School Daze

John kept his eyes open as he entered the Academy. Nothing stood out as different; the various cliques and groups of friends chatted and moved about as usual.

‘Not that it means anything,' John thought as he reached his locker and spun the lock open. ‘If there are people with powers like mine, they didn’t stand out before.’

He stuffed his books into his bag, sighing as it ballooned out. Carrying all of his books was a pain, but he didn’t want to have to rush back to his locker between classes to swap them.

‘Wait a minute,’ John thought, resisting the urge to smack his forehead, ‘I have an inventory!’

John knelt down and opened his bag, sticking his hand into it and lightly touching one of the books within, willing it into his inventory. The textbook vanished from his bag and a quick check of his character sheet confirmed that it was safely stored, taking up one slot.

A few seconds later, he lifted a much lighter bag onto his shoulders and made his way to his first class, his thoughts on the mysterious encounter from earlier and the turn his life had taken.

A young woman moved briskly down one of Ashcroft’s corridors. She was entirely unremarkable: a bob of brown hair, dull brown eyes, a slim figure with nearly non-existent bust and ass. Perhaps the only standout feature about her was a silver charm bracelet that clinked slightly as she moved, decorated with sun and moon charms.

She stopped at a restroom door, turned her head up and down the hallway, and slipped into the room. A quick survey of the chamber revealed that it was empty, much to the young woman’s relief. She dug her hand into the small messenger bag she carried and removed a phone from the interior.

She paced in front of the sinks as she dialed a number and pressed the phone to her ear. While she waited for her call to be answered, she chewed her lip nervously.

‘Why,’ her frantic thoughts matched her rapid footsteps, ‘why was there someone on the bus. No one on that route was supposed to be Abyssal. Boss is going to be mad…’

“What is it,” a gruff voice emanated from the phone’s speaker.

“B-boss,” the girl said, addressing him as he wished. She didn’t know any other name to call him by anyway, “something happened. Someone tried to scry me on the bus.”

“That’s... concerning.” The Boss’ voice took on a more serious tone accompanied by the sounds of rustling paper. “Was there anyone on the bus you didn’t recognize?”

“No,” came the timid response as the girl kept pacing, “I didn’t see anyone who shouldn’t have been there.”

“Then it’s either someone who was able to keep themselves hidden from our reconnaissance or we have a Late Bloomer on our hands,” the Boss said, “I think the second option is the more likely.”

“A Late Bloomer with scrying magic?” the nervous woman asked, now fidgeting with a stand of hair. “I haven’t heard of anything like that.”

“Sometimes, Late Bloomers are blessed with powerful and useful abilities,” the Boss responded, then hummed a bit as if in thought. “We’re not in a position to try and sell this Late Bloomer to a Factory, nor do we have time to train them into usefulness. Painful as it would be to take out a future asset, eliminating them now makes sure they can’t become a thorn in our side later.”

“Do- do you want me to…”

“No,” the Boss cut her off. “Keeping off the radar is your main priority. I can send Bill to deal with them. I will need you to pick them out though.”

“Bill?” she questioned. “Didn’t he run last night’s job?”

“He’s got more than enough left in the tank for a simple takedown job,” the Boss said dismissively, “especially of a newly awakened Late Bloomer. Once you tag them, send him the go ahead.”

“Understood,” she responded, trying to mask her distaste of having such an order. A second later, the phone went dead. She slipped it back into her bag and leaned on a sink, taking a few deep breaths to calm herself.

She looked into the mirror on the wall and studied her appearance. Boring brown hair, boring brown eyes. She schooled her features back into a calm, detached mask. That was life in the Abyss: kill or be killed, strive for the top or serve under those who did. She repeated that mantra, all the while staring at her reflection.

Her mind calmed, she left the restroom, resigned to carry out her orders. With the bus’ occupants in her mind’s eyes, she made her way through the school, hoping to find her target and tag them before classes started. It was better to get the dirty work done fast, so she could spend the day burying it away.

A popup distracted John as he stepped into Ms. Sharp’s physics class.

New Quest: Enrolled Arcana

Identify the magically aware population of the Academy. Quest ends at the end of the school day.

Reward: 30 exp per person identified. Reward given once Quest ends.

Accept / Decline

John reviewed the popup for a moment, then tapped ‘Accept’.

‘Just how many people at this school have magic?’ John wondered as he cast his gaze around the room as casually as possible. None of them stood out as out of the ordinary, nor did their displayed info reveal any magical leanings.

“Good morning, class,” Ms. Sharp, the physics teacher, said as the bell rang. She was rather petite and, with her glasses and professional attire, rocked the librarian look. John subtly adjusted his pants when she turned her back to the class to pick up a stack of papers from her desk displaying her cute, skirt clad rear.

Loath as he was to pay attention to something other than an attractive woman’s assets, John used Observe on her and turned his attention to the output.

‘Looks like she’s normal,’ John thought, slightly happy that her opinion of him was positive, ‘And the color is nice. Think I'll keep it for a while. Weird she’s at a lower level than Mom though. I wonder how levels get calculated?’

Pushing those thoughts aside, he cast a few more Observes at the higher level people in the class as Ms. Sharp began to hand out a packet of classwork. Nothing about them indicated they were anything out of the ordinary.

John stopped his exploration when Ms. Sharp placed his packet on his desk. He cast his eyes down at it and cast Observe on it. Instead of its title or any relevant information, the output displayed:

Spend 2 Reading Points to Learn Thaumaturgy?

Yes / No

John looked past the display to read what was printed on the first page of the handout. It read “Introduction to Thermodynamics”.

‘Reading Points,’ John wondered, pulling up his character sheet to see if it had any indication as to what they were.

‘Well, that wasn't there earlier,’ John thought as he saw the Reading Points displayed right below his Inventory. ’Guess finding new things will add or reveal features.’ He brought his finger to that section of his sheet, reasoning that clicking the words would pull up more information.

“Reading Points: Points spent on learning Skills from books and other printed material. One point gain for every five points of Intelligence. Current points: 5.”

‘Well, guess my powers have balancing mechanics in place,’ John thought. ‘Guess I can’t just go to a library and learn a ton of skills.’

Still, he had points and he was curious about what sort of skill ‘Thaumaturgy’ was and how it related to thermodynamics. John clicked yes and blinked as the information in the packet, all about how heat energy moved and behaved, flowed into his mind. A second later, a pair of popups manifested in front of him.

Before John could process these new popups, another one joined the pile.

Achievement Unlocked: Page Turner

What a nerd, learning something from a book.

+1 Intelligence

John dismissed the pop-ups, a bit put off by the last one. It was true, but he didn’t need whoever or whatever was writing these pop-ups to point it out.

Still, the skills were a nice thing to get without needing to do any real work, and the boost to his mana pool and regeneration would definitely be useful once he started really using his skills.

‘I need to find some way to practice my skills,’ John decided as he moved to open the packet of school work. ‘And I’ll need to find things I can use them on. Both Hex and Amplify need other magic or a target to work. Observe will level since I need to use it to find anyone with magic. And I guess Charm could come in handy if I end up in trouble.’

John zoned out as Ms. Sharp instructed the class on thermodynamics, instead directing his efforts into figuring out a game plan.

‘Between classes I can spam Observe,’ he planned, ‘and I can regenerate my mana during class.’ He quickly ran the numbers: a class of forty minutes would let him recover around a third of his current max mana. John assumed he wouldn’t completely burn through all of it between classes, so the time spent just regening it should leave him full by the end of each class.

The class continued and John’s mind drifted from his immediate plans to more long term ones.

‘Just what am I going to do with these powers...’

John hadn’t put much thought into what he wanted to do in life before he woke up with magic powers. Now it seemed there were innumerable paths he could walk and that seemed too daunting a task for him to tackle while sitting in a class listening to information he had just downloaded into his brain.

Thankfully, the ringing of the school bell saved John from having to venture down that road. He dimly heard what Ms. Sharp had assigned for homework as he rose from his seat, his attention more on his Character Sheet.

‘41 out of 82,’ he read from the sheet, as he walked out of the classroom. ‘I’ve got a free period next. If I conserve my mana, I can be fully recharged by the end of my next class.’

He paused in the hall and ran his eyes up and down the fluorescently lit corridor, an idea coming to mind.

‘If there are a lot of people with magic around here, maybe they left something lying around. I think I can spend some time and mana looking around. A few uses of Observe shouldn’t leave me too drained.’