Chapter 52 - A Budding Scientist in a Fantasy World

As Alice was wrapping up her thoughts, she started to go through her classes and pick her Perks. She had unlocked a total of five over the course of the experiment, which was a record high for her. She was more than a little eager to see what she had available. Survivor was the easiest pick, since she had already decided roughly what she wanted a long time ago, while reading through the list of known Perks in the Church of the System.

Moderate Tissue Regeneration

Requirements: Survivor level 40 or   higher, Endurance 100 or greater

Once per day, you may regenerate a   great deal of damaged tissue and internal organ matter, healing you from even   potentially fatal wounds or missing parts of limbs (hand-size or smaller).   May only be used once per day.

Increases the effect of the   [Endurance] stat by 10%

(Note: If you lose an entire arm,   this Perk WILL help you eventually recover the lost limb, but it will take   several days.)

(Note: Regenerating large amounts   of organic matter also requires proper nutrients. This can be paid over said   days, but each time you use this Perk, you will need to eat a great deal more   afterwards.)

(Note – it impossible to recover   from destruction of the brain, regardless of method used. If your brain is   damaged heavily enough, recovery is impossible.)

Alice didn’t even take a serious look at the other options. While they were okay, they didn’t offer as much as this one did. Besides, Alice had already realized, and accepted, that it would probably be very hard for her to level up [Survivor] in the future. It felt like a waste of her extra class slot in some sense, but at the same time, Alice didn’t think it was a terrible idea to have one class ‘wasted’ in order to have an emergency plan just in case everything went horribly wrong somehow. At least until her Magic was really up to par, she felt that keeping the class around was still useful.

Therefore, this Perk did exactly what she was hoping the Survivor class would do for her. It provided a pseudo Organic Seed – one that she wouldn’t need months or years of time and training to use, unlike her real Organic Seed. If things hit the fan, she would at least have some safety margin. If things went well, Alice would never need to use the Perk, but just in case. At some point in the future, she might drop [Survivor] entirely, but this would serve until then.

After grabbing that Perk, Alice started to look at the other perks. The ones she was really looking forward to.

Enhanced Seeds

Requirements: Explorer of Magic   level 40 or higher

All magic seeds you have access to both now and in the future can   gain an extra 15% Mana Conversion by integrating more of your understanding   of the core concept of the seeds in question. Exact gains are dependent upon   your understanding of the magic seed in question.

Yet another Seed.

Requirements: Explorer of Magic   level 40 or higher

Allows you to form another   seed of magic with a maximum mana conversion ration of 50%.

Infusion of Comprehension

Requirements: Explorer of Magic   level 40 or higher, at least one magic seed, Intelligence 150 or greater,   Magic 100 or greater, At least one achievement related to magic at rarity 5   or higher and 1 or more Achievements related to Scholarly or Scientific   investigation at rarity 5 or higher.

You may select one of your seeds.   Over the course of the next eight hours, you will gradually improve both your   internal comprehension of the seed as well as the seed's conversion ratio.   The results of this perk will vary based on how quickly you understand the   concepts inherent to the magic seed, but will have an absolute minimum   improvement of 30% and absolute maximum improvement of 100%.

Warning: You will be helpless during this time, so it is highly   recommended you activate this perk only when your safety is assured and you   are in an environment where you will not be interrupted.

Alice decided to ignore {Yet Another Seed} for now, because she didn’t think she needed another seed slot just yet. She already had her hands full learning to deal with the seeds she already had. Every single seed needed training and understanding to back it up. More seeds meant nothing if she couldn’t use them effectively.

However, {Infusion of Comprehension} was… very interesting. Not necessarily because it was useful on any of her combat related abilities, the way it seemed like it was intended to be used. In fact, Alice suspected that if she used it on Kinetic Energy or Organic magic, it would mostly be a waste. This world had well-documented understanding of the human body, and if Alice used this Perk on the organic seed or Kinetic Seed, it would definitely save her some time reading and researching, which would be nice. However, it probably wouldn’t fundamentally change anything besides her mana quantity.

However, using it on her Pure Mana seed… that would be far more interesting. Interesting in that Alice had absolutely no idea what the result would be. Even though this world had some understanding of mana, none of the theories about Mana Alice had read indicated that it could do anything along the lines of powering the System, or making it work, or whatever was happening here. Which meant that those theories were probably incomplete. This Perk might let her get a much better glimpse behind the curtain, and that would be very interesting.

And interesting things might give her new ideas for new experiments. For now, all Alice knew was that the System only operated when mana was present. However, that still left a wide variety of questions unexplored. Alice was fairly certain that if she had a better grasp of mana, and what it actually was, she would have a better idea of what the System was and how it could exist.

Alice briefly glanced at {Enhanced Seeds}. That Perk was actually tempting. If she was looking at it strictly from the perspective of enhancing her combat abilities, it was probably the correct choice. It would even give her enchanting abilities a slight buff, since the mana conversion ratio of a magic seed did matter when it came to enchanting. It was of lesser importance most of the time, since there were only a limited number of hours in each day and if one was only focusing on enchanting they would usually run out of ability to focus before they ran out of mana. Still, {Enhanced Seeds} would be useful in some cases.

However, it didn’t appeal to Alice as much as {Infusion of Comprehension}, which she picked with a huge smile. She already knew that she sucked at fighting, so she didn’t want to focus heavily on that. She would learn to defend herself, but there was no point in leaning further into something she hated and was bad at, as long as she didn’t neglect her safety.

{Enhanced Seeds} would also be a bit useful for enchanting. Still, Alice was more tempted to pick Perks she found interesting compared to what was optimal. {Infusion of Comprehension} would provide her with a wider perspective on things, and possibly, new ideas to mess with for Experiments as well. Experiments could be turned into levels, Skills, and Attributes, and so it was probably a better investment than {Enhanced Seeds}.

She would use the Perk later tonight, back in her Inn room. She should be safe and free from disturbance there.

Alice continued looking through her new Perks from her other classes.

Object Analysis

Requirements: Scientist level 15   or greater, Intelligence 100 or greater, Perception 100 or greater

Allows you to analyze one item in great detail, analyzing a variety   of properties which may be unfamiliar to you. The longer this perk is used on   the same object, the greater the detail of the information collected.

Eyes that See

Requirements: Scientist level 15   or greater

Increases the effect of [Perception] by 8%, increases the effects of   Willpower by 3%.

Timer

Requirements: Scientist level 15   or higher, Intelligence 150 or higher, Perception 100 or higher

You may always tell what time it is down to the hundredth of a   second. You may also attach a 'timer' to a specific object or area and   measure the amount of time it takes for one condition of your choice to be   met. (For example, you may attach a 'timer' to a rock before throwing it off   of a building and set the start and stop conditions to 'touching no physical   objects' and ' hitting the ground,' giving you the exact number of seconds   that it takes for the rock to fall). Timers cost a small amount of mana to   create (payable from any seed) and cannot last longer than 2 hours.

{Eyes that See} was a little weird, mostly because Alice had no clue why [Willpower] would be increased by a Perk related to eyesight. Still, she also remembered {Kinetic Mage} having a Perk named {Railgun}, even though the class had nothing to do with magnetic force. She wasn’t sure exactly how these names were chosen but it was at least food for thought.

Alice had no intention of picking a generic stat boost right now, so she ignored {Eyes that See} entirely. {Timer} was far more useful as a Perk. Timekeeping devices existed on this world, but they were expensive. This Perk would cut down on research expenses, while also improving Alice’s ability to accurately measure the result of Experiments. Which was exactly what she needed right now. Even if this Perk basically just replaced a watch, if Alice’s research was continuously hindered by a lack of accurate timekeeping devices, it would slow down her levelling speed. Even if she might be able to afford a timekeeping device in the future, that didn’t help her now, when she was trying to make the most of her remaining month in Cyra.

Alice grabbed the Perk, taking a moment to feel out the effects.

Suddenly, she could feel a sense of time’s passage. Every single second was divided into 100 individual parts. If she was paying close attention to her surroundings, she could even track how much they moved every hundredth of a second. Even she wasn’t paying close attention to something, when this Perk was paired with her {Enhanced Memory}, she was able to accurately remember exactly when something happened.

Alice smiled softly. The two Perks worked surprisingly well together. Usually she just used {Enhanced Memory} to help recall everything she had read, assisting her in her month-long crash course on academia and history of Illvaria. However, the Perk was showing an unexpectedly useful side here.

Alice took a few more moments to relish the feeling of being able to properly ‘time’ everything, before she moved on.

Alice took a look at her second [Scientist] Perk.

And then immediately burst out laughing.

Safety Analysis

Requirements: Scientist level 20   or greater, Intelligence 150 or greater, Perception 100 or greater, Magic 100   or greater, Must have some method of 'seeing clearly,’ must have some method   of observing mana.

Allows you to analyze, with high   accuracy, whether an experiment would have harmful or potentially harmful   effects on you, or any other participants in an experiment. More detailed   results can be acquired from this perk at the cost of greater mental strain. Perk   may only be used once per day.

(Note: In order for this Perk to   operate, you must already know what the experiment is and target a specific participant.)

Alice and Cecilia had just been talking about how difficult it was to expand Alice’s research to a greater scale. About how growing up with the System might mean that cutting it off would result in dangerous side effects. About how, as much as Alice wanted to learn more about the System, she wouldn’t do so by putting other people in danger. Alice had even spent a few minutes trying to come to terms with the fact that her experimental data might never be perfect, and she might never be able to start expanding her research to a greater scale. Science without data to back it up wasn’t proper science, and Alice had felt this thought gnawing at her every time she thought about her experiments.

And now, a solution was available.

The other two Perks for this level were just generic stat enhancements. Alice didn’t give them a second look before she picked {Safety Analysis}. This one was a no-brainer. It solved a pressing problem Alice had been struggling with for days.

If all went well, she could revisit some of her earlier ideas now. And this time, she wouldn’t even be starting to approach the line between humane science experiments and unethical ones. She could just use the Perk, and stop an experiment if it had potentially harmful effects. She couldn’t stop herself from grinning, nearly humming a pop tune from home as she continued looking through her Perks.

There was only one Perk left to pick. After seeing {Safety Analysis}, Alice was hopeful that her final Perk in [Scholar] might provide a solution to some of her other problems. Two of her Perks had been simply amazing this time, and {Timer} was also likely to prove useful. Hopefully the final Perk would provide a new tool for her to use?

Greater Intelligence

Requirements: Scholar level 20 or   higher

Increases the effect of the Intelligence stat by 9%

Published Works

Requirements: Scholar level 20 or   higher

The effect of the Intelligence stat is increased by 2% for every   published academic paper or book you have written or contributed to, up to   20%. You must have genuinely published works that have some level of academic   merit - works published specifically to trigger this perk will not work   without genuine scholarly intent driving the work.

Rhetorical Improvement

Requirements: Scholar level 20 or   higher, Charisma 100 or higher, Intelligence 100 or higher

When you are in the midst of any form of debate, you gain the ability   to articulate your ideas more clearly and effectively, and you will be able   to speak clearly without stumbling over your words or thoughts.

Three disappointments to round off the Perk selection.

Alice mentally shrugged. She couldn’t always get lucky. If she had only been gaining a level in [Scholar], she probably would have felt incredibly disappointed. But in the wake of the exceptional Perks she had gotten from the [Scientist] Class, she didn’t feel too disappointed by the mediocre results from [Scholar]. She briefly scanned back through the earlier Perks from level 5, 10, and 15 of [Scholar], looking for anything interesting. Then, finding nothing useful, Alice started to debate whether it was actually time to grab {Greater Intelligence} as the best of the worse Perks. Maybe {Rhetorical Improvement} was worth thinking about? A 9% Increase to the effect of the Intelligence stat just felt… rather lacking, honestly. That was basically just the side effect of an average Rarity 3 Perk, and Alice knew for a fact there were plenty of other, lower rarity Perks she could, and would, pick up in the future.

Alice sighed, and grabbed {Rhetorical Improvement}. She didn’t think it was particularly amazing, but enhancing her Stats by a small margin also didn’t seem that amazing. At the very least, being able to articulate her ideas clearly and calmly would be useful in the future. If or when she was trying to find a Patron, the Perk might provide a little boost. She wasn’t actually sure the Perk would trigger in those circumstances, but it was better than the alternatives.

Alice finally closed her Perk selection screens, before turning to Cecilia. Cecilia, like Alice, was staring into thin air with a glazed expression, staring at something Alice couldn’t see. Finally, Cecilia finished looking at her own Perk selections, before she turned back to Alice and grinned. However, her smile was nowhere near as huge as Alice’s.

“I got an amazing Perk!” Said Alice, trying not to burst into laughter again.

“I got some good stuff too, besides just the Achievement tier. Some levels in Scholar, even. I think I’ll switch it to a main Class – it’s unexpectedly easy to level these days. What did you get?”

“A solution to the biggest research problem we have!” Alice said, before she explained the details of {Safety Analysis.}

By the end of her explanation, Cecilia was also grinning.

“That solves a lot of problems, actually. Truthfully, I was starting to get a bit worried about how much we could do with these experiments, if we were limited to using you as a test subject. If we expanded the research, we would have probably been accused of being part of the Society of Starry Eyes. Even if we could have proved that we weren’t with some truth-telling Perks, it would have still been a very bad reputation to have.”

Alice simply grinned maniacally.

She no longer had to worry about the safety of participants in her experiments, as long as she used {Safety Analysis} before each experiment. She could revisit her original thoughts about a few experiments.

“Can I steal a bit of paper from you?”

“Sure – I already had some ready for recording the experiment. Let me just…” Cecilia pulled out a few sheets of paper, before handing them to Alice along with a quill and ink bottle.

After a few moments of thought, Alice began writing. Even with [Enhanced Memory], she found writing down her thoughts helpful.

Future experiment ideas/Questions to answer:

1) Find out if other people lose stats after losing access to mana. If so, how much of their stats? Do other people experience greater loss of Stats than I do? Also, how are other Perks affected by lack of mana?

a. Milo probably would not mind helping me test this. Ask later. Cecilia also would not mind, assuming there are no safety concerns.

2) Do Mages need mana in the air around them to use Magic? This experiment can be run with just me in the future, though testing with Cecilia and Milo would also be useful. (This would finally conclude my experiments on where mages get the mana to use magic from. Finally finishing up this experiment chain would be nice).

a. Actually, side note. Thus far, I have only tested the effects of lack of mana on myself, and even after doing some tests with idea 1, I still wouldn’t have tested how mana works with mages versus nonmages. Since it’s already clear that mana is somehow at work when it comes to the effects of the System on people, I should absolutely test to see how these experiments work on nonmages as well. If there is a difference, it would be extremely interesting to see, and might provide some other clues on how all of this actually works.

3) How do mana and the System actually work with each other? How much mana does the System need to operate? Can it just always work, as long as there is ANY amount of mana in the air, or is there a certain density of mana required? Are there other conditions that need to be met for the System to work? Try messing with mana. As long as the mana is not broken, {Precise Mana Measurement} from [Scientist] can be used to provide accurate numbers for this experiment.

Alice smiled as she wrote down the list, before passing the list back to Cecilia. Cecilia started scanning the words on the page, occasionally nodding or making a thoughtful expression. Finally, she passed the piece of paper back to Alice.

“It looks fine, I think. We can run the experiments on mages in a manaless room tomorrow – I’m ready for today’s experiments to be over, at least. However, I think these are good directions to head down.”

Alice nodded, before she quietly stored the paper in {Sample Collection} as a ‘piece of paper.’ Even if the Perk was a bit more limited in use than she had expected, it was still useful for picking things up and keeping them safe.

“Sounds good. I have something else I want to check back at my inn room tonight, anyway. I need to use a Perk that will take some time to activate properly. Tomorrow, I’ll also ask Milo if he minds being a guinea pig, as long as {Safety Analysis} says everything is ok. We can have a few people inside of the manaless room, in that case. It’ll certainly make our data a bit more reliable if we can get three different tests instead of just one.”

Cecilia nodded. “Sounds like a plan. Then I’ll see you tomorrow?”

Alice resisted the urge to cackle as she looked at her Perks and her notes. Everything was finally coming together.

“I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Author’s Note: I realized that the Status Screen last chapter did not include the Achievement bonuses from Bookworm and Murderer. I have gone back and fixed this, for a total of 5% boost to Int effectiveness, and a 1% boost to Str, Dex, and Per. The original character sheet file got corrupted, so I had to redo everything from Ch 34, and it seems like I missed the Achievements by mistake. Whoops!

Since I still cannot actually post boxes on Patreon, I have added in some extra spacing between each Perk and the actual ‘in story’ text.