Mana-Strong Afternoon: Practice and a Noble Encounter
It was a mana-strong afternoon after all classes had ended. No matter how I crunched the numbers, to tackle the sudden assignment dumped on us before the next class, I'd have to split it up during daylight hours. Then, after dinner, a bit more on the other homework, and today's schedule should wrap up, right? If I procrastinated, my senior's metaphor about not being able to rest on the weekend would hit me like a real hammer. If unexpected events piled up from behind, the only option left would be cutting sleep. To avoid that disaster, I headed first to the magic practice room the teacher had mentioned.
Opening my student handbook, a bunch of points popped up on the map. All of them were magic practice rooms. There were a ton of places to practice magic? Was there some kind of magic ban in certain areas? A quick search of the rules in the handbook turned up no designated no-magic zones. It didn't seem like they were just for stress relief either—maybe they'd installed them all over Pristine purely for research purposes?
I rummaged through my info for a bit, pondering its value, but nothing special came to mind no matter how I turned it over. So, I relaxed and headed to the nearest one. It wasn't up or down, but off to the side, following the ring from the affiliated school. To kill time on the way, I pulled out my pad and scrolled through the bulletin boards I'd missed during class.
But after skimming just a few boards, the practice room appeared. Right in front of me... and it showed as in use. Come on, with tech this advanced, couldn't they at least add reservations or real-time availability? There was some kind of info terminal near the entrance. Checking it out, the screen displayed "In Use," along with entry time and estimated usage duration. No name, but since they'd just gone in, better to find another spot than wait.
So, I fired up the student handbook again and hunted for alternatives. Scanning the map, I started to get why there were so many. They must've spread them out to handle rush hours from multiple students. The downside? Catch bad timing, and you might end up trekking to the opposite side. Closest available one... found it. But it was up the hill. There were others on the same level or downhill, but uphill seemed smarter now. Once the assignment wrecked me, climbing that hill would be pure hell.
With time to spare, I decided to head up. I checked carefully this time to avoid another dead end, and luckily, the door was open even from afar. And best of all, no one inside. I almost just walked in, but remembering the info terminal from before, I went over to it. The layout was different from the one below, but it had a terminal too. Tapping the screen prompted me to scan my student handbook. Doing so auto-set a two-hour session.
Aha. Wondered how they managed it—turns out it books your slot like this? And once inside, it even displayed the assignment details. With automation this slick, no reservations or live status must be intentional inconvenience. Kinda funny how they nudged exercise into every nook and cranny. For desk-job researchers glued to chairs, though, this might be the survival workout keeping them alive.
Thinking that, I stepped in, checked the handbook, and started practicing magic.
Vmmm. Crackle! Crackle!
Being alone didn't magically boost success rates. A few hits, way more misses, but successes steadily ticked up. Around the twentieth, a recorded announcement played from the practice room speakers. Time to go already? Nope, not that. It explained the magic I'd just used. I'd secretly hoped for a quick exit, but I kept filling the quota while listening.
The broadcast described it as the first quantified magic—stripped to bare essentials, basic formula only. Under these conditions, the minimum mana to activate was constant, regardless of the caster. That led to the birth of the electronvolt unit, named after this spell. History lesson after history lesson flowed, boring as usual, but this hooked me with its eerie familiarity. Especially since it mirrored the electronvolt from my old world—just "electronvolt" here too, though theirs was "b" and