blueprints that caught her attention, among which were:

She spent a total of approximately 500k AP to buy the access permits of those blueprints. Now there was only about 45k AP left on her student card.

Some of the nearby students who saw what she was doing couldn't help but feel astonished.

• • ♀ S1: "Hmm, isn't that our little fairy? Why did she buy those useless things?"
    • ♂ S6: "I dunno, maybe she wanted to build all the stuff in those blueprints?"
    • ♀ S1: "No way! I saw 'Nuclear Fusion Reactor' on the list. Who in their right mind would make one?"
  • ♀ S2: "Maybe she just bought them for collection..."

From other people's perspective, what Ruri did was stupid and extravagant.

Buying the access pass and obtaining the rights to use the blueprints legally was one thing, but building them for real would be a separate matter. To make them, material costs and manufacturing processes must also be calculated and borne by the maker.

For example, the construction cost of the newest Purifier Tower was reported to be around 500k-800k yen per unit. Meanwhile, the cost of constructing metal printing machines varies, from the cheapest, around 700k, to the most expensive, which can be over 145m. Naturally, the one on the blueprint wasn't a cheap one.

Not to mention, the Nuclear Fusion Reactor, this thing is really dangerous stuff!

It was naturally illegal for civilians to build this without government's approval.

Multiple qualifications and close supervision will be required, as a wrong move can have disastrous results. In addition, the construction and annual maintenance costs of this thing can reach billions.

A female student who was curious couldn't help but asked to the person herself in question.

"Ehm, excuse me, why did you buy those blueprints? You couldn't possibly be planning to build them, could you?" (♀ S1)

"Oh? You're asking a strange thing, of course I bought these blueprints to study them." (Ruri)

— Isn't that obvious?

Ruri's expression seemed to reflect the question back to the female student.

After hearing her answer, the female student fell silent, but she and the other students were convinced. Certainly, it was reasonable for students to study these complex blueprints before designing them themselves, or simply for their thesis material. It was just that they didn't think in that direction.

Now, nobody bothered her again.

"Well, I didn't lie to them."

Of course, Ruri planned to study these blueprints first, before deciding further whether it was worth building them.

In the game Ascension, there have been many attempts to reproduce real-world technology, but most of them have failed. Some are successful, but they perform poorly and didn't worth the effort.

Initially, she didn't think much of this, but after she studied and had an understanding of Glyphs and Runes, she could be sure of the correctness of the hypothesis she had made.

Those failures were most likely due to a substance that didn't exist in the real world, namely mana.

Mana in the Ascension world had an enormous influence in the air. It allows magical phenomena to occur, and the various humanoid races rely on this substance to cast spells.

Unfortunately, this mana was incompatible with real-world technology.

Its unpredictable behavior interferes with delicate instruments, such as changing the melting and freezing points of components,  transforming their shape, disrupting electromagnetic signals, and so on, which causing the instrument to malfunction.

Regarding this, Ruri couldn't come up with a solution yet, but at least she had gotten some inspiration for her next steps.

• • What happens if the material of these components are replaced with mana-resistant one, such as Mithril?
  • Or maybe, replacing the copper lines on the circuit board with magic ink?
  • Would it be possible to convert solar and wind power into mana?

There are many things in her mind that need further research.

"But firstly, I still have some business left."

Ruri walked to the Transfer Gate and left the library.