Ethan could have easily dropped his efforts on gravity magic and switched to something easier, like the sentient hobby horse. However, something about his encounter with the strange magic forced him to press onward. No amount of structured practice had allowed him to cast a class’s spell using his emulation mode. But when he was stuck under the rubble, he found a way because he had a purpose. Finding motivation was sometimes hard, but an entire building falling in on him was extremely motivating.

  The thing Ethan took away from his little misadventure was that he didn't know enough about enough things to operate effectively as a member of the anomalous materials group. There was foundational knowledge that he was lacking, and the only way forward was to fill that gap. He had the rest of Saturday and all of Sunday to spend studying, but before getting to work, he had to make a plan.

  To his surprise, Ethan found returning to Gale House City felt more like returning home than anything else. Barry seemed unaffected, only enamored with whatever materials he had purchased within his bag. Of course, the man wasn't exactly good with money and had overspent. Rental time at any of the forges in the city cost money. The good thing was that the scribe was there to lend him five coins. What he would do with the remaining ninety-four was beyond him. He wasn't sure if he had time to stop into a furniture store to purchase a proper bed or tour rental properties.

  Not with so much to figure out.

  Of course, the first thing on Ethan's list was to figure out a way to fix anomalies. He didn't want to contain them. Despite the Anomalous Materials Group's mission within the Academy, he had almost no interest in doing it their way. It was a stopgap measure that was never meant to be the full solution. No, he wanted to patch the bugs, as it were. That was his first goal and the longest-term of them all. In order to do this, he needed to gain a better understanding of his class, which meant he needed to gain a better understanding of magic at large. It was a cycle of dependency, and he couldn't move forward without resolving each level.

  “I’m going to go sit in the park and stare at a tree.” Ethan waved at Barry, turning away and rolling his shoulders.

  “Have fun! I’m gonna rent a forge, apparently. I hope they’ll lend me a hammer!”

  Some of that infectious optimism rubbed off on Ethan. He simply couldn't help but smile as the big man strode off to whatever small adventure he was about to go on. Perhaps it would be prudent to emulate the crafting classes he had witnessed within Feyhammer House, but with so much on his plate, the scribe didn't want things to get too complicated. For now, he had to break this problem down into constituent parts and solve them one by one.

  Starting at the bottom, Ethan withdrew his pen from his chest and sat on a pretty comfortable bench. He considered the Filter Mana spell and worked to create a system sigil for it. After casting it once, he was surprised to find that he couldn't simply create it outright with effort. No, like the last time he had created a spell for his system, he needed to work through it, sketching out things that might work using the symbology he had established. There was the broken circle with the two lines and then the combination of the sigils present in the spell itself. The complicated part came because this spell had a variable third sigil. He left it empty for now, and about half an hour later had a sigil he could slot into his Mind Ring.

  The scribe inspected his newly penned ability.

  [Mana Filter]

  Mind Ring Ability

  Generated By:

  Filter Mana (X-13, Mage, Rank 1)

  Description:

  Your soul automatically filters mana, drawing in more aligned mana naturally.

  Effect:

  Increases latent mana regeneration.

  Drawing in mana manually is easier.

  This one was pretty self-explanatory, and Ethan didn't know if it was very earth-shattering. However, putting a cap on this one helped his thoughts become clearer. He now had to turn his attention to a more difficult problem.

  Ethan had to work on this problem as though his assumptions were true. He needed to start from where he was, which was the first step, and make his way toward his assumption. He believed his system could help him not only contain these problems but neutralize them entirely. However, how he went from stealing spells from other classes and systems to debugging an anomaly was a mystery. For now, he took his pen and began drawing his rings, trying to gain a better understanding of them in hopes that something would spontaneously come to him.

  It was mid-afternoon by the time Ethan had exhausted himself with his rings. He walked around Gale House City, at least the inner cloistered part of it, and observed mages going about their days. He watched as students practiced in parks, emulating one system after another and feeling the subtle differences between them. Yes, they were all technically using the same system, but each time he emulated another, he noticed tiny changes between them. He wondered if this was like being on the same branch of a tree and picking a particular twig. From his position near the roots, it all seemed so different.

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  About an hour before dinner, the scribe found himself looking at the natural world more closely. He had to spend the entire time drawing mana from his soul to the nib and sketching the various systems he observed. Most interesting of all was the prevalence of what he assumed were natural magical energies in the air. Just like the water crystal he had helped diffuse, the natural world itself was a mixture of different energies. When the wind blew off from the bay, he could feel a tingle he presumed was wind magic. When the humidity in one area was higher, he assumed it was water magic.

  All these observations led him to a question he didn't know if he could answer. Instead, he headed to the dining hall in the hopes of finding Amelia. She claimed to have been born in a world with magic, giving her a pretty intense head start on everyone else. Perhaps the scribe had burned through all his bad luck for the day because he found her easily in the line and rushed over to greet her. The woman had a book in her hands that she hardly looked up from as he approached.

  "A bit absorbed today, aren't we?"

  Amelia's eyes shot up, and she blinked away what had clearly been a deep focus on the book. Ethan could see it was some advanced subject he couldn’t hope to understand. The diagrams on the page looked like an alien language.

  "I honestly didn't even see you." Amelia offered a soft laugh, shaking her head as she cleared away the remnants of a stupor brought on by deep focus. "Did you get up to anything fun today, or did you just take it easy?"

  "Well, I almost died, but thanks to your instruction, I'm here alive and ready to eat some food. Honestly, the spells you gave me saved my life, so thank you."

  "Are you serious?" Amelia's eyes went wide as she looked at Ethan, her brows furrowed in concern. "Seriously, what did you get up to? There's nothing within the academy that should be that dangerous."

  Ethan let out a dramatic sigh. "Let me tell you the tale of gravity magic." He went on to describe what had happened and how he was able to adapt one of the spells she had written down for him to save his life.

  "That's actually quick thinking. The fact that you determined there was a difference between positive and negative gravity magic is astounding."

  "That's actually information from my mentor. She didn't tell me directly, but she's very big on mana manipulation. I don't think I would have been able to tell the difference if she hadn't taught me."

  Amelia shook her head. She was now clutching her book as though she had been there during the collapse of the building. “Thank the gods for your system. And thank the gods you pushed beyond that blockage.”

  “That just leads me to one question.” Ethan wasn't sure the best way to phrase this. He often tried to remember that Amelia was an academic. He had never been one to talk the talk when he was in college, but he was going to try to do his best. "What is magic? I mean, what is latent magic? The stuff you feel in the air, the stuff that's randomly generated and sitting around… What is it exactly?"

  “That’s a heady question.” The line moved forward and Amelia pressed her lips together. Her grip on the book grew tighter as she thought. “You’re wading into something I’ve studied my entire life. Even before my system came to me, I studied every day, trying to understand the X-13 system. But I also learned raw mana manipulation.”

  Ethan cupped his chin, nodding as he listened to some more of Amelia’s backstory.

  “If the universe didn’t have the Grand System, we could still use magic. If that were the case, you’d see these anomalies you talk about. But each would be based around the Grand System’s mana. Celestial or Primordial magic. Whatever you want to call it.” Amelia craned her neck as the line moved forward, trying to get a better view of what was on offer today. She nodded with approval after seeing something she liked. Then she turned back to Ethan and just smiled. She did not continue.

  Ethan did his best not to slap himself in the face. She had stopped talking to get him to finish the thought. “You’re giving me a hint. These weird anomalies are aligned with systems.”

  “There he is.”

  “So these anomalies are system-based. Specific systems… I don’t know how I’m going to make it work with my class, but that’s a starting point.”

  Amelia smiled to herself as Ethan fell into his thoughts. Although he hadn’t tried it, there had to be a way to emulate the system itself in some way. Or at least create sigils in the air that would interact with a system-generated anomaly. He was finally snapped out of that line of thought when they reached the head of the line. Tonight, he went for one of those big turkey leg things and fruit.

  “I guess getting crushed increased my appetite.” Ethan sat with Amelia at one of the many tables.

  “You really need to be more careful. The amount of magical things that could kill you in the academy isn’t zero.” Amelia speared something that looked like a tomato with her fork, waggling it in the air. “Gods forbid if you leave the safety of the cities. There’s no shortage of weird stuff out there.”

  Ethan understood that. He understood the list of items he had been given by Alex and his decision to pick the hardest one in the list. Was that his need to challenge himself or some arrogance brought on by the prestige of having a unique system and class? Even considering the logical need to avoid danger, he couldn’t stop thinking about the gains he had made. The next time he would be more cautious. He would do his best to learn as much as he could before accepting one of those jobs, but he wouldn’t stop going for those hard anomalies.

  He wanted to learn everything about them.

  “Now I need to work even harder. Do you know a spell that makes it so I don’t need to sleep?” Ethan asked with a sigh.

  “Yes. The side-effects are horrible. After the first few days, you take on the personality of an animal.”

  Ethan rubbed his chin. “Which animal?”

  “Typically pig-like creatures.”

  Ethan waved a hand. “Pass. I read that higher attributes mean less sleep… So that’s the route I’m going to go.” And suddenly he realized how rude he had been. Getting so absorbed in his position with the Anomalous Materials Group could be all-consuming. “Anyway, how was your day?”

  Amelia leveled her gaze at him, a smile spreading across her face. “I thought you’d never ask.”

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