The Quantum Wanderer

“I was just looking for you.”

Ruby approaches, gives me a kiss. So do the other ones. Opal is the last one, she gives me a very graphical one. Not quite appropriate for the place. Once we are done, we start walking towards the schools.

After a couple of minutes, the girls split. I go with Cecilia, the dragonesses go to the knight school.

There is path, with a garden on each side. It is wide enough for a little more than 2 carriages to pass through. I is not really long.

It ends on circular path, with a fountain in the center. The fountain is the picture of a giant handing a book to a female that is reaching up.

The base upon which they both stand is a round one, and there are 4 outlets of water.

On top of the book being passed down, there are 4 different images circling, like a halo. A small fire, a small tornado, a sphere of water and a round rock. I expand my mana senses. There is a gem in the book that is providing the mana for the spell. There is a set of runes on the top of the book, not really visible to people from below.

“We arrived, my villain. Or should I say, junior?” She laughs. “If you need anything, you can always count on your senior here, I will be glad to impart wisdom…”  She puts her tongue out.

I smile.

She looks around, then gives me another kiss, as graphical as the one Opal gave me.

“Take care, and behave!” Cecilia says. She goes to the building in the middle, right in front of the fountain.

I enter the closest building. According to the booklet, the classes are divided into groups of 20. The classes are filled according to the position the students took on the entrance exam.

The entrance exam I ended up skipping. I forgot to ask Edward which class I should join. I go to class E, I think it is appropriate, considering my situation.

It is a somewhat normal class room. The blackboard uses the same magic technology I had seen before, they write against the stone, and earth magic can clear it. I sit on the back, I want to stir the pot as little as possible.

The teacher comes in. Professor Maggio. There is the normal class behavior. The students answer to a roll call, the professor paying attention to who is who.

When he is done, he looks at me attentively. He remembers something, then turns to me.

“Excuse me, are you sir Marcelo?”

The whole class turn on their seats to look at me.

“Yes.”

“I have heard that you are enrolled in a special situation.”

A guy in the front row sneers. He turns to the professor.

“Professor, this is not acceptable. I don’t think he was in the exams.”

The professor turns to him. He smiles.

“I was informed that he is a mithril adventurer. Do you want to challenge him to a duel?”

The kid sneers. He is a couple of years younger than me. I feel like the old odd one in class. The kid answers the professor.

“Not at this time, professor. But he better make sure he doesn’t slow the class down. These adventurers think they can do anything they want because of a piece of metal on a chain.”

The professor sighs. A big part of the class is composed of children of nobles. They are the ones that can pay the tuition, and they have been educated prior to this school. This means that they are the most likely to pass, anyway.

Edward had explained me that there is an eventual peasant, but he or she needs a huge amount of talent to overcome this. But it still happens.

There are murmurs all around the class. Some of them are not even trying to be discreet.

The first class in the day proceeds as expected. It starts with a presentation on what is going to be taught. This first class is rune introduction. We are going to learn runes and mandalas associated with different spells, and learn to use them.

We have 2 hours of classes, and a bell rings. A literal bell. The professor gather his things, and leaves the room. The students stand up and start talking among themselves.

One of them is talking about his brother. I get close. I try to get to know my colleagues a little. Some eye me suspiciously, but nobody talks openly. I get mostly ignored.

The majority here is made of females, but not by a large margin. It is enough that it is noticeable, though.

“My brother told me that she is going to be the court wizard of our generation. You have no idea!”

“Does your brother know her?”

“Yes, he told me that he is one of her strongest pretenders. He talks to her every day.”

“And where does she come from?”

“That is the weirdest thing! She is from Arthuria. They say she denies it, but a lot of people believe she has ancient noble blood in her. Only something like that could explain it!”

“Naah… This kind of thing doesn’t happen! You are just trying to inflate your brother’s image…”

“I am telling you, she never lost a duel. People get dizzy and feel bad just from challenging her. And she can use the sword as well.”

“Oh, a really powerful older sister! I wonder if she would be friends with me.” A girl says.

“I don’t think so. My brother told me that, other than him, she just talks to her friends, and they call each other sisters. That’s why they are known as The Five.”

“The Five?”

“Yes. The other four are knights. Also all very beautiful, but they only talk to themselves. There are a lot of stories around them as well.”

I just can’t resist this. I imagine what Muninn would be like if he were with me.

“Really? What kind?”

The kid looks up. The notices I am the one that asked, and sneers.

“Well, peasant, since you asked, I am going to be gracious. They are the most gifted knights seen in a while. They managed to overcome professors in the end of year exam.”

Some kids nod, they had already heard about the exam, while others let some ‘wow’ slip. The kid continues with his tale.

“I also heard that one of them maimed a noble from Arthuria permanently. She was challenged by him during the exam. And she just used her hands.”

The girls are impressed, the boys are kind of dreamy. I wonder if I should come clean or not. I am guessing that not is going to be more fun.

The second professor arrives at the classroom. We all move to our seats. I check through the windows, it looks like it is around 10:00 now.

The professor is a woman, in her early 40s. She is in a dress that is closed up to her neck. She has a silver necklace, with a big round pendant in it. Her hair is somewhat big, parted in the middle. She has this stern look to her.

The class progress normally. Her name is professor Curie. She teaches introduction to alchemy.

“Now that I have completed the roll call… You!” She points at me. “Who are you? What are you doing in this class?”

“Well, I was told by the dean that I could watch classes…”

“Oh, are you sir Marcelo?” She asks, while tilting her head and furrowing her brow.

“Yes.”

She looks at me like I was a phreak.

“Are you the Marcelo Ambrose talks about?”

“Probably. I don’t know how many Marcelos he knows…”

“But…” She sighs and shakes her head. She is probably taking all of this as some sort of quirk desire on my part. “Nevermind. You do you.”

She turns to the whole class.

“Class, I will be teaching you introduction to alchemy. Who among you know about the subject?”

A female student raises her hand. The teacher points at her.

“Alchemy is the art of mixing potions.”

“That is only part of what we do.”

Another student, this time a boy, raises his hand.

“Transmutation of materials.”

“That as well. Alchemy a work that is done with materials and mana, with the goal of producing useful results. Our mandalas are not designed with mana, but rather imbued on platforms that then are used to work on materials.

“Any person is capable of changing materials. Leather workers receive a beast’s skin, they dry it, they stretch it, they change it. The process changes some attributes of the leather.

“We go beyond. We use the transmutation to make it into something entirely new! Can anyone give me an example?”

“The potions, in which we multiply the efficiency of the elements by imbuing it with mana?”

“Of course. And then there are the mysteries. Do you know what are the mystery transmutations?”

“Yes, the philosopher’s stone!” a girl mentions.

“Mithril!” a boy shouts.

“Adamantite!” another boy shouts.

“Precisely.” She continues. “Right now, we do have some references to the philosopher’s stone in ancient texts. It is said that it is a solid that can be used in potions to grant eternal life. We haven’t seen examples of those.

“We do have examples of both mithril and adamantite, but the dwarves are the only ones that know how to create it. There are several researchers working on that topic right now.”

The noble that was bad mouthing me before raised his hand. She points at him.

“Why don’t we just extract that information from them?”

Her face was excited so far, it became ice all of a sudden.

“What do you mean, ‘extract’? Why do you think you are entitled to someone else’s work, or knowledge? I believe that you heard what happened in Esdohr?

“That being said, the dwarven kingdom has not ever been invaded. It is told that there are spirits that protect their cities that are underground. The points of commerce are just that, little constructs on the surface for them to buy and sell stuff.

“The rumor around is that not a single spy managed to venture inside the dwarven cities and come back alive. Even larger groups perished.

“Taking it by force would be complicated. Remember, most of the good weapons come from them, and they probably keep the very best for themselves.

“The dwarves that were met in the surface apparently don’t know how it is made as well.

“So, mister Lucas, probably the first thousand ideas you come up with were already thought of and tried. Ah, to have the innocence of a child, to believe that you actually know how to tell mithril from adamantite…”

The classroom laughed at the joke at the expense of Lucas.

“So, mister Marcelo, what is your opinion on this? After professor Ambrose’s propaganda, I would entertain hearing your opinion.”

“About what?”

“About the three mysteries.”

I smile at her.

“I am just a first year. I have seen mithril myself. Tags, weapons, some armors. But other than that, I don’t know what to tell you.”

She looks at me. She is analyzing every word. I can even see that she is mana sensing me. I fake a lower level.

“Humph. Perhaps professor Ambrose is mistaken about professor Marcelo.” She encloses the word professor in air quotes. In this place, she holds her hands opened. In their writing, the quotes look like what we would call a pipe bar.

I shrug.

“Who is professor Ambrose?” A male student asks.

“He is the professor that teaches and researches Nature studies.”

“Nature studies? What is that?” A girl asks.

“It is the study of nature without mana affecting it. It is only taught in command school, because a good troop commander has to understand how to lead his troops even in a situation where he or she lost his mages.

“For example, how would you provide water to your troops if you lost your water mages? His focus is on what can be done without any magic.”

There is a moment of silence that she purposedly allows, for the students to sink in the information. She goes back to her stage, and turn to the students.

“Very well. Let’s get a little deeper on how alchemy works. Starting with professor Mendeleev, over a thousand years ago. He came up with…”

And the class goes on for a little bit, until a bell rings. She is very passionate about her subject.

A male student, sitting by me, extends his hand.

“I haven’t properly introduced myself yet. My name is Dedi. I heard you’re mister Marcelo, correct?”

“Yes. Nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you too. Do you want to come for the noon snack with us?”

There are three guys and one girl in the group. I kind of miss making new friends. This school dynamic is not bad.

“Sure.  Just a heads up, I am married. My wives also attend school.”

“No problem. The more, the merrier. Are they in another class?”

I smile.

“They are our seniors, by one year. You will see.”

We are walking towards the cafeteria. When we get there, there is a corner of it that has a lot of people around. That’s where the girls are, just like last time. My face is probably not very memorable, the people around them don’t notice me. But then this only happened once, and I wasn’t dressed as a student.

We get some light lunch, they call it the noon snack around here. I haven’t seen much in the sense of a full fledged lunch around.

We sit in another table, on another corner. While sitting down, Dedi turns to me.

“So, where are your wives?”

“I think they are going to be arriving very shortly.”

Ruby jumps up on their table, and looks around the tables. She points towards me.

“You were right, sister, he is here!”

She then jumps the crowd. She is wearing her enchanted adamantite armor. I wonder if I should tell them to stay away from professor Curie. She might be able to distinguish the material in the armor.

The girls open their way in the crowd, approaching our table. I turn to my back, the seats have no back rest. Ruby kiss me on the lips and sits by my side. The other girls move, and the bubble of people move with them.

The girls finally manage to sit in our table. They each give me a kiss on the lips before seating. I turn back to the table.

Dedi is stiff as a statue. The two other guys are looking inquisitively, while the girl is flabbergasted. I turn to them.

The guy then bends down suddenly. She holds him by the ear.

“They are The Five, you moron!”

On my left side I have Dedi, on my right side I have Ruby. She got here first. Opal is staring at Dedi as if he did something wrong. I smile. I wonder what the problem is. I move a little to my right, and I gesture to Opal with my head.

She stands up and moves to my left. Her face changes immediately. I wonder when these kind of things started happening with them. It makes me a little happy, though. Nothing like being the object of selfishness of the ones you care about.

“How is your first day of classes going, junior?” Cecilia asks, laughing.

“It has been very interesting. I think I am going to learn a lot!”

At this point, she stops laughing and looks at me. I smile. She understands the implications. She gets back to her normal humorous stance.

“So, who are your new friends?”

“Dedi is sitting next to me today. He offered company during the noon snack.”

“Hi, Dedi.” Cecilia nods at him. “And Mayara.” She nods at the girl.

I hear Mayara murmuring to herself.

“Just talk to her, Mayara. You can do it.”

I giggle pretending I didn’t hear that.

“So, lady Cecilia… Can I call you that?” Mayara asks after a little bit.

Cecilia smiles. Their age difference is around five years. Cecilia is 20 years old. Strike that. She is 21, I have been around her for more than a year. And we didn’t celebrate her birthday. I am going to bring this up at home.

Even my case. I think I look like 21 or 20 years old, same age when I died. I wonder if she also had the feeling of being the class’s aunty.

Cecilia shrugs.

”You do realize I am not a noble, right?”

”Aham.” Opal clears her throat. ”Sister, you are. You are married to our lord.”

The other dragonesses are nodding at Opal’s ’obvious’ statement.

The girl turns to me.

”Are you a noble, then? What is your title?”

First, I turn to Opal.

”Thank you, Opal.” She smiles. She doesn’t get the sarcasm. I turn to the girl. ”I have been part of council. Managing a small population… The immediate site I was in held less than a thousand citizens.

The girls nod. Cecilia is trying desperately  to hold the laughter. Mayara is unimpressed. I turn to her.

”What about you? Are you the child of a noble?”

”Yes! My father is the marquis of Hardshield. Most people in the school are children of nobles. There are some scholarship students, around 1 in 10. There are also some other peasants that attend, mostly adventurers.”

She turns back to Cecilia.

”Lady Cecilia, is it true you were an adventurer? How is it like?”

Cecilia looks at me again, with a  mischievous smile. She is enjoying this.

”My life as an adventurer was a mess. I was reasonable, but not the strongest, so I joined the guild, looking for a more safe of a job.

”In the guild, they noticed that I am reasonably good with managing coin, keeping stronger adventurers in their place, so I was the single attendant in a small guild shop.

”That’s when I met this guy here. Then I thought… Not all that pretty, but I am already at that age…”

I turn to Cecilia, I stick my tongue out. She giggles.

”What about you? Lady Opal?”

Opal shoots me a smile. I think she caught on what Cecilia was doing. I am kind of worried with disaster, I through her a look of ’please...’.

”My lord here freed us. Aquamarine, Ruby and I. We were under a very sadistic person. We then asked to be in his care.”

At this point, Mayara has a dreamy expression.

”Gods… Almost like the legends… The fair maiden kept under chains by evil doers. There is even a tale of a maiden kept in a tower by a dragon…”

Ruby nods. She is smiling.

”Something like that…”

”That is so romantic. I am happy for you all. I am managing to postpone my arranged marriage, due to my ability with magic. But if I don’t present father with something as high as court magician, I will have to go ahead with it.”

There is a moment of silence. Dedi is looking at the girls.

”I am sorry for asking, but where did you get those armors? They are so beautiful… I could look at them forever.”

“A friend of ours made them for us. I helped him with a couple of things around his smithy.” I say.

He is almost reaching out his hand, while staring at breast plate. He didn’t notice, but for a moment the hatred from the bystanders had shifted from me to him.

”Hey, Dedi, these are my wives.”

”Oh, sorry. Just impressed with the metal work. It looks almost alive. The amount of dragon detail… And… Crows… Amazing work. Did you ask him to add the dragon designs?”

”No, the armors were a surprise.”

”Amazing indeed.”

After some silence, Mayara turns to Cecilia.

”Lady Cecilia, I had heard that you have been innovating in magic, coming up with new ideas for spells. Where do you get inspiration?”

Ruby laughs. Cecilia smiles. The other girls just smile, proud, while they look at me.

”From him. He taught me a couple of… Tricks.”

I giggle a little.

Mayara looks at me like an oddity. She opens her mouth to say something, but ends up closing it again.

”Are you enjoying your classes, my lord?” Opal asks.

”It has been fun so far. I believe I will learn a lot. Cecilia was right.”

My girls are looking at me as if I mentioned some absurd. I just shrug. Ruby snorts.

”Now I am curious!” Ruby says.

Dedi looks at the scene.

”What do you mean?”

”Nothing, this is an internal joke.” I say.