Chapter 188: The Academic System |
“So, you came to the Northern Society because you want to study the spells unique to those various schools, didn’t you?”
Fulan nodded quickly. That was the main reason she had come to the Northern Society in the first place.
If it had been the old her, she might still have hesitated. What if one school’s spells were especially powerful? Once she trained their proficiency high enough, perhaps she could simply crush everyone else.
But she had already abandoned that line of thinking. For one thing, as her spells rose in tier, the speed at which she could increase their proficiency had become slower and slower.
At the root of it, the amount of proficiency she gained from practicing spells was simply too little. It was starting to fall behind the growth of her skills.
Under normal circumstances, every safe and steady casting of a First-Tier spell gave her about three points of proficiency.
But that growth in proficiency was not fixed. It would increase depending on how difficult the thing she accomplished with it was.
For example, if she used a spell to severely wound or kill an enemy, the proficiency gained would also rise sharply.
When she killed Connor, the commander of the Bloodwolf Knights, every technique that had injured him received a substantial boost.
Fulan had discovered long ago that if she achieved something unprecedented in a particular art, the bonus proficiency she received was enormous.
Her Forging, for example, had advanced precisely because she had “created” the steam engine, something that had never before existed in this world.
Likewise, when her Runology had successfully reproduced a true ancient rune, that had also earned her a large amount of proficiency.
But content of that kind clearly required a certain amount of luck and inspiration to accomplish.
If she really wanted to rely on creative work to grind the proficiency of a particular spell, that would be rather difficult.
Fulan generally did not have that much inspiration to begin with. Most of her ideas came from certain “experiences” from her previous life.
And in this other world, those “experiences” had almost no corresponding magical content. She still had to create everything herself.
The second problem was that if she specialized in only a single school, her attributes would end up comparatively low.
The reason her Mental Power was so high now was undoubtedly due in large part to the Mental attributes stacked from multiple schools.
And the more professions she acquired, the more attributes she could gain.
That benefit far exceeded the returns from specializing in only one school.
She felt that if she stayed at the First Tier a little longer and found another seven or eight First-Tier professions that increased Mental Power, she might even be able to cast the Second-Tier spell Habos had given her.
So she had never given up on her plan to learn the spells of every school. That was also the reason she had directly refused to join the Joberna Society.
And the Northern Society happened to perfectly suit her needs.
Here, she could not only study the spells of other societies, but also “launder” the spells she already possessed and make them legitimate.
Back in the Antir Region, that had not mattered much. People there did not know enough about the spells of each school. They would only say, Aren’t they all just spells?
But in a place where mages actually gathered, that would not work. She could not openly display spells from other schools. If those schools noticed, she would be in serious trouble.
But once she was in the Northern Society, she could push everything onto the Northern Society itself.
“I learned this spell at the Northern Society.”
If one day someone recognized that she had cast a spell from another school, that was exactly what Fulan would say.
After all, not even the Northern Society itself knew just how many spells from other schools they had “borrowed,” and the other schools were hardly going to travel all the way here just to check whether there were papers related to them.
“Yes. I’ve always wanted to learn the spells of every school, it’s just that the Alliance...”
Fulan trailed off, but even without her finishing the sentence, Elise probably knew exactly what she meant.
Elise smiled faintly and walked to Fulan’s side before saying slowly, “Very well. If you truly want to study those spells here, I cannot stop you... But you must also remember that among mages, no knowledge is free.”
“Although I have opened a path for learning the spells of those schools, if you want to study them, you must still make enough contributions, just like the mages of the Society, and exchange those contributions for the spells you want.”
“Within the Northern Society, the circulating currency is something called Points. Inside the Society, knowledge is exchanged through Points.”
“You can earn Points by participating in a large-scale project led by a mage, or by publishing your own paper within the Society. Every time someone spends Points to read your paper, you will receive a portion of those Points as a reward.”
Fulan blinked. Since the Northern Society was a major society, it naturally had to possess a corresponding knowledge exchange system. Otherwise, it could hardly be called a society at all. It might as well be called a sharing club instead.
Fulan could accept a knowledge exchange system like this within the Society. After all, it still allowed her to learn the spells of other schools.
Elise pressed her lips together slightly, then continued, “Oh, right. I assume you have never received training in a researcher’s academic system, have you? In that case, I’ll find a project for you and place you in it so you can learn a little...”
Elise had suddenly remembered that Habos had once told her Fulan had never undergone training in the Alliance’s researcher system, so she might need a bit of guidance.
However, considering that Fulan had once created two apprentice-tier spells on her own, Elise decided not to send her through the Northern Society’s formal researcher training.
That training was specifically designed for mages who had advanced locally within the Northern Society, so that they could be integrated into the Society’s structure as quickly as possible.
But in Elise’s view, that sort of training probably did not suit Fulan very well.
As she saw it, Fulan did not currently lack “inspiration” for modifying or creating spells.
What Fulan definitely lacked, however, was a standardized research method, such as how to conduct sufficient research into a particular kind of magic, and how to write up her results in the form of a paper.
After hearing that, Fulan hesitated for a moment, but ultimately nodded.
Although she already had quite a few “results” of her own, most of them drawn from the “experiences” of her previous life, if the society president was telling her to join a project and practice there, then naturally she had her reasons.
After all, Fulan still did not know the exact process for publishing papers here. Going to learn it would only do her good.
Elise nodded in satisfaction and then added, “Oh, and one more thing. When you go downstairs later and register with one of the Mana Communication Systems, remember not to use your real name. Just make up any name you like.”
Elise knew that Fulan’s current level of magical research still had room for improvement. Under those circumstances, if Fulan were caught by the people who had come looking for trouble because of Habos’s reputation, it would ultimately become a nuisance.
That was why she deliberately warned Fulan not to register under her real name.
Fulan blinked, then agreed.