“Crystal, wake up.”

“…”

“It’s time to wake up.”

“Five more minutes…”

“But it’s been already an hour.”

“In that case, one more hour should do.”

“If you don’t hurry, you will be late for your excursion to the city with the Lord William.”

Right, that. I don’t want to miss that, looks like I have no choice but to comply.

I opened my eyes and sat up from the bed. “Fine.”

Although I don’t really need to sleep, when I do, I don’t feel like getting up afterward. But sometimes, we as humans need to know when to make sacrifices.

I look over to the maid who woke me up and point at her. “I will wake up this time, but don’t get used to it!”

---

 

I peeked out of the carriage window. Looks like we were in this city's fancy district. I haven’t asked about where we are going, so I am not sure what to expect. He only said that we will visit the city.

“Seems like we arrived.”

We are on a busy street, on both sides of the road there are countless shops. As we disembarked the carriage, we were quickly surrounded by people. I can’t see anything through the crowd at my height.

… Just wait till I grow up.

We entered one of the shops and I finally got an opportunity to figure out where we were. I looked around the shop to see what it was about, only to notice… Dresses? Why are we here? Did he bring me here just because he didn’t know what would I be interested in? I looked over to him. Is he avoiding my gaze? He really didn’t know where to take me, did he. So, he brought me here?

Aren’t there any interesting places in this city? It's huge, there has to be at least something. Was this really your go-to destination? This is supposed to be a fantasy world, is this the best you can do?

“Can’t we go to a more interesting place, I don’t need another dress. I can get more dresses back in Silvercrest. Like, isn’t there some place with magic or whatever?”

“Hmm… Well… In this city… Now that I think of it, I heard that there have been a multiple new magic schools founded over the past couple of years. Apparently, they aim to educate commoners in the field of magic.”

“Magic school? That sounds interesting…”

“Well, if you want to visit some kind of school, there are multiple great ones teaching martial arts and swordsmanship. I went to one of them. Actually, it’s not too far from here, if you'd like, I can show you around…”

“Magic school.”

“I heard that they don’t even teach attack magic in there and focus mostly on low tier support magic. If you want to see a proper magic school, we can visit the Crown Island in the future. All the respectable magic schools are located there.”

“Magic school.”

“Do you really want to see it right now?”

“Magic school, magic school, magic school.”

“Alright… I guess we could check it out…”

 

Magic…

I wonder how it works. Magic in this world is a big question mark for me. Are skills magic? Is it its own separate thing? Is that magic skill in my status just for mana or is it something more? If they have schools dedicated to it, it shouldn’t be so simple. Maybe I can finally find out.

Now that I think about it, when we teleported here, there was a mage-looking guy there doing the teleporting. Perhaps he will turn out to be an actual mage, or he's just a guy with teleportation skill and weird fashion sense. Both options are possible. Well, I might have to give him a visit.

I will think about it later, firstly let’s see what is this magic school all about. Hopefully, it will be fun, but either way, it will be better than picking out dresses. I am not much into fashion to begin with.

---

 

“Is that it?”

“Yes, this should be the right place.”

We traveled for quite a while. As we went, our surroundings changed considerably. When we started, we were looking at a high and colorful buildings, but they got smaller and blander the further we got. The road got progressively bumpier and big crowds turned into occasional passersby.

“It looks… how should I put it… rundown?”

“We can still turn back and…”

“Nope, let’s go in.” I won't give up now.

The building itself didn’t look too remarkable. It’s quite big but, let’s just say that it’s not what I was expecting. I mean, you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. But that line of thinking doesn’t work on buildings. Looks can have a great impact on the property value.

Now that I think about it, we are here, but will they just let us in? How does it work? Not sure what I expected to happen.

They won’t kick us out, will they?

 

We entered through the main entrance, and we came into a large hall.

There are multiple older kids walking around. Looks like they are on a break in between classes. But overall, my first impression is that this place just looks normal.

On the other side of the hall was the reception thingy. William approached the reception lady, but as soon as he introduced himself, she became noticeably nervous.

“Give me a moment.”

“…”

“…”

“…”

She ran away…

“…”

“…”

“…”

She will come back, right?

You haven’t scared her off, have you?

“…”

Now what?

Well, whatever. I will use this opportunity to at least look around. I wandered off and made my way around the hall.

I looked into one of the classes where students were going in. Wooden chairs and desks for students and one for the teacher at the front, some cabinets, and a whiteboard-looking thing on the wall. Isn’t that just your average classroom? No matter how I look at it, it just looks like any regular school from back home.

This is another world, with a different history, its own unique culture and customs, people, skills, system, time period, architecture… From the world itself, all the way to the subtle differences in people’s behavior, everything is different.

And Yet! Somehow? Out of all things, schools look exactly the same. What kind of nightmare scenario is this? Imma gonna catch PTSD in here. I refuse to believe that this is a normal school, they must be hiding something.

 

The reception lady returned and brought a man in a suit with her.

“As the principal of this humble institution, I felt it necessary to welcome you personally. Now that I am here, what can I do for you?”

“We came here just to take a look.”

“I see, in that case, let me show you around.”

The principal himself came here to give us a tour. I guess it’s easy if you are a noble. Need to use some of that privilege.

“This way.”

“…”

“I guess we could start with the most important place in this school. This is our cultivation room. Here we have laid out mana gathering array. Students use it to level their magic skill.”

Finally, something magic related. I looked inside, it was a medium-sized room with a big magic circle in the middle. Sitting on top of it in a meditative position was one of the students, he had his eyes closed, and he sat there without making any movements.

William looked around. “Is there only one?”

“We have a bit of a tight budget, and operating array such as this is very costly. We are quite limited in this regard as there can be only one person using it at the time. For that reason, we employ a rotation system, where students get a certain amount of time allocated to them, and they have to make best use of it. Of course, the best performing students get extra time to spend in the cultivation room.”

“With such a limit and so many students, how any of them can reach a sufficient level? How will any of them become high-ranking mages?”

“We have to work within our limitations. We can’t afford to make high-ranking mages. Most of the students will reach level two, while some outliers will stay stuck at level one. The most talented ones will reach level three. Those are our limits.”

“That’s so low…”

Do they mean the magic skill level? What was mine again, like sixteen? In that case, it is certainly lower than mine, but is that a reasonable point of comparison?

William looked towards me. I can see it in him that he wants to leave. We just got here, and you already intend to bail, just because you heard that they are low level? You knew that beforehand!

Nope, not happening. I folded my arms and shook my head. Forget about it, this is my field trip, not yours.

“Let’s continue.” William conceded.

“What’s in there?” I point randomly at one of the doors.

“Let’s not go in there, there has been a problem with mold in some of the rooms, better avoid that. Continue this way.”

“Is that a cafeteria?

“Ah, that reminds me, there was that one student that died of food poisoning. But don’t worry, we take no responsibility for that incident. I can assure you that they brought their own food.”

Did they?

“What about here?”

“The roof is leaking in this area, we had to restrict access to it.”

“Is there a dormitory?”

“Of course, although I heard some complaints about rats recently. But it isn’t confirmed, so they are probably false.”

“There are rumors that we will lose our tax benefits, but don’t believe them.” “We never nurtured a level four mage in our school, not even one. Nevertheless, that’s nothing that can’t change.”

Now is it just me or is that principal trying to show his school in the literally worst light possible? Usually, people show and say the best stuff first, not the other way around. It’s like he is trying to scare us off. Not only that, he is also not showing us anything substantial. Where’s all the magic stuff? Big libraries with ancient scrolls and tomes, magic formations, flying staircases, fantastical creatures… There’s nothing. There’s… Nothing!

“What is your opinion on cockroaches? Just asking, no particular reason.”

William continues to glance at me, clearly, he’s telling me to leave. Both of them are trying to get out of this interaction. Am I the only one who wants to be in here?

“Here is our math class, math is one of our main educational focuses.”

“That’s enough, both of you! I can’t take it anymore! You!” I point at the principal. “Stop trying to show your school in the worst light possible. I don’t care! Just show me the magic stuff, I am bored! And you, stop glancing at me every five seconds. It’s annoying! We are staying!”

I walked toward one of the doors.

“That is the room with the mold problems. We can go somewhere else…”

I opened the door and entered. On the other side was a small room that looked like a laboratory. Mold my ass, there’s none in here. If anything, this is the single cleanest room I have ever seen.

“I don’t particularly enjoy being lied to. I tolerated you because Crystal wanted to be here, and I didn’t particularly care, but I won’t be made a fool. What are you trying to play, exactly?” William said with an authoritative voice, and the principal started to slightly sweat under his gaze.

Wow, William can be quite intimidating when he tries.

To not feel left out, I also turned towards the principal and glared at him.

“I recommend you to stop fooling around and spill out the truth before this becomes a bigger thing than it needs to be.”

“Yeah, the truth!” I raise my arm to a fist as I say it, just to signify how serious I am.

“…”

“…”

“Have you ever thought about how we use magic?

Magic is mostly thought of as a weapon, a way to teleport, and a way to make magic items. But the use of magic doesn’t expand much beyond that, and that is a shame. I would argue that we are just scratching the surface of what we can accomplish with magic. There are so much more than those few uses.

Cleaning enchantments on industrial tools. Spells for precision metalworking. Water magic for emergency fire extinguishing. Magic machines that can do complex tasks. Even simple shovels with a right enchantment could see a great increase in effectiveness.

There are low-level enchantments that could revolutionize whole industries and yet, no mage would enchant a single tool without asking for a ludicrous amount of money. There are a lot of things that could be done but aren’t because mages would see such a work beneath them.

They can easily get employment in the noble circles, or they can earn millions from a single military contract, why would they ever do something for the common people? How can a company hire a mage if they have to compete with the crown’s military budget?

The current mage curriculum heavily focuses on quality over quantity and military applications over everything else.

The military puts a priority on high-ranking mages. But cultivating a high-ranking mage is a costly endeavor, but doing so with many low-ranking mages is infinitely easier. And certainly, in time of war they wouldn’t be much use, but their contribution to the economy as a whole would be a different matter.

We are trying to introduce the use of magic into the workforce to boost the economy. Because there aren’t many mages, there’s a high demand for them. Many workplaces would benefit from the implementation of magic. But most of the mages are of noble birth, and they wouldn’t do things like menial labor, and they wouldn’t want to work among commoners.

If you are a regular mage, then you want to be employed by a noble or to provide services directly to them. But our students will help crafts people to develop new products and help in making production of those products more efficient. They will be hired by companies and businesses, and they will revolutionize how we view the workforce.”

“If it’s so great, then why were you lying about it?”

“There are many people, especially some high-ranking members of the Mage Order, that wouldn’t appreciate an increase in the number of mages. They are stubborn, they see magic as a noble craft, and they don’t want it to spread among commoners. It’s impossible to hide our activities from them, but what we can do, is to make them think that we are not a threat. Make them believe that our efforts are failing. If they don’t see us as a threat, then they won’t act against us. So, when anybody shows up, we just tell them that we aren’t doing that great.”

“Does anyone actually fall for that?

“It’s easier to confirm people’s beliefs than to change their mind. If I suddenly claimed that we are doing great, they wouldn’t believe me. They don’t want to see us succeed, so they see us as failures, they want to see us as failures. If we tell them what they wish to hear, why would they argue against it?”

“…”

“I would rather hide the truth whenever possible, rather than to risk retaliation. We are not influential enough to defend ourselves. Not yet. There are two groups of people, those that don’t see us as a threat, those are our enemies, and those that see our potential, those are our supporters.”

“…”

“You, too, can become one of our supporters.” He said as he looked William in the eye. “All you need to do is to buy some of our stock. We are a publicly traded company registered on the stock exchange in Avalon. Think about it, once the value of mages in the workforce is realized, we will skyrocket in value. Not to mention that we are already undervalued, you could make great returns on your investment. In a few years, you could see your investment multiply.”

The guy went from blatantly lying and misdirecting just to tell us how bad his school was. Into portraying it as the revolution of the whole economy, and then he started trying to sell us stocks right after. What a champ. He pulled a total one-eighty, does he not know moderation? At this rate, he’ll be literally outdoing me at my own thing!

Humph, as if!

“That seems interesting, but I can’t, you see, currently I am experiencing financial difficulties, so I don’t have a lot of money on hand right now. That reminds me, I am not getting any pocket money, maybe that is something that will change in the future?” Wink. I turn towards William near the end of that sentence.

They both looked at me speechless.

“…”

“…”

“What? Have I said something you didn’t like? If so, don’t hold it back and say it. I am not shy to fight out all of our differences.” I gave the air a few punches for a good measure.

“…”

“…”

“Yeah, I thought so.”

William and the principal weren’t sure how to respond, so they stayed quiet.

I turned around and left.

Let’s check out a few more rooms and then we can bail.

---

 

We are on our out.

I am a bit mentally tired after that experience.

Well, at the very least, I had them to show me some intriguing stuff at the very end. They had some low-level magic items and some laboratories for low-level potions. Although overall, it was a bit disappointing…

“I heard plenty of bad rumors about it, but after coming here… I don’t really know what to think.”

I looked over to him. “What rumors?”

“There are countless rumors claiming that all those schools turned out to be failures. As a matter of fact, I don’t think I heard anything good about them.”

Maybe some influential person really doesn’t like them, so he is spreading such rumors. On the other hand, they are probably spreading the same rumors as well. That would explain such a universal agreement.

“…”

Moreover, there was another thing, I almost forgot. There’s a stock market in this world… apparently? My fantasy world is becoming weirder and weirder every day. Like, what’s up with that? Perhaps I, should I ask William about it? But I should be subtle about it.

“What is a stock exchange?”

“I heard about it before, it’s a thing that a few western territories started doing. You can basically buy part of the company instead of the whole thing. You know, they always come up with the craziest of ideas in there. How should I explain it… It's just some weird gimmick for poor people, who can’t afford to buy the entire company outright. Just so they can make themselves feel like they are richer than they actually are.”