Chương 38: Overpowered Ingredient

With his first class out of the way, Ryland figured it was high time he took the permission slip from Heldon to get into the Department of Herbology and Potions. Sadly, he ended up needing to wait a whole day before the document he needed was signed by his mentor. Ryland didn't mind the wait. The piece of himself tucked away within the academy was stable for the time being. Otherwise, some of his Inscribed Glyphs would have been blaring their alarms.

The wait time allowed him to make the office room he had received his own, in a sense. Technically, it was the room where all of the graduate students under High Academ Heldon were supposed to be working. But since Ryland was the only person in that category, the room was his alone for all intents and purposes. The room was also very… Heldon-themed. Too many soft couches and cushions, a cloying number of scented candles, a fireplace that had purple flames spewing violet vapour, and so on.

Ryland needed the time he had to redecorate it a little bit to make it somewhat less distracting and more officelike. His most important task had been to hang up the little calendar he had received from the academy as part of his orientation souvenirs. It conveniently marked off all the important dates in the semester. The first of which would be the seminar he had to attend. While Ryland had transferred credits to ensure he didn't need to attend any of the classes, he couldn't bypass the seminar.

That one was specifically about research, and mandatory for all students. So, Ryland had earmarked the date on his universal watch as well. It reminded him that he had to think about his research topic. His last thesis wouldn't be fun since he had already solved the problem of individual rifts. Something new then…

Once Ryland had finished setting up his office space and found the document he needed signed inside Heldon's chambers, such as the tax documents for his salary—which was something he'd need to send over to Stackhurst—he headed out.

"Thank you," the attendant in front of the department doors said, returning the slip of paper Ryland had given her. She hadn't been here during orientation, which wasn't surprising.

"The signature is legitimate."

"Really?" Ryland said.

"How curious." She stared at him.

"You didn't know if the sign was real or not?"

"Well… my mentor appears to be asleep most of the time. Frankly, I have no idea if he actually wakes up to put down his signature or not." Since the attendant was starting to look like she was regretting signing off on Ryland's entry into the Department of Herbology and Potion's storehouse, Ryland quickly took his leave and went in. It was rather pleasant. With the aid of powerful Inscribed Glyphs, the department had turned their storage area into a large grove, reminiscent of the botanical gardens outside.

Tall trees stretched off towards the ceiling that was essentially a perpetual open sky with the sun shining down. The branches of the trees had twisted and bent together to form various shelves and alcoves where the ingredients were stored. Those that weren't live, that was. This being the Herbology and Potions department, a lot of what they contained were along the lines of plants, crops, algae, fungi, and so on. Things that could naturally be found within a living ecosystem, artificial or otherwise.

Ryland cast his Glyph of Questing and followed the direction it led. He had been walking through the canopied passageways for about twenty or so minutes before he found a familiar figure.

"What in all the Realms are you doing here?" Sint asked.

"Looking for ingredients!" Ryland said brightly.

"Same as you, yes?" She had seen him approach well before he had reached her, but even from a distance, Ryland had seen her tense up. He decided against reacting to that, despite his disappointment at their camaraderie from the Entrance Trials not lasting long. That said, she had called him horrifying even as she had thanked him back then. Still, he was trying to remain upbeat. Sint felt like a good person.

"I am," Sint said.

"But that doesn't tell me anything. Which is very typical of you."

"Is it now?" Ryland continued walking as he followed his Glyph of Questing.

"I'm afraid I don't actually know what I'm looking for. Which I'm guessing is not the case for you." Sint graciously decided to accompany him, which Ryland appreciated by beaming at her. That made her face go through multiple different expressions too quickly for him to read.

"I am looking for particular carcasses," Sint said by way of explanation.

"Bodies I can use to practice Inscriptions on."

"Very interesting." Ryland's Glyph twisted in the air so he had to change direction. Sint was eyeing it curiously.

"What sort of Inscriptions were you hoping to practice, if you don't mind me asking?"

"I don't mind sharing." She hesitated for a bit, her voice growing softer.

"Maybe you'll even have insights."

"I'll certainly share if I do." She looked at him sharply.

"Don't agree so quickly without hearing me out." Ryland laughed softly.

"I trust my intuition. Go on, then." Sint licked her thin lips, briefly revealing her fangs.

"It's for my research topic. I'm trying to improve living-body Inscriptions." Ryland needed a moment to recall the branch of magic she was referring to. He also understood why she had had hesitated a bit. Living-body Inscriptions were, in certain Realms, taboo. In fact, now that he thought about it, it was taboo on Revorel—Sint's homeland. Normally, when it came to living matter, most mages could only perform Inscriptions on themselves.

That alone was a difficult process that involved recreating the channels of one's manasoul on their skin, which allowed Glyphs to manifest and interact with the physical plane in a more tangible manner than just casting spell circles did. It also bypassed the need for learning the Glyph in question. Most mages found it nigh on impossible to acquire more than one Soul Glyph. They bypassed this limit via Inscriptions either on their bodies or on close personal items, like a Mage Knight's sword.

This allowed them to use more spell circles than just what their Soul Glyph allowed. But creating Inscriptions on other living creatures was not only a tremendously difficult task but posed several ethical challenges. Potentially. Like most things, there were good and bad sides to the issue. If one sought to create an Inscription on a creature besides oneself, then the caster either needed to inject their mana into the subject creature or take control of the subject's mana directly.

In both cases, the caster gained a very direct and near-intimate level of control over the subject. Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. Ryland had seen powerful Healer Mages use the technique to perform lifesaving operations and bring people back from the brink of death. He had also seen evil tyrants rule over their dominions with the same power.

"Your silence is a little unnerving," Sint said. Ryland chuckled.

"Apologies, I simply got lost in thought. I wasn't even checking which direction I was heading…" They had appeared in an area lined with darker wood, where the shelves and cubbies created by the looping and whirling branches held bones and skeletal structures of all sorts of creatures. The largest ones, several times Ryland's size in his current body, were hanging via vines from the branches overhead.

"Wrong turn?" Sint asked.

"Indeed." Ryland turned and followed the actual path indicated by his Glyph of Questing. Since it pointed directly to his target like a compass, it was up to him to perform the pathfinding.

"Did you have an application area in mind for your living-body Inscriptions?"

"Yes, of course. My goal is to create Transient Prints with Inscriptions, tying them directly to the subject's mana. That way, they can direct what sort of Glyphs it will become." Ryland raised his eyebrows. Inscriptions were generally permanent. Sint's idea was…

"Impressive. I applaud your ambition!" Sint looked like she had choice words to say about her supposed ambition, but then she caught sight of something. She left Ryland's side to head over to one of the nearby plant-shelves, pulling down a dried leaf big enough to raft on.

"Ah, a Floating Strangler Leaf," Ryland said. Sint raised a surprised eyebrow at him.

"You recognize this?"

"Of course. Why wouldn't I?" She clearly decided against replying to that and took the large, dried leaf to the next attendant they came across. The wiry, bald man jotted down her name and some numbers associated with the ingredient she was picking, used a strange Glyphtech stick to scan the Glyph Inscribed on the leaf's edge, before finally allowing her to run off with it. Whatever words she exchanged with the man had him following them from then on.

"It's easier to just scan off whatever you need as soon as you find it," he said in a reedy voice.

"Rather than hauling it all to you at once?" Sint asked.

"Wouldn't that be more convenient?"

"For me, yes. For you, not so much. I don't mind. I'm getting older, so I need the exercise now more than ever." He flashed a soft smile at Ryland.

"Anything I can help you with?"

"I'm not certain," Ryland said.

"But I will gladly tell you once I am. Thank you." They travelled through the department's storage area for a while. Ryland soon learned that Sint wasn't so much accompanying him as her own path just happened to align with his. Several times, she'd pause and walk off to grab something she needed.

"Ah, Dourbane," Ryland said, internally cringing.

"Horrid taste, from what I remember."

"Indeed!" the attendant said.

"I'm surprised you know of it. Especially since you insist you're not a Herbologist or a Potionmaker."

"I am no longer surprised," Sint said pointedly. The attendant looked at her quizzically and Ryland just smiled. Later on, Sint picked out the carcass of an aquatic creature that looked a bit like a sea serpent but with a maw that was overlarge and rather monstrous.

"I don't even recognize this one," Sint murmured.

"But this would be a perfect specimen to test on."

"Unfathomed Hunter," Ryland said.

"I'm surprised you have one here. They're not native to Vyrd."

"Indeed," the attendant said.

"We acquired them from Keels." Ah, right. Transferring rare ingredients and specimens was just another perk of the Accords. They moved on. Of course, Ryland wasn't just following them around. His Glyph of Questing was more or less pointing in the same general direction his companions were taking. As such, he was fine with the company. It kept things sort of fun. Afterwards, the attendant started a little game.

He had managed to cajole Sint into revealing her goal of testing Inscriptions, so now he was practically pointing out all the various things she could use for her experiments. Turned out, the majority of ingredients and items he kept indicating were things Sint was unfamiliar with. It also turned out that Ryland knew whatever it was that the older man was pointing to nine times out of ten.

"You truly don't recognize this?" he asked. Ryland briefly frowned at the froglike creature that had been trapped inside a large block of amber.

"Despite dredging through a good number of memories, I can't recall ever encountering such a beast." The attendant laughed.

"Finally." He cleared his throat when Sint looked at him oddly.

"Anyway. This is a Wartbeast. They're terrible croakers." There were more little catches like that. The attendant seemed to be genuinely enjoying himself, and even Ryland found it stimulating at some level. For all that he could employ terrifically powerful magic, none of his bodies had eidetic memory, so practicing his recall in that way was actually a good exercise. Sint was looking more and more flustered as time went on.

She had acquired a whole heap of things to carry out her research on, so it wasn't like she needed to trawl through the department for more items. Yet, she seemed caught up in the weird game between Ryland and the attendant. He somehow got the feeling she was disaster-watching.

"Ah." The attendant came to a stop all of a sudden.

"It would seem we've come to the end of our little journey."

"We have?" Ryland asked. His Glyph of Questing was still pointing to the way forward, so he wasn't about to agree with that assessment just yet.

"Yes." The attendant faced Ryland seriously.

"Beyond this point, we'll be reaching the restricted section of the department's storage area. You don't have special permission, from what I remember, so I'm afraid I can't allow you to proceed. If you could kindly follow me, I can take you back to the entrance." Ryland had noticed that things had indeed changed. He spotted a few more attendants in the distance.

His magical senses also picked up Glyphs of Monitoring keeping an eye over the entire area alongside a whole host of other Inscribed Glyphs and magical defences.

"I'm afraid I might have business in the restricted area," Ryland said.

"Do you have approval?" the attendant asked.

"That's the real question here." Ryland showed him the document from Heldon, but the man just shook his head.

"I'm afraid the department doesn't recognize approvals from non-department faculty," he said.

"Not when it comes to the restricted zone. Unless of course, you have special permission… or are special enough yourself to merit an irregular entry…" Sint's lips and eyes thinned. She looked like she was on the verge of saying something about that. Ryland frowned too. The man's strange little game of testing his memory now took a slightly sour turn. The attendant had been testing him. Rumours. Viren had mentioned those as well. In truth, Ryland wasn't surprised.

He wasn't exactly hiding his approach or his goals or even his prowess. Others were noting him, for one reason or another. Some, like this shrewd man, were possibly even seeking something from him. It was something he was prepared to deal with.

"You're open to these irregular entries?" Ryland asked.

"Provided the entrant is exceptional enough? Doesn't that breach ethics? For what is the point of having a policy if it is only selectively enforced? Because it's not policy then. It's discrimination." The attendant's eyes widened at being called out.

"Well, doesn't holding the kind of power you do mean you're naturally discriminating against others?" Ryland was tempted to actually give that line of thinking a good amount of consideration. It made him recall something Sint had said at the end of their last meeting. That great power—whether in terms of magic or wealth—couldn't be accumulated without performing some atrocities. Potentially discriminating atrocities. Sint seemed to be thinking along the same lines because her whiskers bristled.

Her fangs had made an appearance too, though she was clearly reining herself in.

"Powerful, is it?" Ryland said, changing the conversation's direction.

"Now what would give you that impression?"

"Oh, come now. I've been quizzing you on crap no one in this entire Academy is supposed to know save a couple of High Academs. I've been watching you walk around like you've been here before. I've heard all the rumours from the Entrance Trials."

"What exact rumours have you heard?" The attendant looked a little annoyed.

"The fastest second-stage clear in academy history." Sint choked on air.

"Beating a Calamity-cursed Exalted -ranked monster in the first-stage." Sint's whiskers stiffened. Ryland was surprised too. He had thought the monster had been Mithril-ranked.

"Need me to tell you more?"

"No, thank you. That was very enlightening. My gratitude is genuine." Ryland turned away.

"I'll be returning before long with the requisite documentation and permissions. And also a letter of reprimand." The attendant's eyes widened.

"You're complaining about me?" Ryland had turned away from the man, but he could almost hear the way multiple scenarios running through his head.

"That won't help." He laughed nervously.

"I was merely joking. Who'd ever believe that a trusted employee of over a decade would ever contravene academy policy in that manner?" Ryland merely smiled as he glanced at Sint.

"I've got corroboration, don't I?" Sint's jaw tightened. All her fangs were bared now, her scorn fixed on the man who was no longer keeping up with them.

"You're lucky you're getting just a stupid letter after the stunt you just pulled."

"I—""Believe your own damn rumours. Because the next time you do anything this idiotic is the last time you'll do anything." With that, she stalked away, soon catching up to Ryland and walking abreast with him.

"Rather harsh," Ryland said. Sint scowled. Her expression smoothed quickly, however. She took a deep breath, seeming to wrestle with something before she faced Ryland.

"If you want to get into the restricted zone, I can help."