Study Time

"Um, so......"

While she was in the bathroom, I logged into the Free Records Archive and engaged in some very constructive conversations and debates with the others.

To be exact, the thread that made me grind my teeth was this one.

You crazy bastards. Do you want to die? I was fighting desperately to protect my precious disciple from these Magic Tower Masters who possessed personalities that were utter trash, rivaling the worst xianxia villains.

Hmm, the farming guide does look tempting, though......

Still. No matter how much ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠grass you grow, you'd only end up eating grass for the rest of your life. But if I created golems and raided the supermarkets, I'd get piles of well-preserved, delicious processed foods. Enough for the two of us to eat for over a year.

Okay. Decision made.

Multi-element magic and golem crafting it is.

I'd teach her just those two things, have her keep replenishing my water and grass supplies, create another golem or two to handle the grinding, and then I could browse the forums in peace. Perfect timing—she had just stepped out of the bathroom.

She was wearing a tight sleeveless crop top that clung to her body and a short pleated skirt, looking completely lost about what to do with herself. I'd already thought she was pretty back at the PC bang, but now...

She looks like a cheerleader.

It wasn't that strange an outfit by normal standards for women, yet she fidgeted like someone wearing a skirt for the very first time. Of course, if I had been the one to tell her to wear it, she would have refused.

"It's fine. Come over here and sit down. I'll teach you magic."

I guided the hesitant girl to the seat in front of me.

"It's really amazing, though. Out there, just surviving by hiding was hard enough, but a place like this exists..."

She smiled with a complicated expression.

"I really thought I was going to die for sure. Like those people holding out in the PC bang... going out to find food only to get caught by the zombies..."

It seemed those few days had been a nightmare for her as well.

"Still, lasting that long is impressive. Especially with nothing to eat and nowhere to move."

I simply spoke my honest thoughts. If I had been trapped in a building basement machine room for three days straight with no water or food, trembling the whole time...

Hmm. I probably wouldn't have lasted even a single day before dying.

So the fact that she had survived was remarkable. When I told her so, her face turned bright red with embarrassment. It looked like that was just her natural personality.

"U-um... Are you some kind of angel that fell from the sky? Or did you come from another world?"

No. I was just a normal college student who went to the same school as her. But explaining that would inevitably reveal that before I ended up like this, I used to be an ordinary-looking guy, so I kept my mouth shut.

"It must be difficult to talk about. I understand. But you really will teach me magic, right?"

That was the plan.

If it goes well, I might even want to gather other survivors like the ones who escaped that PC bang.

Conveniently, it was free.

So I just have to click the transmit button?

Without hesitation, I pressed it. A message window flashed before her eyes.

"Th-this is..."

Her expression went completely blank. It seemed the knowledge had been directly implanted into her mind, just like when I had learned it. But even though an enormous amount of information had flooded her brain, she looked like she understood absolutely nothing.

"So what exactly is mana... and how am I supposed to use it?"

The cause was obvious. The enlightenment system. She had essentially memorized "how to use multi-element magic" with zero foundational knowledge, so this side effect was inevitable.

Should I explain it step by step? What the hell am I even supposed to...

I had no idea. Instead, I created a cup and water in my hand and took a refreshing sip.

"Like this."

"......?"

I followed up by growing grass on the surface of the water, then burning it with a bright flare. I thought she'd stopped doubting I was a mage after seeing the golems and status windows, but she simply blinked with hollow eyes, unable to believe what she'd just witnessed.

"So the correlation between mana and the elements is..."

In the end, I started a full lecture.

It was basically a plagiarized lecture with the Free Records Archive guide floating beside me the whole time.

"Um, do you have any pens and paper?"

Whether she noticed me constantly glancing into empty air or not, she asked for writing tools and began diligently taking notes on everything I said. She was a first-semester freshman, after all. It seemed she hadn't quite shaken off her high-school habits yet.

"......Do you roughly understand now?"

"No."

Despite all that passion, after thirty minutes of repeated explanations she still couldn't grasp the basics. She'd neatly organized the theory with highlighters and sticky notes, yet...

"I understood that this is mana, and that you draw it from your blood vessels and manifest it as an element through your hands or another medium..."

"If you understand that, you understand everything."

Why couldn't she do it? I genuinely didn't get it. No matter that it was her first time with magic, this was the easiest foundational spell in the entire category.

That's why there aren't many lecture posts here. In the end you have to practice it yourself to get the feel for it.

"......I don't have anything else I can explain. The rest you have to learn by practicing and finding the right feel on your own."

In the end, I sent her back up to the fourth floor. I couldn't keep her here forever, and teaching her more right now didn't seem particularly meaningful.

Besides, I don't really know the theory either. I just do it by feel......

It's usually slow at the start lol. Unless you somehow find a genius disciple, it'll take time. Later on though the disciple can raise their own disciples and it becomes a simple click. But fuck, with no other people around there, is that even possible?

It'll somehow work out on its own.

Since the people on the Free Records Archive all said the same thing, I decided to stop wasting time and catch up on the farming I'd put off. She seemed to study well judging by how neatly she'd taken notes, so I'd trust her for now. If it didn't work, I'd figure something out later.

"Unit 1, you raid the convenience store and clothing shop. Find some clothes that would fit me and Dayeon. Unit 2, take the hardware store and phone shop."

"Understood."

"Leave it to me!"

"If you find any zombies, take them out and collect some Mana Cores while you're at it."

I sent the golems out first. In the meantime, I decided to grind some of the materials needed for Magic Tower growth.

I started by making the Mana Stones I could produce right away. After sitting in an empty room, infusing water with mana and adding stones several times, I realized one problem.

At this rate the building might collapse.

No matter how much the Magic Tower system had magically reinforced the structure, the original building was still a decades-old villa. I wasn't sure if it could handle a sudden thousand-kilogram load without issue.

Though it had held up fine before, and the walls didn't break no matter how much I smashed them, so maybe it would be okay.

In the end I only made about five hundred kilograms of Mana Stones before leaving the room.

While I'm at it, I should look up the manufacturing methods for Mana-infused Iron and Mana Cores too.

Unlike Mana Stones, which could be easily obtained in their natural state in worlds with magic, Mana-infused Iron was mostly created by processing regular iron. The processing methods were basically one of two options.

Just to forge one knife I'd have to turn the Magic Tower into a blacksmith shop. Either mix iron with other mana-infused metals in a 1500-degree furnace, or manufacture it through alchemy.

Those were basically the only two choices. This wasn't a steel mill or power plant, and 1500 degrees wasn't exactly a casual temperature.

Guess I have to learn alchemy......?

Anyway, if I wanted to practice magic on Earth where magic materials were nonexistent, I knew I'd have to learn it eventually. I'd hoped this would be the chance to raise my magic level past 6, but...

"Why won't this one work either?"

It was because I knew nothing about alchemy itself.

In the end I learned 'Alchemy: Mana,' the essential spell everyone needed to manually produce Mana Cores. And in doing so, I finally filled the Level 1 Magic Tower's maximum magic slot limit.

Creating Mana Cores with 'Alchemy: Mana' was easy. A Mana Core was essentially mana that had transformed inside a living creature's body.

Unlike ambient mana in the air, Mana Cores could be absorbed immediately just by chewing and swallowing. Therefore, the reverse process was simple too.

I filled the empty sink with some water and dipped my hand in.

"Ow, that's cold."

If it was this cold the reaction wouldn't occur properly. I lit a fire beside it to gradually raise the temperature.

Roughly forty degrees?

Once it reached a temperature that would feel perfect for a bath, I submerged my hand and drew out the mana. With what felt like cheerful popping sounds, the mana rose from the water in small bubble-like forms.

If I waited a little longer, the extracted mana mass would slowly solidify into a Mana Core.

Making just one completely drains me.

It was probably because each Mana Core contained an enormous amount of mana. After extracting one I suddenly felt exhausted and sleepy. Or maybe it was because I hadn't been sleeping properly thanks to the zombies.

It sucks the mana right out, so you end up using a lot of your own internal mana and it grows faster. By the way, alchemy lololol.

I should teach her this later once I have some free magic slots.

With that, my simple introduction to alchemy was complete. Now I just had to make Mana-infused Iron...

Apply a mana reaction to a material containing elemental power to refine it into a pure elemental ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠force—essence—then maintain a temperature where the mana-academic structure doesn't break while combining it with other attributes and......

"What the hell are you even saying?"

No wonder alchemy was always called a difficult, unpopular hipster magic. This was supposed to be Level 1 basic alchemy...?

Wait a minute. The fourth floor. From what I'd seen earlier, she seemed pretty good at studying.

"Um, hey, can you come down for a moment?"

Now that she'd accepted the disciple contract and gained mana inside her body, I could see her through mana detection. I sent her a telepathic message.