Victor stood before the essence converter, which appeared similar to a crematorium. The corpse of the youngling Mossback Turtle was simply too massive, so he had to carefully cut it into several pieces and stuff them inside the converter one by one.
“Liz, you said that not every biological matter can be converted into essence… What about normal living beings?” Victor inquired, curious about the limitations.
Lizbeth floated beside him and replied, “Well, I never said that it’s impossible. Even normal animals and plants can be converted, but the process requires a large amount of them for a minuscule essence yield. It’s not very efficient, to say the least.”
She further explained, “Even extraordinary life forms have different conversion rates. Take the type of living beings, for example; the more human-like, the better the conversion efficacy — you can even get up to 50 percent conversion rate from humans at the highest… The opposite is also true: the more monstrous a creature, the lower the conversion rate. Worm-like magical creatures and tentacle abominations have the lowest conversion efficacy of less than 10 percent.”
Victor listened attentively, intrigued by the mechanics behind the essence converter. It made sense that more humanoid beings would yield a higher essence conversion. At the end of the day, he was incubating humans and not some monster-like creatures.
“So, it’s a matter of the essence density and complexity in their bodies?” Victor concluded.
“Exactly.” Lizbeth nodded with a satisfied smile over her master’s quick uptake on the matter.
When the corpse of the turtle had entirely turned into essence, Victor looked at the digital screen on the converter. The number that had been depleted to “5” was now “28,” meaning it could now incubate a total of twenty-eight bodies for the same number of players. At first, it sounded like a lot, but Victor wasn’t entirely satisfied.
“So little?” he muttered, feeling a bit disappointed.
It was crucial to highlight that a Mossback Turtle — even if it was only a youngling — was a massive magical beast weighing at least two tons. Even if the conversion rate was less than 30 percent, Victor felt the amount was still too low. However, he knew complaining wouldn’t change anything, so he didn’t press the matter further.
“Hmm… Let’s put the Shadow Panther inside as well.” Victor removed the panther’s corpse from his ring and placed it into the essence converter. Dozens of seconds later, the number on the digital screen increased again to “53.”
“How weird, the Shadow Panther is obviously a stronger foe between the two, but why is it giving a similar amount of essence points?” he pondered, a hand on his chin.
Lizbeth raised an eyebrow playfully, a hint of mischief in her tone. “Oh, don’t be so surprised, Master. The mass between the two also matters, you know. It’s not always the concentration of energy we’re talking about.”
“Hrm, that’s true,” Victor responded, realizing something. “You always have an answer for the weirdest thing, don’t you?”
Hearing what Victor said, the fairy giggled, putting her two forefingers on her cheeks. “Of course, that’s part of my charm, Master.”
“…” That’s not a compliment…
After converting all the corpses of the magical beasts that he hunted, Victor returned to the Headmaster’s Building and headed straight to his office. Unlike the players who had to make do with preserved food, Victor was determined to enjoy a delicious meal. He conjured a magic flame below the iron pan he’d gotten from the gacha and began grilling a juicy piece of boar meat. The sizzling sound and mouth-watering aroma filled the room, tempting his senses.
Although he had only used a pinch of salt gotten from gacha for seasoning, the natural flavors of the meat were enough to make it a delicious treat, better than any jerky. When Victor awakened his past life memory, his desire for tasty food was ignited. What a dilemma.
“Are we really going to have grilled boar meat again? Your cooking is good, but I feel we need to have more variety in our diet,” Lizbeth remarked, fluttering near the sizzling pan.
“We? Why are you so confident that I will share it with you?” Victor playfully quipped, giving her a smirk. “As for variety, I heard that fairy wings are a delicious delicacy—”
“How rude! I’m not food! Besides, as the headmaster of the academy, you have to feed your staff properly!” Lizbeth retorted, puffing her cheeks and crossing her arms.
As he was looking at the fairy that was acting like an angry little girl, Victor thought, As a mythical creature, does she even need to eat?
Victor chuckled at the absurdity but went along with it. “Oh, my apologies, esteemed staff member,” he replied with exaggerated formality, “Please, enjoy this gourmet feast fit for the most distinguished fairy in the academy.” Not that there’s any other fairy here…
Lizbeth harrumphed, her wings fluttering faster as she flew toward the iron pan. “That’s more like it.” Nevertheless, her eyes couldn’t hide the glimmer of desire as she stared at the brown-colored meat, and a tiny droplet of drool escaped from the corner of her mouth.
But when she was only an inch away from the meat, Victor raised the pan out of her reach. This action was supposed to prompt her to get angry again, but she was so focused on the food that she only exclaimed, “Please gimme!” and flew higher.
Victor was not one to be taken advantage of, so he wouldn’t give her the meat so easily. As a result, he kept doing this — each time she got close, he would effortlessly lift the pan out of her reach, leaving her empty-handed and exasperated.
“Just give it to me! Stop playing around…” Lizbeth exclaimed, her persistence showing no signs of wavering. But Victor was enjoying this little game of cat and mouse with his mischievous companion, so he did it again.
“Ah, you stupid Master! Do you get off on teasing a cute little fairy?”
Victor smirked, thoroughly amused by Lizbeth’s antics. “Hand it over!” she demanded, her frustration reaching its peak.
But Victor wasn’t going to give in just yet. He continued to playfully dodge Lizbeth’s attempts to snatch the meat, laughing all the while. Their little food chase had turned into a delightful spectacle, and he couldn’t remember the last time he had so much fun.
Finally, with a grin, Victor relented and lowered the pan, offering the delicious meat to Lizbeth. “Alright, alright, you win,” he conceded, still chuckling.
Lizbeth wasted no time and dove straight for the meat, her mouth already watering in anticipation, her tiny hands grabbing it with glee. “Hmph, finally!”
As Lizbeth enjoyed her hard-earned prize, Victor cooked up another chunk of boar meat for himself… For some reason, he had grown a bit fond of this little fairy of his. In this cold world that favored power above all else, such scenes were a rarity.
***
With the class still an hour away, Victor knew he had to prepare. To tell the truth, Victor was far from being a mentor or a professor… Although he had some level of experience thanks to tutoring some acolytes for mana crystals, he lacked the ability to explain things concretely without books. Thankfully, as he searched around the Headmaster’s Office, there was a collection of books on the shelf.
Bizarrely enough, the Master Shadowlink Mark on his wrist had one peculiar ability. With a mere touch, it could record and store any book in its e-book form. Victor realized that the potential of this ability was immense and was incredibly useful when he couldn’t print physical books and would help in spreading information. Alternatively, memory crystals could do better and directly input the information directly into people’s brains, though each one was expensive and required an official Magus to make.
At any rate, Victor’s excitement grew as he imagined the possibilities. “If I can access the library in the Arcane Radiance College… wouldn’t that be a dream come true?” He could have an abundance of knowledge surpassing high-ranking Magi at his fingertips!
One had to know that not everyone could access the library, even acolytes had to use their limited monthly privilege or pay mana crystals just to stay there for long. Other than that, the library there had an absurd amount of books in the hundreds of thousands, easily dwarfing any local libraries on Earth… Magi were existences known for their insatiable thirst for knowledge, and preserving their findings in books was a way to pass down their legacies for generations.
Finally, the time had come for the class to begin. Victor had instructed Lizbeth to set up one of the meeting rooms for the session. While there was an auditorium inside the building, teaching just five people didn’t require such a large space, especially when he was starting with the basics.
As Victor opened the door to the meeting room, he was met with expectant gazes from the players, all sitting at the table arranged neatly like a university classroom, ready to learn.
They were way too eager!
Granted, acolytes in his former Magus academy also showed extra effort in learning magic because of circumstances, but these were players — gamers. The kind of people that would slack in college classes and only made the bare minimum, or at least that was the stereotypical belief.
“Silence!” Victor’s voice resonated through the meeting room, even though the players weren’t making much noise. “Now that the five of you are here, we’ll begin with the class. But first of all, I will tell you the rules when studying here: When the professor speaks, you must keep quiet. Unless I’ve given you permission to talk, you may not raise any questions. Failure to comply may result in punishments, and in extreme cases, expulsion.”
Victor’s smile turned faint, but his aura radiated with a powerful mana force that enveloped the entire room. While it might be minuscule compared to what an official Magus could do, it was more than enough to show that he was serious and didn’t want any sort of undisciplined actions from the players.
This was already generous. Back in his academy, there were no classrooms, and except for pricey private lessons, there were only public lessons. The professors teaching there always had dark expressions, and they hurriedly left right after the period ended. Not only did they not answer the acolytes’ questions, but it also seemed like everyone owed them mana crystals.
Victor stood before the essence converter, which appeared similar to a crematorium. The corpse of the youngling Mossback Turtle was simply too massive, so he had to carefully cut it into several pieces and stuff them inside the converter one by one.
“Liz, you said that not every biological matter can be converted into essence… What about normal living beings?” Victor inquired, curious about the limitations.
Lizbeth floated beside him and replied, “Well, I never said that it’s impossible. Even normal animals and plants can be converted, but the process requires a large amount of them for a minuscule essence yield. It’s not very efficient, to say the least.”
She further explained, “Even extraordinary life forms have different conversion rates. Take the type of living beings, for example; the more human-like, the better the conversion efficacy — you can even get up to 50 percent conversion rate from humans at the highest… The opposite is also true: the more monstrous a creature, the lower the conversion rate. Worm-like magical creatures and tentacle abominations have the lowest conversion efficacy of less than 10 percent.”
Victor listened attentively, intrigued by the mechanics behind the essence converter. It made sense that more humanoid beings would yield a higher essence conversion. At the end of the day, he was incubating humans and not some monster-like creatures.
“So, it’s a matter of the essence density and complexity in their bodies?” Victor concluded.
“Exactly.” Lizbeth nodded with a satisfied smile over her master’s quick uptake on the matter.
When the corpse of the turtle had entirely turned into essence, Victor looked at the digital screen on the converter. The number that had been depleted to “5” was now “28,” meaning it could now incubate a total of twenty-eight bodies for the same number of players. At first, it sounded like a lot, but Victor wasn’t entirely satisfied.
“So little?” he muttered, feeling a bit disappointed.
It was crucial to highlight that a Mossback Turtle — even if it was only a youngling — was a massive magical beast weighing at least two tons. Even if the conversion rate was less than 30 percent, Victor felt the amount was still too low. However, he knew complaining wouldn’t change anything, so he didn’t press the matter further.
“Hmm… Let’s put the Shadow Panther inside as well.” Victor removed the panther’s corpse from his ring and placed it into the essence converter. Dozens of seconds later, the number on the digital screen increased again to “53.”
“How weird, the Shadow Panther is obviously a stronger foe between the two, but why is it giving a similar amount of essence points?” he pondered, a hand on his chin.
Lizbeth raised an eyebrow playfully, a hint of mischief in her tone. “Oh, don’t be so surprised, Master. The mass between the two also matters, you know. It’s not always the concentration of energy we’re talking about.”
“Hrm, that’s true,” Victor responded, realizing something. “You always have an answer for the weirdest thing, don’t you?”
Hearing what Victor said, the fairy giggled, putting her two forefingers on her cheeks. “Of course, that’s part of my charm, Master.”
“…” That’s not a compliment…
After converting all the corpses of the magical beasts that he hunted, Victor returned to the Headmaster’s Building and headed straight to his office. Unlike the players who had to make do with preserved food, Victor was determined to enjoy a delicious meal. He conjured a magic flame below the iron pan he’d gotten from the gacha and began grilling a juicy piece of boar meat. The sizzling sound and mouth-watering aroma filled the room, tempting his senses.
Although he had only used a pinch of salt gotten from gacha for seasoning, the natural flavors of the meat were enough to make it a delicious treat, better than any jerky. When Victor awakened his past life memory, his desire for tasty food was ignited. What a dilemma.
“Are we really going to have grilled boar meat again? Your cooking is good, but I feel we need to have more variety in our diet,” Lizbeth remarked, fluttering near the sizzling pan.
“We? Why are you so confident that I will share it with you?” Victor playfully quipped, giving her a smirk. “As for variety, I heard that fairy wings are a delicious delicacy—”
“How rude! I’m not food! Besides, as the headmaster of the academy, you have to feed your staff properly!” Lizbeth retorted, puffing her cheeks and crossing her arms.
As he was looking at the fairy that was acting like an angry little girl, Victor thought, As a mythical creature, does she even need to eat?
Victor chuckled at the absurdity but went along with it. “Oh, my apologies, esteemed staff member,” he replied with exaggerated formality, “Please, enjoy this gourmet feast fit for the most distinguished fairy in the academy.” Not that there’s any other fairy here…
Lizbeth harrumphed, her wings fluttering faster as she flew toward the iron pan. “That’s more like it.” Nevertheless, her eyes couldn’t hide the glimmer of desire as she stared at the brown-colored meat, and a tiny droplet of drool escaped from the corner of her mouth.
But when she was only an inch away from the meat, Victor raised the pan out of her reach. This action was supposed to prompt her to get angry again, but she was so focused on the food that she only exclaimed, “Please gimme!” and flew higher.
Victor was not one to be taken advantage of, so he wouldn’t give her the meat so easily. As a result, he kept doing this — each time she got close, he would effortlessly lift the pan out of her reach, leaving her empty-handed and exasperated.
“Just give it to me! Stop playing around…” Lizbeth exclaimed, her persistence showing no signs of wavering. But Victor was enjoying this little game of cat and mouse with his mischievous companion, so he did it again.
“Ah, you stupid Master! Do you get off on teasing a cute little fairy?”
Victor smirked, thoroughly amused by Lizbeth’s antics. “Hand it over!” she demanded, her frustration reaching its peak.
But Victor wasn’t going to give in just yet. He continued to playfully dodge Lizbeth’s attempts to snatch the meat, laughing all the while. Their little food chase had turned into a delightful spectacle, and he couldn’t remember the last time he had so much fun.
Finally, with a grin, Victor relented and lowered the pan, offering the delicious meat to Lizbeth. “Alright, alright, you win,” he conceded, still chuckling.
Lizbeth wasted no time and dove straight for the meat, her mouth already watering in anticipation, her tiny hands grabbing it with glee. “Hmph, finally!”
As Lizbeth enjoyed her hard-earned prize, Victor cooked up another chunk of boar meat for himself… For some reason, he had grown a bit fond of this little fairy of his. In this cold world that favored power above all else, such scenes were a rarity.
***
With the class still an hour away, Victor knew he had to prepare. To tell the truth, Victor was far from being a mentor or a professor… Although he had some level of experience thanks to tutoring some acolytes for mana crystals, he lacked the ability to explain things concretely without books. Thankfully, as he searched around the Headmaster’s Office, there was a collection of books on the shelf.
Bizarrely enough, the Master Shadowlink Mark on his wrist had one peculiar ability. With a mere touch, it could record and store any book in its e-book form. Victor realized that the potential of this ability was immense and was incredibly useful when he couldn’t print physical books and would help in spreading information. Alternatively, memory crystals could do better and directly input the information directly into people’s brains, though each one was expensive and required an official Magus to make.
At any rate, Victor’s excitement grew as he imagined the possibilities. “If I can access the library in the Arcane Radiance College… wouldn’t that be a dream come true?” He could have an abundance of knowledge surpassing high-ranking Magi at his fingertips!
One had to know that not everyone could access the library, even acolytes had to use their limited monthly privilege or pay mana crystals just to stay there for long. Other than that, the library there had an absurd amount of books in the hundreds of thousands, easily dwarfing any local libraries on Earth… Magi were existences known for their insatiable thirst for knowledge, and preserving their findings in books was a way to pass down their legacies for generations.
Finally, the time had come for the class to begin. Victor had instructed Lizbeth to set up one of the meeting rooms for the session. While there was an auditorium inside the building, teaching just five people didn’t require such a large space, especially when he was starting with the basics.
As Victor opened the door to the meeting room, he was met with expectant gazes from the players, all sitting at the table arranged neatly like a university classroom, ready to learn.
They were way too eager!
Granted, acolytes in his former Magus academy also showed extra effort in learning magic because of circumstances, but these were players — gamers. The kind of people that would slack in college classes and only made the bare minimum, or at least that was the stereotypical belief.
“Silence!” Victor’s voice resonated through the meeting room, even though the players weren’t making much noise. “Now that the five of you are here, we’ll begin with the class. But first of all, I will tell you the rules when studying here: When the professor speaks, you must keep quiet. Unless I’ve given you permission to talk, you may not raise any questions. Failure to comply may result in punishments, and in extreme cases, expulsion.”
Victor’s smile turned faint, but his aura radiated with a powerful mana force that enveloped the entire room. While it might be minuscule compared to what an official Magus could do, it was more than enough to show that he was serious and didn’t want any sort of undisciplined actions from the players.
This was already generous. Back in his academy, there were no classrooms, and except for pricey private lessons, there were only public lessons. The professors teaching there always had dark expressions, and they hurriedly left right after the period ended. Not only did they not answer the acolytes’ questions, but it also seemed like everyone owed them mana crystals.
