I hoped the message wouldn’t scare Firth too much when it arrived. I really should have a better communication method than the emergency contact. Maybe I could get my hands on whatever the guards were using when I first arrived. I wasn’t sure if they would be strong enough to reach between here and Astraville or anywhere I may go. They had arranged things with the kingdom, so there must be a method. That will need get be fixed when I returned.

“I am ready, Professor. Do you need more time?” I said to the still furiously scribbling professor. I could swear she was making chicken scratches across the pages of notes as one page flipped after another.

“Ugh, yes, for now. When we get to Professor Gythens class, I will stay outside and take more notes unless you need me to come in with you.”

“That’s fine. I assume you are taking notes about coming to Astraville?”

“Yes, I am trying to figure out what should be taught. Though I will need to talk to people and see what education they have.”

I was glad she was taking the time to consider where people were at in their education. I wanted to attend the classes myself. Especially anything history related, I really needed to catch up on that. I decided against telling her though because I didn’t want to pressure though she may want to just tutor me alone if I mentioned it. It’s probably best if I just drop in some other time. “That is great to hear. Let’s proceed so that I can get into that library.”

She took us down another hall filled with very regular doors but had a nice floral fragrance wafting through the air. I thought there would have been more care put into the architectural aesthetics but maybe they saved the budget for learning. That’s what I would do. Who cares about looks when you can have more books!

She stopped in front of the door furthest in the back. “Go ahead and go in. You need no introduction. I am sure things will grind to a halt once you step through.”

She was probably correct, but that gave me no real confidence and I could already feel my anxiety flaring up. I tapped the side of my leg and took a deep breath before straightening out back, ready to go in.

Highthorn opened the door for me, holding it open wide enough for me to be in full view. Everyone in the room froze, including a turquoise robbed slender male that was no older than thirty. I assumed this was Professor Gythen, so I proceeded further into the room. “Hello, I am Lady Astrid here,to  see Proffesor Gythen,” I sputtered out without a hitch. There were many people in the classroom, so I made it a point to look around at them to see what noble children wore. The fashion sense hadn’t seemed to change too much, but none of the girls were wearing dresses, which was a pleasant change. It was always harder to move around in most dresses I had, let alone if you ruined it. You had to fix the whole thing rather than just a part.

None of the children seemed too young, closer to young adults than anything, most of their faces were more boxy than mine like everyone else I had met so far. It seemed like humans had really changed racially. I wondered if it had anything to do with the curse. That was unlikely. The only thing about the students I didn’t much care for was the lack of any otherkin. It seemed there was none in this class or possibly in this school. I would need to ask Mezzis about it. They were just so cute I didn’t know why they wouldn’t want them in there. Maybe the girls were jealous?

“Ye-Yes, I am Proffesor Glyph, Godd- Lady Astrid,” said the professor, stumbling through his words like a first former student trying to figure out how to speak to their teacher after getting into trouble. It took him an awful long time to say that, but it had given me more time to think about this encounter.

The idea of walking right back out crossed my mind, but I knew that would be taken the wrong way. They would think he offended me. While he technically had failed to follow etiquette according to the books I had read, there needn’t be a punishment for such a minor faux pas. That etiquette book had really stuck with me for me to think like this…

“I heard you wanted to meet with me?” I asked, trying to continue the conversation on.

“Yes, you are the originator of the gem technology. Anything you have to add may bring fundamental revelations to the field! Even just being in your presence is inspiring,” he verbally spewed out like a belching ooze monster.

She was right. I would have been annoyed if he had driven me back. “I am the creator? Everyone keeps telling me that I am responsible for all things good but not really giving me any useful information to confirm it,” I replied, feeling my annoyance coming out. He was acting just like a member of my fan club. Those people really annoyed me, unless they were bringing me a new book. 

“There is a copy of the paper you wrote at the Academy of Intellectual Excellence in the Stenwren Kingdom.”

Oh! I felt a flood of memories come on. “I will be right back. I have to check my memory lane.”

The memories flowed in, especially the name of that academy, but I didn’t recognize the kingdom. I was getting the memory of a particularly annoying fan club member that would take books out of my hands until I did assignments. I had flipped on him worse than I had at dinner with King Al’Don. Going into the memory might get me some helpful context.

I dove into my memobrary and headed to a long hallway that would look to others to go on forever, but really it just went on as long as I had lived. Some of the beginning stuff was more fragmented till I established my memobrary. I took the context that he had mentioned and let myself get whisked down the hallway lined with paintings of some of my more memorable achievements, like defeating the dungeon while reading a book. Elemental shields made it easy to do since it struck at anything that got near me. 

My mind stopped moving, and I entered what should be the correct moment that I had first heard about that school.

📚🐻📖🐻📚

“Hey OLD MAN. WHAT HAVE I TOLD YOU ABOUT TAKING MY BOOKS!” I yelled at the old wizard holding the book he had plucked from my hands. The smell of old books permeated the air. 

“I just need you to-”, he tried to respond but was cut off by a massive surge of mana crushing him from all sides. He struggled to fight it with his own mana. He was unable to move due to the external pressure of my mana.

The bears quickly came running into the book shelf aisle, picked me up, giving me an enormous hug. I immediately calmed down and the old codger fell to the ground, catching his breath. I basked in the bear's fluffiness. The creator of this place had created the perfect guards. They could resolve any situation. 

“I didn’t think you could cast spells here,” he said, catching his breath.

“That wasn’t a spell that was a force of mana. No casting required. There are several ways around the rules and protections here.”

“There are? Could you share? The library is supposed to be the most secure around.” He asked, getting up off the ground and dusting himself off. It must have just been a natural reaction because there was no dust here. 

I glared at him, lips pressed together in frustration. “What did you want? The next thing you say better includes handing me my book back.”

He handed back the book even before speaking. “I wanted to give you a degree from my academy, the Academy of Intellectual Excellence in the Estinoff Kingdom. I just need some sort of paper showing your knowledge.”

There was no need for me to have any sort of degree. I was already highly educated by other mages and especially my books. If he thought I needed a letter achievement, then he was wrong. He would be better off handing me books. “Why would I want that?”

“It would allow you permanent access to our library as a graduate and if the paper is good enough, you’d be considered a founder and gain access to the forbidden sections.”

If I ever left the library and that kingdom still existed, then it would be a perfect place to visit. “Why didn’t you start with that?”

He had fully recovered his stamina. “You almost always have a book in your face.”

“Not true, I am just on a different time scale than you. I do go to the café when I eat. That’s when most of you in my fan club try to chat with me. They should have told you to present me with a gift of books first,” I said matter-of-factly as the bear put me down, realizing the situation had resolved itself.

“Did you have anything you wanted to share?”

I thought about it for a while and I wasn’t sure if I could trust it by giving it to him or not, but even if it turned out that it would be some entertainment out of it. “How about a copy of the information to get around this type of barrier?” I ended up deciding and giving him the paper on the topic. Even if you manage to get around it, the bears would be on you immediately. They also weren’t so nice to others. “I don’t mind, but if you use it here, they will eject you from here without hesitation. The bears barely let me get away with it.”

“That would be great. I won’t do anything to cause you problems,” he said, clapping his hands together.

“Okay, I will go grab a rough draft from my room,” I replied, taking off to my room. I never bothered finalizing it because most of these things were just proof of concepts to me. Sometimes I would share them with other book lovers or subject experts.

I returned a few moments later with a copy of the paper in my hands. It was really nice having a spell able to instantly conjure up a duplicate of a simple item.

He started flipping through, looking through the paper and became gob smacked with mouth agape. “This makes so much sense that the protection here stops the intention of spell casting from happening unless you are in a lab — the arena — the dungeon levels. Why did you use those gems?”

“Well, I wrote that like three thousand years ago, before I was able to just grow my own through geomancy. There had been limited supplies in the library at that time, so I used a gem from near where my home was,” I said, creating a gem in my hand and making it disappear the next second. 

“Wait, I didn’t mean that, but you can also do that?!?” he said, looking shocked again.

“Yeah, just look up Gualins Great Geomancy Guide. There is even a spell in there that a mining operation near my home used. It creates a sustainable gem source via lay line mana manipulation.”

“That’s fascinating. I had heard about some countries having seemingly unlimited gem ores but didn’t think it was possible. Don’t lay lines move, though?” he said, asking more and more questions.

I got antsy wanting to read again, and it seemed like he would never stop talking, so I put an end to the conversation. “Yes, but that takes several thousand years. They can also be restricted, but that is beyond even my level. I haven’t met anyone that can do that yet. Did you have any other questions, or may I go read?” I had made a note to revisit that book in my memobrary that night.

“Yes, this is wonderful. I will be back with a diploma and ID card later.”

📚🐻📖🐻📚

The memory faded out, and I left memory lane quickly, hopping out of my memobrary as well.