Alice very nervous when the [Messenger] asked her to appear in front of the [King].

She had only met one other member of the royal family so far, and she had been an unfavored [Princess] desperate to get political backing. Alice hadn’t exactly enjoyed trying to interact with her, since it felt like the [Princess] was so… desperate to get Alice to help her. Ethan had told the girl off, which had rescued Alice from the awkward situation, but Alice’s reticence to interact with royalty had still increased after the event. Alice enjoyed researching more than talking to people she barely knew.

Alice also felt intimidated by the idea of meeting the [King]. On Earth, she didn’t really think much about monarchs – the closest thing in America was the president, who was still very limited by the other bodies of government. They had nowhere near the level of power a [King] did over the country.

Ethan, perhaps seeing Alice freeze up, gave the [Messenger] a quick nod. “That’s acceptable. It’s important to let the Crown estate know what we’ve discovered anyway.”

Alice finally unfroze, and gave the [Messenger] a somewhat stiff nod. {Etiquette} helped her force the words out of her lips, despite her nerves.

“I understand.”

The [Messenger] nodded and left.

Ethan patted Alice on the shoulder.

“Relax. You’ll notice that the [Messenger] who contacted us was one of MY [Messengers], not a [Messenger] working directly under the crown. That has… some symbolic meaning in Illvaria. It indicates that the [King] is requesting our presence more than demanding it. We’re still expected to show up either way, if that makes sense – but it has a very different context for what actions will be taken and what kind of meeting it will be. It’s always better if the crown contacts you through one of your own [Messengers] or a neutral [Messenger], rather than a [Royal Messenger].” Ethan paused. “Well, at least in Illvaria. Some other countries have very different political Systems, unlike Illvaria’s five estate system, so if you ever leave the country, some social norms might change.”

Alice nodded, and suppressed her nerves. If Ethan felt so relaxed, she would do her best to calm down. She didn’t really want to do anything that felt nerve-wracking and anxiety-inducing – but on the other hand, when Alice tried to think about it from the [King’s] perspective, she could understand why this meeting was happening.

The [King] trying to get to the bottom of why his country was imploding was nothing unusual. Alice was one of the people in the country who best understood what was happening, and she and Ethan had made this fact rather public when Alice started rounding up the support of the church. It was only logical for the [King] to ask Alice to come and explain what was going on once he learned about her.

After she and Ethan finished entering the manor, she quickly returned to her room. And then, for the first time in a while, she examined her full Status Screen.

Name: Alice Verianna	Age: 16
Strength:119 -> 120(122%)	Perception: 140 -> 145 (165%)
Dexterity: 120 -> 121 (124% -> 144%)	Intelligence: 170 -> 172 (128%)
Endurance: 135 -> 137(121% -> 141%)	Willpower: 152 -> 153(109%)
Charisma: 133 (107%)	Magic: 167 -> 171 (122% -> 167%/192%)
Primary Classes: 6/6	Survivor: 59 -> 66
	Explorer of Magic: 78 -> 81
	Scholar: 60 -> 62
	Scientist: 62 -> 66
	Kinetic Manabinder: 44 -> 51
	Careful Enchanter: 30 -> 36
Evolved Classes: 2	Student of Kinetic Magic: 25 (Apprentice) Enchanter: 25
Secondary Classes: 4	Fisherwoman: 3 Student: 9 Legendary Organic Mage: Courtier: 1 -> 2
Secondary Evolved Classes: 1	Student of Organic Magic: 25
Perks:	Survivor Perks: Foraging (Survivor 5) Microbe Resistance (Survivor 10) Extremophile (Survivor 15) Enhanced Training (Survivor 30) Adrenaline Rush (Survivor 45) Enhanced Senses (Tier 2) (Survivor 55) Extended Tissues (Tier 2) (Survivor 60) Dimensional Camouflage (Tier 2) (Survivor 65)   Explorer of Magic Perks: Enhanced Regeneration (Explorer of Magic 10) Seeds of Magic (Explorer of Magic 25) Broken Seed (Upgraded) (Explorer of Magic 35) Expanding Comprehension (Tier 2) (Explorer of Magic 55) Combat Seed (Tier 2) (Explorer of Magic 60) Intuitive Magic Modelling (Tier 2) (Explorer of Magic 65) System's Ambition (Tier 3) (Explorer of Magic 80)   Scholar Perks: Accelerated Thinking (Scholar level 15 (-5)) Rhetorical Flourish (Scholar level 20) Photographic Memory (Scholar level 25) Improved Multitasking (Scholar level 30) Scholar of Magic (Scholar level 35) Lesser Organic Vision (Scholar 40) Sleep Reading (Tier 2) (Scholar 55)  Delve Memories (Tier 2) (Scholar 60)   Scientist Perks: Precise mana Measurement (Scientist level 5) Sample Collection (Scientist level 10) Safety Analysis (Scientist Level 20) Shared Memory (Scientist Level 25) Advanced Mana Measurement (Scientist Level 30) For Science! (Scientist 45) Speed Experimentation (Tier 2) (Scientist 55)  No_Mana (Tier 2) (Scientist 60)   Kinetic Mage Perks: Object Control (Student of Kinetic Magic 5) Above Average Mana Sight (Student of Kinetic Magic 10) Folds of Magic (Student of Kinetic Magic 15) Split Mind (Student of Kinetic Magic 20) Improved Object Control (Sensory Enhancement) (Student of Kinetic Magic 25) Mana's Binding (Kinetic Manabinder 5) Enhanced Focus (Kinetic Manabinder 10) Vastly Improved Kinetic Vision (Kinetic Manabinder 15) Overclock (Kinetic Manabinder 20) Kinetic Enchanting (Kinetic Manabinder 25) Reflection (Kinetic Manabinder 30) Kinetic Tendrils (Kinetic Manabinder 35) Speed Analysis (Kinetic Manabinder 40) Kinetic Combatant (Kinetic Manabinder 45) Tendri____ of Kinetic Mage (Kinetic Manabinder 50)   Enchanter Perks: Enchanter's Vision (Apprentice Enchanter 5) Monstrous Enchanting (Apprentice Enchanter 10) Faster Enchanting (Apprentice Enchanter 15) Faster Mana Regeneration (Apprentice Enchanter 20) Speed Enchanting (Apprentice Enchanter 25) Repurposing (Careful Enchanter level 5) Blueprint (Careful Enchanter level 10) Enchanter's Basic Magic Seed (Careful Enchanter level 15) Pride of a Craftswoman (Careful Enchanter 20) Enchanter's Armory (Careful Enchanter 25) Seed Enchanting (Careful Enchanter 30) Mana Detection (Careful Enchanter 35)   Organic Mage Perks: Improved Organic Manipulation (Organic Mage 5) Patient's_Yes (Organic Mage 10)
Skills	Academic Skills: English (Language Proficiency): 100 Illvarian (Language Proficiency): 100 Sigmusi (Language Proficiency): 7 Russian (Language Proficiency): 1 Verinthian (Language Proficiency): 1 Basic Mathematics: 124 -> 125 Intermediate Mathematics: 81 -> 82 Advanced Mathematics: 22 Basic Human Biology: 39 -> 43 Mana-biology: 21 -> 26   Magic Skills: Kinetic Manipulation: 73 -> 80 Mana Control: 54 -> 56 Mana Precision: 55 -> 58 Kinetic Force: 53 -> 58 Projectile Awareness: 33 -> 37 Divided Attention: 38 -> 40 Basic Enchanting: 37 -> 48 Broken Mana Purification: 19 -> 24 Mana Filtering: 27 -> 36 Seed Formation: 22 -> 26   Crafting Skills: Weaving: 27 Woodworking: 28 Cooking: 12 Stoneworking: 11   Physical Skills: Dodge: 31 -> 36 Etiquette: 21 -> 22 Spearmanship: 19 Sprinting: 22 -> 23 Riding: 15 Climbing: 9 Fishing: 9 Digging: 8 Stealth: 4 Basic Medicine: 3 Dancing: 6
Magic Seed: 1/1	Kinetic Seed 160%/165% Healing mana seed 60%/65% (Deactivated - you may link this to a Perk if desired!) Electromagnetic Seed (15%) (Deactivated) No_Magic (35%/40%) (Created by Perk - does not consume seed Slot)
Lesser Magic Seeds (Base Max 30%, Achievements now apply as usual)	Compound Seed 1 (Display/Filtration) 57%/61% Organic Seed 79%/84% (6% Exp. Comp.) Pure Mana Seed 49%/54% (12% Exp. Comp.) Dimensional Seed 42/45%
Achievements:	Outworlder (Rarity: 10)
	Seeker of Truth  (IV) (Rarity: 10)
	Baptized by Broken Mana (Rarity: 6)
	Survivor of Winter (Rarity: 3)
	Monstrous Encounter (Rarity: 1)
	Monster Slayer (III) (Rarity: 2)
	Well Trained (Rarity: 4)
	Murderer (Rarity: 4)
	Bookworm (Rarity: 3)
	Kinetic Manabinder (Rarity N/A)
	Careful Enchanter (Rarity N/A)
	Capable Enchanter (Rarity: 5)
	Seed Creator (Rarity: 8)
	In Pursuit of Science (Rarity N/A)
	Immortal's Apprentice at the battle against the Society (Rarity: 4)
	Legendary Healer (Rarity: 7)
	Creative Healer (Rarity: 4)
	System_Teacher (Rarity: 7)
	First Steps (I) (Rarity: 6)
	Battle with an Immortal (Rarity: 9)

The first thing she noticed was that, at some point in time, she had reached 120 [Strength]. The {Outworlder} Achievement was no longer going to provide her with any boosts to attribute training speed. The Achievement had once provided a variety of boosts, but most of them were limited to Classes and Stats below a certain number: Specifically, it boosted the training speed for primary classes below level 50, secondary classes below level 10, and Attributes below 120.

Alice spent a few moments processing that fact, before she finished scanning her Status Screen.

She could see several Perks and Skills that would be useful when interacting with the [King] of Illvaria – but they didn’t ease her nerves completely. She would have preferred to see a much higher level {Etiquette} skill, or perhaps a few Perks from [Courtier].

She decided it might not be a bad idea to grind {Etiquette} for the next few days.

But first, Alice had a few things to do.

Her newest Perk, {System’s Ambition}, had come off of cooldown right as she had set foot in the harbor. Alice didn’t hesitate for long before she decided to start using it. She was looking forward to potentially fusing four magic seeds into her growing System seed.

Alice started out with a round of {Safety Analysis}, just to make sure that she wasn’t about to kill herself by accident, and then got to work.

The first thing that Alice did was start working on a math magic seed. Alice only had three mana types that she was totally sure were part of System mana that she didn’t have access to right now, so she figured she might as well start with what would likely be the easiest one to fuse.

The math magic seed creation went smoothly – Alice was more than capable of handling the creation of a simple magic seed without the System, especially one that she understood quite well.

When Alice fused the math seed into her System seed, she felt something that hadn’t been there before.

There was a certain amount of… interaction between the three types of mana present in her magic seed. It was a type of interaction that Alice didn’t think she had encountered before.

The three types of magic in her seed weren’t just three different types of mana that happened to share a seed slot. There was something that was becoming increasingly obvious about the way her nascent System seed worked. Something fundamental to its very nature.

Alice frowned at her System seed, and spent several minutes prodding at it, but she couldn’t quite figure out a way to actually use math mana. It was now integrated into her System seed, and Alice was very aware that it was important somehow – but she wasn’t really sure what she was supposed to be doing with it.

Yet.

Alice sighed, and ran several ideas through {Safety Analysis} before she started thinking about her next seed integration. Alice was very afraid of blowing herself up in the process, now that a strange interaction between her magic seeds was occurring inside of her body, but {Safety Analysis} would still catch any obvious, major dangers caused by her experiment. Alice had already invested a great deal into creating a System seed – unless something was obviously wrong, she would keep moving forward.

Alice spent a few moments thinking about what other magic seeds she needed to make in order to create a complete System magic seed.

Alice knew for sure that Organic and Pure mana were also part of System mana, since she had observed it as both a component of System mana and a force manipulated by System mana multiple times. She still wasn’t quite sure why that was the case, but it was obviously something she needed to do sooner or later.

She was also pretty sure that ‘meaning’ mana, or something like that, was a component of System mana. After all, the System had somehow given her System messages without understanding English, and Alice now believed that was probably the result of somehow breaking down various ideas into their underlying ‘concepts’ and then sending those directly to her brain. This theory would also explain what was wrong with all of the System messages since the collapse of the System – without meaning mana to perfectly translate meanings back into words, the System messages people were seeing might be somehow messed up.

Alice had also been thinking about other parts of the System recently. Parts that should, logically, be part of the entire framework of System mana. Since System mana was composed of so many different types of smaller mana, all working together, Alice was recently starting to suspect that there was some sort of mana that worked to keep everything else… functioning. Alice wasn’t quite sure what that mana would be, but it probably existed. Perhaps it was a type of mana that served as a ‘core’ for how everything worked, or perhaps it just let different kinds of mana communicate. Alice wasn’t sure what kind of mana that might be yet, but she suspected it existed, at least.

As the final piece of System mana that Alice was pretty sure existed, she was pretty sure that there was some sort of mana in play that locked down the laws of physics, or somehow acted as an intermediary between human beliefs and the laws of physics. Alice suspected that this was some kind of mana – but she could also be completely off in that belief.

There might be other kinds of mana integral to the makeup of System mana – but Alice was pretty sure she had at least figured out a good chunk of what she needed to create in the future. Alice found herself overwhelmed by choices. It was hard to decide which magic seed to integrate into her System seed next. Mathematics mana had seemed like a good way to start testing the way her new Perk worked, and Alice was pretty sure the new mana type was doing something, but when she thought about how many other mana types she still had to integrate, she found herself overwhelmed by choice.

Alice sighed. After a few moments, she decided to see Ethan first.

She wasn’t worried about Alice-mana eating away at her personality yet, but the sooner she got that squared away, the easier she would sleep at night. Even if it wasn’t a problem right now, Alice didn’t want to have her personality overridden by anything in the future – even if that thing was other people’s perception of who she was. After all, Alice was more than other people’s beliefs about who she was. She didn’t want to lose herself as a result of Alice-mana.

Ethan seemed to have expected her to show at his office sooner or later. When she appeared, he gave her a curious look.

“Are you ready to do more detailed observations?” he asked.

Alice nodded. “I don’t think Alice mana is a big problem yet, but it’s best to deal with it sooner rather than later.”

Ethan simply pointed at a chair near his desk. “You can watch while I work. Let me know if you need me to do anything more specific, like sit still, or use magic, or anything like that. If you don’t need me to sit still, I’ll do some paperwork.”

“You can work on your paperwork for now,” said Alice. “I’ll let you know if I change my mind.”

Alice took a seat, and then started slowly examining Ethan.

True to her suspicions, Ethan didn’t seem to have a single speck of Ethan-mana in his body. His body was comprised almost entirely of mana-flesh, and it did, indeed, look kind of like Ethan was a cloud of mana constantly transforming into itself. But Ethan definitely hadn’t been overwritten by Ethan-mana – he was still fundamentally himself. This was completely different from the people who were suffering the symptoms of being overwritten by their Class – when Alice had been working on treating Boris, he had been so filled with [Farmer] mana that Alice had barely known where to look.

The question was how the System dealt with this problem.

“Would you let me use some Perks to poke around inside of your body?” asked Alice.

“I grant you full permission to use any perks that help you perceive the inside of my body,” said Ethan, without looking up from the letter he was writing.

Alice touched Ethan’s arm, and then used {Lesser Organic Vision} and every single mana-viewing Perk she had available to start investigating Ethan’s organs.

What does the System do to manage Ethan-mana? It must do something with it. It isn’t a kind of mana that can just be filtered into a class, the way some academic types of mana can be converted into each other. I tried that already. It also shouldn’t be possible to just transfer it out of the body. When I broke my [Fisherwoman] class seed and then went fishing, I immediately got all of my [Fisherwoman] mana back. That indicates that once your body believes that it’s supposed to have a certain quantity of some type of mana, it will automatically restore it whenever you take an action related to that kind of mana. Since Ethan is always being Ethan, any System attempts to make a bubble and lock out Ethan-mana should have failed when the System collapsed. In short, the System doesn’t just block Ethan-mana out of Ethan. It handles it in some other way. Hmm…

Alice continued probing Ethan’s body, trying to figure out how the System managed the Ethan-mana that Ethan should have inevitably built up.

And after several minutes of careful searching, Alice made a discovery.

Embedded into the core of Ethan’s brain was a very, very tiny little gemstone-like object made of mana. It was almost impossible for her to notice, even with Ethan willingly letting her inspect him, and with Alice running through every inch of his body with a fine-tooth comb. It had a variety of smaller facets to it, all of which were made out of mana. These facets weren’t equal in length: some were small, some were large, and some were medium sized. It was made of System mana, but Alice could see a lot of smaller types of mana attached to it as well. Alice couldn’t see it well enough to inspect its composition, and it was too small for {Intuitive Magic Modelling} to analyze in detail.

It was like trying to inspect a single cell with a poorly focused microscope. She could still see it, but she didn’t have the ability to see any of the finer details.

But one thing Alice could confirm was that there was a great deal of Ethan-mana inside of the little stone.

Ah. So that’s what the System does with Ethan-mana, thought Alice.

She started inspecting her own brain using her Perks, and now that she knew where to look, she confirmed that she had a very, very tiny little mana-gemstone inside of her own brain as well. It was just much, much smaller – even when Alice knew exactly where to look, she still missed it the first two times she looked through the area. And unlike Ethan’s little mana-gemstone, it didn’t have any Alice-mana inside of it.

What are you? Wondered Alice, as she continued to inspect the gemstone.

Sadly, her vision just wasn’t precise enough to inspect the little gemstone yet. It was hard to investigate, even with Ethan’s assistance, leaving Alice frustrated before she returned to her room.

Still, it wasn’t entirely a loss.

At least Alice knew where to look now.

Alice decided to hold off on using her other three opportunities to make magic seeds until her perk was closer to refreshing, or until she made any new discoveries. But for now, she had a path to keep researching. And she also needed to prepare for a meeting with the [King].