Chapter 346. Ask Me Anything.

  “Thank you, Professor Zaraman. As you heard, my name is Professor Kline and up until just a week ago, I was a summoned being,” I said, letting that sink in.

  The class, whose eyes had started to glaze over after hearing Melody’s class instructions, seemed to sit forward in their seats, interested to hear what I had to say. A year ago, I’d have been terrified to speak in front of a group, but after the system arrived, and my training with the military, I was impervious to that particular anxiety. After pausing dramatically for a moment, I continued.

  “I come from a world called Earth, and as you could probably surmise, it was a world almost completely devoid of mana. Magic, mana, and monsters were just subjects for fantasy fiction and games. Have any of you been to a mana-starved world before?” I asked, trying to make this more of a conversation rather than a monologue.

  “No, why would anyone want to go to some primitive place that will suck the mana out of all your gear,” a student, the young elf woman, said with some disdain.

  “True, a mana-starved world will drain any device you might bring back, and if you expend mana for a spell, or use it to activate an item or ability, it won’t regenerate. There are exceptions to that, and some workarounds that I can tell you about, but in general, the young lady is correct, at least about the effects the world would have on you,” I said.

  “It’s not young lady, Adjunct Professor Kline, it’s Lady Var’teness of the house of…” the elf started to say. A slight smile of self-importance crossed her lips as she emphasized my title as a temporary instructor. Melody interrupted her before she could get very far.

  “Hold it right there, Var’teness, here, at the academy, the students have no titles. You will be treated like any other student and offered no special treatment based on your station outside of this place. You will also show respect to your instructors, or you will find out in an unfortunate manner that the 10% of your class grade based on participation includes respecting your fellow students and professors.

  “Why is it always the elves?” I thought to myself.

  “I apologize Adjunct Professor Kline, and I assure you I meant no disrespect,” Var’teness said. She sounded and looked like she genuinely meant it, but I wasn’t going to believe that she had a true change of heart just because of Melody’s dressing down.

  “Thank you, Professor Zaraman. Back to the statement that the young lady made. While she was completely correct about the effects of a mana-starved world, she got one important detail wrong. Can anyone guess what that detail was?” I asked.

  Several hands went up, and I began to pick them out to answer my question.

  “Was there some hidden reserve of mana on your world that was discovered?” a human student asked.

  “No, that’s not it,” I replied.

  “How about a traveler from an integrated world, one that offered your people assistance?” another, the satyr, offered.

  “No, I think we’re getting a bit off track here, though we had at least one being lurking on our world from a place that was already integrated. I can get into that in a later class,” I replied, thinking back to Bhalkur, his cultists that I scrapped with, and Silas’ work in dealing with him.

  “Is it another part of her statement, perhaps, the part where she said your world was primitive?” the intelligent dog said.

  “Correct, Mr…” I said looking to Melody for the student’s name. My opinion of Melody also went up a few notches, when I realized that she hadn’t done that annoying thing where the class introduces themselves, and then is forced to say something about your background.

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  “That’s Mr. Fluffles. Professor Kline, I’ll get you the class roster later and we’ll have everyone tell their names after your discussion is over. It took all the willpower and concentration I possessed to not laugh after hearing the dog’s name. Did a species of intelligent dogs really name themselves the same way a five-year-old girl would name her pet puppy?

  “You are exactly correct, uh, Mr. Fluffles,” I replied, trying and, thankfully, succeeding at not smiling and telling him he was a good boy.

  “Your world had no mana, and no way to power spells and abilities, how could you not be considered primitive?” another student, one of the halflings, asked. Unlike the elf, I wasn’t getting the vibe that this student meant anything insulting and was instead genuinely curious what I meant.

  “We didn’t have mana, or magic of any sort, but we did have something very powerful, we had technology. Tell me, what do you think is the most convenient thing that magic does for you,” I asked the halfling, who Melody whispered was named Dillan Copperbottom.

  “Uh, I don’t know, off the top of my head,” he said looking around the room before his gaze settled on the light globes that illuminated the place. “Maybe mana-powered lights? I guess all you had was fire, or maybe candles, torches, and the like,” Copperbottom said.

  “That’s a good choice, and having light at night that allows you to work is important, and a problem my world had already conquered through science and technology. We had great machines that generated electricity, which I’m sure you’re familiar with,” I said, noting several nods. They may not have electric lights, but they knew of the energy, and its use in lightning spells.

  “That energy, electricity, powered lights around our world. At the touch of a switch, almost everyone on the planet can turn on a light. Even more, we had devices that could instantly communicate across the world, even show images like a scrying spell. Our military had weapons that would put all but the most powerful system-created artifacts to shame.

  “Sadly, all that will change soon, as my world is on the brink of integration. But until that integration occurs, our world is preparing, using our technology to coordinate and plan. It’s our hope that the integration won’t be as catastrophic to my world as it is to so many others,” I explained.

  “So, your world is still not integrated. That is interesting,” Mr. Fluffles said.

  “No, but it could happen at any time, which is partially why I’m no longer there and no longer a summoned being. It seems that the system will pull us from our summoned being status when we pass a tier and rank threshold that’s different for every person and class. I must wait until after integration, and also a period of acclimatization after that, before I can return home,” I said.

  “That’s a long time to be away from your pack, you have my condolences Adjunct Professor Kline,” Mr. Fluffles replied.

  “Thank you, Mr. Fluffles, but I’m making the most of the opportunity before me, and I hope that you all might glean some understanding of summoning when you hear more details about my life as a summoned being. After all, who better to teach you about summoning, than the person you might summon,” I said.

  “On a lighter note, one that doesn’t dredge up thoughts of your world’s coming problems, can you tell us about the most interesting summoning you were called to,” Melody asked.

  “There were many, but I’d have to say…” I said, stalling for time while I thought about which would fit best. “I’d say that the time I was summoned to test out amusement rides at a goblin business venture,” I said.

  “Testing out rides? Why did they need to expend the mana to summon you to do something that mundane?” Var’teness asked.

  “Mundane, yes, safe, no. You see, there were some glitches they had to work out on their rides, they tended to kill the guests riding them, which, as you can imagine, isn’t too good for business,” I explained.

  “Did it kill you?” Var’teness asked. She seemed genuinely interested now, and it was good to see her lose her arrogance for a bit.

  “No, but that does bring up another subject I’ll touch on. As a summoned being, you know the system regenerates us if we were killed during a summoning. I’ve died dozens of times, and even though I knew that I would be regenerated, it was never a pleasant experience,” I said.

  Looking over to Melody in order to make sure I wasn’t crossing the line when I went into some of the more gruesome aspects of my time as a summoned being. She gave me a slight nod but raised her eyebrows a bit. I got the hint, share what I wanted, but use some discretion.

  “How were you selected to become a summoned being?” another human student asked.

  “I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, I guess. From what I can gather, there’s no hard and fast rule on how the system selects someone, other than it will pick from the same general area that the previous summoned being you’re replacing was in when they died. Oh yeah, that’s why I was picked, another summoned being had been killed not too far from where I was living. Other than that, it seems like it was a totally random process,” I explained.

  “How does someone from a mana-starved world navigate and adapt to the worlds you visited?” Var’teness asked. It was a good question and one I needed a moment to think about before replying.