A Budding Scientist in a Fantasy World

Chapter 173

Alice spent the next few hours explaining what she had learned through her experiments.

Of course, Alice had hidden some information, specifically related to the nature of the System. She didn’t think that was a good idea to share with other people. Telling the [Queen] of Cendaria that there was a physical mainframe for the System somewhere northwest of Illvaria would be a terrible idea. Alice wasn’t even sure that she trusted the [King] of Illvaria with that information, because there was so much potential for abuse in the future. If it hadn’t been for the current crisis, she would never have told another soul about the physical mainframe of the System.

But she had still told the [Queen] of Cendaria a lot. She had told her everything she had discovered about how Classes could influence people’s minds, how [Willpower] seemed to help people fight off the effects of class-madness, and had given the [Queen] of Cendaria a sample of the ring that corrected [Farmer] Classes. The [Queen] had called in the [Enchanter] of the royal family, who apparently had a rather unique ability… once per week, he was able to replicate an enchantment onto another object. Of course, he still needed the materials to make a copy of an item, and there were a lot of restrictions on what, specifically, he could copy. He couldn’t create an artifact, or any item that was too complicated using his Perk. But it was still an exceptional way to help tamp down on the suffering and chaos in Cendaria.

Alice didn’t really have a good suggestion for how to handle the monster swarms, unfortunately. Alice had hoped that maybe Ethan or Allira would offer a few suggestions on that front, but the two of them didn’t have any advice for Cendaria. Alice wasn’t sure whether that was because they weren’t interested in helping her, or because they just didn’t have any ideas. Either way, Alice certainly didn’t have any cheap and easy ways to strengthen the military of a nation. Cendaria would just have to figure out the monster swarms on their own.

After Alice and [Queen] Cendaria finished talking, [Queen] Cendaria promised to make it up to Illvaria and Alice. She had sworn that she would owe them a favor.

Allira had scoffed at that, but had quietly admitted that, as far as her Perks could detect, [Queen] Cendaria was being completely truthful with that statement.

When Alice and the others left the capital of Cendaria, she had mixed feelings about everything.

Allira and Ethan had hinted that they still thought she had made a mistake. On an intellectual level, Alice understood where they were coming from. She was basically handing out important, valuable information to a country that Illvaria was on slightly hostile terms with. From a diplomatic perspective, it might be better if Cendaria suffered greatly during this crisis. Alice was pretty tightly intertwined with Illvaria, and it was the country she felt the most connected to in this world. All the people she cared about here were part of Illvaria, and she had lived there for over a year. Ethan had genuinely done his best to take care of her as his apprentice, Cecilia was her best friend in this world, and Alice had also formed decent bonds with some of her classmates. And if Cendaria vanished off the map tomorrow, Illvaria might be better off for it.

But Alice still didn’t think that sharing information was wrong. The more stable humanity was as a whole, the better the odds that humanity would overcome this crisis. The wanton slaughter and refugees from villages in Cendaria had opened Alice’s eyes to just how badly other countries were faring during the crisis. Alice was willing to help Illvaria more than other countries… but that didn’t mean she was willing to leave people to die.

When the group finally left the [Queen] of Cendaria, they didn’t stop at another inn in the city. Instead, they just moved on, putting as much distance as they could between themselves and the palace. As they left the capital, Alice also spent some time filtering mana and tallying up her rewards. The first, and most interesting reward, was a few levels in [Legendary Organic Mage], but she had also gotten a level in [Scholar] and [Courtier].

You have leveled up!

Legendary Organic Mage: 1 -> 7, Scholar: 62 -> 63, Courtier: 2 -> 3

Regrettably, the [Legendary Organic Mage] was a secondary class, instead of a primary class. If it had been a primary Class, Alice suspected that she probably would have immediately jumped to level 13 or 14. Not to mention, if it had been a primary class, she would have gotten new Perk choices. Sadly, that wasn’t how Secondary Classes worked.

Alice did start wondering whether it was worth ditching [Kinetic Manabinder] for [Legendary Organic Mage] as a primary class, but decided not to try it. She wasn’t sure if that would cause some sort of new, weird system error that might kill her. She could think about it if or when the System was restored, but it just seemed too risky right now. She was happy with her new levels in [Legendary Mage] either way. One more incident like this could get her a new Perk.

As for the level in [Courtier]… Alice really couldn’t care less about the Class. It was basically just a decorative class in her eyes – the one and only use the Class had was to make sure she didn’t get influenced by [Courtier] mana. She seriously doubted any Perks from the Class would be valuable to her, and figured it was only slightly more useful than [Fisherwoman]. The level in [Scholar] was a bit disappointing as well – Alice had thought that presenting her research in front of a monarch would give her more than just one level. Alice was pretty sure she had already been close to level 63 in [Scholar], so the rewards really felt lacking.

Maybe people in this world believed that [Scholars] were more inclined to mingle with their own circle, or something? Alice suspected that the reason she only got one level was due to some sort of cultural difference in how people perceived [Scholars] in this world. Unfortunately, it had interfered with her levelling progress this time.

However, if anything, Alice was even more excited by her final reward. It was much more substantial than her level rewards.

You have gained an achievement!

First Steps (I)-> (III) (Rarity: 6 -> 8)

You have taken the first steps towards resolving the aftermath of the collapse of the System. Even in the face of a seemingly hopeless task, you continue to find ways to mitigate the impact of the catastrophe. And, shockingly, you have started to find success in your actions. Not only that, but you have taken actions to spread your damage control methods far and wide, regardless of nationality or hostility. Few can be as altruistic in the face of a crisis.

+50% ->100% growth speed for Enchanter classes, +20% ->40% growth speed for all Classes, +50% ->100% growth speed for healing classes.

You can improve up to five objects by increasing the number of enchanting instructions they can hold by 1. Can be activated up to 5 times a month. To active this Perk, place the item in your storage Perk and then focus on this Achievement.

You may also ‘repair’ a magic construct instead of increasing the number enchantment instructions, but this is still subject to the five object limitation. Mana constructs do not need to be placed in storage to be repaired, but you must be in close proximity to them and/or be touching them. (If the mana construct is in another person’s body, you must also obtain permission from the owner before repairing anything).

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

The {First Steps} Achievement had improved… and it had done so in a rather dramatic fashion.

Originally, the Achievement had been a rarity 6 Achievement, but in one fell swoop, it had increased to rarity 8. It had also increased from (I) to (III), which had shocked Alice. She had never seen an Achievement upgrade twice from one action like this.

But the reward was… excellent.

Previously, on top of the growth bonuses she got from the Achievement, the Achievement had given Alice the option to improve five objects by a moderate amount, thus increasing the number of enchantment instructions they could hold.

Alice hadn’t had much time to make use of this yet. All of the objects that she could enchant so far all had enough instructions for what she needed. This kind of effect was probably best reserved for when Alice tried to make an artifact, or perhaps some sort of specialized magic tool. But Alice had just had too many other things competing for her time and attention recently.

Now, she had a much more promising direction she could take the extra benefit from that Achievement.

She could repair mana constructs instead.

Such as her mana gem.

Alice still didn’t understand everything the System did. However, it was obvious that mana gems were an important part of the last steps towards Immortality. They also somehow managed Achievements and Alice mana. Right now, all of the Achievements Alice had gained after the collapse of the System only gave about 50% of the benefits they were supposed to. If Alice repaired her mana gem… she would boost the rate at which she gained levels, because it would fix all of her half-functioning Achievements. And she would also remove one of the larger hidden dangers that were pressuring her right now.

Even more importantly, it would give Alice a glimpse at how mana gems were supposed to work.

Right now, one of the biggest issues Alice had when repairing the mana gem was that she was basically trying to reverse engineer something a few orders of magnitude higher in complexity than what she could understand. While Alice could learn and improve from it, it was still very hard for her to make major progress, because she was just working on something too difficult for her.

But what if Alice could see a mana gem being repaired?

Or even better… what if Alice created two different mental maps using her new Perk?

One mental map would show the broken, uncorrected version of the mana gem. The other would show the corrected, fixed version of the mana gem. Alice could watch the repair process using her Perks, and then compare the fixed and unfixed versions to each other. That would give her a huge amount of information to work with. Alice might not be able to learn everything from that – but combined with the other boosts from her new Perks and a few days of careful study, Alice felt like she would be able to learn a lot from that experiment. Maybe she would find a way to fix everyone’s Achievements, and get another part of the System working again.

Alice felt a smile form on her lips at the thought.

If she found a way to repair Achievements, the biggest remaining problem to solve would be forming new class seeds. And right now, the group was heading towards an Immortal [Enchanter] who might be able to help her with just that.

Those were the two biggest issues Alice had left to solve. Once she could make new class seeds and repair Achievements, every major part of the System would work again with Alice’s help. The only thing she would need to do afterwards is find propagate her repaired version of the System.

It was taking a great deal of time and effort… but everything was coming together.

Then, Alice frowned. Even if she figured out how to rebuild the human parts of the System, the monster hordes were still rampaging unchecked through the world. There was also a small chance that the laws of physics might suddenly break and kill everyone tomorrow. Alice had been trying not to think about that, because there wasn’t much she could do about it yet… but there were still a lot of things that needed to be repaired. She sighed, and took a deep breath.

One step at a time. She just needed to take things one step at a time.

As the group continued riding away from Cendaria, Alice thought about the future. Where the System would be restored, and people would no longer need to fear monsters or the world suddenly breaking. As long as she kept working towards her goal, Alice knew that she could make it a reality.

She just hoped that she had enough time before something broke beyond repair.

* * *

The next two days, the group didn’t have any particularly interesting encounters. They mostly ran into abandoned villages, a few inhabited villages, and the occasional stray monster. Alice appreciated the quiet. Now that she had a potential key to crack the mystery of mana gems, she was too excited to focus on anything else. She spent every single moment she could going over the mental map of the mana gem, trying to see if there were any bits left that she still needed to flesh out, or if she could discover anything new.

On the third day, one day before Alice could create a new mental map, the group entered the lands of… Superbia.

And Alice had to admit, she was taken aback by it.

She had thought that the lands of Cendaria were noticeably greener than Illvaria.

She had been wrong.

Superbia was so filled with plants that it was like walking into a jungle. The weather itself seemed to bend to the will of the Immortal who lived here. Even though it was still winter, in Superbia, it felt more like late spring or early summer.

Giant wheat stalks, nearly twice the height of Alice, rose into the sky like giant pillars. System mana covered every single centimeter of soil, like an omnipresent smog. In the distance, Alice could see giant fruit trees, laden with fruit. The largest tree of all appeared to be an apple tree that rivalled redwood trees in height.

Alice didn’t know much about apple trees, but she was pretty sure they weren’t supposed to grow over a hundred meters tall. Even more bizarre, the tree was moving. Every few seconds, one of the branches of the apple tree lowered itself towards the ground. If Alice hadn’t seen all of the System mana, she might have thought she had stumbled upon a tree monster of some sort.

The group set exactly one foot into the field of wheat, before Ethan gestured for the group to stop. At the same time, a ripple of System mana rippled through the field of giant crops.

“Hello?” called someone in the distance. Alice realized a moment later that the person who was speaking had been standing under the apple tree.

“Jonathan! It’s me!” yelled Ethan. His voice carried far into the distance.

“Ah, Ethan!” yelled Jonathan. “Give me just a minute! Let me finish harvesting this apple tree, and then I’ll come over!” he said. Alice watched as the apple tree’s branches continued to lower themselves to the ground. Finally, all the apples on the tree were harvested, and Alice saw a cloud of distant mana begin making its way towards them.

A few moments later, she got her first good look at Jonathan, the Immortal [Farmer] who had founded a five-person country.

He was a tall man, with broad shoulders, a rather bushy beard, and rich brown hair. He was on the handsome side, just like most Immortals, and had a somewhat mischievous gleam in his eyes that made Alice feel strangely relaxed. It was almost the same expression that a child might make after pulling off a successful prank.

“Ethan! It’s been… what, three decades since we last met face to face?” asked Jonathan. “How have you been?”

“Hmm… it has been a rather… interesting year,” said Ethan, frowning. “For both good and bad reasons. On one hand, I have a very promising new apprentice,” said Ethan, gesturing towards Alice. “On the other hand, the nastiness with these monster swarms, the messed up status screens, and the other various problems that have recently arisen…” Ethan grimaced. “I can’t say I’m happy about those.”

Jonathan also grimaced. “Bad business, that. Can’t say it makes much sense to me, but even the missus has been feeling off recently. And my fool son has been even harder to manage than usual.” Jonathan sighed, before he turned towards the others. “Allira,” he said. “You’re even more beautiful than you were when I last saw you.”

“That is how stats work, Jonathan,” said Allira, rolling her eyes. But Alice noticed that the corner of Allira’s lips were ever so slightly turned upwards when she spoke – which surprised Alice. She hadn’t seen Allira genuinely smile when interacting with people before, so it caught her off guard.

Jonathan grinned, before he gave Alice and Cecilia a courteous half-bow.

“Ethan’s apprentice. I believe your name is Alice, right?” he said. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. While I can’t offer you any sort of assistance, I hope you make it to Immortality. It’s always exciting to get to meet new Immortals, and I always enjoy seeing what new Immortals can do by the time they finish growing.”

Alice nodded. Finally, Jonathan turned towards Cecilia.

“And I’m not sure who you are, but it’s nice to meet you as well! I’m Jonathan, [King] of Superbia, the greatest nation on the planet,” he said. The mischievous quirk in his lips became even more pronounced, and Alice realized why Ethan and Allira were so comfortable poking fun at the nation of Superbia.

As it turned out, Jonathan, the [King] of Superbia, was the person most comfortable with poking fun at the country. No wonder his acquaintances did the same thing.

Cecilia chuckled. “Nice to meet you. My name is Cecilia. I’m a [Merchant] and an [Enchanter]. But I’m mostly here as Alice’s friend.”

“Well, welcome to my home, and my country,” said Jonathan. A small burst of rainbow mana exited his body, and Alice suddenly felt that Jonathan looked far more dignified than before. “Would you like to come in?”