Chapter 189: The Mana Communication System

After Turning into a Girl, I Gained a Game Panel

After Fulan came out of the society president’s room, those few mages were still waiting there.

They had also received a new order from Elise, namely to take Fulan downstairs first and register her with the Mana Communication System.

As Fulan followed them back down, the leading mage suddenly spoke.

“My name is Dylan. I am Society President Elise’s disciple.”

Fulan froze for a moment, then responded with her own name as well.

Dylan had originally not intended to tell this mage, who had been swept into the center of the storm, his name. But his mentor’s actions had made him realize something.

His mentor truly thought highly of this mage, not because of the recent fame of her teacher, but because she herself was genuinely talented.

If it were merely for the sake of her teacher’s current reputation, it would have been enough just to bring her downstairs and register her.

But his mentor had given him an additional order: to place Fulan into one of the projects currently being overseen by Mage Philip, a project in which he himself was already participating.

There was a great deal hidden within that arrangement. Although he guessed that after joining, Fulan would be much the same as he was, doing all sorts of tedious work under Philip, he also suspected that the reason for her inclusion was the same as his own.

Elise wanted them to learn how researchers actually worked within a project.

That alone showed how much Elise valued Fulan, and it made him want to build a connection with her.

“Come to think of it, I’m also part of the project you’ll be joining next.”

That immediately piqued Fulan’s interest. Just as she was about to ask for details, Dylan said, “I can’t talk about it here. If you really want to know, you’ll see for yourself in a few days when you arrive at the project group. This project is confidential.”

Dylan then explained why he could not reveal the project’s details.

This had been one of the Northern Society’s rules ever since its founding.

At the end of the day, every mage regarded the publication of their own results as something highly personal.

Unless two people were very close, they would not casually reveal what they were currently researching.

Even in large-scale projects led by certain mages, the assistants brought in to help were strictly forbidden from disclosing any part of the project’s details.

Anyone who violated the rule would be expelled from the project on the spot...

Dylan led Fulan down to the first-floor hall and stopped at a window in one corner.

He knocked on the wall beside the window. After waiting a moment, the window opened, and Dylan instructed the person inside, “Register a newly arrived mage for the Mana Communication System. Bring out a Mana Receiver Tablet.”

A moment later, they heard a set of rapid footsteps from inside, gradually fading into the distance.

Dylan turned to Fulan, pulled out a Mana Receiver Tablet from beneath his robe, and began introducing it to her.

“This is the panel used to operate the Mana Communication System. Once you register, you’ll be able to directly browse all the knowledge recorded within the system. The knowledge you exchange Points for is also accessed through this.”

“One thing to note is that if you want to use this Mana System, you must be within a designated area.”

“At present, the only place where this system can be used is inside this Mage Tower, and even here it does not cover everything. Only certain areas are enabled.”

“The entire first floor of the Mage Tower is covered, but that is not the case on the other floors. On most floors, only a small section can be used for access, so each floor has its own dedicated Mana Access Room.”

“And on some floors, because large-scale spell devices are installed there, the Mana operating system cannot exist alongside them, so it cannot be used there at all.”

While Dylan was explaining all this to Fulan, the person behind the window returned and handed out a brand-new Mana Receiver Tablet.

The moment Fulan took it, she immediately began experimenting with it. She merely touched a raised part along its edge, and a black-and-white display instantly appeared across the crystal surface.

That was right. Fulan looked carefully at the display before her and confirmed that it truly was only black and white.

Correspondingly, the entire screen contained nothing but text. There were not even any icons serving as visual markers.

What Fulan saw on the screen now was a prompt asking her to register and log in. Out of habit, she immediately swiped her finger across it, but nothing happened.

“Um... that isn’t something you operate directly with your hand. You have to use the input area on the back of the crystal tablet to enter information.”

Dylan frowned slightly when he saw what she had done and reminded her.

Fulan turned the Mana Receiver Tablet over and only then noticed a recessed area on the back.

Then, under Dylan’s guidance, she gradually figured out how it was used. To her surprise, it was actually a remarkably advanced form of handwriting input.

The only problem was that the handwriting recognition demanded far too much precision. The user had to write a perfectly standard letter before it would register properly.

That was difficult even for mages with strong Mental Power and fine control. Worse still, if one made a mistake while entering something, the only option was to clear everything. There was no backspace.

Only after trying three times did Fulan finally manage to write the name [Laiyi] onto it.

When Dylan saw the name she had entered, he raised his brows slightly and reminded her, “If you ever want to change your name later, you can come back here, spend three gold coins to buy a new one, and simply write a new name on it.”

“And any papers you publish in the future can only be released under the name you use on the Mana Communication System.”

After years of operation, the Mana Communication System had been officially declared for full promotion by Elise five years ago. As for the old paper publication model, it had long since been abolished.

After hearing that, Fulan fell into thought.

Dylan continued, “Right now, your account should not have a single Point in it, so you can only look at the free papers. Here, just search for 000001. We search for papers by number here.”

There’s no keyword search? Fulan suppressed the question in her heart and did not voice it.

Compared to letters, numbers were far easier to input. Very quickly, a new page popped up before her, densely packed with text.

Fulan only gave it a rough glance before frowning.

In her view, this Mana operating system was far too underdeveloped. Leaving aside all the useful functions it lacked, the text layout alone was already deeply uncomfortable to read.

The entire document had no variation in size, shading, or weight. There were only very basic line breaks, just enough to keep all the words from being crammed together.

Dylan coughed a few times, then said, “You can take your time figuring it out here. Mage Philip has a few matters to deal with, so we won’t be joining that project until three days from now. I’ll notify you when the time comes.”

Dylan knew that mages were always passionate about exploring the unknown. Every mage who got hold of this thing for the first time would spend an incredibly long time enthusiastically fiddling with it.

Even Dylan himself, the first time he used it, had sat in the hall searching from Number 1 all the way to Number 1000. He had spent an entire night doing nothing but that.

In the end, when he counted them up, there were only about twenty papers among them that could be viewed for free.