Ethan, Immortal of Spells and Seeds, finished writing a letter. He frowned, using {Examine Paperwork} to make sure that he was happy with the letter’s contents, before he handed it to his [Combat Butler]. “Give this to the Ethics Committee, along with my personal thanks for sending three committee members to oversee my apprentice’s experiment. It made starting the process much easier,” he said. The [Combat Butler] nodded at Ethan, before quickly exiting the room and leaving Ethan alone again.

Ethan took a look at the next document he was supposed to deal with and began looking it over. It was a report on how the extended public fear of the Society of Starry Eyes was continuing to cause a shortage of enchanting materials, even with the increasing influx of enchanting materials from the south. At the end of the report was a second, attached proposal, discussing potential plans on how to mitigate the impact on [Students] learning to enchant.

The proposal specifically suggested importing more materials from Illvaria’s eastern neighbors, essentially borrowing some of the crown’s funds to subsidize the education of [Students] by providing cheaper materials for them to practice with. Ethan noted that the proposal didn’t actually address when the subsidy would end, implying that even if the material shortage was fixed, the crown would still be subsidizing enchanting students out of its own pocket. He wondered who had sent the proposal, and chuckled when he saw the names of the headmasters for two of the four magic academies stamped on the bottom of the form. It was a small political ploy kneaded into a legitimately useful proposal. If the crown was responsible for subsidizing part of the cost for enchanting materials for all [Students] in the future, the schools would likely find ways to encourage more [Students] into enchanting classes in the near future, which would also give the two schools with better enchanting courses a little more political weight in the future.

Of course, while a time limit needed to be added to the proposal, Ethan didn’t think the actual idea was bad. Illvaria’s enchanting materials shortage wasn’t dire yet, but it would certainly become a major inconvenience if left unaddressed for too long. Ethan copied down the more useful parts of the proposal and set them aside, to be brought up next time he spoke with the representative of the Royal Estate. So long as it was reasonable, the crown was usually happy to improve the conditions for Mages and students of Magic within the country; the best way to encourage Mages to immigrate to Illvaria was to make sure the standards of living were excellent for Mages, after all.

Setting the letter aside, Ethan’s thoughts started to turn towards his newest apprentice.

Alice was… very odd.

When [Knight] Arin had first brought word of her to Ethan’s subordinate, and word had been passed along to him, he had fairly low expectations. If someone could truly find a way to make mana baptisms safer or more frequent, they would almost certainly become an Immortal. However, for thousands of years, people had tried and failed to make mana baptisms safer, easier, and more successful. And so far, nobody had ever succeeded.

So Ethan hadn’t really thought that the girl Arin had recommended would have any success. He had still decided to meet her, since there was always a chance, but he hadn’t really had high hopes.

He had been happy to realize that Alice actually had a chance to succeed where so many others had failed. He still wasn’t sure if Alice would actually find a way to improve mana baptisms, but investing in a real possibility of success was a worthwhile use of his funds.

And even though he wasn’t sure if Alice’s research on mana baptisms would succeed, he felt that her odds of reaching Immortality were excellent.

He had already thought her odds were good before he had learned that she was from another dimension. A sixteen year old level 60-ish wasn’t very common. There were maybe twenty people in the country who had reached Alice’s level at the same age as her.

Naturally, most of those twenty people wouldn’t reach Immortality. The problem with Immortality was that it was simply too difficult to clear the last hurdles. In particular, between level 75 and 100, levelling usually slowed to a crawl, unless one had a lot of good Achievements boosting their progress.

However, while Alice hadn’t cleared the biggest hurdle yet, she had apparently pushed through 60 or more levels in less than a year. That was something even Ethan found unbelievable. Both of his parents were Immortals, and had taught him how to level up quickly and gain decent Achievements from the moment he was old enough to walk. It had still taken him fifteen years to reach level 75, and his parents had thrown a massive celebration when they realized one of their children might actually make it to Immortality and they wouldn’t be burying another one of their children within a hundred years.

Ethan felt himself grinning as he thought of another Immortal being born. The thing he dreaded the most was the sinking sensation he got when he realized another apprentice wasn’t going to make it to Immortality. That, for all of his hope and hard work, another set of [Students] he had grown close to were going to pass away of old age, and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it.

While he was less attached to his apprentices than his parents were to his long-dead brothers and sisters, Ethan sometimes wondered if they had felt the same way every time one of their children turned forty or fifty, and his parents realized that their child was about to die and they couldn’t do a thing to stop it.

But right now, Ethan was glad he had stuck with his plan of taking talented children under his wing, even if Alice’s Immortality wasn’t set in stone yet. He had felt lost after Sujia and her fellow apprentices had started to grow too old, and he had realized that they had also failed to reach Immortality in time. But this time, there was a real chance.

A very good chance.

Ethan knew that Alice hadn’t actually become an Immortal yet. But he could hope that this time, his apprentice would make it.

* * *

You have been summoned by Alice, great explorer of the System, [Scientist] of legend and greatest Mage of all time. You may know kneel in the presence of a future Immortal and amazing [Scientist]. And you should also give Alice, great explorer of the System and amazing [Scientist], a great title worthy of her station. Henceforth, you must only refer to her as ‘Alice the Great.’ So sayeth the System.

Cecilia raised an eyebrow, looking at the absolutely ridiculous System notification she had just received, before she turned towards her friend. As she turned towards Alice, the completely ridiculous System notification that had appeared in front of her changed again.

Also, Alice will bribe you with amazing Achievements to refer to her as ‘Alice the Great.’ Go forth, and earn titles!

“All right, what the heck am I looking at?” asked Cecilia, resisting the urge to snort as she waved away the ‘System’ notifications. “How did you do that? This clearly isn’t a legitimate System notification. No way would the System ever send this kind of notification.” Cecilia frowned, looking at Alice’s mana tendril that was connected to her head, trying to figure out what kind of mana Alice was using to create fake System messages.

Alice started cackling like a lunatic. “I figured out a bit of it! Not a very complex part of the System, but I can now send System notifications! I cracked a little piece of the puzzle!”

Cecilia frowned, poking at the made-up System notification. Her hand passed directly through it, just as if it was a normal System notification.

“Isn’t it amazing?” asked Alice, while Cecilia resisted the urge to roll her eyes at Alice’s behavior.

For a ‘future Immortal,’ Alice is sometimes quite undignified, Cecilia thought to herself with a snort. Then, she found herself grinning a little bit.

Cecilia had to admit that it was actually pretty cool that Alice had finally figured out how to replicate part of the System. Even if sending people random ‘System’ notifications wasn’t really that impressive, it was proof that Alice was getting better and better at manipulating mana, and was also getting closer to the way the System worked behind the scenes.

“How does it actually work?” Asked Cecilia. “And can other people see you using this kind of mana?”

Alice frowned. “I’m… actually not sure. Since the System seems to block people from noticing the presence of System mana, I imagine it would also stop people from noticing the presence of Display mana, which is what I’m using to create fake System notifications. However, I have no idea how that works if I’m the one creating Display mana, instead of the System. Since I’m not part of the System, if I create System mana, would the System block people from noticing my mana usage? I’ve been thinking about that recently.” Cecilia frowned thoughtfully. For a moment, she wished that she had a way to turn off {On the Shoulders of Giants}, one of the Achievements she had gotten for helping Alice with her experiments. The ability to see more of the types of mana the System usually obfuscated was helpful, even if only let her observe things like the interactions between muscles and pure mana and didn’t let Cecilia see System mana for herself. However, while the Perk was incredibly useful, it also made it very hard to figure out what regular Mages saw without any of the ‘vision-boosting’ Achievements Alice and Cecilia had access to.

However, another part of Alice’s words also surprised her.

“So the System isn’t using light mana, or anything like that?” asked Cecilia. So far, she had assumed that System notifications were built around some other type of mana. Cecilia had previously suspected that Status Screens and System notifications were just floating blobs of light. Since the System had already clearly shown that it was capable of blocking people from noticing System mana, it didn’t seem like much of a stretch to assume that it could also stop people from noticing everyone else’s Status Screen and System notifications. To hear that it was a completely different kind of mana made Cecilia wonder why the System went through all of the trouble, instead of using a simpler solution. Although, perhaps the System’s method of operation was truly the best way to create System notifications. The two still didn’t know enough about how the System worked to judge how effectively it used its mana, after all.

“There’s no light mana involved at all, apparently,” said Alice. “I still haven’t figured out how to make System messages automatically translate themselves for the viewer though. Or whatever it is System notifications do. I’m still not sure how I could read my first couple notifications without the System knowing what English was, and before I was able to read any of the languages present in this world. So I guess I need to figure out that before I can really call my exploration of System notifications complete. But I want to work more on class seeds first.”

Cecilia nodded.

“What does mimicking a System notification actually look like from your perspective?” She asked.

“Are you all right with me using {Shared Memory}? It’s much easier to just show what the process looks like.”

“Go for it,” said Cecilia as she extended a hand towards Alice. Alice quickly took her hand, and Cecilia felt Alice’s Perk activate, pulling her into the past.

Cecilia watched through Alice’s eyes as her friend slowly worked her way through the construction of a new Display Mana seed, by using her… newly acquired Level 70 [Explorer of Magic] Perk. She was pretty sure Alice would have edited that part out, if she had been paying more attention. But Alice had probably been too excited to notice. Cecilia couldn’t help but sigh as she saw her friend clearly display a Perk she had unlocked by reaching level 70.

When Alice had first arrived on this planet, she had been fifteen. And she had been level 0. Alice had vividly described how difficult her first steps on this world had been, and the number of times she had nearly starved to death or froze to death during her first few months here when she was alone in the wilderness with nothing but her pajamas and the System to keep her alive.

Sometimes, she found it unbelievable that the other girl had managed to come so far in such little time. A little pang of jealousy bubbled up in her chest before she squashed it. It was hard not to be at least a little jealous of someone who grew so quickly. Alice had even managed to attract the attention of an Immortal recently. Each and every Immortal was someone that kids in Illvaria grew up hearing stories about and admiring; it was hard for Cecilia not to have strangely mixed feelings, now that her friend was an apprentice to one of them.

Cecilia shook herself out of her strange mood as Alice started talking again, excitedly talking about what she had discovered, and how she was planning on investigating the nature of Class seeds as soon as her {Broken Seed} Perk finished its cooldown. Cecilia listened, with a mixture of interest and a certain feeling of being distracted, as Alice started talking about how she wanted to see what happened if she formed a class seed using a magic seed slot, and how she wanted to see what happened if she broke a class seed down using {Broken Seed} as well.

She’s going to pull even further ahead once she succeeds, thought Cecilia, knowing that Alice would eventually succeed. The girl was very stubborn, and once she put her mind to something, she had a habit of making it reality sooner or later. Cecilia glanced at her own Status Screen.

Her [Merchant] Class had reached level 57 recently, and [Kinetic Mage] had reached level 64. Her [Enchanter] class was coming along nicely too, and had recently broken past 60.

A lot of the reason for Cecilia’s recent growth was because of Alice’s help. By participating in Alice’s experiments and thinking, Cecilia usually got a couple low-rarity Achievements here and there, which helped her magic-related classes level quite a bit faster. However, as she listened to her friend talk about her plans for her next set of experiments, she couldn’t quite shake the feeling that she was falling behind. Cecilia sighed, wondering if she had been wrong to refuse Ethan’s help in levelling up faster. At the very least, if she wanted to keep up with Alice, she should use every resource available to her, right? She hesitated, but decided to give it a little more thought.

* * *

The next four days passed quickly, as Alice returned to classes at the magic academy. She spent a lot of time running over her notes about what had happened during her observation of the mana baptism. She also continuously played her memories back over and over again, hoping to discover new insights each time, and also had Cecilia run over her memories with her to see if she had missed something. Alice still wasn’t sure if any of her ideas about fixing mana baptisms would actually work, and didn’t have an ethical way to test them, but tossing ideas back and forth with Cecilia at least helped her brainstorm new ideas and review what she had seen.

Apart from that, Alice made preparations for forming her first class seeds as magic seeds, and tried to speculate about what would happen if she broke a Secondary Class seed. {Safety Analysis} had already assured her that breaking her [Fisherwoman] class seed would be safe, and Alice was hoping that it might give her some clues about how to cure children like Boris. Apart from that, Alice wanted to see if forming a Class Seed using a magic seed slot was possible, since that might prove to be another useful avenue of study for helping kids like Boris.

Thus, she scoured the academy library for whatever information she could find, learning as much as she could about the nature of magic seeds and Classes. Unfortunately, while there was a great deal of speculation about the nature of magic seeds, proper information on the subject was hard to come by, and it was very hard to find out more information about Classes besides the basic information available in the Church of the System’s records.

Finally, on the fourth day, Alice hesitated in Ethan’s manor. There were so many different experiments she could do, and trying to choose one specific experiment was causing her to hesitate as she went over possible experiments that would give her useful information.

Eventually, she opted to try destroying her [Fisherwoman] seed first. Alice had always been curious to know just how different a Class seed was from a magic seed. This was a chance to analyze the differences between the two in more detail, before she tried forming a class seed as if it were a magic seed.

 [Fisherwoman] was a class that Alice had no particular use for, and she was more than happy to lose it. She didn’t really like fishing, and now that she had no real difficulty meeting her survival needs, she had no intention of ever fishing again.

Alice did one last check with {Safety Analysis}, to make sure she wasn’t about to accidentally kill herself or something. Then, she used {Broken Seed} on her Secondary Class, [Fisherwoman], while using {Lesser Organic Vision} to keep an eye on her body in case something changed.

Her Class fractal for the [Fisherwoman] class simply… collapsed. For a brief moment, Alice saw [Fisherwoman] mana start to draft around her body, as if it had been trapped inside of a container that Alice had destroyed.

And then… the mana simply fell out of her body. As if it had never existed in the first place. Alice had been half-expecting the mana to immediately regather inside of her body, perhaps accompanied by a new System notification that she had gained the [Fisherwoman] class, but instead, all of the fisherwoman mana inside of her body just didn’t seem interested in her anymore. After a few minutes, the mana simply drifted off into her surroundings, becoming effectively impossible to pick out amongst the rainbow mana of the System all around her.

Alice examined her body, curious to see if she could find any evidence of the [Fisherwoman] mana existing in the first place, but came up surprisingly empty-handed. It was as if she had simply never possessed the class to begin with.

Alice wondered what that said about the nature of classes and class-related mana in general. From Boris, Alice had realized that Classes worked as some kind of mana purifier. Based on the results of shattering her Fisherwoman class seed, Alice assumed that once a class seed absorbed the mana inside of it, the mana inside of it was no longer ‘attracted’ to her. Or perhaps it simply wasn’t harmful after the System sucked it into a class seed? Or something?

She would need to think more about this, but she had new information to work with, at least.

Before Alice had time to ponder more about what she had discovered, however, someone knocked loudly on her door.

Alice quickly made sure that she was presentable, before calling out towards the door. “You can enter!”

To her surprise, Ethan opened the door a moment later. “Lady Alice. I wouldn’t normally call you for this kind of situation, but there is an emergency.”

Alice frowned. An emergency sounded bad. “What happened?”

“Do you recall the dimensional floods that the Society has been investigating recently?”

Alice nodded.

“Just half a day’s ride away from Metsel, a dimensional flood been spotted. Many of the villagers got started undergoing broken mana baptisms before people realized what was happening and evacuated. Your… unique perspective on dimensions might give us a better idea what’s happening behind the scenes.” Ethan paused. “And, more importantly, there might still be some people who haven’t died yet. I don’t know how far along your studies on Mana Baptisms are, but if you have any ideas how to help them improve their odds…” Ethan shifted uneasily. “Don’t feel bad if you can’t. But are you willing to come with me and take a look at the area?”

Alice only thought about it for a second before she nodded. She was happy to help people where she could, and she might learn more about a possible way home, as well as getting the chance to observe more mana baptisms in progress.

“I’ll go.”