Mage academy 4 a litrpg.., p.10
Mage Academy 4: A LitRPG Magic Academy Light Novel, page 10
Danny nodded and slowly started walking toward his father.
As he arrived, Zechariah gave him a brief nod. "Bold move."
Danny sighed. "I was just… I don't know." He flashed a small smile. "Trying to contain things."
"And you did a good job," Zechariah said with a fatherly grin. "We'll talk later."
Later turned out to be much later. Every single student in the room came and reported themselves to Master Barrydew and Zechariah, giving a brief description of what happened. Most of them told the same story that Danny had been told in the stairwell, though there were a few of them that were obviously leaving things out.
Since Danny had webbed up quite a few people, the data collection took a fair bit of time, and those individuals harbored no shortage of resentment toward him.
That evening, Danny, Zechariah, and Master Barrydew sat down in a small conference room near the library. A meal was placed before them, with several other places set as well.
It wasn't long before several cloaked figures appeared, and Janna and Tess joined them at the table.
"Thank you, Danny," Janna said. "When we entered the room, I was expecting to have to fight my own soldiers. You did a fine job."
"And earned the enmity of everyone there," Danny said wryly. "I'm now enemies with half the corp members, pretty much everyone at the Academy…"
"Which makes you excellent leadership material." Zechariah flashed a thin smile as he took a bite of his food, a sausage and potato meal of some sort covered in a thin sauce that Danny didn't really like. "I suppose you're looking for an explanation?"
"It would be nice," Danny confirmed. "What's going on?"
"The simple answer is that this morning, one of the students came to the precinct with evidence that one of the crossbows was being held in one of my lockers." Janna sighed. "We refused them access at first, as we would do in any situation, but he had come prepared. He started calling his followers, who had hidden among the crowd, and one of them ran back to the Academy. Pretty soon, we had a proper riot on our hands."
"Which is when you went ahead and opened up the door…" Danny guessed.
"Exactly." Janna nodded. "I wanted to defuse the situation without anything getting out of hand, so I agreed to take him to the locker. We went there, with a proper crowd following, and I opened it up for him. It was an old locker, it hasn't been used since the last guy who had that locker retired a year or so ago. Anyway, he popped it open, reached inside, and pulled out a little piece of wood."
She opened her inventory and yanked it out. "This."
She tossed it onto the table where a few sparks of magic burst from it.
Danny frowned and leaned forward. "Is that what I think it is?"
"My experts tell me that it is, indeed, one of the crossbows," Janna said in a grim tone. "I can only assume that he brought it with him and performed some sort of sleight-of-hand. Anyway, at that point, utter chaos exploded. People were shoving each other in the halls, the students were angry, the soldiers felt like they were under attack. I was hit over the head and shoved in a conference room, and by the time I came to, things were getting wildly out of hand. My soldiers managed to force the students out, but by that point, mages from the surrounding dungeons were starting to show up. These two fine mages came down to help mediate…"
"Which is when we suddenly noticed that there was some sort of a scuffle taking place back at the academy," Master Barrydew said. "As we've interviewed people, it seems that some of the mages or students slipped away from the crowd and attacked a different precinct. The soldiers there reacted and marched on the academy, and that leads us to the complete and utter chaos that we found ourselves in this afternoon. I'm only glad that we arrived at the same time as Logan, and not after."
"One wonders if he might have had a hand in it," Janna muttered. "He's become known as a troublemaker. That means that tension between the mages and the Corp only benefits him, regardless of the truth of the matter."
"Here's to that." Zechariah took a sip of his drink then sighed. "So, what do we do about it?"
"Honestly? I don't have a clue." Janna shook her head. "My soldiers have been handed reprimands. The problem is that, since I'm still a mage, disciplining my own soldiers only reinforces the belief that I'm still a mage and not one of them at all. Never mind the fact that I specifically commended my soldiers who stayed at the precinct and fought off the attackers there."
She sighed. "I can't win for anything."
"In a situation like this, no one can." When no one said anything for a long moment, Zechariah glanced at her. "Do you know who the initial instigator was?"
"I don't," Janna admitted. "It's all a blur in my mind, probably from getting hit over the head, and my own people have half a dozen different descriptions of him. The short answer is that no one knows for sure, and the guilt could easily be pinned on just about anyone we wanted to put it on."
"Which then gives the actual troublemaker a great deal of leverage," Danny surmised.
"Exactly." Janna sighed and nodded. "Exactly."
No one offered any more answers, and the meal was finished mostly in silence. Danny's stomach churned, and he balled his hands into fists. They needed answers, and they needed them quickly. If not, the situation could escalate to a point where the Academy, or even the Corp, might be irreparably damaged.
Auto save - [Savefile: Information]
Health: 100%
Mana: 100%
Quest: Try to figure out who started the fight.
Location: Conference Room C
Inventory: Essential Supplies, Basic Armor, Iron Sword, Sword of the Wasp, Aquamarine Sword
Skills: Monster Summoner (Lv. 32), Flame Combat (Lv. 2), Wind Combat (Lv. 5)
Relationships: Friendly with Tess, Friendly with Captain Janna, Friendly with Master Barrydew, Family Bond with Zechariah, Ascended Fire Mage
Time of Day: 8:39 p.m.
Process
"And so, class, I do hope that you all have a better grasp of this complicated subject." Master Thornwood folded his hands behind his back.
Danny sighed and shook his head. The professor had just finished a lecture on what to do if you found out that a dark spirit possessed your friend. He, of course, advocated for simply slaying the friend in order to put a stop to the spirit, which was a course of action that Danny strongly disagreed with.
With the class over and having already voiced his concerns to the master, Danny found himself with little to do. Radiance leapt to her feet and dashed out of the classroom the moment it ended. The mages had protected her from the Corp during the attack, but there was still a lot of distrust surrounding her. Was she a murderer or just an innocent victim like everyone else? With no official story to rely on, only a multitude of rumors, she was stuck in the middle of it all.
Danny watched her go, sighed, and then climbed to his feet and headed for the stairs. When he reached the main floors of the Academy, he found Radiance chatting with Isa in the shadow of a column. Radiance glanced up at Danny and flashed a thin smile then quickly walked away.
Danny frowned and started to walk past, but Isa held up a hand.
"Actually, if you're free, I wouldn't mind borrowing you for a few minutes."
Danny raised an eyebrow. "Are you going to return me when you're done?"
"I suppose that depends on just how useful you are." Isa smiled and started down the hall.
Danny shrugged and followed her, a bit confused, but happy to have some sort of a diversion.
"Marcella and I are working on a bit of a problem, and we wouldn't mind it if you popped by to lend us a hand," she continued.
"Happy to be of help," Danny answered.
Since they were already in the Research Wing, it didn't take long for Danny and his companion to reach the laboratory that the two girls shared. As he stepped inside, Danny whistled softly.
The lab was far less impressive than the massive, expansive laboratory Isa had used when developing weaponry to combat the invading Sapiens. However, it was still much larger than the glorified broom closet they had worked from during their first year of research. The lab boasted half a dozen tables, ample chairs, cabinets, and other amenities to support extensive experimentation and research.
At that moment, about half the tables were covered with dungeon artifacts—everything from mana crystals to weapons to monster body parts, like claws. The other tables were piled high with books. Bookshelves around the room were stacked with an assortment of writing utensils, tools, and other odds and ends.
Danny looked around at it all as Marcella walked in. "Danny! I don't think I've seen you at all this year!" she beamed then snapped her fingers.
In came the fox Danny had tamed out on one of the farms near the city. The happy creature leapt up onto a chair and swished its tail, causing Danny to crack a smile.
"Yeah, we've both been busy. And what a year it's already proven to be." He frowned after a moment. "So, what's up?"
"What's up is this." Isa pulled a small sliver of wood out of her inventory and set it on one of the tables between several stacks of books. Danny recognized it instantly as the crossbow piece that Captain Janna had shown him. "Janna told us that you would already know what you were looking at. We've been tasked with figuring out where it came from."
Danny raised an eyebrow and slowly sat down. "And… How exactly is that supposed to work? You two aren't really forensics experts or detectives."
"No. Those particular groups have already had a go at it, and have come up with nothing." Marcella explained. "One of them had the idea to let us take a crack at it. Their idea is that we can somehow figure out where it was being stored. Someone, somewhere, has the crossbows. We just need to discern who, and if we can find them."
Danny nodded. "Are we really sure that that's the best idea?"
Isa nodded. "Of course. Why wouldn't it be?"
"I don't know." Danny shrugged and sighed. "I guess… Right now, rumors are enough to make tensions high. If we find them, and bring them out, people are going to go crazy. They'll demand an equal split between the two groups, and if one winds up with an extra then there will be people screaming foul, and if it comes to blows… I don't know. Part of me really thinks that we just need to let it blow over."
Privately, he added And I'm pretty sure that the Deepcorp is the group that has them, and I'm not sure we really want to open up that particular can of worms.
"True. I still think it would be better to get everything back above the level," Marcella said.
"Alright, then." Danny held up his hands and leaned back in the chair. "What do you want me to do, then? Summon in a scientist or something?"
"Actually…" Isa handed the piece of the crossbow to him. "We were hoping you could just extract information from it."
"Just like that?" Danny laughed. "What sort of magic do you think I have?" He nodded down at the thing. "For starters, I'm a monster summoner. I don't extract information from living monsters, and that's a chunk of wood."
"Yeah, but…" Isa shrugged. "I don't know. You can do things. I've seen you do things. You can manipulate the environment, you can…" She paused. "You just unsummoned that guy who was leading the Sapiens."
Danny sighed and bit his lip. "That's technically true, but there's a big difference between the two things."
"Look, can you just try?" Isa asked. "It's either that, or we go to Professor Thornwood to see if he can draw anything off of it, and if that fails, our plan is to basically pulverize it to see if we can find any residual material on the thing. If there's stone dust or something that would tell us where it was being held."
"That sounds like a long shot," Danny murmured.
"It is. I mean, sending it to us in the first place was a long shot, but since we were the ones who put it together, I guess they just assumed that we would be able to find something," Marcella said. "Please, Danny. It won't hurt to try."
Danny frowned then slowly picked up the little sliver of wood and turned it over a few times in his fingers. After a moment, he nodded and let his senses expand outward into the little piece of wood. When he felt the environment, felt the fibers trembling, he sighed. He knew how to manipulate it, he could summon a monster and incorporate the wood into the creature. He had done similar things before, creating monsters out of the environment instead of raw energy, but this was different.
He could feel the residual energies throbbing through the wood, he could feel the little insect chewing its way through the wood, he could feel the knot that had once been part of the larger tree, he could-
Wait.
He frowned then focused on the insect. It was tiny and was just happily chewing its way through the sliver, probably entirely unaware of what was happening around it. Danny bit his lip, then drew upon the creature. It was possible for him to absorb traits without actually killing the creature in question, though he didn't use the ability often.
[Creature Absorbed: Micro Borer]
[Traits: Borer Body (Lv. -6), Borer Legs, Borer Mandibles]
[Mana to Quicksummon: 0.0005]
"And there we have it." Danny set down the sliver then snapped his fingers. "Summon as a level 5 monster."
With a flash, a larger insect appeared on the floor. Marcella's fox snarled and bared its teeth, causing Isa to jump slightly. It was an odd sort of monster, looking more like a worm than anything else. Six stubby legs gripped the ground, while the head was almost entirely composed of a series of teeth that could apparently chew through wood rather well. It resembled rockworms in a great many ways, though it differed again in quite a few.
As the little creature looked around and hissed, Danny knelt down near it.
"What do we know about this thing? It's called a Micro Borer."
Isa shrugged. Marcella ran over to the stacks of books and scanned through one stack, then another, then a third before finally snatching up a larger volume and knocking half a dozen other books to the floor in the same moment.
Quickly, she ran back over to them and dropped it onto the table then started flipping through the pages.
"This is called Insects of the Empire. It's a comprehensive guide to all the species of insects that you can encounter throughout our realm," she murmured as she turned the pages. "It includes both monsters and regular insects. I've found it useful in a number of… Here we go!"
As she pointed down at the page, Danny leaned over her shoulder. "Borer. Varieties: Alpha, Alpine, Bark, Coconut, Dendrite, Elegant, Elephant, Flame…" His voice trailed off.
There were dozens of different varieties. Finally, he reached the Micro Borer and flipped a few pages further. The stats were listed there, matching what he already knew, and he scanned down the page for any additional information.
"Micro Borers tend to like softer woods, and will rarely eat through living trees," he continued. "As such, they are rarely found in wood used for the construction of houses, nor in furniture, as these are usually made of harder woods. These creatures are most often found in the homes of royalty, where picture frames, decorative panels, statues, and other such things are made of the softer woods that Micro Borers love. In the wild, Micro Borers are native to the far eastern regions of the Empire, notably the Green Mountains, and will often die when transported away."
Danny flipped the page closed, finding it all very interesting.
Marcella stroked her chin then said, "So… We're looking for a mansion, probably one hailing from the eastern parts of the Empire?"
"Unfortunately, that isn't going to be as easy to narrow down as we might like to hope." Isa commented. "About half of the mansions in the city come from the eastern regions. It's a very wealthy area, and lot of the gazillionaires like to have secondary homes here."
"Well, start narrowing," Marcella answered. "If we give that information to Janna, she can probably get a list of all those mansions, and cross it with a list of people who might have the ability to steal the crossbows in the first place."
Danny shrugged and climbed to his feet. "Well, I'm glad I could help. Just… Be careful, again. I don't know where this will lead, and I just want to make sure we're helping the situation, not hurting it."
"Trust me, we'll do our best." Isa smiled. "Thank you, Danny. I really appreciate this."
Danny nodded and started to leave, then paused. "What are you two working on, primarily? Still focusing on affecting regular technology with advancements from the dungeons?"
Isa nodded. "More or less, yes. The crossbows I built were my capstone for last year, so to speak. I'm trying to figure out if I can top it this year, but given that I was using someone else's designs last year, I'm sorta struggling." She laughed at that. "I've had a few ideas, but that's all they are. I'm considering something that will allow wagons to go faster, but I haven't fully been able to pin it down."
"Well, I'm here if you need any help figuring it out." Danny smiled and turned to go. "You might consider something with agriculture. I feel like there's a lot of potential there, farmers are always looking for new tools and things."
"Yeah, I was told specifically to stay away from farming and weaponry. Too low-hanging." Isa chuckled. "I'll figure it out."
"And I'm researching potential applications for these foxes, actually." Marcella patted her pet on the head. "I really think he could do some good, but… I don't know. Like I said, it's research I'm doing. If I had the answers, I wouldn't have to research it."
"True enough." Danny laughed. "Well, I won't keep you any longer!"
As he walked out of the room and down the hall, he could hear the girls chatting about the discovery. He was happy enough that his skills had been useful, but what was behind all of this? Was there really a series of clues that would lead them to the weapons, and if so, what would be the result?
He was deeply concerned that they were being played… And if that were the case, anything he did would almost certainly have a price tag attached to it.
Auto save - [Savefile: Information]
Health: 100%
Mana: 100%
Quest: Attend Classes
