Month: January 2016

When William was twenty years old, he was extremely used to calculating that age as twelve and eight, instead of two tens. Though, no matter how he calculated it, the importance of what happened was the same. William received, somewhat unexpectedly, the first response to the flyers he had created. He wasn’t even very hopeful that there would be anyone else reincarnated from Earth.

Of course, it could also be someone trying to cheat there way to a reward. There had been a few of those in the past, but William had confirmed they really didn’t know anything. This time, however, he had a good feeling. The person who showed up was a well dressed merchant. William would have called his features “Asian”, though there was no Asia here. However, there was a country called Liaoyang to the west, and people from around there tended to have features similar to what William thought of as Asian.

William invited the man into his office. Though he called it an office, it was little more than a room with a desk and two chairs. After some greetings, William got to the main point. “Now then, since you are here, I’ll need to verify your information. [Do you speak English?]”

The man looked confused briefly, then started thinking. “Umm… [Not… very… well.] English… wasn’t my first language.”

“That accent… is it… Indian?”

“That’s right, and even though I was alright before, I haven’t spoken English in, well, twenty-two years.”

“That’s understandable. Now, if I could just get a final confirmation…” William pulled out a globe. He’d had someone make the globe itself, then painted a… roughly accurate drawing of Earth on it. “If you could point to where you were from?”

The man rotated the globe and pointed straight to India. “Here, approximately.”

“Good, I just wanted to make sure… “ William rotated the globe, and pointed at the west coast of the United States. “I was from California… before… well, I died.”

William confirmed some things with the man, Zhan Shengrui, that he was curious about. It turns out that William had actually died earlier than Zhan Shengrui by a few months, but was reincarnated here about two years later. William also acquired one of the globes to test for magical potential. Unlike William, his potential was pretty bad. Which, sadly, made it better. It also allowed William to cross one thing off his list of reasons why he might not have magical potential.

Zhan Shengrui was a merchant, basically, because he had memories and prior education, which allowed him to get a step up. He felt it suited him better than any other choices he could make, and he had the talent to make a living. Unlike William, though, he seemed to have some gaps in his memory. William wasn’t sure if it was related to how he died (a car crash) or something else. However, at least he now had two data points. That was much more than he’d had before.

After paying the reward money (even if he had mostly come to satisfy his own curiosity, the man was, after all, a merchant) William arranged a dinner with his parents. After all, merchants could always use contacts in different countries, and Zhan Shengrui would be travelling many places, so perhaps they could both benefit. He also asked him to look into a book, manual, or some such on staff techniques. Having someone who could directly obtain it would be better than hoping to find something through barely-known merchants.

Over the weeks that Zhan Shengrui stayed in town, they met several times. After all, there weren’t many chanced to meet with other reincarnated people, and they both had questions for each other. Zhan Shengrui promised to visit again, when future trips brought him to Ostana.

—–

William was currently watching Lila in a duel. He sighed. The sighing wasn’t just because the duel was rather one sided and boring. There were other reasons involved as well. Lately, his parents had been hinting that he should get married, or at least look in that direction. William didn’t have any particular objections to the idea itself. Lila was quite attractive, as well as some other girls he knew. However, even though he had now lived a second life all the way into early adulthood, he still felt much older.

If he had to marry someone, he wanted her to be at at least a somewhat similar maturity level. This made things very awkward for him. If they were around his physical age, they were generally going to be less mature. On the other hand, if they had the emotional maturity he wanted, they would probably be at least twice as old as him physically. William couldn’t do anything about the fact that both situations felt weird.

In the particular case of Lila, he liked her, but not in such a way to want to marry her. Besides the fact that she was still rather childish, she really just felt like a little sister. Though, she was technically slightly older.

Though he wouldn’t object a relationship with someone if he came across a good opportunity, he personally had different priorities. Soon (relatively, anyway), he would be able to access some of the formerly restricted sections of the library. William almost couldn’t wait. It wasn’t a process that could be rushed, however. It required a minimum of three years teaching or research experience. It also required showing a certain amount of responsibility.

Some of the books were restricted because they were delicate and hard to reproduce. There were also many that were restricted because the knowledge could end up with someone hurting himself or others. Some… were just in those sections because they required more experience to be safe, or even useful. Those could be lent out by someone with access, though it was very rarely done. William thought what he wanted was likely in the latter category, but it was easiest if he had the access himself. In addition, he wanted to keep at least a few things secret, even from those he trusted like Professor Pierce, because it wouldn’t benefit them to know but could cause problems for William if the information got out.

Ask Chris #3 is out.

Also, don’t be surprised if time actually passes in this story. Not all of a character’s life has to be interesting. I’ll try to only write about the interesting parts, though 😛

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Professor Farman and William had come to an understanding. Professor Farman remained grumpy and strict, and William continued to secretly be his favorite student. Though, that wouldn’t really be true any longer, since William would no longer be a student. Instead, he would be a research assistant. Although Professor Farman taught classes, most of the higher level faculty also were researchers to some degree or other. (more…)

Hello~ Here’s #3.

#3

From Horius:

Thanks for the insight, Chris. Magic is also depenidng of movement by sound, huh? Well, four new main questions then.

1. Have you ever heard or seen that very experienced and talented magicans lose control of their spells in a battlefield? When no, in which distance to each other do magicans stand on the battlefield, and in which distance are loud spells intercepted?

-Sometimes, though you may be overestimating how much I’ve been on battlefields. Generally, a wizard would stand as far away as he thinks his spells will reach. The thirty meters for the dueling arena is rather closer than (powerful) wizards are able to cast some spells from. Generally, they could cast out of easy hearing of other wizards, but the travel time of most spells would still allow them to counter somehow.

2. Where there in the past beings which had the ability to disturb spells? When yes, did surviving magicians notice some weird sound or maybe pressure on their ears, and where these beings able to disrupt sound in a great distance?

-I know some things can disrupt spells, but I haven’t seen them personally. Besides, you know, hitting the wizard to make them lose concentration. So, I haven’t talked to wizards about it. William seems unnecessarily excited about that thought for some reason though?

3. Did it in the past happen, that two sorcerer casted the same spell syncron to each other, in close distance to each other, in roughly the same direction? When yes, please describe what happened.

-Like, a combined spell? Usually their spells just collide, though I heard maybe with practice they can work together to create a more powerful spell.

4. Was there ever a case where sorcerers took turns in chanting one very long spell? When yes, did anything unusual happen? When nothing unusual happened, do you know if they had similar voices?

-I haven’t seen any of this, but William said that it usually goes badly, according to records. Something about… umm… William! Explain! *William comes onto the scene* During the time of trading off control of the spell/chanting, the mana is briefly uncontrolled, usually resulting in magical feedback (i.e. everyone nearby getting blown up). There are no records that I’ve found about any success in this (though maybe if I can get into the restricted library…).  The records don’t mention anything about voices at all.

 

From Winterice:

Would higher pitches aka microwave and radiowave frequencies make mana even easier to manipulate??

-What are those? *Chris asks William* He says “No idea, probably can’t generate those anyway. If it could be done, it might take more energy than it’s worth.”

Back to your regularly scheduled programming.

———–

 

Since William had reached eighteen years old with his body matured, his staffwork had grown significantly better. He would no longer come even close to losing to either Lila or Marius in pure staff technique. William would have been happy if this was because he was a genius, but he knew the real answer was something different. Quite frankly, he had more experience. Even if the others spent the same amount of time training battle techniques, he obviously spent more time improving his body any staff abilities. He couldn’t use magic, after all. Chris could, but that was something different. (more…)